The by now substantial number of mounts that came off the disappearing Royal Navy surface fleet... did it go to Ukraine in some form, i wonder...? Where the hell did they all end up.

One question that gets asked more and more frequently is why France seems to do comparatively so much better than the UK with its defence forces. There is not one single, simple answer. France does not do better under every aspect, to start with. But the one macroscopic problem I will always come back to is that the UK does NOT do strategic planning of military capability. The UK NEVER has an agreed, long term vision. The UK by design does NOT give its Parliament a real understanding and control of Defence aims and means. Every successive government that comes and goes does its own thing; obfuscates its plans at leisure, and leaves the following one to do the same. Other countries are less prone to shock program cancellations and sudden erasure of entire capabilities. If other Countries, France being just one example, agree on the strategic rationale of one capability, they will indicatively stick to it. The UK will not. The UK holds absolutely nothing sacred (in terms of actual capability). I often hear cries about "sacred cows", but the UK does NOT have sacred cows. Not in terms of actual military capability. It has cosmetic obsessions such as the supremacy of the "Foot Regiment" that will bend the entire Army out of shape to hang on to this or that tiny, near-insignificant infantry battalion even at the cost of the Supports for fielding an actual brigade. It has the Red Arrows and a few other trinkets. Actual capabilities? No. It will happily gap or delete maritime patrol aircraft and AEW (utterly demented things to do from a strategic point of view). It will happily have its army down to 14 self propelled howitzers in total for years. It has happily given up IFVs altogether. It has dismantled the Navy. None of the UK "strategic" papers are ever worth the time they take to be read. They are only ever lists of the Dead, the Wounded, the Missing. Whatever makes it into the fancy and funding of the day carries on. What does not dies. What is in the middle lives on for years as a cat in a box, and no one is sure whether it is alive or dead. Defence in the UK starts getting less demented only when actual Parliamentary scrutiny of Defence is implemented. Something like the rolling Military Planning Law in France, so both sides of Parliament know what the fuck they are doing and have to vote on plans. So there is some actual continuity in planning and execution. So no side of the House gets to make empty statements without attaching an overt vote to a plan. UK Defence can never get healthier until the Defence Committee is a toothless body meant to be told lies and to hear about things months to years after they have happened. Commissions must discuss and approve plans BEFOREHAND, not offer commentary when it is too late. The entire handling of Defence in the UK is designed from the root up to ENSURE failure.