Royal Navy's Radakin on Priorities, Forward Basing, Carrier Strike, Fostering Innovation 

This interviewer is amazing, very very knowledgable! Awesome.

we need a bigger Navy

thank you royal navy good job,👩‍✈️🌏💪🤚

Need another 5 frigates.

Yet another good interview. Those Type 31s will get plenty of opportunity to help island nations in the future.

First lord of the sea is 115% right. We need to tackle our enemies and help our allies

Whatever happened to the grandeur, distance of the old Sea Lords? This one came across as a real person with purpose and determination. Even to me, this lower-deck real person of the '60s. Strange it is that the matelot (sailor) warms to authority when warmth is deserved. Our Captain once hoisted a drunken sailor over his shoulder up the gangway and ordered "Get this man to his hammock!". A "Captain Hornblower" come to life.

So many "I want more ships" people who can grasp the reality of personnel numbers and ages of ships and retention. Armchair warriors at best.

We need many more frigates and destroyers

When we getting a decision on the new ASM ?? And we need 3 conventional submarines

Bring back the tot! Also more escorts!

24-36 jets on a 65 000 tonnes aircraft carrier? That seems a bit low.. US carriers, although usually sailing with 40 jets since the end of the Cold War, were deployed with up to 90 aircraft during 1980s.. Given that the Nimitz and Ford class are around 100 000 tonnes, QE class should be able to surge up to 50 jets if necessary... Is this because of the budget concerns and the lack of F-35Bs or is it the true maximum limitation of the QE class? Also the Type 45 destroyer is a bondonggle. It's missiles are not able to protect the Carrier strike group. At least at the longer range envelope.. Hopefully the new Type 26 ships will get that capability, especially in the 2030 and beyond when these aircraft carriers are gonna be targeted by the incredibly fast and capable hypersonic cruise missiles and Tactical boost glide vehicles, travelling at speeds of over Mach 10. So you either have to develop some type of organic defense capability, weather it's the incredibly advanced radar and missile interceptors or weather it's some kind of offensive capability that can out range and out run your enemy. Imagine one Zircon missile hitting a big juicy target like QE carrier. That's over 5 billion pounds plus 2500 men and women.. The age of uncontested parking of the carrier strike group just outside the national waters will be almost impossible against any future enemy. And alll the signs are there that it won't be a rag tag group of insurgents with AK-47s. It doesn't have to be China cause these advanced anti ship missiles will proliferate towards smaller nations..

36 jets Double that, the carriers could hold 70 odd each

I left the Royal Navy in 1990. He is just another yes man. How can be say.on one hand that we have enough ships and in the other, that we need to base ships overseas and double free them. In other words, WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH HULLS. Just another yes man with no balls protecting his fat pension.

The Army should be sacrificed for a strong navy with a marine force which includes existing army units, comparable to the American marine force.

We need a UK SPACE FORCE IMMEDIATELY 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇺🇸🇺🇸

How about making one of the priorities stopping human traffickers in small rubber boats from entering our Britain? This is universally seen as the top priority for voters and taxpayers.

Growing what?

Tony go home!

I wonder why the royal navy doesn't have any cruisers anymore?

The decline of the US empire and the loss of the US technological superiority.

Good interview.

I've always thought that the RN should build a third QE class carrier. That way, they would always have one of them in port being refitted, refurbished, maintained and re supplied while providing a training platform while at dock. They would then have two deployable strike groups able to be under way at any one time. And at the same time! The world needs a strong British navy.

We need a bigger number of hulls in almost EVERY category AND all need to be fully armed and with complete, state of the art fit wrt all systems too. For eg; the T45's an excellent top end air/missile defence platform but that does not obviate the need for equally potent anti-surface capability. Nor in view of maintenance/refit/upgrade schedules are six such units sufficient. Analogous considerations apply to the other top end (in this case ASW optimised) escort unit, the T26. In short we need 4 more hulls in each role and as it's far too late to resurrect the T45 programme, it'll mean +4 "standard" T26 AND another 4 strong batch of a maybe 'stretched' AAW optimised T26 variant to complement the 6 T45s. At 22 units that's still just about the bare minimum. Wrt T31, these too must be "real" frigates as well, despite their 'general purpose' label. Units able to make genuine contributions to any escort screen in the ASW, ASS and 'local' AAW (not just point/self defence) roles. Put very simply, to cover that, AND escort/support for amphibious forces AND single ship deployments (as remember, even general purpose frigates require maintenance and refit too), we need 12, NOT 5 acquired as basement level T26 stand-ins. AND we need 10 Astute SSNs, NOT 7. AND 5 Dreadnought SSBNs, NOT 4, or we'll be stymied should ever sustained 2-boat CASD be required. Meaning btw that we also require c400 min operational warheads. AND, wrt the QEs, what's this trash about surging "TO" 36 x F-35B?? A total of 36 was envisaged originally to be just the fast jet component of a std peacetime airwing! The 'surge' needs to be up to 42 or at max, 48 as part of a balanced airwing of 56 or 58, including 6 ASW rotary wing and two V-22 Osprey variants in the AEW role. These are 70,000 tonne fleet carriers and merit being operated as such with airwings to match.. Let's forget the drivel about using them in an amphibious role or for disaster relief. They're too valuable to risk in the first and real LPH/LPD ships would be more suited to the second as well. AND, ffs! Just 'cos the original contract spec for 'easy' and 'affordable' adaptation to CATOBAR was subsequently built out again on the sly, through the usual administrative/political incompetence, that doesn't mean they wouldn't benefit from proper angled flight decks and traps anyway to permit eventual STOBAR operation and to facilitate operation of large airwings now. So bloody well get the adaptations scheduled asap!

what a great interview, shredding more light on the innovation and forward looking for the future of the Royal navy. think everyone has to agree things are looking up for our Royal navy now :)

We need more aircraft carriers and a bigger navy

Russia in the North Atlantic and Eastern Med, Iran in the Gulf, China in the Pacific... How are the RN expected to cover all these bases with the fleet they have? All whilst maintaining permanent stations in home waters, the Caribbean, The Falklands, Gibralter and elsewhere? The Government need to seriously invest in the RN as soon as possible, lest they be caught short. Cancel HS2 and give the funding to the RN to acquire sufficient numbers of ships.

We need about 100 f35b 35 in each carrier and the rest around UK

Get 30 new Ships built including 12 amphibious assault ships .then go take Patagonia from the Arggies

Just a bit of a suggestion: ya might wanna add 1 or, 2 carriers to the fleet strength!!!! It'll go a long way to putting real or, potential adversaries on notice!!!! A few names for your carriers, if I may. HMS Ark Royal. HMS Repulse. HMS Invincible. HMS Royal Oak. HMS King George V. HMS Hermes. I hope that the Royal Navy DOES grow a bit bigger hence, the extra carriers to ensure Britian's global reach is unmatched by ANY real or, potential adversaries!!!!!

I really don't see the point of investing billions into 2 carriers, which will only carry 24 planes a piece (assuming we ever get enough planes and both carriers are operational at once). It's half arsed at best and given we can't even supply enough surface escorts, it's just baffling to me.If we can't afford larger carriers with more planes and provide enough escorts we should of just saved all that money and produced more destroyers/frigates/subs.

Ohh no he’s gone for tonnage increase, which is of course massive with two new 60,000 tonne carriers coming into service.

I like the island booth.