• The post you are reporting:
   
  Several weeks ago I had a couple of blogs about Defence and future defence needs.
  
  I suggested some changes to equipment that was likely (with no pre-knowledge)
  
  One was regarding aircraft for the new carriers. The MoD have since made moves in the direction I forecast and I aready had a thread running about the possibility of a cheaper catapult launched carrier aircraft than the F35B being adopted, the F/A18 (or a F35C as it now may be).
  
  Today it seems that a report from an academic and an admiral has come up with an idea I put forward regarding frigates. I pointed out that there is a shortage of platforms already and it was crazy to send out highly sophisticated Type 23 (or Type 22) and the new Type 45 vessels to chase down Somali pirates or Caribean drug runners, as at present. I am not suggesting that we dont need these sophisticated vessels at all, we do (as carrier escorts for instance) - but we cannot afford a large number of these expensive platforms.
  
  I suggested that we would need a new class of cheap, off the shelf, 'Patrol Frigates' in larger numbers to counter many of the existing and potentail future threats.
  
  This expensively produced academic report says exactly that and suggest something along the lines of a dozen 3,500 tonne Dutch Patrol Frigates.
  
  I hope Liam Fox is listening to them and not the 'Cold War Warriors' that are too influential in the MoD...

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