The news that the six type 45 destroyers will need to be brought in to port to fix the propulsion systems is clearly disturbing on many levels. They represent a third of the naval fleet.  The first of these ships was launched in 2006, yet the MOD continues to describe the symptoms of an interim loss of power as teething problems. It is not clear if they have identified what the problem is with the engineering, but along with the need to get this fixed, we also need to be told why such an enormous financial commitment by tax payers has been handled so badly, let alone the idea that our defence has been badly weakened. It seems strange that the designer of these ships and manufacturer have not been referred to as bearing some of the costs of this refit.