Post B4UCkKnB0yKZbSa8sC by Flick@spinster.xyz
 (DIR) More posts by Flick@spinster.xyz
 (DIR) Post #B4UCS0KWM0PwvcRDUW by Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz
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       Regarding this push to send help from other countries to secure the reopening of that now infamous strait, at least Finland is off the hook. I mean what are we going to do? Send a bunch of coastal batteries and forest jäegers?  We are pretty damn well equipped when it comes to seamines and the clearing thereof, but first there would have to be mines to clear. And I'm not entirely convinced Finnish mine clearing vessels would be particularly well-equipped to sail all the way to the straight, at least in a reasonable time.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCS0V9iSvNSbPi4G by Flick@spinster.xyz
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       @Gnomeshatecheese We, otoh, have just retired our last mine clearing ships: instead, we now have shiny new drone technology. Which — coff — hasn’t been tested.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCS0fR6F9DyUDv5k by Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz
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       @Flick Oh is this one of those "oh nobody uses these anymore" things?   Last time that happened en masse, as in after the cold war when everyone was getting rid of military hardware because nobody needs that any more ha-ha, Finland went around and generously offered to  take all that junk off their hands.   Any idea of whether those mine clearing ships were scrapped or sold..?
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCS0p0WenuSAhZ0i by Flick@spinster.xyz
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       @Gnomeshatecheese Pretty sure they only went out of service weeks ago, so I’m sure you could get in there!
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCS0w66ITWoA1E3s by HebrideanHecate@spinster.xyz
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       @Flick @Gnomeshatecheese I see MOD is getting rid of the Landy, which goes on forever and if need be helped by twine and knicker elastic...for what, something which no doubt will collapse and have to be scrapped within a month!
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCS14FbyztDRpjlo by Flick@spinster.xyz
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       @HebrideanHecate @Gnomeshatecheese Looks like they’re going for an existing German replacement, so hopefully it’ll not be a complete waste of time like that armoured personnel carrier that they tried to make over here that was so bad it made people ill.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCS1HMpDUNs7yDDM by Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz
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       @Flick @HebrideanHecate So has UK military/navy governance gone down the drain as well?  Is there any sector of the nation that still has competent people at the helm?  (pun unintended but acknowledged)
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCS1S0BfzoP6whn6 by HebrideanHecate@spinster.xyz
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       @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick I think the Navy now consists of a sardine tin and one dwarf in it, Nelson would be proud!
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCWY1p0R1GbHrGUq by Flick@spinster.xyz
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       @Gnomeshatecheese @HebrideanHecate Not so much governance as procurement. We as a country have just got incredibly bad at actually getting anything done, and seem to always spend massively more than was budgeted before giving up on the project (see also: the attempt at a second high speed rail line; the plan to digitise NHS records).
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCWYGM8Oe5KMes9Q by Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz
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       @Flick @HebrideanHecate Well that's kind of what I meant, I suppose I should've said management.      That is just weird to me. Clearly something in the managing culture has changed, since U.K. used to be very capable of organising and producing things. Is this some kind of side result of the privatise everything- push, where the state lost all its competent staff to private industry as well as a good deal of its bargaining power?    And at the same time you have the austerity trolls running around saying spending needs to be cut, right?
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCkKJ2p0EC60U4uG by Flick@spinster.xyz
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       @Gnomeshatecheese @HebrideanHecate Partly design-by-committee, partly incompetent people, partly over-regulation.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCkKYdt0hksNmXDc by Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz
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       @Flick @HebrideanHecate Right. So not anything easy to fix then (relatively speaking, ofc). I expect all those factors have been baked into the managing culture already anyway.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCkKnB0yKZbSa8sC by Flick@spinster.xyz
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       @Gnomeshatecheese @HebrideanHecate Yup. We also have incredibly low productivity, which probably doesn’t help. I saw some stat recently about Norway (or maybe Denmark?) having built a bridge from scratch in less time and at less cost than the environmental impact assessment phase of a similar length one here (for which approval has not yet been given). Idk if it was strictly accurate, but it’s plausible.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCkL6fqTvWZvhiGO by Flick@spinster.xyz
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       @Gnomeshatecheese @HebrideanHecate I misremembered slightly: it was a Norwegian tunnel, not bridge. https://news.sky.com/story/thames-tunnel-project-delayed-after-planning-it-cost-more-than-worlds-longest-road-tunnel-13230526National Highways revealed in a Freedom of Information (FoI) request earlier this year that £295m has been spent on the application process for the LTC. Overall spending, including technical surveys and land purchasing costs, has surpassed £800m - all before a spade has hit the ground.As pointed out by pro-growth campaign group Britain Remade, the planning fee alone is more than twice the cost it took Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.The Laerdal tunnel, connecting Oslo and Bergen, only cost £140m, adjusted for inflation, the thinktank's head of policy Sam Dumitriu said.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCkLZ292bzzsyMT2 by Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz
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       @Flick @HebrideanHecate What...?300 MILLION for planning application alone??   Yeah, I'm normally very skeptical when people moan about regulation but I definitely see the point here.     Holy smokes.I would expect that level of grift from a place like Russia, not the U.K.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UCtOQwqSTrVGVKFc by virvallis@spinster.xyz
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       @Flick @Gnomeshatecheese @HebrideanHecate The British Navy was the father of modern naval aviation, they developed the steam catapult. Brown Brothers Rose Ironworks in Edinburgh manufactured the power cylinders and many naval parts. The British Navy knew heavier jet aircraft needed more acceleration so they tapped into the steam boilers as the power source, designed the catapult, and they also designed the angled flight deck, still used today. They designed and built arresting gear. They somewhat adopted US type aircraft elevators. The US Navy pretty much started with British-designed catapults on post WW2 carrriers. Britain was a powerful naval manufacturing and design hub at one time. https://warhistory.org/@msw/article/royal-navy-wartime-experience-and-analysis-carrier-warfare
       
 (DIR) Post #B4UF2ykTOd7Oe9KrVw by Leyonhjelm@shitposter.world
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       @Gnomeshatecheese The UK knowingly made policy to promote foreigners and unqualified persons instead of competent British men and occasionally British women. @Flick @HebrideanHecate