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The Brits should swallow their pride and buy US warships and partner with the Yanks on future designs.
We shouldn't be buying ships off anybody else. We should be building our own.
And that is currently what is happening.
Currently under construction on the Clyde in Glasgow are the Type 45 Daring (or D) Class destroyers.
They will be the largest and most powerful destroyers ever operated by the RN and they'll also be the world's most advanced warships.
There will be six of these ships: HMS Daring, HMS Dauntless, HMS Dragon, HMS Diamond, HMS Duncan and HMS Defender. Three of them - Daring, Dauntless and Diamond - have already been commissioned and put into service. Dragon - with a big red dragon painted down either side - is expected in 2012, Defender in 2013 and Duncan in 2014.
Then there are the seven new Astute Class subs, currently under construction in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in northern England. Again these will be the biggest and most powerful ever operated by the RN. They are: HMS Astute, HMS Ambush, HMS Agamemnon, HMS Artful, HMS Audacious, HMS Ajax and HMS Anson.
Two - HMS Astute and HMS Ambush - have already been completed.
These huge ‘super-subs’ will be able to make oxygen and fresh water from seawater, to keep the 98 crew — it has not yet been decided if this will include women — alive in time of crisis.
And, despite being 50 per cent bigger than the Swiftsure and Trafalgar subs they will replace, the Ambush class is quieter. Their propellers will be able to make less noise than a baby dolphin — making them virtually undetectable to enemy vessels allowing them to sneak up on an enemy ship and blast her out of the water.
More complex than the U.S. Space Shuttles and able to circumnavigate the globe without surfacing, the subs will be 291ft long — the same length as a football pitch — as wide as four double-decker buses and 12 storeys high. A typical patrol lasts ten weeks, but they could theoretically stay underwater for their entire 25-year lifespan.
The subs will carry 38 missiles — a mixture of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range of 1,240 miles (they could hit places throughout Western Europe and North Africa whilst situated in the English Channel), and Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes to target other ships and submarines.
Their nuclear-powered engines will propel them through the water at more than 20 knots, allowing her to travel 500 miles a day.
Each one will be equipped with the world's most powerful sonar, meaning each one, whilst sitting in Portsmouth Harbour, would be able to detect ships entering and leaving New York Harbour three thousand nautical miles away (the MoD refuse to reveal how the sonars actually work). Each ship will also be able to eavesdrop on people's mobile phone conversations.
The persicope for each Astute class sub will carry thermal imaging and low-light cameras and will have 360-degree views. The persicopes will need to break the surface of the water for just six seconds and the images will be relayed to a hi-definition screen in the ops room.
There there are also the gargantuan new aircraft carriers to be built, which will be the biggest in the world outside the USN.
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