Turkey now has a ‘carrier without jets’

Yeah same here Daniele more 31s, up arming Rb2s, an up armed and fully equipped RB2 would be fine for patrolling the straights and could even turn into a corvette, but it won’t happen unfortunately!!. The RN crewing issue can be sorted out if the money’s spent to do it though.

the batch 2 rivers should be fitted as the thais have done with their batch 2 (htms krabi) purchase, the fitting of a 76mm oto melara main gun has made it look a useful addition and is even listed in their full fleet inventory as a corvette, add a simple towed array and maybe a single torpedo, and a martlet. and you have a sizable ‘punchy’ ship.

If the money was available, spending the majority of it on people would be my take; bearing in mind we have two escorts tied up due to lack of crew, that’d give us an 18% uptick in T45 availability without having to cut any steel at all!
I agree with you though, would have been cool to add to an amphibious task force.

The RN has seen an increase in overall numbers of personnel by several hundred over the last two years and HMS Dauntless and HMS Lancaster which have been used as harbour training ships are nearing completion of their refits and will rejoin the front line fleet this year. To be followed by HMS Daring.
Let’s get the two carriers at sea and in service before anything else.

agreed, as long as ‘hank the yank’ pulls his finger out and gets on faster with our f 35’s.

i’ve said before the loss of ocean could have been achieved by the removal of a bay class superstructure, a fitting a full deck.if you look at pictures of a bay, its east picture it with a full deck(try it). far cheaper than a new build.and MAINLY ALREADY BUILT.

type 31’s are not going to happen, its a myth.

I would add to this, Turkey is a key NATO member and until very recently had increasingly close ties with the UK in helping to develop their next Combat Aircraft, among other high tech sensitive systems…

Turkish increasingly close ties with the Russian Federation (A country, let’s not forget, who carried out a chemical weapons attack on British soil) has placed all that cooperation in jeopardy.

I can’t think of a good reason for the Turkish direction of travel, it’s not good for Turkey, NATO or the West in general moving forward…

A sad state of affairs for all..

Well if the west didn’t look at Turkey with racist bias they would have (and don’t tell they aren’t,) right now would be shaking hands over the f35 deal. Turkey is fed up with the western games which has been going on since the 18th century WW1 . It was the English turning the Arabs in middle east against the Ottoman. We have not forgotten. U actually trust the mind of US president Trump?. He is the one screwing up everything around the world. He makes the deal and then turns around and screws the deal. The scum doesn’t even know what he is doin. The people all around the world are fed up with Trump. And u actually come here to defend the deal against Turkey.

You seem to have a very anti western bias Mustafa.

To say the US approach is racist is just plain wrong.

Turkey is buying high missile systems from Russia and restricted radar tracking information regarding the F35 getting into Russian hands was a real danger, Turkey made its choice and lost out on F35.

As for your wider rant about the Ottoman empire, you simply picked the loosing (wrong) side in WW1.

Turkey’s current pivot towards Russia won’t end well unfortunately, so good luck with that!

The F35 has been scanned by S-400 Radar from Syria. (US via Iraq and Uk via Cyprus) At the same time its good to know the search,scan and lock characteristics of the S-400. I doubt if turkey will be getting the full characteristics of the S-400 anyhow.

The difference is between scanning and picking stuff up and scanning knowing what to expect so the flightpath of the aircraft can be compared to the sensor response.

The aircraft that have been operating over/near Syria (Israeli, US and UK) are fitted with the Luneberg lens radar reflectors. These small devices negate the minimal radar RCS of the aircraft making them much easier to track. So the true “stealthiness” of the aircraft is yet to tested by the S400.

Well their carriers have basically UK inovations at their core so not sure that’s true.The Spanish ship was designed to be a replacement for their carrier as well as an Amphib,the U.S. ships are primarily amphibs and if you look how they pack aircraft on their decks you can see their logic.

The problem is the countries their are isolating are aligning around China. We are creating a second Warsaw pact. China still needs trade with the US but those days are ending and the more countries willing to ignore the US are just accelerating that.

Turkey is a big country, doing this over a decision to buy russian rather than US will make other countries question investments in US gear. Ok short term the US has the technical edge that makes people want to buy their gear but that is also ending as China etc catch up

Well, if the EU decides that the US is not worth the effort and starts mending bridges with China and Russia? Or decides the US sanctions against Iran are against the interests of Europe – Europe First? The US can hurt individual countries but it has alienated a lot of countries.

India buys and builds military equipment because it’s enemies are Pakistan and China. It does not buy military equipment for status. It might well buy equipment because of incompetence and corruption. But that is a different matter.

India doesn’t have a coherent strategy. It needs one.

Most of the Greek islands were part of the Ottoman Empire and so annexing them would surely be Historically acceptable? Crimea was also part of the Ottoman Empire… If we are going to look at previous territories and label them as Historically acceptable then Perhaps no one would mind If England took back the western half of France?

Yes Greece would not be happy with an incursion to its islands. However I am not sure what they would be able to do about it. Turkey have a much more powerful military and are now backed by Russia. The rest of the world would do barely anything as it would not be worth the loss of life or diplomatic mess…

No point talking about who controlled what territory because that much has changed and swapped hands over the centuries.

The biggest thing to look at is nationality and ethnicity, Crimea is 70% Russian, which gives them a say over what happens there, just like we have a say in the Falklands, Gibralter, NI etc.

So does that mean we can take back Australia Canada and USA?

No because the majority of people in those countries don’t call themselves British, they are Australian, Canadian and American, where as if you asked the majority of people in Crimea they would not say Crimean they would say Russian, they see themselves as Russian, because they are Russian, it’s a massive point that seems to be lost in our mainstream media.

If you want to use any example using ourselves the closest thing would be Northern Ireland, that whole island voted consistently for the Nationalist Irish party in multiple general elections and wanted their own country, the British nationals in the north wanted to remain part of Britain, so we partitioned it.

Crimea has a majority of Russian nationals, so Russian has taken it, without a shot being fired and welcomed with open arms by the majority.

Granted there is a century in-between but it’s very similar and perhaps the Russians have even more reason to do so now as they see NATO expansion as an existentialist threat.

I am not sure the Tatars were exactly welcoming and they are the real indigenous people…

Also the elections were pretty dubious.

Shots were not fired as Russia had also invaded western Ukraine so Ukraine were more worried about that than Crimea. They were also never going to be able to stop Russia without international help and that help was not going to arrive… No one was willing to go to war with Russia over the reasonably small and far away invasion just as no one is willing to do anything about their untoward behaviour in Georgia. Russia are being very clever about this. China are doing the same. India is not going to start a war over the incursions into India as they are so far not permanent. The world has also done nothing about the South China sea as again it is a few islands… The countries involved have no way to combat China and the international community is not going to start a massive war over some far away tiny islands.

Probably not but being indigenous gives you nothing unless you are the majority, just ask the Irish in NI and Scottish highlanders.

I don’t think the referendum was dubious at all, why should anyone be shocked that a result went the same way as polling in Crimea for years and years.

2008: polling by the Razumkov Centre (Ukraine) found that 63.8% of Crimeans would like Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join Russia and 53.8% would like to preserve its current status, but with expanded powers and rights.

The UN Development Programme conducted a series of polls in Crimea between 2009 and 2011 about the question of leaving Ukraine and joining Russia and every single poll was in favour over 60%.

In February 2015, a poll by German polling firm GfK revealed that attitudes have not changed. When asked “Do you endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea?”, a total of 82% of the respondents answered “yes, definitely,” and another 11% answered “yes, for the most part.” Only 2% said they didn’t know, and another 2% said no. Three percent did not specify their position.

We in the west are the only people who call it an invasion, they literally have street parties in Crimea on the anniversary of it.

China and India need to get around a negotiating table and agree on the disputed territory.

So 64% wanted to cede to Russia and 54% wanted to stay with Ukraine but with more autonomy… That is more the 100%

With the crimea anexation vote only 4 % did not want to cede to Russia… Despite 10% of the population being Tatars who have a deep hatred for Russia? That does not sound odd? 20% of the population are Ukrainian yet almost all of them voted to become Russian? Non of that sounds odd? Oh and the International observers were not allowed to assess the election… There was widespread accusations of voting irregularities…

You however think that was fine?

Hmmm

As for India the bases China built were not in the disputed territory… China are also not interested in negotiating they simply claim the territory. Did they negotiate over the South China sea?

Do you think people in Crimea would be allowed to protest against the invasion? Given that Russian law states that no one can protest in groups of more than 1 person and they need permission to do so?

What about Russia with Georgia? I bet you think that is totally fine too? I mean people waking up to find the border now encompasses their house is perfectly normal I assume?

It’s taken from Wikipedia on the polling section of the Crimean status referendum, it does not say one specific poll it just says “polling” therefore the results are most likely separate polls.

Why would they vote to stay part of near failed state that is bankrupt and in the middle of a violent civil war, it’s not odd in the slightest, Yuri Meshkov was a pro Russian separatist that was voted in with 75% to lead Crimea in the 90’s, they have always had a Russian majority, and nearly every single poll undertaken by an outside agency has found the people of Crimea have always wanted to join Russia, you cannot show me any evidence to the contrary.

Not only that but at the time a lot of people in Ukraine and Crimea were being told and believing that the maiden protests was a coup, they seen the violence, and they were proved to be right when Wikileaks showed the world evidence.

That’s not true because international observers were invited, they were invited very publicly, and the offer was refused very publicly because they deemed the referendum illegal, all of the Non-OSCE observers could not find any violations at all.

I said that about India and China because you talked about Chinese incursions? I don’t agree with what they are doing in the SCS, we missed the boat on that, the western world has been hung up on the Russian boogeyman for years now and before it was the war on terror, the chance to do anything about it militarily has gone, but if the world united and punished China economically something could be done if there was international will.

And no one would be out protesting in Crimea Lee, they have street parties to celebrate joining Russia and are massively, overwhelmingly pro Russian, i know it does not fit the western BBC narrative but that’s the truth.

Ahh Georgia, the classic morality tale of the plucky Georgians standing up to the big Russian bear aggressor.

“On BBC TV’s Newsnight of 28 October, Tim Whewell presented evidence which showed that, far from being a democracy on the defensive against Russia, it was actually Georgia that launched an aggressive and destructive assault on the capital of South Ossetia without any provocation from Russia or separatist South Ossetian forces.

Whewell argued that there is now substantial evidence to show that Georgian troops deliberately shelled civilians in South Ossetia. A recent article in the New York Times analysed reports from OSCE observers to the Georgian conflict, which confirm that Georgia was the aggressor and recklessly shelled both civilians and Russian ‘peacekeepers’ in the absence of any provocation from Russia or separatist forces in South Ossetia. As the NYT says, ‘The accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on 7 August with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.’

I do think if most people in this country realized that propaganda was not invented by Goebbels and not exclusively used by the “bad guys” then a lot of us would have a much better understanding of world affairs.

I tend to agree the Crimea was an incident waiting to happen. Should belong to Ukraine or Russia? wouldn’t want to give an answer on that… but equally taking it is wrong!