The successors of the Battle of England heroes are not impressive
The Royal Air Force has 137 single and two-seat fighters Eurofighter Typhoon (22 doubles, the first series of which, the so-called Tranche-1, will soon be scrapped for financial reasons to continue production of the last Tranche), 15 new F-35B "Lightning-2" (joint property with the Navy), 30 old fighter-bombers "Tornado" GR.4 (interceptors of this type have already been decommissioned, and these will be written off at the beginning of 2019). There have always been many problems with Typhoons, for example, a few years ago a defect in the structure of the tail section of the fuselage was revealed, forcing aircraft users in Britain, Germany and other countries to cut the number of flight hours for these aircraft in half in order to reduce the load on the fuselage. But "Lightning-2", one might say in advance, will easily plug him in the belt over problems. In addition, this aircraft, with its appearance, dealt a heavy blow to the pocket of the Air Force, forcing it to decide that in a year there will be only 6 combat squadrons in the Air Force, including one on the F-35B.
In addition, there are 56 more Hawk trainer aircraft, half of the old T.1 modification and the new T.2 (T.1 is also in reserve). Also included are 6 E-3D AWACS aircraft and 3 RTR RC-135W aircraft. The transport "wing" consists of 18 military transport A-400M (with which there are a lot of problems) and 22 C-130J (which, together with the chartered planes of various transport companies, carry the main cargo), as well as about a hundred different helicopters, mainly types "Chinook" and "Puma". The serviceability of the aircraft fleet is also low, but on the whole, probably, does not differ from the rest of the European "old" NATO countries. True, unlike Britain, a number of these countries have their own basic anti-submarine patrol aircraft, while the British do not have them now. The old "Nimrods" have long been in the dump, the new version of the "Nimrod" was stabbed to death due to the high price, and now they are thinking of ordering 9 P-8A "Poseidon" from the suzerain from overseas, and for 330 million. pounds overboard, at the price of a corvette in the West and a frigate - with us. But there is no money for this yet. So you have to beg the planes to use from the allies, but how else - Putin's hordes of landing submarines will soon land tank armies in Dover, and how can they be repelled?
A Distant Line of Stormy Ships
Britain cannot count on the "distant line of storm-covered ships" by the "ruling seas"; things are even worse with her than with aviation.
The Navy has 4 Vanguard-class SSBNs, 6 multipurpose nuclear submarines - 3 new ones, of the Estute type, and 3 old Trafalgar, which are barely surviving their last years. These nuclear submarines can fire the Tomahawk SLCM, but only in non-nuclear equipment, like the Americans. It's just that there are no others for a long time, as well as there are no charges for them.
"Estyuts", despite a number of problems with this type, continue to build, recently, on the wave of "repelling Russian aggression", they found money to build a seventh boat, but it will be very long ago. The first of two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers was recently added to the surface ships with fanfare - the first normal aircraft carrier in decades, not a "pocket" aircraft carrier with short or vertical takeoffs. In addition, the Royal Navy lived for a number of years even without a "pocket" aircraft carrier, and the helicopter carrier "Ocean" was the flagship."Queen Elizabeth", nicknamed "Big Lizzie", although put into operation purely formally, has already devoured a huge hole in the budget, along with its sister ship, which is being completed. In fact, Britain found itself in the role of those underdeveloped countries about which British gentlemen in the era of the zenith of the power of the British Empire joked that let's, they say, give them a battleship and ruin them. To bring "Lisa" to mind, the British write off the former flagship "Ocean" - it is already being bought by Brazil. And after him there are either for sale, or on the "Coast of the Dead" in India, for cutting, and 2 landing helicopter docks "Albion" and "Bulwark" - good ships, in service a little over 10 years in fact stayed. But for them in Britain there are still heavy battles in the press, parliament and the Internet, and their fate has not yet been finally decided. Maybe the British will sell them to us at a reasonable price? And then we will receive the first "Priboi" from USC for the time being. But no, they won't sell - they will strangle themselves. Yes, and now we ourselves will not buy.
Also in the ranks are 6 air defense destroyers of type 45 "Daring", 13 frigates of type 23 "Duke" and various minesweepers, patrol boats, etc. "Daringi", in general, is also not a masterpiece of shipbuilding, has a rather problematic air defense system, weak strike weapons (or it does not exist at all - on some of the buildings) and in general is largely the fruit of the desire to save money.
But the British press, with all the problems of its fleet, loves to write about the Russian one, inventing fables about it.
Remember at least the recent KAG campaign with "Admiral Kuznetsov" and "Peter the Great" - there was enough alarmism in the style of "Putin's sea fist is going to seize Aleppo" and ridicule over "rusty ships" on coal "by an aircraft carrier, although at the very same place," Big Lizzie "with new gas turbines occasionally smokes a little worse. Although in this hysterics the British media were drowning irritation with the fact that the Russian aircraft carrier and heavy cruiser will fit a quarter of the Royal Navy's tonnage in total, and Peter itself is quite capable of at least halving the escort forces of the "mistress of the seas" with Granites. But there was no special need for this either, because the destroyer Duncan, accompanying our KAG, simply broke down, unable to withstand the struggle with the calm in the English Channel.
Schizophrenia from the high podium
But not only the insular media, but also the authorities are very generous with "creatives" in relation to Russia. Recall from the recent, for example, the report by Sir Peach (Air Marshal, Chief of the Defense Staff) that the Russian Navy will certainly leave the British without the Internet and telephone communications, cutting fiber-optic lines with its atomic deep-sea stations GUGI and underwater vehicles. And another Sir, Williamson (Secretary of Defense) said that Russia is going to cut the electrical lines and gas pipes that connect the islands to the continent. Russia, of course, can really do all this, and no one on the planet has more opportunities than the GUGI for a secret deep-sea war. But not in peacetime! Apparently, the British simply remember how they themselves cut the telegraph cables going from the German Empire to the then peaceful and neutral USA, during the First World War, in order to force the Germans to transmit messages by radio, and the Britons had ciphers. This story ended with the "Zimmermann telegram", which became the last argument for the entry of the USA into the war. In general, a thief usually fears that he may be robbed.
Williamson believes that "Russia can take actions that are unacceptable to any other country!" Is this a figure from a country that invented a miraculous way to kill tens of thousands of civilians in concentration camps by testing it on Boers and using it for most of the 20th century in the colonies? The Britons practiced concentration camps after the First World War in Palestine, and after the Second World War in Kenya, driving hundreds of thousands of locals into them, and not only there. The Germans were only their diligent students, who were able to bypass the teachers. Also among the British "exploits" are the slave trade by their own subjects, we are talking about the Irish - nowhere else, even in the Middle Ages, did white Christians turn white co-religionists into slaves on plantations - for this there were blacks. It is possible to find other "unacceptable actions" as well. In 1982. During the Falklands (Malvinas) War, the British initially thought about using tactical nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country that did not have nuclear allies and did not threaten the existence and independence of the kingdom. Yes, the British have a lot of experience of "unacceptable actions". So it is not for the British to talk about them. But Russia is still to blame!
At the same time, however, part of the British military-political circles retains a partially adequate assessment of reality. They have the RF Armed Forces have capabilities that the British Armed Forces do not have and are not foreseen. For example, General Carter (chief of staff of the ground forces) said that there was nothing to fend off the threat from high-precision missile defense and ballistic missiles, which proved to be excellent in Syria (this is his assessment). He also gave the highest marks to Russian artillery, air defense, electronic warfare and much more. Carter said that both the British army and the rest of NATO armies have completely lost the competence to confront a real high-tech army. And they don't have any opportunities either, they got used to fighting various insurgents. And I must say that he is completely right - let's look at least at the British infantry in open, lightly armored vehicles for driving in the desert, or at MRAP, which are a special case of the development of armored personnel carriers, but they are even less suitable for combined arms combat than armored personnel carriers, being vehicles for transporting personal composition on dangerous frontal roads, and not for battle. It is clear that the general "cut the truth" not just like that, but for the sake of funding, but you cannot deny him objectivity.
But at the same time, the British shabby lion for some reason continues to pull the Russian bear ignoring him by the ears. And the recent "villainous poisoning" of an unnecessary traitor is just another episode in a long chain of events of this kind. Let us recall Litvinenko, Berezovsky, who committed suicide, and a number of other characters who certainly deserved what they received, but whose death they tried to hang on Russia. True, no "ultimatums" had been presented before. At least after the well-known "Curzon ultimatum" nothing of the kind has been recalled. Which, in general, was also quite contrived. Only now in 1923. the British Empire had both the strength and the ability to confirm its ultimatum by forceful actions, especially in relation to the "none" militarily at the time of the USSR. Therefore, the conditions of the "Curzon ultimatum" were partially fulfilled. And the current one was simply dismissed as the next statements of the Ukrainian side on the topic of Crimea or Donbass. And Britain's "powerful response" to the "failure to comply with the terms of Teresa's ultimatum" somehow also did not make an impression. Obviously, because in the depths of their hearts and the comic troupe "Teresa and Boris" understand that there is a line beyond which they themselves will be used what they use to intimidate the people. Moreover, we have a long account to the Anglo-Saxons, to describe everything, the article is definitely not enough.
