no aa defence system beats a tactical nuke in the country where fires coming from

nah, but then again, who wuld fire a tactical nuke at a ship?, bit of overkill eh?

Agreed that our naval types are about the best in the business but that's no reason the admirals who decide which expensive toys they get to play with. should not choose sensibly.

Buying shiny but non-cost-effective kit just because it impresses uninformed people is really rather silly. Kit that is actually useful in the sort of wars the country might actually fight, makes rather more sense, and would lead to fewer Jolly Jack Tars ending up in Davey Jones's Locker in the event they were called upon to fight someone with nasty stuff like even 1970-s era planes, bombs and missiles, let alone anything more sophisticated.

As for firing tactical nukes at ships, that was exactly the sort of thing the Soviets planned to do, against carrier task groups and other high-value targets anyway; ever heard of the "axe theory"? (read Victor Suvorov, "Inside the Red Army", for example). One of the reaons the RN and other NATO navies practiced nuclear decontamination of warships. For Soviet (and probably now Russian) doctrine, no nonsensef like flying Tornadoes across airfields sowing toy bombs from JP233s, every NATO airfield would have been taken out by a tactical nuke from an unstoppable missile insidethe first 24 hours. Even the Iraquis put a stop tosuch attacks. Even now NATO could not stop such atatcks (don't believe Patriot's maker's sales pitch).

Our boys (and girls) in DPM, Navy or Airforce Blue deserve a lot better from the defence planners.

that I would agree with you on, it could easily have been decided to build 4 of these destroyers and the money saved from one could have bought some chinooks which would save the lives of many of the lads and lasses on the ground who deserve a lot more than they get. But I do still think that keeping ahead of the game with military hardware and getting the latest 'toys' is a good idea and a display of might.

But ye, definatly, more support for the folks on the ground is definatly needed.