Yesterday’s Portsmouth News highlighted how busy the Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth is going to be in the coming months. Not in terms of actual, serving ships, but in terms of rusting hulks that are to sail no more. The disposals section of the MOD must be a lot busier than any other department right now.
HMS Invincible has been rusting in 3 Basin for almost 6 years now, and is due to be towed to Turkey for scrapping soon. Her place will be taken by the soon-to-be decomissioned HMS Ark Royal. Alongside her are several RFA’s. The other Aircraft Carrier, HMS Illustrious, will be gone by 2014. In ‘the trot’ of Fareham Creek right now are the decomissioned Type 42 Destroyers Exeter, Nottingham and Southampton. They are bering hurriedly offered for sale in order to create space for more ships that will be leaving service soon. One more Type 42 – Manchester – is due to leave service in the next year, with the other four remaining ships in the class going by 2014. The four remaining Type 22 Frigates – Cornwall, Campbeltown, Cumberland and Chatham – are all due to decomission and be moved to Portsmouth awaiting disposal. And then we also have the stricken HMS Endurance, very unlikely to ever sail again. And one of the Albion Class ships will be placed at ‘extended readiness’, which may well find the ship in question tied up in Portsmouth, as Pompey seems to be the Navy’s dumping ground of late.
Actually, the ships due for disposal and/or scrapping effectively equate to a whole Naval Task Force – two aircraft carriers, one front line landing ship and one auxiliary landing ship, eight air defence destroyers, four frigates, and several auxiliaries. Thats MORE ships than the UK has contributed to many major conflicts since 1945.
Portsmouth Dockyard will be looking more like a giant version of Pounds Yard soon. A very sad state of affairs.
Related Articles
- Portsmouth & its Historic Dockyard (thereisanotherworld.wordpress.com)
- Ships ahoy! Bring history to life with a visit to classic battleships (mirror.co.uk)
- Falklands ship sold for scrap (thesun.co.uk)
- Hundreds attend ceremony to say goodbye to HMS Ark Royal (portsmouth.co.uk)
- After glory in the Falklands, HMS Invincible to end its days as a floating NIGHTCLUB (dailymail.co.uk)
- HMS Invincible sailing on to the scrapheap (bbc.co.uk)
Wow. That would be an impressive site on open water. It’s a shame those ships will just be sitting there. Maybe with Mubarak freeing Egypt, we are simply on the brink of a new world era of peace, and those vessels won’t be needed.
Yeah, right.
No it isn’t very impressive, ships sitting in the Creek always look sad. Well not from Whaley or on the water.
From a distance on Portsdown Hill things look a little different.
But on the whole no, it isn’t very impressive.
James did you get see the new programme on Channel 5?
I haven’t seen it yet x, I’m gonna try and cath it on 5 iplayer. I DID see a clip on Harry Hill’s TV Burp where a mess full of barely dressed ratings was portrayed in a rather camp light!
I am not sure who this Harry Hill is, but given the title of his programme I wouldn’t take it too heart.
It is far from being a “HMS Brilliant.” >shudders<
It is more Discovery Channel goes to war type of programme. The run ashore which featured was quite calm; as the rating said it should feature in recruitment videos. The tour around the accommodation wouldn’t win the RN many recruits; then again it was a T42.
Please change accommodating to accommodation and would to wouldn’t please James. Thanks in advance.
Done!
The accomodation on the T45′s and other modern ships (such as the E Class survey ships) is vastly superior to even 20 years ago. In fact it would be quite unrecognisable to many an old salt. Decent B&B standard I would rate it as.
It’s not Navy, but I understand the upgrade of accommodations. I was at an older Army base, Ft. McCoy in Wisconsin here in the US, for one of our WW2 re-enactments back in the mid-1990s. The Army allowed us to stay on the base – usually we just used one of their practice areas for our “battles”. We found out why – they had closed off the barracks we stayed in, with plans to empty them, demolish them, and bring them up to “modern standards”. Twin bunks, about 15 to a side, 2 floors’ worth, with a combination shower/head at one end and NCO offices at the other. This was apparently too crowded and not private enough for “modern standards”! Mind you, the building I roomed in had held soldiers from WW1 through Vietnam, and all we re-enactors were DELIGHTED with the quarters (we usually slept in our tents, unlike a lot of the softer re-enactors). Nowadays, I suppose every bunk comes with Wi-Fi! Hey, I’m all for the best for our folks in service, but c’mon!
I familiar with that layout from ‘Nam films. To be honest I am not that familiar with standards of army accommodation over here in the past. Prior to the 90s the army would accommodate the ranks in rooms. And now they are moving onto individual rooms.
James is right that the accommodation on T45s is amazing. Then again considering the small crew and big hull it should be. The crew for a Leander frigate was 70 souls more than a Daring in a hull of approximately third the displacement.
My tip of the week if you ever find yourself accommodated in a ratings’ messdeck in a 70s era British warship never ever pick the top bunk. It may appeal to the inner child being on the top tier of three bunks, but in real life it is a pain………
I stayed in barracks like that several times, including during Boy Scouts. Fortunately, the last time I stayed in them was about 15 years ago. Back then, it didn’t matter that much (though I did shoot for the bottom one). These days, the top bunk would definitely be out, and ANY bunk more than about 20 feet from the head would make 2am a REALLY interesting time…
Yes the last time I was in HMS Bristol they had started to rip out the bunk-over-desk-and-cupboard fittings because of health and safety in the officers’ cabins. Wasn’t quite the same. I never ever got a port side cabin with a scuttle.
Though I suppose now it doesn’t matter you wouldn’t be able to look out through it.
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how can this nation go from rule brittaniato fool brittania in such a short period Answers on a stamp to davy cameron
Indeed. I doubt many people would disagree. Only today we’ve seen on the news about HMS Albion, one of our two main landing ships, being mothballed for 5 years until 2016. This leaves us completely unable to respond to global troubles.
i wonder what Nelsons answer would be to sharing a carrier with the french or landing our aircraft on yank ships He,d be spinning in his grave ,poor lad
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