[aroch]

Calling the British navy a battle ready fleet would be rather a positive attitude. Their submarine and surface ship captains don't know how to navigate, running aground and into other boats. And their aircraft carriers don't even have enough crew/planes and will deploy US Marine Corp units to meet their full complement. It will likely take the UK 15-20 years for the two new Carriers to be at full operating capability (2009-TBD, probably 2024 at the earliest).

That being said, the US could stand to spend less on military funding.

[saberience]

What are you saying about UK ships not knowing how to navigate? The US navy is far, far worse in that respect, the British navy hasn't had anything near as bad as this happen anytime recently:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Fitzgerald_and_MV_ACX_Crys...

[aroch]

Over the last few years there have been several (4-5) instances of British subs nearly striking surface ships in their home waters. Also running aground right outside their home port in 2010. Not exactly reassuring.

The US Navy is much bigger and has global operations. They're just as guilty of being careless but they also have proven war fighting capabilities. No one is asking the British to sail by as a show of power and solidarity.

[Retric]

Near misses are fairly common in all large navies, that says little about the British capacity for warfare. For example both the USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain actually had significant collisions yet the US Navy is generally considered by far the strongest in the world.

Similarly, military aircraft crash vastly more often than their civilian counterparts, but consider extreme safety simply isn't what militaires optimize for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...

[dragonwriter]

> For example both the USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain actually had significant collisions yet the US Navy is generally considered by far the strongest in the world.

The series of four accidents including those two in a short period in the US 7th Fleet was considered a sign of very significant problems. It is not at all typical of large, capable navies.

[Retric]

I agree that these incidents where a sign of significant issues. My point what they said little about the US Nacy’s overall capacity for warfare. Rates of accidents that are completely unacceptable in peacetime are a rounding errors in a significant war.

[dragonwriter]

> My point what they said little about the US Navy’s overall capacity for warfare.

The reason for the fairly significant consequences, the global stand down, etc., is because, as many experts wrote at the time, they said a lot about the US Navy’s capacity for warfare.

> Rates of accidents that are completely unacceptable in peacetime are a rounding errors in a significant war.

Sure, because war results in change in priorites in which the same skill and capacity will produce a much higher accident rate than peacetime.

But a high peacetime accident rate, even if lower than the accident rat that would be acceptable in wartime, demonstrates an institutional incapacity to operate as directed successfully, which is a severe warfighting liability.

[onion2k]

Their submarine and surface ship captains don't know how to navigate, running aground and into other boats.

The USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain are US Navy ships that have both had serious collisions recently that lead to loss of life. Ships having accidents is not a particularly good measure of battle readiness.