Rhibwolf has hit the nail on the head there about the often frustrating way we go about replacing old classes of ships. It seems there is no ongoing ship design/construction programme; rather, we squeeze every possible mile out of our ships until the ships themselves are older than the sailors serving in them, and then we run around and design a new class. We build that, and it starts over again.
One really negative side effect of this is that we lose a great deal of the expertise that goes into building a complex structure that a warship is. Just look at the square sinks in the FFH officer cabins, or the list to port they all have. Silly examples perhaps, but indicative of a serious concern.
I recognize that we have a small navy, but it's too bad we can't have some sort of steady output of ship building, rather than the boom and bust system we now follow.
One really negative side effect of this is that we lose a great deal of the expertise that goes into building a complex structure that a warship is. Just look at the square sinks in the FFH officer cabins, or the list to port they all have. Silly examples perhaps, but indicative of a serious concern.
I recognize that we have a small navy, but it's too bad we can't have some sort of steady output of ship building, rather than the boom and bust system we now follow.
