Two thoughts on the present fuel issues.

1- Whatever the rights and wrongs of the present actions in Iran the Iranians have no right to shut the Strait Of Hormuz, the far side of which is not even in their territory. Navy's are there to keep freedom of navigation, it's one of their major functions, and if they did that on the UAE / Oman side of the strait then the rest of the world - including us - would not be risking significant economic damage (and neither would Putin be laughing all the way to the bank). What is the point in even having a navy if we don't use it ?

2- If there is ever a shortage of fuel do NOT limit drivers to how much they can buy at the pump as that just encourages people to fill up when they don't even need to (and they are actually driving round with MORE fuel in their tanks than they do normally) thus exacerbating the situation. Instead enforce a MINIMUM purchase, e.g. at least 30 litres (or more), so people only fill up when they have to. Much more sensible, even if it's not quite so obvious....

4 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

What is the point in even having a navy if we don't use it

It currently seems too dangerous to put big expensive navy ships in harms way. If the Iranians sink the ships with missiles, mines or drones then we won't have a navy.

4 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

enforce a MINIMUM purchase, e.g. at least 30 litres

What happens when I can only get 29 litres in? I had a voucher to get extra points on £35 of petrol yesterday but I misjudged it and I could only get £34 in, it's easy to do.

We have a navy?

Just now, Magenta said:

We have a navy?

Debatable!

17 minutes ago, pcaouolte said:

It currently seems too dangerous to put big expensive navy ships in harms way. If the Iranians sink the ships with missiles, mines or drones then we won't have a navy.

Indeed. Even assuming we had more than a couple of operational warships, the Ukrainians have demonstrated that cheap drones, mines, the odd missile and much ingenuity have virtually made the Black Sea a no go area for the Russians.

Similarly, we have seen aircraft using an ASRAAM at around £200k a pop to destroy a drone that cost a hundredth of that. The West seems to have learned little from the Ukrainian conflict after 4 years.

(Perhaps we should start separate thread for this sort of discussion, though?)

2 hours ago, pcaouolte said:

What happens when I can only get 29 litres in? I had a voucher to get extra points on £35 of petrol yesterday but I misjudged it and I could only get £34 in, it's easy to do.

You'd get charged for 30 Litres regardless. The whole point is the system would encourage drivers to only fill up when they actually needed to, or, to put it another way, release millions of gallons of fuel that drivers would be driving around with in their tanks that they would not normally be so doing.

2 hours ago, pcaouolte said:

It currently seems too dangerous to put big expensive navy ships in harms way. If the Iranians sink the ships with missiles, mines or drones then we won't have a navy.

As I said, what is the point in having a navy then ? ! ?

That said HMS Dragon is supposed to be a super advanced (and super expensive) anti aircraft (and anti missile) destroyer, are we saying it's actually not any good at its intended role ?

2 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Indeed. Even assuming we had more than a couple of operational warships, the Ukrainians have demonstrated that cheap drones, mines, the odd missile and much ingenuity have virtually made the Black Sea a no go area for the Russians.

Similarly, we have seen aircraft using an ASRAAM at around £200k a pop to destroy a drone that cost a hundredth of that. The West seems to have learned little from the Ukrainian conflict after 4 years.

(Perhaps we should start separate thread for this sort of discussion, though?)

It's not the cost of the drone that is the issue, it's the fact that it's stopping tankers full of oil that the world needs to function. That said I agree with the excessive cost of shooting down a cheap drone, hence the advantage of the new RN Dragon Fire laser to shoot down drones, apparently it uses about £10 worth of electricity to do so.