Five NATO carriers deployed in Europe to show ‘resolve’

I don’t think you understood the comment.

😂😂😂🙈

Solar and battery store is a terrible option for the UK. We need more nuclear and wind so the excess can produce hydrogen rather than trying to sell it abroad or reduce generation. Gas central heating is too endemic to switch over and cars could be refilled at the same speed and places as petrol.

Domestic solar isn’t.

I live in a 5 bed Victorian terraced house.

There is only so much insulating you can do and I’m about at Max insulation and good double glazing on all windows.

Since doing the insulation + window upgrades in lockdown the energy usage dropped by 40%.

I do use solar + 6kW (output) heat pump to massively cut my gas usage. I have a 6kW array that will produce about 2+kW today. That pretty much runs the heat pump in daylight hours.

If I’m being more selective and the kids are not home I’d use the AC as a heat pump to heat selected rooms say just my study.

Using the solar dropped our gas usage by another 40% as the house is pre heated.

In the summer I’m exporting electricity or charging the EV and using the air conditioning.

So for a lot of older house, once you’re insulated as best you can, solar is the only way to cut carbon footprint and reduce usage.

It makes a massive difference.

How long will that setup take to break even though?

At current energy prices? Not long

Normally around 15 years, but with current prices you can halve that.

I would agree. I have just installed a 5.2kW system with battery. I am drawing very little energy from the grid and it might make sense to use what I export to drive a heat pump. I would need underfloor heating though for enough radiator surface area.

It is worth trying turning the CH flow temperature on the boiler down to 55C and see what happens when the weather goes cold.

For a lot of bedrooms it is fine as the required temperatures are not that high.

Which then only leaves living areas to be altered if necessary.

In a lot of houses the radiator sizes, particularly if fitted a while back before double glazing got really good, are ludicrously oversized – as are the boilers. The problem with that is that the boiler is rarely working in the sweet spot.

The one watch point with doing that is that the boiler needs to be able to set different CH and DHW temperatures otherwise the hot water won’t be sterile – not an issue with a combi boiler.

Thx for the tip on the boiler. I’ve just installed a new hydrogen ready boiler set to 60C. Its not combi. I have bought but is not yet installed an immersion heater switched from the inverter for my hot water. See how that goes.
I think I could cut electricity consumption to zero if I could work out how to wash the dishes in the slow cooker 😂

Here’s a thought- don’t get a water meter, so you pay a standard bill- then run a tap continuously to spin a turbine and thus generate power for free…

So what temp is good to have the hot water and heating at? Just now my water is at full and it only just manages to fill the bath at 37c. The heating is lower as kids in the house.
If I could get some kind of subsidy help I would fit better systems in a heartbeat. Saving for new doors and windows just now.

It is very hard to advise.

With some older boilers reducing the CH temperature isn’t a good idea as it causes corrosion on the heat exchanger.

It also depends on the control system a lot and how they are programmed. Most modern smart systems pulse the boiler on and off. However, it can take seconds (or minutes) for some boilers to reach optimal efficiency. So it may be better to change the frequency of pulsing lower, per hour, on older boiler.

On a modern modulating boiler it is generally best to set the CH flow temperature to the lowest value that gives you the heat you desire on the coldest day you encounter. BUT don’t set it so low the boiler never pulses off. Otherwise the energy use of the boiler pump and fan can start to get significant.

It sounds like your DHW is set too cold to me if you are struggling to fill a warm bath. The maximum cylinder temperature should be set with scalding risk in mind. So you don’t ever want crazy hot water coming out of taps.

I will have a look at the boiler and see what it’s doing. I think it’s a combi boiler. It does the water and heating without having a hot water tank.
That last statement probably gives away how much I know about boilers.

Remember being in a text house circa 1980 in mid Wales late October in a Scandinavian insulated triple glaze uninhabited house. Body heat was enough to keep a reasonable temperature. Criminal in the intervening 40 years little has happened to learn the lessons of that test house despite a revolution in I proved tech since then.

The construction industry resists every innovation to the death.

Unfortunately there is good reason to as there are so few skilled workers to implement anything: change costs a fortune.

What you say is totally true of new builds.

The problem is that there are massive quantities of Victorian and Edwardian house and then the post war estates that up to the 80’s didn’t really consider insulation as a priority.

The question is how do you mitigate what is there?

Just doing the basics of double glazing and proper loft insulation would make a massive difference.

But then what are you left with after the sensible passive measures?

Rooftop solar and heat pumping are about all that us left. Maybe with HRU systems with small heat pumps to mitigate.

Should try my place, it’s around 400+ years old……I tried to get solar but all the chimneys got in the way….as for wall insulation…..4 foot of stone and rubble just does not do it. Pretty good as a bunker ( the roof joists are actual tree trunks) piss poor for energy efficiency.

I have a late 40s house- subsequently had plenty of retrofitted insulation and new, high quality double-glazed windows. The overall effect is a condensation problem that I will likely have to mitigate by installing active ventilation. These older properties suffer from cold-bridging due to the use of concrete lintels, and there’s a risk of moisture wicking through cavity insulation due to a lack of modern DPC. Insulation is not as practical as policy-makers seem to think..

Worth thinking where the moisture is coming from.

HRU (heat recovery units) would be your best bet.

But I’d still try and understand the source of the humidity.

A drying cupboard provides a dual benefit of keeping the humidity enclosed, say for drying towels, and provides trickle ventilation.

One of the issues with climate change is ‘global stilling’. Due to the dropping off in winds, in the future the U.K. is going to have to increase the number of its wind turbines by 30% to get the same generation we currently have.

Contrary to popular belief you don’t need blazing sunshine for solar panels to work, in fact their efficiency drops off if the sunlight is too bright and the temperature too hot. Besides, the south of England is going to be as hot and sunny as the Mediterranean in the next decade or so.

I agree.

Sure output drops in the UK winter when days are shorter and the sun less high/bright.

But, you still get a decent slug of juice of out the array most days.

The other thing that is a myth is that only South facing works – West is pretty good too at present energy prices. Really it depend on how cheap the panels are and what grid energy prices are like. ATM even East panels make sense to elongate the generating day.

Panel prices are consistently dropping and outputs rising. OK there was a hiccough when the invasion took place. But they are trending down again.

Don’t see the logic of your last statement. Essentially a gas boiler is Heating water and sending it around the house, so what difference does it make if an electric boiler is heating the water and sending it round the house?

Terrible option? I hear good reports from people who have solar panels about their very low energy bills. A new nuclear power station at the other end of the country is not going to reduce my energy bills.

why not- why would an intergated Nuclear Energy Infrastructure not reduce bills.

We are building just one nuclear power station (Sizewell C) to replace an old one – and it is unlikely to generate energy until 2036 or so. Thats really not going to lower everyone’s energy bills. In fact it might increase my energy bills

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48593581

Whereas if I fitted solar power to my house it would definitely reduce my energy bills.

Luke ……. Use the force……. Of tidal energy……….

Cars use hydrogen as a storage medium, not as fuel – they use fuel cells to convert it into electricity for the same electric motors that a battery car would use. Batteries are MASSIVELY more efficient at storing said electricity. There is a reason no one makes hydrogen cars anymore – they only benefit fossil fuel companies.
Also battery cars can charge over night at home, or during the day at work when they are sat idle anyway. So the speed they fill up is not important. As they become more numerous they become more and more useful to help stabilise the grid through smart chargers (now mandatory), allowing for better use of renewables.
Speaking of renewables, at current prices solar pays for itself in under 3 years so is a fantastic investment. Most panels have a 20 year guarantee.

Apart from Toyota, Hyundai and Honda etc, but I guess they are tiny, niche manufacturers. Lithium Batteries are dogshit and only last a couple of years and the charging infrastructure fantasy is just that.

The Japanese are investing heavily in a proper hydrogen infrastructure, because they have the technology and the will to get things done. We are investing in batteries purely because it doesn’t require the government to make any effort around infrastructure provision. I suspect you’re right that we’re basically going the ‘Betamax’ route.

The specific energy (i.e.energy density) of the best LiPo batteries is ca. 10 x less than the stored energy of the same volume of Diesel. That’s why battery cars are either very heavy or have range issues. The specific energy of hydrogen for fuel cell use depends on the extent to which the hydrogen is compressed. The Honda Clarity uses carbon fiber tanks and compresses the fuel to about the same specific energy as a LiPo battery- but this is a relatively crude approach because no-one’s yet cracked the problem of reversible hydride storage- which would give you better specific energy than Diesel fuel. Cryogenic liquid hydrogen has the greatest specific energy of any known fuel, but obviously it’s a bit tricky to handle.

Well quite. It irritates me immensely that government policy hasn’t focused on nuclear + hydrogen infrastructure- preferring instead to spend on impractical battery technologies and unreliable baseloads in search of a quick win.

It would be quite possible for smaller communities, villages, small towns and so on, along with individual residents to start their own solar and wind power schemes. This would reduce bills, reduce dependance and distribute supply. Unfortunately the energy industry don’t want this and this is one of the reasons why set up costs are high and grants unavailable.

It was fascinating seeing, from inside government, how the whole community and domestic solar thing was killed back in 2010 – the industry just kept parroting that the grid would uncontrollable.

Although local, small scale, battery storage wasn’t really a thing then.

There’s also tidal. UK has 1/3 of Europes offshore wind generation potential. Offshore oil and gas is looking to develop hydrogen power. RR is looking to develop small nuclear power generators but haven’t heard any updates on that for a while. Potentially easier to set up compared to the conventional large stations.

The environmentalists will kill tidal.

How, you create clean hydrogen from gas is a mystery to me: having a chemistry PhD. It doesn’t work unless you have very good CCS. The killer is that CCS mitigates and isn’t 100%. So given the inherent energy use and inefficiency it would be greener to burn the gas I’m afraid.

The ONLY way hydrogen makes sense is if you have a huge excess of wind power and you use the windy excess days to make hydrogen and store it at volume to power vehicles.

Hydrogen for domestic heating is joke technology. The existing gas network is very old and very porous.

SMR is interesting **if** it is quicker to build. It comes back to drumbeat. This isn’t like laying a concrete slab for a warehouse it needs teams who are on repeat ‘n’ and know exactly how to do the job. If it isn’t quicker to build then there is no point. Is it going to be close enough to urban conurbations to use the low grade heat for domestic heating? Probably not because of the approach to risk. Then I’m not seeing it.

Sure build more offshore windmills they are making a massive contribution.

But don’t neglect domestic gas production and storage for the days the wind doesn’t blow.

It is an 80-20 problem. Getting rid of 80% of carbon footprint isn’t that hard or expensive to enable. The problem is the loons who talk about net zero…..which is very hard and excruciatingly expensive to deliver.

Yep the only way to do it will be if we relax some planning accept stuff on our doorsteps as well as some more localised environmental changes.

personally I’m very much in favour of tidal, we actually trashed a lot of our wetland habits through drainage, let’s give a bit of it back with some tidal barriers….we have great tides in the U.K. so we could have a few really big barrages.

Wave is getting better as well. Especially since they have moved to using air pressure to drive the turbines…the coils in theory stick an air pressure based set of turbines in every harbour wall in the county. The air pressure model means the only bit that comes in contact with the sea water is a big old funnel, all the turbines ect are built above sea level.

we are just going to have to suck up seeing windmills, they work and although they are big they don’t give you COPD or kill the planet.

As you’ve done all houses should have full insulation as well as heat pumps and solar ( PV and thermal).

once we get to a good percentages cars being EVs they should all be configured to provide a massive national battery pool to flatten out surges ( EV batteries are huge and can run a house for a good number of days). You don’t need big battery farms if we all us EVs and the are V2G.

finally nuclear gives your baseload…although the director of the national guide did say he thinks that with the right mix of domestic solar, EVs with V2G baseload will become outdated and not needed.

There is also liquified air power.

I company in Manchester is building a prototype unit that used excess grid power to liquify air which it then warms up and runs through turbines to produce elctricity when the wind fails…

Apparently some chap spent 30 years perfecting it in his garage. He now lives in a bigger house…

https://highviewpower.com/plants/#uk-projects

Cheers CR

If the existing gas network is so porous how was it able to cope with Town Gas i.e. mostly hydrogen) until the late 1970s?

Town gas had 45-50% hydrogen in it.

The network was much younger and the pipe used was dominantly iron barrel or cast iron for the mains. Iron is ok with hydrogen if it is the right kind of iron. This changed to steel later when North Sea gas became a thing. Steel embrittles when subjected to hydrogen gas.

Plastic gas pipe has also been used widely. This can be very porous to the tiny hydrogen molecules.

A small army worked for the utility companies fixed leaks back in the day. Gas explosions were frequent even when homes were a lot better ventilated. Now with sealed up houses the risks are multiplied.

If you have seen the state of most pipes buried in peoples front gardens you would just laugh, shrug and wander off. The costs of fixing all of the highly corroded gas pipes would make HS2 look like a bargain.

Basically it is a silly idea.

I’m in the solar industry. The current prices mean there is now far more demand in the market to have solar panels fitted to warehouses than there is capacity to install it. We’re putting in megawatts of capacity every month. No need for goverment incentives. Getting the power companies to accept export to the grid is the major challenge due to their decades of under investment.

Sorry, I was talking about incentives to for home owners. Even just paying sensible export tariffs would help rather than blaming ‘administrative’ costs for paying almost nothing. Or to have a moderate sized battery to smooth things out or bridge peak periods.

I agree that it is very hard to get clearance to feed into most 100A 3 phase heads and larger.

On the Insustrial estate, I’m a shareholder in, we just sell the electricity to the users. There is a bakery there that uses plenty and actually we have incentivised them to do more baking in the day. The other units use office lights heating a/c and computers and charge the odd forklift.

Thing is we make far more selling the electricity to our tenants than we do to the grid. And we can sell them electricity far cheaper than they can buy it too. So everyone is a winner and they even think the landlord is nice….let’s put it this way our occupancy is 100% with no churn and therefore no void ATM. So looks good on the books.

We are looking at a battery container unit to smooth the supply out to the ends of the working day and maybe take a bit of off peak charge to start the day in winter.

The issue is the oil/gas companies pay a lot of taxes for western countries and with that they bring a lot of influence. It would be hard for any country to go fully renewable because of that influence. We could have done so years ago, but most of the projects were binned when the current government got into power.

In this environment people will vote with their feet.

Every solar panel on a rooftop is a lot of kWh of electricity that won’t be needed over the next 20 years.

Only the richer part of the country. The majority of the country can’t afford to upfront price of solar and the out of control cost of living means that affordability will get worse. Someone highlighted that the rich don’t spend as much money on the basics, because they can afford to buy better quality stuff that lasts longer, whilst the poor has to buy cheap and so pay more over time.

Yes pretty much aware, OR. It becomes a Grenfell Saga. As I say, Sick of it.

Rare earth metals are not that rare.

It is just nobody can be bothered to invest in clean plant for extraction.

It is all doable.

Good Morning, Supportive.
Of course nobody doubts that a little want of concern for people without a say is all doable. It’s precisely why I made the comments earlier , as you’ll readily acknowledge I don’t doubt.
One ends with the conclusion that the complicated relationships that make multinationals so ‘helpless’ in the face of moral transgression equate to ‘inconvenient legalities = convenient excuses’ – almost like lawyers structured them for that very purpose, heaven forbid.
Crossed my mind at the time of Deepwater that the local operations risks with safety seemed remarkably in accord with the Sump King’s mania for paring costs, including prudent operational measures, to the bone.

I’m not sure how you describe a narrow MW level steerable beam IRL?

I accept that the tech exists to make it work the big issue is the carbon footprint cost of the launches to get the panels and other kit up there.

I’d respectfully suggest with the necessary power densities there might be something to be concerned about! If things went wrong with the beam steering.

This is a bit more than boil a kettle levels of energy!!

5G there isn’t enough power to do damage. Inverse cube law. Unless you are sat in the transmitter module.

Here the purpose is to concentrate power at orders of magnitude greater power levels.

I’m not sure Elon is playing with a full deck anymore after Twitter, I don’t think NASA a trust him anymore and the USAF certainly don’t.

I was quite surprised by his rejection of space based solar but his arguments seems to stack up.

NASA trust him, he has the contract for a modified version of Starship to function as the shuttle between the Lunar Gateway and the surface.
And the USAF have a contract with SpaceX for Heavy Falcon launches; I think they might have specifically developed Heavy for them.

Musk deliberately seeks to be a disruptive influence. However he’s juggling so much that he misses the human factor and gets caught out by the storm he initiated. He’s also a nightmare to work for – I’ve heard some horror stories from former employees.

But his handling of Twitter has been an omnishambles from the original announcement. Either he transforms Twitter into a profitable business or it’s going to end up a total train wreck. I suspect it’s going to be the latter.

Twitter is hitting new records for activity virtually every day. Don’t believe what the establishment media pumps out. Musk has a lot of people frightened but anyone who believes in freedom of speech should be celebrating. I know I am.

I know it’s getting new records of people leaving, both the platform and the company! 😆
I believe in the both the rights and responsibilities that come with freedom of speech. That he’s letting mr fake-tan back onto the platform is I think a cynical attempt to create more controversy. Twitter is all about creating controversy, it’s a perpetual rage machine for the unhinged, not a platform for sensible debate.

Rage, fear and controversy sell, unfortunately it’s been the, way of the less ethical media and politicians for all eternity.

Yes, there was an assumption of balanced conventional power.

As the power balance is so lopsided some idiot, Turkey I’m looking at you, might decide to have a pop for domestic political reasons.

Interesting points. I can’t see any NATO nation entering Ukraine to aid them (without NATO approval), setting their troops up to be attacked by Russian troops and then calling Article 5.

Russia has certainly breached the Budapest Memorandum (in Feb 2022 and on 20th Feb 2014) but it does not mandate an armed response by other signatories. You are right that it could however be used as a justification by US and/or UK to send forces.

The memorandum does require a representation to be made to the UN Security Council – presumably that happened? But UN has clearly not agreed to any miiltary response by ‘the international community’/NATO.

I can’t see any mechanism whereby any western nation will send troops into Ukraine in support.

Hi Graham, I agree I don’t think we or any western nation will send troops to Ukraine.But I think we have to be honest with ourselves in its our choice more than anything else, as always it’s always about national interest: is it in our interest to go to war with Russia yes/no. If it’s no then it’s convenient to find no reason to justify a war, if on the other hand it was in our national interest to go to war to defend Ukraine a reason would be found. It’s always been the way of things.

As to should Ukriane have been defended by NATO its a bit late now, that boat sailed last winter. And as always the Nuclear question overrides. As it would have to be an extreme threat to our nation for us to go to war with another nuclear power as let’s be honest there is very good rational to say such a war is not winnable for either side. In all likelihood I think if Russia had not been a nuclear power the west would have been in Ukraine as peacekeepers before you could say the words grain shipment.

In days of Empire we acted militarily in the national interest and as a force for good in the world – the deployment of the BEF in 1914 and 1939 are examples of the latter. All somewhat different in the age of both formal and enduring alliances (NATO and US/UK) and nuclear weapons.

In the Cold War NATO defended the Euro-Atlantic area by deterrent placement of forces, but did not defend a non-NATO country under threat from a more powerful neighbour.
Post Cold War, that has still been the case. I could never see NATO forces deploying into Ukraine in a deterrent sense before Putin invaded irrespective as to whether or not the threat was from a nuclear armed nation or not – there is simply no precedent for such a NATO deployment.

The Budapest Memorandum has certainly been broken by Russia when she invaded Ukraine, as it was when she invaded Crimea. In the case of the latter, the sanction from ‘The West’ was to temporarily suspend Russia from the G8 – lame and pathetic.

Wiki: “The Memorandum was negotiated at political level, but it is not entirely clear whether the instrument is devoid entirely of legal provisions. It refers to assurances, but unlike guarantees, it does not impose a legal obligation of military assistance on its parties”.

You refer to Poland, presumably because a missile hit a farm and killed 2 civilians. Not only was it not a deliberate, determined and massive land-grab attack by Russia all the evidence points to it being a Ukrainian missile that missed its Russian target. Not a reason to start WW3.

The ordinary people of Europe sit and watch, weep and lament, as this drags on and on and on. The inability of Europe, NATO or even the world to act, to bring this war to an end is shameful.

Ukraine burns, innocents on both sides die, and no one cares, least of all the arms industry, and the proxy war fighters.

All we get, are fools making excuses to do nothing. If there is intelligent life out there, they will have written off planet Earth, and the pathetic human race, destroying its natural resources.

You want to send UK troops in?

The world has acted – harsh sanctions against Russia and key Russian individuals, boycott of Russian gas, supply of weapons and munitions to Ukraine, training of Ukraine personnel.
Wrong to say no one cares – we all do.
What more can we do? What do you suggest? Assassinate Putin? Deploy huge NATO air/land force into Ukraine? Bomb Russian army targets in Ukraine?

Simple truth are you willing to get into a war that could effectively end human civilisation destroying you and your entire family and everything you have ever known ? Because that is the reality risk inherent in a war between Russia and NATO. Simply put NATO so overmatches Russian conventional forces they would have only two options crushing and utter defeat or using nuclear weapons I know I would not want to bet in what they would do.

Hi Graham, interestingly the use of the word assurance has not really been tested in international law, it was American lawyers who decided that the term assurance would not require military intervention. In truth neither the US or U.K. decided to test that. In reality post the annexation of Crimea, the US and U.K. could have very easily offered battle groups as peace keepers Within Ukraine on the grounds of providing assurance.

Would that have prevented the Ukraine war or just ended up triggering article 5 after Russia plowed into the battle groups anyway. Who knows. Just glad I’m not the poor soul who has to make such terrible decisions.

I do agree that the response post Crimea was pathetic and gave Putin the green light for future actions later.

How does saying I’ve not seen what macron has done answer the question of what has he done? I still don’t know

Yeah I’m confused too, he wasn’t great at the beginning of this conflict true though looking back his concerted efforts to prevent and stop it make a lot of sense considering the wars appalling nature. But he seems to have been pretty much onside since.

The best thing you could do is stop watching the mainstream news… There are enough drones out there already.

Believe it was W.S. Churchill who stated (paraphrased), that even if you have to kill a man, it causes no harm to be civil in language (or words to that effect). 😉

Actual W.S. Churchill quote, “When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.” 🤣😂 (My vote for greatest PM)

I read a very interesting anthropological study of island cultures and being polite. As they all tend to be aggressive they are also very Keen on being very polite as a way of managing the aggression that seems to be a trademark island nation issue (they are also a Touch xenophobic with a superiority complex). Britain and Japan are two very good case studies, very similar core behaviours.

interestingly island cultures have a bit of a love hate with the sea….it’s either a fearful place full of invaders and threats or an abundance of opportunities depending on where culture happens to be ( for most of British history it was the former, not the later ).

We believe we have repaid the debt on at least two occasions.

We agree but they think you should up late 😀

Thanks. It’s moving forward very nicely and fingers crossed smoothly. 👍

Sweden no longer a factor?

Swedes were only ever on as a tech development partner. I guess not really big enough to warrant partner status.

If Sweden isn’t in the program what are they going to do? Continue with gripen? Sweden already do very well for a small country. The gap in the market may well exist for a cheaper multi role aircraft if the 6th gen prove to be really expensive. Perhaps a stealthy, sensor fused gripen.

That could prove to be ironic for Sweden to be a tech development partner in Tempest, then evolve Gripens to be a lower cost alternative to Tempest. Hadn’t considered that scenario. All is fair in love and war (and presumably arms sales). 😳

Sweden are only observers. They only paid to have that status.
The only ones that put money in the project have been UK and Italy.

And presumably, relatively soon, Japan. The country w/ relatively deep pockets and expertise in relevant tech. Excellent choice for consortium. 👍 The Japanese, who unfortunately reside in a tough neighborhood, are motivated to increase/diversify partnerships and alliances. Perfectly understandable from their perspective. For UK, understand this may further emesh the country in SCS security issues, “We are going to need a bigger Navy.” 🤔😳

Ridiculous…
Obama: Crimea, Iraq incompetency = ISI
Trump:
Biden: Afghanistan incompetency, full invasion of Ukraine.

Biden is just as bad for us as Trump. Just for different reasons. Agree on Europe. But they’re only a good choice because US co-operation is so unnatractive. Exclude Italy and Poland from those reservations. Japan is good all round would love to see us bring S. Korea into Tempest. With both would hope for much more co-operation in other areas too

Two points re SK: 1.) Uncertain the degree to which government and industry are penetrated by NK and ChiCom intelligence; and 2.) Reference caution in thread above, in which UK could be drawn into SCS military confrontation. From US perspective, the more the merrier, but perhaps you should consider a larger RN and RAF? 🤔😳

We dream of (and need) a larger RN and RAF (and Army) but these damn politicians keep cutting the headcount and the platform count once or twice a decade, with almost no exceptions. They seem to want the Forces to be the minimum possible (and to only just hit the NATO spending target), rather than to be sufficient for ‘Global Britain’s’ role.

Must be great to be from a country that admires and expects strong armed forces, and only rarely cuts numbers.

You describe an interesting paradox, we who have an ocean between the US and bad actors, are apparently more concerned than those who have a big ditch between themselves and trouble. Perhaps w/ the passage of years, British politicians and public have forgotten (or never learned) the trials and privations of WW II. Reflecting upon that, one would have to be 95 yrs. old now, to have carried arms during that cataclysm. The greatest generation, and it’s wisdom, is almost extinguished. 🤔

…a minimum of 95 yrs. old…

Two points re SK: 1.) Uncertain the degree to which government and industry are penetrated by NK and ChiCom intelligence; and 2.) Reference caution in thread above regarding potential UK military commitment. From US perspective, the more the merrier, but perhaps you should consider a larger RN and RAF? 🤔😳

Maybe S.Korea has a problem with Chinese infiltration but they could say the same about UK, US and others !

What is the name of God are you on?

The USA just now is the worlds police man. Everyone looks to them as the leader of the world whether they want to be that or not.
Any president also has to deal with all the domestic issues that any leader has to deal with and as all leaders sometimes they get it wrong. Or it right for the domestic policy but wrong for the world.
Without the USA parts of the world would be under a lot more pressure from some bigger countries. Is the USA perfect? No. Is it good enough? I think it will do.

I would agree I just don’t think any of those parts of the world are in European NATO. Europe is easily able to defend itself. Russia is not the Soviet Union and there is no one else near Europe that can threaten it.

The myth of Europes inability to defend itself is a fiction invented by the US military industrial complex to just why the USA has to spend so much on defence when it’s infrastructure is third world and its healthcare welfare system except failures unthinkable in any other developed nation.

In the UK we pay a medium tax burden and get a fair amount out of the system. In the USA people pay almost as much as we do and get very little back.

I think Europe could defend its self fine on its own. Maybe not having nuclear parity could be a small issue. Problem I see with that though is we are in a global economy so what happens else where will effect Europe.
If Europe had all its own resources and produced nearly everything it needed from those resources it wouldn’t be a big issue if the rest of the world went to the wall.
Way I see it is if the world is in a global economy then every country in that globe has to be peaceful and get along. Imagine if humanity hadn’t had any conflicts since the industrial revolution. I’d probably be posting this while travelling back from my Mars weekend house

Totally agree. We rely on the USA so very much. The division and sometimes damn right nastiness we see in US politics is worrying. My own personnel experience of the United States of America is still admiration, had many good times over that side of the pond. NATO must stay as the pinnacle of our and the rest of Europe’s security, with the US holding the whole thing together. Bidens administration is giving huge support to the Ukraine – That’s the US at its best. Respect!!!

“The rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.” 😉

A country the size and influence of the USA won’t suddenly disappear in importance. USA No1

From an outside observer point of view and a believer in western liberal democracy being worth defending I do worry that the US is showing some risk of political instability. One of Russia’s successes seems to be the sowing of chaos in political dialogue across western nations.

It’s not so much the republican/democrats who should be in power dialogue ( I don’t much care as it’s the USs business who wins an election). But it seems that some number of people in the states are no longer believing in the probity of the basics of its political and democratic processes.

I cannot stand some of our politicians but I don’t believe they are enemies of the state or there is a need for violent insurrection, which does seem to be a bit of a dialogue going on in the US ? Interested to here your thoughts ?

Sorry, given voluminous number of posts, it is a non-trivial task to find a specific one. So, determined to drag me into the briar patch, eh? 😁

Alright, my most candid assessment: US faced a reasonably serious threat to democracy from Nov 20 to Jan 21; at this point however, immediate threat has substantially receded. President attempted to organize Putsch; foiled by numerous public officials at federal and state level who adhered to tenets of Constitution. Impossible to execute revolution w/out concerted support of military; senior military leadership has been thoroughly inculcated w/ principles of Constitution, Federal statues and the Uniform Code of Military Justice; Chiefs of Staff of various branches would not willingly cooperate; coup leaders would have to delve into lower ranks of military to find potentially cooperative officers. Lest one become too complacent by the outcome of this event, even Hitler was a rank amateur in 1923, but had upped his game by 1933. Trump will be 78 yrs. old by 2024; doubtful that he will be the nominee of Republican Party. Majority of Republicans are weary of the drama, and will migrate to other candidates, possibly ex VP or current FL Gov.

I’d be weary of reshoring to India… as I grew up, I remember them as intensely anti-British, very pro Commie weapons acquisitions, as were the Lankans.

So we left them alone and disengaged.

Indian and Lankan politicians will Commie cash and oil; the ordinary Lankan people are quite pro-British, revere us for some of our achievements, which are set in aspic and yet there are Economists and Educationalists who beat us down.

We need 5 eyes engagement with these countries as well as Portuguese, Dutch and French participation that engages the nay sayers and challenges the narrative that we are imperial aggressors and instead showcases our multiculturalism.

…IMHO…

India certainly no friend to the UK, they hate us an indian TV and movies constantly play anti British propaganda.

India becoming a very dangerous country under Modi. We should not make the same mistakes we did with China. We don’t need to be building new super powers.

DB is not the pro-communist nostalgia only with a certain generation of elderly freedom fighters from the 1970’s. with care we should engage with india which is a democracy and has reservations about china expansion

CHIPS Act will significantly ameliorate situation within a decade. Now, whether a grace period is afforded us…🤔😳🤞

Yes I am aware.

My understanding is that neither Canada or Mexico will due to UK accession to CTPP and preference for US to join CTPP verses son of NAFTA and US is reluctant to do any form of trade deal with anyone any more.

European nato has more troops than Russia and massively superior capability.

It’s has more forces then the USA.

So who can’t it defend against?

Euro NATO could possibly/probably defend itself against conventional Russian attack if we had some warning.

But to successfully counter-attack to reclaim lost land is a different matter – and we lack numbers to be sure of success.

Russia has a huge amount of AFVs (including tanks), AD systems and artillery. Euro NATO is short of tactical nuclear weapons (only France has them) and far less strategic nuclear weapons. Russia has strategic bombers; Euro NATO has none.

I am glad we have the US forces around the corner.

We have seen exactly how useful all of the Russian wonder weapons were when wheeled out in Ukraine and how effectively they were mashed up using only the 1990’s and 2000’s cast offs that we gave Zelenski.

That is without any AirPower at all. The massed weight of NATO’s European air power is massive. Frankly Poland could probably take out most of the Russian Air Force itself. Never mind if the UK and the Nordics got heavily involved.

That would be the real difference.

I’d see the Ukrainians as being quite capable happy to fight the land war if the the full force of NATO’s Air Forces were brought to bear.

I don’t think the Russians would last more than a few days with that sort of firepower against them. There wouldn’t be a tank or armoured vehicle left anywhere between NATO AirPower and Ukrainian hand held missiles which they appear to use very, very effectively.

You talking about a 50 mile gap from European NATO boarder to Russians entire Atlantic nuclear submarine base. They could have it captured in a few hours. Imagine trying to defend the UK is Russia had a boarder with the UK in Dundee 50 miles from Faslane.

If the conflict (joined by NATO’s air forces) were entirely constrained within Ukraine’s borders and stayed non-nuclear, you may be right.
I have always thought, though, that you underestinate your enemy at your peril.
The likelihood of use by Russia of WMD in Ukraine and also of them hitting military targets in the homelands of NATO members (such as the air bases such combat power was launched from) must be considered.

And I would add to that to overestimate your enemy’s rationality!

Very true! I did not think Putin would invade Ukraine on the basis of rational thought and little to no cost-effectiveness resulting.

Poland on its own world tear Russia apart now much less the rest of Europe. Your talking about a $400 billion a year budget with a standing military force of full time professionals of 1.8 million verses a Russian force with a budget of $60 billion and a nominal full time military force of 1.3 million. Europe has 4 times the population and 10 times the economy with military tech far beyond Russias dreams.

Janes quotes Polish annual defence budget for 2023 to rise to c$20bn not $400bn.
CIA factbook shows active service personnel to be 120,000 and Territorials to be 30,000 (of which 5k are active) – so I am not sure why you state 1.8 million- although there will be an expansion of active (ie regulars) personnel in the period up to 2029.
I like to be optimistic but there is reason to be concerned about Russia’s strategic nuclear, tactical nuclear, bomber force, artillery, hyperbaric weapons, missiles of all stripes including hypersonic.

Concur, a wounded bear can prove deadly.

To be fair Graham If the U.K. and Russia somehow ended up in a fight on their own ( because NATO and all our alliances collapsed) I would put my money on the RN and RAF being able to hold Russia into its own waters and airspace. Let’s be honest russia has not even managed to dominate the airspace of a minnow airforce on its own boarder it would have no hope of managing the RAF. As for nuclear weapons we have the ability to end Russia as functioning nation state just as Russia can do to us.

I don’t think for a moment the Russian armed forces are getting over what has happened to them in Ukraine. It’s a poor nation that’s only getting poorer, it’s lived of gas oil and soviet equipment.

We are in Ukraine.

China wants to solve is Malacca problem. I would see them being keen to control everything from Singapore in the South to east Siberia in the North.

However under an autocratic state who knows. The country is at the whims of any single leader.

Fortunately there demographic collapse will make it increasingly difficult for them to be belligerent.

It’s 50.50 if they will ever over take the US in absolute terms economically. But as with the Soviet Union in the 70’s this does not have to stop them outspending the USA militarily.

(Easy to forget for much of the Cold War the USA was not the biggest super power)

Wonder whether Xi Jin Ping owns a copy of the board game ‘Risk’? 🤔😳😉

yeah- probably with loaded dice!🤓

🤣😂😁👍

He owns a bootleg copy.

👍👍

Who do you think makes all the plastic bits.

Putin does for sure along with Peter Zeihan , I think it’s where they all get their understanding of Geo politics. 19th century nonsense.

Australia always wins in the end.

ChiCom philosophy, “What is mine is mine, and your’s is negotiable.” 🤔😳😉

or…”what is your’s is negotiable.”

👍

F35 has a 20 to 1 kill ratio against F15 so god knows what it could do to F18.

When UK F35B gets Meteor and ASRAAM it will probably be the worlds most deadly fighter and with SPEAR the most deadly attack aircraft.

Very much so. We often forget we have gained an aircraft with excellent A2A capability compared to the self
defence sidewinder capability of the Harrier GR7 and Tornado GR4 before it. Tornado GR4 did receive ASRAAM in it’s final few years before sombody picks me up. 😄

Also with approximately

twice the speed; and
twice the payload; and
twice the range; and

an electronics systems that is on another plant to what was in the Harrier.

Cue why didn’t owe keep the Harrier in service comments? Because that was the original idea until RN/RAF got to test out the F35B and then realised that it was on another planet to Harrier.

However, gaping the capability was stupid as it lead to a loss of expertise and critical mass.

Agreed. I believe the original out of service date for the Harrier GR7/9 was 2018. We could then have transitioned to F35 from there with probably less headaches, certainly from a man power point. We started sending RN engineers over to the US back in 2012 to learn on F35, but those guys have probably left the service now.

Well then you might want to get on with it cuz it’s taking a hell of a long time. It will soon be eclipse by the world beating tempest..

Tempest is still a CAD drawing on an engineers computer. Hopefully it will be world class, but it’s a long way from entering service. A demonstrator hasn’t flown yet, let alone a prototype.

Tempest appears to be moving along quite nicely at present.

ROYAL AIR FORCE NEWS

18 Jul 2022

“UK builds momentum on combat air programme with demonstrator set to fly within five years”

https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/team-tempest/news/uk-builds-momentum-on-combat-air-programme-with-demonstrator-set-to-fly-within-five-years/

It’s not us that’s the problem but Lockheed Martin and the USA DOD trying to get priority on block IV role outs.

Japan and the UK are already developing next generation air to air weapons so no doubt Meteor and ASRAAM will be day one fits.

Wallace announced that the target integration date for Meteor has been moved forward to 2025 again, after it had slipped to 2027. (I hope that includes JNAAM and we don’t have to go through it all again.)

Yawn…..

Is there not some MAGA rally somewhere that you should be at, shrieking and beating your chest ?

when…..

Indeed, but because it cannot out turn an F16s it’s a dead duck according to many…the fact you would need a couple of squadrons of f16s to even get to Snowballs chance to engage an F35 in a turning engagement floats right past…..

a change in the generational tech means you cannot measure the last generation in the way you measure new generation….the first iron frigates with exploding shells had less guns that a wooden 3rd to 1st rate wooden vessel, were smaller and yet the moment those frigates became operational every wooden sail of the line simply became unable to complete….they were untouchable and in the same way the f35 clocks up 20 to 1 kills in practice, the armoured frigates would have simpler destroyed the RN ( they were french and for a couple of years the RN and U.K. lived in terror until HMS warrior regained RN preeminent ( it could have probably taken the 3 french armoured frigates).

I think there is little appreciation of what a squadron of F35s have the potential to do to a fourth generation only airforce.

Getting in to a turning fight against an F35 with a helmet mounted site and the ability to fire weapons like ASRAAM off bore would be a very bad idea.

This is how F22 were loosing to Eurofighters.

Much the same argument was made about biplanes and mono planes in the 1930’s and those bi plane pilots soon found out that speed is life and manoeuvrability is a secondary concern.

🙂

Ukrainian builders are welcome to come and help deal with the uk housing shortage. There’s some empty land near where I stay. It would be perfect to make some towns for Ukrainians to stay in. When the conflict is over and some return home Then the houses can be given to people who need them in the uk. It’s a win win for everyone.

In addition I was thinking about these empty housing estates that are in European countries ( I’ve seen the ones in Spain) they would be great for getting housing online quickly for people in need.

I’m detecting Esteban is not a happy camper, personally I will take all the Ukrainians we can get. They are just what the UK needs.

I’m yet to see a post where they are happy.

They can some and work for me if they have any reconginsable building skills or can just do old fashioned hard work!

There is a massive shortage of hard working construction types.

No problems with us, what’s up, don’t you like Ukrainians either?

I don’t even think he likes himself!! He appears tp have a slightly large chip on his shoulder, thought at first maybe th size of Mt Everest, then dismissed that, its much bigger, like the Himalayas!!!

That chip involves coming home one morning from checking charity bins for clothes, to find a British Army squaddie sat at his breakfast table, with his dressing gown on, being served a cooked breakfast by his missus, who happened to be looking a little tired and worn out! That would affect most people mate, but most certainly a handbag like Esteban!

😂🤣😂😂

😂👍

Although to be fair its probably best to keep quiet about the war with our 2 partners too!! 😂😂

I was referring to the modellers jet engines that appear to ‘power’ these things.

Although these have disappeared off eBay recently……wonder why?

Other than that a V1 with a TomTom on the front would be infinitely more sophisticated: it is about 3x faster and the payload is about 10-20x as much. Although it would take real engineering skills to make those.

Mate in its day the Warsaw Pact were deemed quite potent! Putin has shown how wrong we all were for a very long time!!!!!! 😂👍

Yep they were a bad ass weapon in the Yom Kippur war…. 50 years ago.

Who are the UK going to fight who can compete with 8 Gen5 aircraft?

As @Airbourne says below more could fly out if needed as we have the planes at Mareham.

I can’t think if anyone. Can you?

We are not going to go to war with Russia or China by ourselves and everyone else with a decent airforce is in NATO.

I will keep taking about the USMC thing on here to remind people that is the agreed RN/USN/USMC plan. If there was a big NATO deployment the QEC’s would be used by combined alliance forces as would a large number of platforms like LPD or LPH.

How goes the MAGA movement?

Given any advance notice of hostilities commencing, USMC will provide aircraft to complete quorum of F-35Bs for QE class. Perhaps of some concern, who and what supplies robust AEW coverage? Crowsnest will be functional, but will remain a nagging concern for senior leadership in both navies. QE class may be paired w/ an LPD for troopship/supply convoy duty w/ E-7s and P-8s attempting to bridge coverage gaps from both sides of Pond. If CVNs available, there should be no problems; the boys will simply work a little harder for their pay.

LPD/LPH…E-3s/E-7s (covering all the bases)…

Sadly the RN/FAA has had to adopt USN/USMC procedures and terminology. E.g. the waving of the green launch flag by a flight deck officer has been replaced by the “shoot” hand gesture. It was an inevitable result of the long gap in RN/FAA fixed wing carrier ops, where core skills could only be maintained by seconding a few dozen personnel to the USA and France – the later being rarely recognised. The debate over whether the UK should have gone the CATOBAR or STOVL route for CVF, and purchased F/A-18E/F’s, F-35B’s or F-35C’s has been so intensively discussed over the last 20 years that I’m very reluctant to re-open it here.