back to article Britain's fight to get its F-35 aircraft carriers operational turns legal

An earth-shaking blow has been struck in the never-ending battle to get Britain’s F-35 fighter jets and the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers to sea: Whitehall has asked the Americans for legal help. Rather than getting help on kicking contractors’ backsides into gear so Britain actually has enough jets to send HMS Queen …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    Would we have won WW-II ?

    At the rate that MOD seems to work these days Germany would have completely overrun England before MOD had had enough chits signed to allow them to fire back!

    1. asdf

      Re: Would we have won WW-II ?

      Not just the MOD as a yank I am not even sure we could go to the Moon again for any price. Too many heads in the trough and too many bureaucrats these days to get much of anything done (see F-35 itself for a prime example).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Would we have won WW-II ?

        Overextension of the German High Command into a landwar in Greece and then Asia and Goering Management are likely to be a bigger factor of the defeat of the Saxons of the non-Anglo kind. Also the reliance on by 1941 evidently obsolescent U-Boats barely evolved from WWI. I also hear perfectly good Jewish Science was thrown needlessly overboard...

        1. YARR

          I also hear perfectly good Jewish Science was thrown needlessly overboard...

          If it's true, why did they increase production at the heavy water plant in Norway?

          https://www.damninteresting.com/heavy-water-and-the-norwegians/

    2. Kernel

      Re: Would we have won WW-II ?

      Probably wouldn't have even won WW I - it would've taken them too long to sort out how much and how to pay the licensing fees on all those Krupps patented fuses fitted to British artillery shells at the time.

      Krupps did present them with a bill at the end of the war though, part of which was paid after negotiations took place.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Would we have won WW-II ?

      Believe it or not, the MOD back then was about the same as it is now.

      Same as it ever was.

      1. asdf

        Re: Would we have won WW-II ?

        >Believe it or not, the MOD back then was about the same as it is now.

        Except back then they could actually force the competent people to work for them. Over here across the pond have a feeling someone with skills like the ultimate PM at least in modern history General Groves wouldn't be big on a public sector job these days.

  2. JaitcH
    WTF?

    It's like the blind leading the blind.

    The USA has chalked up an impressive number of wars and non-wars (undeclared military actions) that gives the impression the USA doesn't really give a damn about law. Especially under Bush Junior.

    Torture, including waterboarding, is not legal under the Geneva Convention, yet did this stop these alleged military legal beagles from preventing aggression?

    And what of overflights by drones - where do they get ATC (Air Traffic Control) clearance from? What of the late Freedom Fighter UBL who was killed by people entering Pakistan without passports, visas or any permission.

    Seems there should be better legal sources around - like France, etc.

    1. JennyZ

      Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

      No one ever won a war by dying for his country..you win a war by making the other son-of-a-bitch die for HIS country.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

        No one ever won a war by dying for his country..you win a war by making the other son-of-a-bitch die for HIS country.

        Correct. With one major caveat - you need to make sure that you do not make the "other son-of-a-bitch" a martyr poster child whose name will be carried by 10 "sons-of-bitches". Exponential increase in the population hostility to you is not an equation you can win.

        1. SundogUK Silver badge

          Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

          Yes you can. You just keep killing them. See Germany and Japan in the 1940's.

      2. eldakka
        Mushroom

        Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

        So if you strapped on a back-pack thermonuclear demolition device, snuck into the middle of an enemy camp and vaporised yourself and, say, a tank brigade, you wouldn't have done more by dieing than not?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Headmaster

          Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

          "dieing"

          WTF?

          :(

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

      France will run a steamroller over any law in its way if it is in its national interest.

      They were the only ones who ran "terminate threat source with extreme prejudice" (and quite successfully) operations to protect merchant shipments off the Horn of Africa. Everyone else was just faffing around and pretending to do something. They actually went down to the pirate coast and did a Judge Dredd on a pirate gang which was unfortunate to attack a French registered yacht.

      That is recent. If we go further back we can look at incidents like Rainbow Warrior, etc. In fact they have better form in the discipline of "entering XXX without YYY and terminate ZZZ with extreme prejudice" - probably because they do not have the resources to keep Charles De Gaulle off the coast for a year on non-stop bombing sorties. A lot of these were initiated from their fleet assets or bases (like Djibouti).

      In any case, while USA has chalked up an impressive list, its naval aviation operations have been reasonably compliant to international law most of the time (as far as US and compliant to international law can coexist in the same sentence). So out of all aircraft carrier possessing powers that is probably not such a bad choice.

    3. asdf

      Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

      International law has always been a charlie foxtrot. When nations of the world get together to do good they do things like give Haiti cholera or Africa pedophile peace keepers who just watch or run away from atrocities (just what both needed).

    4. Mage Silver badge

      Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

      The USA approach (not dissimilar to Russian, Chinese and French) is to claim only their own laws apply, and not only to their own troops, but indeed to anyone else. Also they will define who is a combatant or civilian, not the Red Cross/Red Crescent etc.

      I'm puzzled why if "Brexit" is about being in control of British sovereignty that they would ask anyone, or indeed why there are not plans to leave NATO and UN as well as EU (Swiss only recently joined*)

      [*3 Mar 2002 ... Switzerland abandoned centuries of political isolationism yesterday by voting to join the United Nations in a cliffhanger referendum which had ... The Guardian. See also Wikipedia]

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

      Seems there should be better legal sources around - like France, etc.

      Nah, you missed it: the issue is not what is legal or not, clearly the involvement of the US means the focus is on what you can get away with. As for France, I would avoid them like the proverbial plague for advice on legality, that would resemble asking Trump for marital advice :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Terminator

        Re: How do you GET AWAY WITH murder?

        ...the issue is not what is legal or not, clearly the involvement of the US means the focus is on what you can get away with.

        Was about to say exactly the same... this bizarre move has exactly the same stink to it as that occasion when parliament flew the (notoriously aggressive and corrupt) head of Los Angeles' (notoriously aggressive and corrupt) police over to London for a cosy little "interview."

        I feel sick. Again.

    6. TC_JeffPark

      Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

      Did you just call Osama bin Laden a "Freedom Fighter?" You're absolutely sick. Seek immediate help.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

        Did you just call Osama bin Laden a "Freedom Fighter? (*)"

        He WAS. At one point. OFFICIALLY. When he was _OUR_ "Freedom fighter" - in Afghanistan.

        Same as Shamil Basayev and quite a few others. When they were _OUR_ "Freedom fighters"

        So the correct term is "Freedom Fighter" - quotes needed and intended to signify CIA/MI6 trained rabid pariah dog which as customary for rabid dogs goes around and bites everyone including his trainers. Bonus points for using maternity ward patients as shields and killing primary school students. Now how big of a idiot you have to be to try to train a rabid dog is a different story.

        1. Bumpy Cat

          Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

          Osama bin Laden was never "ours" - Pakistan are quite proud of running the majority of mujaheddin opposition to the Soviets in Afghanistan. Also, Osama is quite famous for not liking infidels, and wasn't working for anyone really. He was a billionaire and had the resources and ability to run his own enterprise in Afghanistan.

          Shamil Basayev was never "ours" either. There was no Western involvement in Chechnya, and I'd like to see any information that suggests there was. The Chechens didn't need help to cause all sorts of trouble for a poorly prepared Russian conscript army.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

            Osama bin Laden was never "ours"

            Yeah, sure, we paid Pakistan to employ him. You are forgetting that ISI was the primary conduit for all the money RayGun invested in the Afghan mess. In those days we maintained a careful plausible deniability defence.

            Shamil Basayev was never

            Really? I suggest you read up several alternative sources (and eliminate the differences) on the relationship between Zakayev, Mashadov and Basayev. It was lovely to observe how he was promptly denounced one day while supported and allied to on the next day for years. It is a similar story to what is in Syria at the moment where the rebels one day are denouncing Al Qaeda, the next day fighting with it while we continue to feed them weapons via Saudi as the intermediaries (the plausible deniability again). There is a reason why the Russians count the whole lot as terrorists - they have seen this movie with the "moderate" "western supported" "freedom fighters" in Chechnia, Dagestan, Abhazia, Ingushetia for two decades. Yeah, we denounce this guy today, we fight side by side with him tomorrow, we denounce him the day after and so on. And we SHARE weapons supplied by the west with him.

        2. Roj Blake Silver badge

          Re: It's like the blind leading the blind.

          If fire fighters fight fires, and crime fighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight?

    7. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Warm Braw

    Certain law firms were abusing the “no win, no fee” agreement

    To be fair, when it comes to a lawyer embarking on a costly Iraqi adventure without the benefit of reliable evidence, a precedent had already been set.

  4. Toltec

    War for cash scams?

    This is clearly a forsighted exercise, once the market for fake car insurance claims dries up starting* a minor war then sueing for damages is going to be the next big thing.

    * The whole point being to piss the other side off enough so they start the war then you can blame them. Ideally there should be plenty of collateral damage to hide the scam claims in, some innocent countrymen of yours may get hurt, but hey the survivors, if any, can make some money.

  5. Pen-y-gors

    Four dozen?

    I can understand why the US Navy needs 1400 lawyers. In America going to law is as essential as apple pie, shooting people and motherhood. But why on earth does the Royal Navy need 48 lawyers? Thats about four per ship.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Four dozen?

      But why on earth does the Royal Navy need 48 lawyers? Thats about four per ship.

      Anchors?

      :)

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: Four dozen?

        "Anchors?"

        See icon!!

      2. Roj Blake Silver badge

        Re: Four dozen?

        "Anchors?"

        You forgot to spell it with the silent W.

    2. streaky

      Re: Four dozen?

      I'm actually surprised it's so low unless there's an MoD pool of lawyers available to deal with cases (and to be fair there probably is).

      Even the list of civil suits completely unrelated to military operations must be mind-boggling most of the time. Ask Maersk how many lawyers they have at their beck and call and you'd get a fairly good idea how many you need without even trying to blow things up and kill people, floating around under the surface in completely secret locations with nuclear reactors humming away and trident in the back. The sea has always been this way, hell it made London as an insurance market centre.

  6. ArchieTheAlbatross
    Unhappy

    Britannia Rules the......oh

    When I left I left the Royal Navy 21 years ago I feared for the future, but I could not have foreseen the catastrophic mess that we are in now, even in my worst nightmares.

    My local boating lake has a stronger surface fleet and with the Canada Geese, a much larger air group, although as we are now seemingly paralysed by the fear of so much as hurting someone's feelings, I suppose it is not an issue.

    I cannot make my true feelings clear, as the moderators would not allow it.

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Britannia Rules the......oh

      But then we have trident, which a bunch of lawyers has said is completely illegal to use, but the relieving factor there is that after trident is used, the lawyers will be all dead and unable to launch "no win no fee " cases, which is something to be happy about.

      Sadly the rest of us will be dead as well, but in the 4 mins before being turned into radioactive vapour, we can be happy that , at last, the lawyers are going to be the least of the survivor's problems

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Mushroom

        Re: Britannia Rules the......oh

        The lawyers won't be dead after a nuclear exchange. They will be alive and well and fighting the few pissed-off cockroach survivors that survived getting kicked out of their nests as the missiles started falling.

    2. streaky

      Re: Britannia Rules the......oh

      I cannot make my true feelings clear, as the moderators would not allow it.

      Dunno the mods are pretty good at letting speech be borderline American-levels of free.

      FWIW minus an engineering cockup we're doing pretty good in all fairness. Fleet might be smaller but it's arguably more capable than ever.

      The carrier fleet situation is one most people predicted, it's precisely why there's naval officers serving within the US fleet, to maintain the knowledge of how to operate carriers; it takes decades to build that back up if it's forgotten. There's always going to be minor technicalities that slip through and this seems to be one of them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Britannia Rules the......oh

        FWIW minus an engineering cockup we're doing pretty good in all fairness. Fleet might be smaller but it's arguably more capable than ever.

        If you measure capability by cost and complexity then yes.

        In real world terms the RN has too few ships to either project force globally, or do basics like ASW in domestic waters (and the RAF and Army aren't in any better shape strategically). This is then compounded by weapons fit out that a pacifist would approve of.

        As was proven about thirty five years ago (and many times before), naval technology is only a partial substitute for having sufficient ships that you can afford to lose some, and all the technology in the world doesn't provide protection against yesterday's weapons, never mind today's.

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: Britannia Rules the......oh

          naval technology is only a partial substitute for having sufficient ships that you can afford to lose some

          AKA "The Dreadnaught Principle" - it's no good building fewer and bigger ships as you then can't risk them since each ship is a substantially-large part of your total combat power..

          The same principle that lead to the Germans losing the various tank battles against the Soviets in the last unpleasantness. Sure, a Tiget tank could take out most of the Soviet tanks at long range but if you throw enough cheap tanks at them you can take them out eventually. The same principle worked for the Allies in Normandy.

          Something we seem to have forgotten.

          1. streaky

            Re: Britannia Rules the......oh

            That's a thought based on ww2 thinking. You can't solve a problem with numbers with modern weapon systems that's sort of the actual point. Huge standing armies? Cluster bombs, nuclear weapons. Huge less-capable fleets? Nuclear weapons..

            Hell it was our nuclear testing that led to modern fleet decisions. The key is better radar and better weapon systems and on that point the UK has about as good as you can get. The whole thing with the engines is dumb but unless you're in literally hot water it's not the end of the world - when it comes to direct strategic defence of the homeland it's not an actual real-world problem.

            People look at the Falklands conflict as *the* modern real-world test for the RN, if that's our standard then we'd do better in it than before and the nuclear weapons fleet hasn't lost anything. Why? We'd use stand-off cruise missile attacks and drones against the argies if it hypothetically happened again, followed up by/including special forces - and if they were equivalent strength of back then they wouldn't stand a chance against type 45's.

            1. Roj Blake Silver badge

              Re: Britannia Rules the......oh

              The Typhoons stationed down there would presumably have a say in how things turn out as well.

  7. Joe Gurman

    While on shore....

    .... the US is a very litigious country indeed, our idea of law of the sea appears to be, "Anywhere we have a carrier battle group, we can do pretty much what we want." Cuts down on extraneous legal costs, and is pretty much in line with RN practice when Britain ruled the waves.

    1. fidodogbreath

      Re: While on shore....

      "Anywhere we have a carrier battle group, we can do pretty much what we want."

      Carrier battle groups cost billions of dollars to acquire and billions more to operate, but they're still cheaper than getting the lawyers involved.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: While on shore....

        "they're still cheaper than getting the lawyers involved."

        They also produce less hot air & pollution - including the coal-powered ones ....

  8. ma1010
    Angel

    Junket Alert!!!

    Sounds like the lawyers need to get together for heavy partying at some resort location extremely important legal consultations. It's for your own protection!

  9. Adam 52 Silver badge

    "Britain still operates helicopter carriers – conceptually, not much different from a true aircraft carrier"

    I imagine the whole taking off and dropping bombs on people element that comes with a proper carrier brings with it some additional legal niggles.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Devil

      Only if your bombs are too small. Use ones that are big enough and there's nobody left to sue you.

  10. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    I don't wish to complain about El Reg snark too much, as it really is one of the reasons we all come here.

    But there's a point when snark moves from being a fun part of conveying the news to just talking utter bollocks.

    We're not borrowing a squadron of US marine F35s to make up the numbers on the carrier, we're borrowing them because fixed wing carrier flight operations are incredibly complicated. Thus the RN have built themselves a nice staged program of training. Remember, even if we'd kept Harrier, they only tended to run very small air groups of those (usually around 10 aircraft) on 25,000 tonne carriers. These are 65,000 tonne carriers designed for an air wing of 48 planes, plus helicopters. That's a rather larger number.

    So we've got guys flying (and deck crewing) with the US navy and marines at the moment, well we probably always have but I believe they have more over there at the moment. We're also working up our own squadrons. I believe our order is 48 planes for "quick" delivery (a relative term) and the balance of the 140 ordered by around 2027.

    I think we've got 3 planes now, so still on evaluation and training. Plus people flying them in the US. Then they'll put together a squadron. Then they'll practise on carriers, I presume they'll go visiting the US ones if they're ready before ours are. Then they've got to get the Queen Elizabeth into commission, train a deck crew, then bring the carrier and air group together - and as the US will have been using the things off carriers for a while, they're going to use their help. Which makes sense.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Have an upvote

      because I worked at Dunsfold, Home of the Harrier in the mid 70's (before Top Gear)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Extremely intricate choreography which when gone wrong gets you a mass conflagration as happened on the USS Forrestal.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Thanks. I wasn't aware of that accident, and have just read about it. A typical series of errors, and bad decisions.

        I was particularly impressed by the balls of the crew chief who tried to keep a damaged 1000lb bomb from going off, even though it was lying in a pool of burning jet fuel, next to several burning planes, and all he had was a handheld foam extinguisher and none of his protective gear.

        If only people were a tenth as brave as he was, when it came time to query their stupid orders (at least some did), then he wouldn't have been put in such an awful position.

  11. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Unhappy

    JAG

    I am very disappointed that the picture accompanying this article is not one of Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    The F-35 program was bad enough when it was about lining Lockheed Martin's pockets...

    But now the lawyers have come for their cut too!

    (I might as well let Vladimir Putin know that I keep a spare housekey under the back step, and that the beer is on the bottom shelf of the fridge.)

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: The F-35 program was bad enough when it was about lining Lockheed Martin's pockets...

      Just don't tell him where the key to the bear cage is!

  13. Fungus Bob

    getting sued by Johnny Foreigner

    When Johnny Foreigner sues you drop another bomb on him.

    Problem solved.

  14. eldakka
    Facepalm

    Jobs?

    "exactly what operational developments in carrier aviation require US legal advice is entirely unclear."

    How about ways to continue justifying the employment of your several dozen lawyers?

  15. Jos V
    Pint

    Uniformed lawyers

    Why do I keep reading that as uninformed lawyers and it still makes sense?

    Hey ho, the weekend is near.

    1. Expectingtheworst

      Re: Uniformed lawyers

      Jethro G will sort them out !

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