I’ve followed Dr. Mark Felton’s Youtube channel for years now.
With him having the post-nominal letters of FRHistS (Fellow Royal Historical Society) and FRSA (Fellow Royal Society of Arts), I’ve always known I could count on his facts and figures always being correct and up-to-date.
Sometimes even more up-to-date than whatever person or organization he was reviewing.
Felton’s latest video (seen below) comes across to me as the crack of the whip of Vice President Vance’s hammering of European elites who’ve been screwing-over their own people for decades.
As the kids say, Felton “brings the receipts” when he tells the world that Britain’s Royal Navy has more Admirals that operable offensive war-fighting ships.
That ain’t a good thing.
Somewhat along the same lines as Felton, it was during the summer of ’23 when I did a piece showing the ridiculous state America’s present-day military, complete with historically low numbers of enlisted men, but one-to-four stars across the boards a-plenty.
As far as an specific example of the plight of Britain’s RN, below is just one pathetic example;
The overall commander of British Forces Gibraltar is Commodore (1-star) Tom Guy (as reported by the Gibraltar Chronicle).
The total of active British troops assigned to Gibraltar;
- As of April, 2023, as reported by Spain’s The Diplomat, the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, stood at 235 personnel.
- Royal Air Force Gibraltar, with 16 personnel
- British Forces Headquarters in Gibraltar, with 145 personnel (mostly administrative and supply clerks, etc.)
- The Gibraltar Squadron of the Royal Navy, with 28 personnel, the HMS Trent, as noted by the RoyalNavy.MoD.uk
That means 424 active-duty British troops (most of them support personnel) are commanded by a one-star. So the average American can better understand this, that number of troops is roughly a battalion, commanded by a Lt. Col.
Speaking of top-heavy militaries, here’s Felton’s latest;
There is one specific in Felton’s video report that I’m questioning.
The good doctor, for whatever reason, as noted by both the official Royal Navy website and as well by the official documents of NATO (via docslib.org), is only counting the ranks of Rear Admiral (2-stars), Vice Admiral (3-stars) and Admiral (4-stars).
Both sources clearly cite Commodores (1-star) as Flag Officers, aka: “Admiral grade officers“.
As Felton noted, “the Royal Navy also has 40 serving officers the rank of Rear Admiral and above.” Strictly speaking, Felton is correct when it comes to the titles of only those that include the word “Admiral.”
But as I cited, Commodores are Admiral-grade officers.
Counting the number of all Flag Officers in the RN, the number skyrockets from 40 to 103.
If adding the Admiral-grade officers of one active-duty Surgeon Rear-Admiral (2-stars) and five active-duty Surgeon-Commodores (1-star), the grand total of active-duty Flag Officers/Admiral-grade officers is a mind boggling 109.