Letters | 24 July 2010

Carrying the fight

Sir: Your leading article (Military matters, 17 July) suggests that aircraft carriers are vulnerable to missile and suicide attack. I am not sure where you have sought your military advice, but those who think along these lines usually know very little about carriers.

We should reflect on carriers’ invulnerability, not their vulnerability. The last time that a British serviceman was killed as a result of enemy action in an RN aircraft carrier was in 1945. The contrast with our deployed operating bases in Afghanistan and Iraq could not be more stark. Recently, an RAF Regiment Officer told me of an occasion in 2008 where the British base at Basra was mortared over 60 times in one hour; this was not an isolated event.

If we judge that future threats to our armed forces are more likely to come from non-state actors, the invulnerability of aircraft carriers can only improve.