Seems like a waste

Below comes from todays Evening Standard - can't we sink them for diveing? Much better use of public money.......

Navy to use ships for target practice

The Royal Navy is to use two of its old frigates, said to be worth £400 million, for target practice.

One expert has described as "scandalous" the scrapping of HMS Boxer and HMS Brave "half way through their useful life". But the MoD has defended its decision, saying the ships were built in the mid-1980s to hunt down submarines.

Since the end of the Cold War the frigates are no longer useful, and were to have been bought by Chile, which pulled out after the 1998 arrest in Lodnon of General Pinocher, the Sun says.

The editor of Warship World magazine, Mike Critchley, has tells the newspaper: "The Navy has suffered at the hands of the politicians, who (are) disposing of ships long before their replacements are built."

HMS Boxer, launched in 1983, and HMS Brave, launched in 1985, are now in Portsmouth waiting to be used for target practice in Operation Hulkex, an MoD spokeswoman says. They are likely to be used over the next 12 months.

The spokeswoman said: "They are out of date and surplus to requirements.

"The Royal Navy considers this kind of target practice to be a vital part of weapons assessment and it is useful to see weapons being used against real targets."

The ships will be stripped of any useful equipment before they are sunk.

All fuel and ammunitions will also be removed so the old frigates are "environmentally friendly" before they are blown apart in the Atlantic Ocean, she said.

The spokeswoman said the MoD could not confirm a report that the frigates are worth £400m.

By the time they hit the bottom, what will be left of them? Is there a place we can write?

Target practice is no problem. Indeed, it's an excellent use of the resource, to get the lads on the front lines some much needed training and a cheap way to sink the ships. The problem is convincing the powers that be to position the ships in water shallow enough for them to be diveable after they're sunk.
Reality isn't the movies; ships don't get blown into a zillion pieces when they get bombed and sunk - just a few holes all the way through does the job, and as a dive site you'll be hard pressed to even find the damage.
It isn't how you sink it that determines whether it'll be a good dive site or not, it's where.
Rick
(Attack pilot & sinker of ships)

I guess this is to make up for the days when they were saving money on ammunition and recruits had to shout 'bang' to simulate a live firing.

BBC report
IgNobel Peace Prize (Scroll down to Peace)


Zept

There's a wreck on Cape Cod that was used for target practice for many years. It looked like a ship from shore [3 miles] for years after they stopped bombarding it. It slowly caved in over the years, and now there isn't much left of it on the surface. We dive it all the time, and there is _plenty_ of wreck under the surface, and tons of lobsters...

It'll be a great dive site for years and years to come. As long as it's shallow enough to dive, a target ship'll give years of diving...

I say save the naval vessels & use the yachts of the Enron & Worldcom execs for target practice.