UK ‘reputation as world power’ diminished without Albions

Russian cyber and political manipulation is on-going – just read some of the views on here about Russia not being a threat.

Russian submarine forces are rated and again lurk around our shores.

You do seem very glib about Russian forces, Jim.

Meanwhile, you want eg Latvia, pop 1.4m spending 4% of GDP, pray dear, how would they afford that?

The Russian Army and Airforce was rated before 2022, I expect much the same from their submarine force if it ever went to combat. Their SSN’s were not that good in the 80’s and they have managed to build a handful of legacy boats since then. Their latest SSK has been in “development” for twenty years and still not at sea.

Our ASW capability in Astute, T23, Merlin and P8 is the best in the world and that’s without adding in the US Navy and the rest of NATO.

I’m not glib about the Russian’s just realistic, Russia is not and never will be the Soviet Union. It will never be capable of dominating Europe again. It’s too small and too backward. It’s nuclear forces are still massive but it won’t be able to sustain them indefinitely and no matter how much more we spend on defence we won’t be able to offer more of a deterrent to them than four SSBN’s do.

Tosh.

You seriously suggest that 5 Astutes tied up alongside, awaiting taskings, is the best defence in the world?

T23 rotting around their hulls

And Merlin referred to as hangar queen

While the P8 does not have loitering to the extent of the Japanese aircraft and platforms suffering from prohibitive US weapons integration costs

Are the best in the world?

Please tell me what platforms are better at ASW in the word then please?

All great platforms as far as we can tell. How many of them are there?

Exactly

As we know that it’s numbers that ultimately wins wars along with competent command, we no longer have heavy industries or steel manufacturing to support

And the logical extension of your argument is that there is no need for US forces in Europe since Washington is 7800 kms from Kyiv and the EU has a population of 450 million with a GDP of $19,5 trillion while the “dilapidated third world power” has a population of 145 million with a GDP of $1.80 trillion. You and Trump agree. The US should use those funds defending Europe on its own borders.

The US benefits from its NATO membership and “defending” Europe in other ways. It allows the US to maintain its sole super power status and prevent and equal sized rival in Europe emerging. But those US troops ain’t in Europe to defend America. America is so far away from everyone else and has such a vast military it faces zero conventional threat to its home soil.

Do not send that argument to Trump it is so much more compelling than anything that he actually says himself!!!

A war that’s devastating for a significant part of Europe will be devastating for us as well. Perhaps not in the way of seeing cities reduced to rubble, albeit Russian sub launched cruise missiles are a threat we are vulnerable to with no ground based air defence. Europe is our closest business and trading partner, we are intimately tied to them whether people like it or not, what impacts Europe impacts us. To dismiss a Russian threat to Europe as no threat to the UK is naive and people need to be made aware of why it is our problem.

Yes I agree, but Europe is massive and has a huge military of its own and a massive industrial base. It’s Republican propaganda that Europe needs America to defend it from Russia which has a fraction of Europes capability. European NATO has a bigger military force in terms of personnel than the USA and significantly more industrial capacity in many areas such as shell production.

Europe also send and sending significantly more aid to Ukraine than the USA.

Europe should not need the US in conventional terms. On that I agree with Trump when he called out freeloaders. Don’t agree with his latest inept way of making the point though which was irresponsible and dangerous.

My original point though was that like it or not, we are in Europe and a European threat is a threat to us, we need to step up and share the responsibility of defending Europe, right now we don’t have a great deal to offer.

We have a deployable armoured infantry division to offer as well as independent air assault and amphibious brigades. Is that not enough? How much more do you think we should offer? How much do you think we need to take on Russia? If everyone in NATO offered an equivalent to the UK deployable force that woukd be 20 Divisions. Do you think Russia has the capability to take on 20 Divisions?

Well listening to the Defence Select Cmtte, you’re the only one who thinks we have a credible UK Armoured Infantry Division.

And we no longer have an Amphibious Brigade and our Air Assualt Brigade is missing enablers.

Subtlety, you like to spread disinformation and discord between the US and European NATO allies.

Who did you serve with again?

Germany started WW2 with 100 infantry divisions and 6 tank divisions.
Am not convinced 1 is sufficient.

We have a deployable armoured infantry division to offer

Haha.

I think it’s more like one armoured Brigade could be deployed more easily or in separate armoured groups, as we see in Estonia for example. I guess now we have a smaller sized military concentrating on the high north – Scandinavia, Estonia, Should be the UK’s area of interest when it comes to our contribution to NATO, as we are seeing happening more now. I think it’s where the UK can have more of an effect I would of thought.

Russia at its closest point is just a fraction over 1000 miles . A fighter with drop tanks could hit London and return with ease..not a good target as you’d not hit anyone British. So they are not too far away . Black jack bombers can fly out into Atlantic and come in from the west and hit any target in western Europe with ease . As for Russia being rubbish I remember reading the Germans in 1941 said the same thing..

Targeting London isn’t such a bad Idea…. It’s a bit of a S&%T hole really.

In 1941 it was not Russia by the Soviet Union, the two are not the same and in the 1940’s the Soviets were a force on the rise. Russia is a rapidly declining low middle income country that lacks almost any manufacturing/ technology base and has significant demographic challenges especially amongst its fighting age population. It’s spent 10 years building a military force and it made it all of 40 miles into the poorest least well defended country in Europe before retreating. It’s activated much if it’s legacy Soviet stores just to hold on to the slither of land in captured and their not much left in the cupboard.

Russia aircraft can get to the UK for sure, that’s why we have one of the worlds leading air combat aircraft with the best air to air missile in the world and we will soon have the worlds best AWACS capability flying in our sky’s along with a very significant tanker fleet. Not to mention the ability to deploy 5th Gen aircraft from carriers well into the North Atlantic.

We also have nearly 1000 cruise missiles (TLAM and Storm shadow) in stock and the ability to fire them at Russia. Russia has no where near 1000 cruise missile left in its inventory.

And how effective have those bombers been over Ukraine?? They have been total rubbish. Not even close to achieving air superiority.

Check out again the direct distance from the Western border of Kaliningrad to the Norfolk coast. It’s no more than 750 miles, a little less than the distance from Saxa Vord in Shetland to the Lizard in Cornwall.

I’ve news for you Jim, Russia will rearm within six years according to the latest estimates and has just implemented a huge budget to rearm. If that isn’t enough to ruin your lunch, Putin is slowly making headway in Ukraine. Anyone who underestimates Russia goes on to regret that line of thinking. Every military vehicle, ship and aircraft in British service is quickly becoming a vital asset as the UK Government fails to grasp the importance of building powerful forces.

We need to get a move on. I wonder how long we (NATO) could sustain a conventional war with Russia?

Oct 2023
“Western military powers are running out of ammunition to give Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s full-scale invasion, the UK and Nato have warned.

Adm Rob Bauer, Nato’s most senior military official, told the Warsaw Security Forum that “the bottom of the barrel is now visible”.

Lawmakers paint a dire picture of Britain running out of weapons
https://

defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/03/07/lawmakers-paint-dire-picture-of-britain-running-out-of-weapons/

The current’ Wilderness Years’ cloud the UK finds itself in will not improve until we have a new government that can tackle our defences without political distraction. Even then, the Labour Party has never been impressive with defence spending. In short, without a committed US, Europe and the UK will need to face up to the threat. As I currently observe, Germany will need to fill the gap left by retreating US land forces if Trump follows up his threat to NATO to pay or else. Putin intends to build a huge tank fleet with technology developed from lessons learnt in Ukraine. In the meantime, the UK will bring into service 140 odd CH3s in 2027/30 timeframe. If that is a demonstration of UK intent we may need to reassess our heavy land force commitments. Equally, it hardly encourages our US allies that we will be capable of supporting them at the front.

👍

I agree it’s definitely better to have these assets than not have them, it’s been proven too many times in the past that we scrap planes , ships, vehicles only to then need them when they’re no longer available. Example is the Falklands war , we scraped our big carrier ( which would pretty much have brought Argentina to the table in short order without much other intervention! ) and almost sold off the very carriers we actually sent out there only to then desperately need them again. The uk government is far too short sighted and incompetent. We manage only on the pure skill of our services and they deserve the best we can provide them !

Rearm with what? They can’t even make engines for vehicles and ships which is the most basic fundamental for an industrial power and they are still looking for microprocessors in dishwashers.

How are they going to take on Poland with that much less all of Europe much less all of NATO.

A dangerous perspective Jim.

The Chinese are supplying all that, Russia is now a wartime economy and their industry reflects that

Absolutely.👍

Our NHS is a money pit that seriously needs sorting out . Welfare is £300 billion this year . This needs cutting drastically. If we took just 10% of just that ..no tax increase needed and a properly funded MOD ..just need to sort out the waste and corruption in that too. Anything government is inefficient, corrupt and self important. The NHS has 20 times the staff the. MOD has but it’s efficiency is disgraceful.

It is the welfare and social care budgets that are out of control.

The level of benefit tax credit fraud is unbelievable.

Social care is very expensive and doesn’t deliver very well as it is spread too thinly. Problem is too many people have been made eligible partly as a result of the breakdown of multigenerational care at home. Sons/daughters don’t tend to house parents (houses/flats with no capacity) – vicious circle.

The NHS budget is about right but it isn’t properly prioritised into reducing long term expensive needs. Some hard choices need to be made in mo bing spending to spend to save.

Maybe we should cut you John instead!(No, not really) Cutting the NHS & welfare budget will cost lives & cause extensive suffering. Both budgets have been cut brutally over the life of this sociopathic Tory government which rests upon corruption & enriching the few at everybody else’s expense.
What should be cut from the NHS is the highly paid desk jockey jobs for the boys that have proliferated at the cost of clinical staff & the maximal profiteering, minimal delivering private companies draining funds from front line care.

Our NHS is rated as the second most efficient health system in the world by the OECD. We spend about half what the US does as a percentage of GDP on health care, how are you going to cut that, I like my health care, I’ll not be voting for anyone looking to cut it to build and army to guard Germanys boarder.

That vast majority of the benefit bill is pensions and tax credits for families.

If you want to cut pensions I’m all in but somehow I doubt you will get elected.

Agree the NHS is efficient i.e. number and types of treatment per unit cost. Notwithstanding a concerted campaign by the likes of the Daily Telegraph to trash the NHS (so that we sell it off to their US mates), both the public and the NHS are disenchanted with our health service. How much of this disenchantment is justified is hard to say. People have different ideas about to do, but there is pretty wide agreement that the model needs to change. For what its worth my own view is that a couple of sacred cows need to go. One is that GPs are self employed small businesses. This is very inefficient. They should be salaried employees working in larger health centres alongside allied professions. A second major change is that not every treatment should be free. Italy has a NHS which operates with a red/ green list system. Treatments on the green list are free. Treatments on the red list are payable. Simple. They also have regional, democratic health authorities ( rather than a proliferation of trusts) which budget, plan and control health care provision for a period and allocate contracts to a mix of state, private and charity providers. The system is funded through taxation and everyone gets equal treatment. Its just better organised for being less centralised, more representative and more diverse. Just my view.

Jim, spending is not related to outcome.
The US has an insurance based system and recognised as being more expensive.

The UK spending is about in line with EU average. The issue is inefficiency. We need one centralised procurement, and set caps on locum – only this week locum doctors were complaining they could not get as many £850 a day shifts as they used to…..

The NHS does a good job overall but it’s far from perfect. More money is not the solution for a money pit. It needs a cross political consensus.

As a basic example, someone was seen by a doctor in one part of the hospital, then told had to go to another part to book their next appointment. This involved a porter to find a wheelchair, then take her, which took 15 minutes. He then had to go back. Why could the admin staff at the first not send a mail chat message to the 2nd and save that time and cost for someone to physically move someone twice? Multiply that £6 cost for half an hour by thousands a day, every day? This would never happen in a commercial organisation that managed costs.

and if you belive that you will believe anything

Are you sure it’s the general public or more you, Jim? It’s the general public who will be paying the true cost regardless, in blood. Something the electorate become pretty sensitive to pretty quickly i.e. where their progeny are concerned.

There’s no shortage of focus these days, even from our poitical representatives – look at the ‘transformation’ of Cameron. That’s the first sign of changing threat assessment, no matter how reluctant. The rhetoric then ramps up and the prediction timescales shorten from 10-15 to 5-10 & so on ’til 2-5 years, as like as not depending upon how effectively we grasp the ‘easy option’ – Ukraine in my opinion. Then, the aspiration to pay >2.5% gdp will become a committed decision, not much attributable to freedom of choice.

In the meantime, this country will need to increase resilience in defence manufacturing & concomitant efficiencies in production. Likely that before we say what Germany and others should be doing these days; since they either have such or are in the process of developing capacity
at a rate that seems significantly above our own at this time.

I trust that our Government (of whatever Party) & likewise Institutions are pretty well aware of future ramifications and are laying foundations accordingly.

Finally, remember when you talk of Russia, and what we in this country can ‘get by’ with, that it’s part of an axis of authoritarianism that has quietly, deliberately & in part-collaboration (not prior a strong point among dictators – likely not now) secured significant advanced technology, industrial base, access to resources & trade chokepoints that have the potential to give the definition of ‘existential’ a quantum leap in significance. Also, spare time to look at a the planet (it’s not flat) – perhaps to better understand how far away from our backyard these threats actually are, Jim.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 I would agree with you but not now. The UK won’t be paying any cost in a war unless it gets its nose stuck in over Taiwan. There just no major conventional threat any where near the UK. All our wars are discretionary designed to prop up Allie’s and unlike 1939 we are no longer the world’s hegemony with a responsibility to get involved. We can choose our involvement and if NATO is involved there is a massive conventional force able to take on any advasery. If NATO is not involved then why woukd we be involved. Our job is to make meaningful contributions to international coalitions which our forces can and often do do.

If Australia is threatened then we would also be involved There is little in the way of a conventional threat anywhere near Australia, one of the reason Australian defence spending is also pretty low as is Japan’s and Taiwans.

Ummm…er…believe this view re Indo-Pacific may be OBE. Japan is on a trajectory to double defense spending.by late 2020s. Taiwanese situation is patently obvious. SK quite concerned by actions of DPRK and PRC. Philippines recently signed an agreement w/ US to increase access to multiple Philippine bases. The genesis and foundation of AUKUS treaty is Australian concern/response to ChiCom expansionism in SCS. Hell, even pacifist Kiwis are interested in participating in Pillar 2 of AUKUS. 🤔

Hi, Jim. This memo no more than to confirm this was a string of communications that disappeared into the ether mid last month, as you’ll be aware, and evidently appeared again yesterday on my email notifications. Accordingly, I’ll treat as c/old news. Sure 2024 will give plenty of opportunity to revisit the subject… rgs

“Yes but Russia is along way a way from the UK”

But its missiles can be here PDQ, they have aircraft buzzing our airspace regularly, submarines skulking around our waters, could deploy mass drones up close & personell etc. Plus they attack us in cyberwarfare regularly.
Besides the defence of Europe, the ex-soviet nations at least, starts in eastern Europe hwere it’s best to deter & stop them. For all that we need stronger forces & to retain the essential means to support & intervene there, plus land troops to re-take territory.

Dec 29 2023
NATO intercepted Russian military aircraft over 300 times in 2023
“BRUSSELS, Belgium – In 2023, NATO air forces across Europe scrambled well over 300 times to intercept Russian military aircraft approaching Alliance airspace, with most intercepts occurring over the Baltic Sea.

NATO has standing air-policing missions that calls for Allied jets to scramble when there are signs of Russian military planes approaching Allied airspace in unpredictable ways.”

https://

ac.nato.int/archive/2023/NATO_AP_2023

The NATO concept ref mitary spending is that all members should share the costs equally. Thus all are expected to contribute a minimum of 2% of their GDP to defence.

That is fair and equitable. We and Trump grumble that only 11 members are meeting that baseline. But another dozen are spending upwards of 1.5% and increasing towards 2%.

Your idea that those closer to the likely action should pay more and those furthest from the action, like the UK, should pay less, is a complete non- starter in an alliance . The idea is that we are all in it together and must share the load equally.

Otherwise every other nation is going to come up with reasons economic and political why it should pay less than the norm.

So not a good plan.

NATO is an alliance not a government, every government needs to make the best provision it can based on its threat environment and not simply expect its Allie’s to come to the rescue. If I was directly bordering a country like Russia I would very much expect to spend more on defence than the bare NATO minimum of 2%. This is exactly what Poland is doing.

Agreed. Putin has frittered his way through what ramshackle forces has had to play with in 2021; his ‘victories’ in Ukraine remind me of Verdun or, further back, Malplaquet. The criminal wasting away of the U.K.’s defences has been reversed but the effects yet to find effect.

The classic mistake to make is to underestimate a potential threat; the other one is to underestimate one’s own country’s powers of response.

Dream on Russia will be in Paris for Christmas assuming it starts in August 20xx. Then they will dig in and start executing everyone they dont like. The only way to stop the Russians is to deal them while we have the chance. Patton was right.

The BBC would do us all a favour by showing again their documentary on the Katyn Massacre, till it sinks in, especially to the USA Congress and that ass hole woman. That’s the way the Russians behaved and tried to blame it on the Nazis.

Enough to keep Trump happy. Not sure what he would do if Putin takes him up on his offer and target Canada!
People are slowly starting to notice the smell of coffee.

To be fair though Maurice….. Since 1935/6, the UK did actually start a re-arming programme and that gave birth to some pretty important and effective Weapons…. Spitfire, Hurricane, KGV Battleships to name just a few….. These times, We are seeing new capabilities being built at a Glacial rate and just to catch up with decades of neglect…..

The civil service even in the 30s were acting against the UK, indeed most politicians were, only Churchill had read any history and had any clue. The spitfire and hurricane would have had fuel injection had it not been for the civil service and the chief scientific adviser who didn’t like it and stopped it’s development. Imagine a spitfire and hurricane not stymied by a carb that either flooded the engine or starved it during turns and had the extra range and performance provided by the better control

Keep positive G on and no problem Nothing to do with turns’, it was a negative G problem alleviated somewhat by Miss Shilling and her mod. to the Carbs.

Thanks, but had the civil service not blocked the fuel injection then that problem wouldn’t have happened, we all know injection is also good for more power amd economy, maybe being able to last another half an gour would havr helped the bomber boys

They had no problem with turns. It was negative g that caused fuel flow to stop, they could not push into a dive with German fighters, they had to roll inverted and pull positive g into a dive.

To be honest it doesn’t matter if it is turns or something else they had issues that would not have been there if a civil servant hadn’t stopped research we were doing. As i recollect there was also an issue with turns mentioned that was partially cured by some rubber a lady designed but would have to go back to the books to find it again

The civil service was only reason we were able to resist, factories were commissioned, aircraft, tanks put into production. Politicians were the issue, to short sited playing party politics not interested in the bigger picture. Not a lot has changed.

Simply by looking at the evidence.

That the UKs defence has been cut back and back and back on the advice of civil servants and against the advice of the military or even world events such as the current war.

That is absolutely true Frank, yet it was painfully late leading to the good old kitchen knife on a broomstick for the Home Guard as late as 1941 for some units! The current UK defence status is similar to a mill pond, which occasionally stirs but even then is a lethargic affair. In truth, those MPs eager to get UK defences up to par are unable to come up with tangible arguments, which would require changes to the plans as presented a few years ago. The grey suits in the Treasury deem the Ukraine war to be heavy on losses, especially Russian armour so why should the Army receive more MBTs than those allocated to the CH3 programme? The RN is to receive brand new frigates and the RAF more F35 and eventually Tempest. However, this fails to disclose the actual numbers and ISDs, which reflect a nation that is content with the status quo. Sadly, the parallels between the ‘Wilderness Years’ and Churchill’s exasperation with Whitehall are chilling.

Most politicians are too stupid to even think before opening their mouths. Scholz saying we had boots on the ground was obviously something that is helping the enemy and would have you shot in ww1 or ww2, yet it happened. And then all the American and European politicians lining up to refute any idea of supplying troops to Ukraine after Macrons (sensible) statement also allows putin to plan without fear of our acting. This is as dangerous to us as Trump, they are ALL traitors not just to Ukraine but their own countries as well. WHEN (not if given the current lack of actual supplies from the west getting to Ukraine despite all the promises) putin wins in Ukraine he WILL come fort the rest of us, china WILL go for the far east and now we have muslims electing the likes of Galloway (lets face it though even I wouldnt vote Labour or Conservative) we can be certain that Iran is going to take the middle east. Again it is the civil service that ‘advises’ government – in the way shown in Yes Minister which while funny was based heavily on leaked true stories. Frankly we are doomed to quote Frazer, but this time for real.

I think you may want to look again at the the history of the aircraft you mentioned. It was Hawker and Vickers that developed those sircraft in the most part without government funding. From memory I think Supermarine got 10k towards the spitfire. Indeed government thinking was very much welded to the Bi Plane. On the first of July 1935 they placed a contract for the Gloucester Gladiator. In 1937 8 Squadrons of Gladiators were declared operational as the air defence for London.
We had no effective armoured units and no effective anti tank gun. Our bomber force was woefully lacking. Two books worth reading and are as true today as they were of the Times they were written about.
Spy’s in the Sky. The history of Aerial Recce.
Most secret war. EW and Intel.

Thanks… I did look again… there were two different Specifications issued by the Air Ministry, the first led to the Gladiator even though a design that would lead to the Spitfire was submitted, it was not chosen…however, additional funding was given together with encouragement and the design was then reworked and the Prototype Spitfire was first flown in 1936 leading to firm orders shortly after…

The other was won by the Hurricane design…. which first flew in late 1935 and an order for 600 placed in 1936.

Yes, companies DID develop stuff without direct government orders, in fact often in defiance of government (although no one was able to continue development of fuel injection when the civil servant said no) in those days we had companies with leadership that had at least some nounce and ability to proceed without worrying more about this years bonus than the future of the company, further we didnt stop them exporting and selling products abroad so they could develop things without a government contract.

Frankly we dont have the armed forces to defend the Isle of White from serious attack any more (though this is not a swipe at the men and women who do their best to serve despite the politicians and civil servants)

We were rearming well before the outbreak of ww2. The appeasement talk is exaggerated, the country did not bury its head in the sand like so many claim. Armour, aircraft, ships were all being modernised as quickly as possible without the country being on a total war footing. If that hadn’t been done the battle of Britain would have been fought with biplanes not hurricanes and spitfires.

I agree that our defence industrial base is now slim…and that politicians still have not reacted when major war is likely – even when Grant Shapps says we are in a pre-war situation – and Gen Sanders has been saying similar for 2 years.

The government just seems pleased that it is now spending over £50bn per year on defence, but some is spent on veterans pensions – and there is much waste in procurement and support contracts.

Conscription only happens at the start of a world war, not before.

…or when Russia invades a Baltic state.

I agree with your assessment of time frames. I believe these are based on peace time calculations. The western industrial capacity has to be placed on a war footing. Not for Putin exactly, but Xi.

And the Democrats need to find a new Presidential candidate fast.

Yes, there is a Senator from the state of West Virginia, Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat, who seemed to be a rational potential candidate, but has since opted not to participate.

There is a schism developing w/in the Republican Party, which may not be amenable to compromise/resolution. Indeed, a viable third party may form by 2028.

Many thanks. Leadership is very deficient across the entire western world – maybe not Australia.

😀😀😀😀😂🤣

Have you seen the Australian government, they make our’s and the US look good.

Blimey!

There was a schism in the Republican Party. Trump has obliterated it. Mitch McConnell and the “country club” Republicans have lost. You can’t win a Republican Party Primary in 2024 if you oppose Trump. Why do you think Mitt Romney isn’t running for re-election? Trump takes over the Republican National Committee next month and the last barrier to his total control of the party has been eliminated. If any third party forms it will be a split from the Democrats, not the Republicans.
Joe Manchin had as much chance of winning the Presidency as Donald Duck and maybe Donald Duck had a better chance. Manchin was seen as a traitor to both the Republican and Democrat Party. He had no constituency.

The Republican Party may indeed become ideologically homogeneous during the next several election cycles. It will also undoubtedly have fewer members.

Moderate, centrist candidates have been disavowed by both major parties, to the detriment of the country.

Indeed I think the problem is the Joe Biden, trump mix is just toxic for the future of the U.S….although I’m not sure what I see happen in your county can be easily fixed…I was having a fascinating discussion with a US citizen a few weeks ago and they informed me that:

1) the US was not a democracy first it was a republic and he was there to defend the republic and not some democracy.

2) democracy was a construct of communism, to try and take over and destroy the republic.

no mater how much I pointed out that democratic process was now part of the U.S. constitution and that democracy was the antithesis of communism…he would not countenance it.

The U.S. seems to have a scary number of “enemies within” who have been convinced their own government and democracy is the enemy…not sure how you deal with that one.

I even tried to point out that the CCP were laughing at him and were supporting his views via political warfare to undermine US democracy …but he just kept repeating that democracy was communism…

Given a population of 330+/-M, a normal distribution would predict a certain number of +/- 3 sigma cases. 😁

Well they will both be dead/exit politics in the next decade. What will come after them is unknown.
A few interesting reforms of the US process that could make a difference would be funding limits, time limits on campaigning and where and how it can be done. Perhaps that could help create a more level playing field for other parties to come up.

One American I met last century thought a single Presidential term – say five years _ would be the best option. But the real problem all over the democratic western world is finding leaders of calibre.

“Si vis pacem, para bellum.” A truism throughout history since the Roman empire. 🤔😁

Speak softly and carry a really big stick….or the Roosevelt approach. FDR was probably one of the US greatest Presidents in regards to foreign policy…he may have been a bit more “personality cult” than you would expect in a U.S. president and the whole 3rd and 4th term thing was a bit iffy to be honest…But from an international statesman point of view he was without a peer amongst US presidents, who have on the whole…)apart from some exceptions like Reagan) been poor on foreign policy..

1) have a serious level of militaryforce that your enemy must take notice of.
2) act with respect and justly towards another nations
3) never bluff
4) only strike if you are willing to go all the way
5) allow enemies to save face if it means peace

it was very close to gunboat foreign policy in which the strength of military power was alway present in negotiations..what we have sort of forgotten in the west is that the first part of all good foreign policy is overwhelming military supremacy.

Theodore Roosevelt’s full quote: “I have always been fond of the West African proverb: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.'” 😁

My personal favorite of the post-war era presidents was Ronald Reagan. Not certain he ever encountered a weapon system that he did not deem to be invaluable, in ever greater quantities. USAF benefited significantly during his presidency. 😊

Absolutely agree. Significant deterioration in quality of political leadership w/in a single generation. Harbinger of future? 🙄

The UK ..is part…🙄

Not important clearing grammatical mistake in a previous post.

And I would bet everything I have that the timescale is sub 5 years, that the USA will NOT help the rest of us, or Taiwan etc. either. It will promise everything and let us down just as it did Iraq, Afghanistan and now Ukraine

Yes all completely true, the next war is not going to to be Russia vs NATO or US and pacific allies against the CCP it’s going to be a rolling conflagration that will involve every anti western power and every western power. We just have to see how WW2 evolved…in reality it was a set of world wide rolling conflicts that started well before 1939 and ended well after 1945….it’s likely that looking back if there is a world war it will be seen as having its genesis possibly around 2014 with Russian aggression in Ukraine or 2008/2010 which was when the CCP essentially claimed sovereignty using the nine dash line and told the world it would use force to enact this and when the Russian federation invaded its first sovereign nation state….any future war is likely to involve fighting in Europe, the Middle East, Korea and across the pacific..because of modern warfare and the scope of warfare it’s likely every nations homeland will be open to attack and harm…fighting will also probably occur in Africa and South America around key resources and it will be conducted across every ocean on the planet..once the conflagration starts it will last for years on years..unless it all ends suddenly with the destruction of humanity through MAD….all very depressing really.

Believe this will become the predominant, mainstream account of the path to WW III, whether or not a formal axis alliance is formally and publicly announced and recorded. 🤔

Our forecasts are quite similar, through the initial phases of the conflict. Differ in the hypothesis that it will, almost inevitably, evolve into an unlimited nuclear exchange, as one side gains a conventional warfare advantage and the other side refuses to accept defeat.

Apologies, one too many “formals” included in the post. 🙄

I just don’t see WWIII being on the cards now Russia has clearly lost in Ukraine it managed to get 40 miles into a country that barley had an enemy that it surrounded on all sides.

If China is stupid enough to go for Taiwan and lucky enough to get it even if The USA does not directly intervene the G7 is going to enact sanctions and probably and oil embargo which would devastate China and stop its ability to make war. They would be facing mass starvation with in a year. Even if the Russians came to their aid the Russians would take a massive price and offer limited help.

It’s no so much the Axis more the Soviet German pact on 1939.

Iran and North Korea would be largely irrelevant and they certainly not getting involved in a war of conquest, they don’t what to conquer anything anyway.

Please refer to post further down thread re possible outcomes of Orc campaign in UKR.

ChiComs could form a natural resources trading and manufacturing consortium w/ Orcs which requires little/no maritime access.

DPRK covets SK. Mullahs seek to establish hegemony in ME.

Suggest referring to J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, for a complete description/explanation of the term.

Agreed. The New Axis are not so well prepared nor are the Allies as badly prepared as in 1939.

That’s not really true Barry in reality Germany had a shite level of forces compared to the the allies…the French army alone should have been able to bury the German army…the RN vastly outweighed the tiny German navy….

the German army was mainly equipped with panzer 1 and 2s these were essentially awful armoured fighting vehicles…the French and British had very good armoured fighting vehicles ( with a few flaws) but the panzer 1 was incapable of engaging any other tank ( it was armed with a machine gun and its armour could just about withstand small arms fire)…what that Germans had was serious levels of commitment and belief as…the French third republic had the belief of a lettuce leaf.

The Baltics and Scandinavia are justly concerned that their borders along with Poland are at risk within five years. No matter how much the NATO states talk about increasing military spending, it’s bound to sound hollow in the face of Russian military plans in the same period.

It is truly unfortunate that the collective NATO response to an unprovoked Russian invasion of UKR has been so anemic.
If Mad Vlad, through collective Western malfeasance, is able to secure a partial or total victory in UKR, the public and the political class of each NATO member nation should seriously reevaluate both collective and country specific potential future risk This risk assessment would be especially applicable if the US adopts an isolationist foreign policy. Probable Russian campaigns of aggression against Georgia and Moldova would rapidly follow on from Orc success in UKR. The next dominoes to fall would probably include the intimidation/coercion of the Baltic states, and, to a lesser extent, the Nordic countries. The British and French might contemplate serious and credible rearmament programs at that point, though there could be no guarantee of success. The survival of the remnants of European NATO would depend upon a rapid, massive simultaneous increase in both conventional and nuclear arms. Welcome, all, to a potential dystopian future. 🤔😳

Is it just human nature not to look for a potential threat or is it a basic instinct, if so, we in the West are collectively not allowing our instincts to rule our hearts.

In not sure that’s such a good idea, they have nuclear weapons and are run by a nutter. It’s all a bit vexing really, but like to Cold War we have to win in other ways….

Yes..it’s all a bit of a worry really… Russian nutters to the left of me..American psycho to right….here we are stuck in the middle….🎼🎼

totally agree with all of that – except I dont think it is a case of IF with the russians and Ukraine as neither the europeans (including us) nor the USA have managed to supply more than 10% of our collective promises and a tiny fraction of the arms needed by Ukraine despite our boasts of how much bigger our economies are than russias. Worse both europe and the UK continue to cut back our armed forces and let in undocumented unknown males of fighting age from all over the world.

Very much the same statement as the Captain of the RMS Titanic…😉

It wasn’t Captain Smith, it was the builders.
I believe Smith was instructed to run Titanic at full speed through the night to arrive at destination earlier than planned.

Apologies to the good ship, crew and Captain. The villains in the saga were presumably as stated.

Indeed……….. “where’s all that bloody water coming from”

And the pilot of an F-35B 😂

He was so lucky not to have gone under….. saved by the Parachute snagging apparently….

🙏Does TR3/BLK4 include scuba tanks 😆

A common story. No disrespect to Sunak or Starmer but until this country acknowledges the faith that formed it, we will continue to struggle in the weeds. If you deny your parentage you deny your own identity.

Decent guy but more a manager rather than a leader.
For what it’s worth I think the armed forces are on a good trajectory. We are starting to hussle.
Read today that army recruitment is up; and they seem to finally be deciding on revised orbat and replacement vehicles and artillery. Recent trend for RN also encouraging; T45 missile and engine upgrades, NSM, solid support ships. Scrapping Montrose and Westminster was realistic- no point in flogging a lifex dead horse; just crack on with the new frigates – all will get significant number of Mk41 for FC/ASM, and make sure we get another 5. In an emergency I’d put money on being able to up-arm the River 2s significantly quite quickly. Retaining LPDs is smart while we work out with the Dutch what MRSS looks like. Typhoon is getting ESA radar. Commitment to 138 F-35B with Meteor and Spear 3.

Just a thought, perhaps there should be a campaign to add a ‘straight’ bar to the queer rainbow flag, that covers 80% of the flag, now that would be properly inclusive…..

Well If Jim is right about the UK having more people than Russia, I’m more worried that we might sink…. 😂

Both. Which is part of the problem as not enough integrate.
But, neither Tory or Labour care about that, nor how infrastructure for 50 million can handle 60,70,80 however millions.
Utterly unsustainable.
Look at a map at how small the UK is.
The environment and countryside will be trashed for starters.

Given your name, the irony of your comment is superb. Just saying.

😂

This country has a problem with mothers and babies. We don’t really want the hard work of raising and educating children. Much easier to send the women out to work and import ready made tax payers – brightest and best only required of course.

The Rivers are mostly sailing round the Caribbean, west Africa, the South Pacific and the south Atlantic, what’s outclassing them there? Why woukd we waste Billion pound frigates and destroyers in such postings?

The river B2 have been a great success allowing us to concentrate T23 and T45 close to home or with carrier groups instead of scattering primarily anti submarine frigates in far off locations with no submarines to worry about like we did in the 90’s.

Of the original 16 T23’s, just how many are available ? and how many T45’s ? and Astute’s ? …… Mate, On Paper stat’s are one thing but reality is something else…. Next time Specsavers have their sale of “Rose Tinted Spectacles” do us a favour and post it on here ….. 😶

That’s not the point Frank, the point is how many of Russia’s submarines, frigates and aircraft carriers are available. How many of those can it put in the North Atlantic.

That’s the only conceivable conventional threat to the UK and that’s the threat we are scaled to combat.

We can do that comfortably on our own today without NATO.

In 1989 when we were spending 4% of GDP we could not do that on our own. The Soviet Navy was massive. Russias not the Soviet Union no where near it and it never will be again.

Defence spending does not take place in a vaccum.

Ermm, well yes and no mate…… At this time, we have very few assets available at all….. It’s not a good place to inhabit despite the Russians own problems……

I’m David.

Please re-read your posts re. scrapping the Albions.

No one is pretending anything – please don’t try to escape your words.

Your words “40 years ago the UK was almost entirely focused on European defence and our power projection capability was seen as a colonial legacy”

The inaccurate posting you indulge in needs gripping.

Yes funnily enough the year we went into a world war that had been obvious for years defence spending was over 8% of GDP but in 1935 it was around 2%.

And we had to police and defend a global empire surrounded by hostile countries and most of our Dominions were spending less than 1% of GDP and our only significant Allie France was some what of a political and economic basket case while the USA barely even had a military and had zero intention of helping anyone much less the British empire.

Now we just have to defend a few islands in the North Atlantic and our friends and Allie’s account for 80% of world military spending.

Things are really not that bad.

OK…….. look mate….. See the thing is/was that back then and unlike now…. There were people who saw the impending and obvious threat and actually took notice…… the 9% of GDP was actually in place at the start of the War….. I do understand your comments mostly though and I do actually see what you try to say but mate…… You just have to be the single most optimistic bloke on this site ATM……. I just hope to God and any other fictitious entity, that you might just be 2% right in your thinking….

Correct.

PPE and Classics develop critical thinking…..oh, wait a minute…..

Ships don’t need to sail around pointlessly but they should be maintained in a condition where they can sail, at least one carrier should be available, why having just 2 is frankly wrong, given our wealth as a country there is no reason we shouldn’t have 5, maybe it was stupid, short sighted, irresponsible, crazy to get rid of lusty, the ark and invincible, if we had kept them and the harriers we would be able to field some defence. Russia, china, Iran are not playing games and we are sleep walking into being ruled by one of them

Ok,where is HMS POW now,still in harbour? Just because ships are not trolling about doesn’t exactly mean they can’t go to sea does it? I mean you don’t want them swanning about unnecessarily so what do you want? I would have thought by now the invincible ships would be that expensive to maintain now it would cost most of the navies budget.mind you they are giving Victory a make over perhaps we can bring her back.

As i recollect fro. The report still sitting in harbour. It’s amusing that the US navy was still operating ww2 ships in the gulf war, the Indians only recently decommissioned Hermes a ww2 aircraft carrier,either we can’t build ships any more or we could have repaired the invincible class, hell it may even have required welding some steel in here or there, just as keeping my classic cars requires steel welded in amd paint applied. Building new is expensive always has been but i guess you are right with the fifth largest economy in the world we can spare no more than a couple of quid for the royal navy while spending billions on laws and making sure those that identify as left handed martians are properly represented with appropriate toilets

criminal to get rid of any of them, or the harriers, or all the old ships we had laid up, even more stupid that we are still considering decommissioning the subs at devonport, I dont really give a shit if they are old we need them, we need them out at sea and I would volunteer happily even if some moron says the reactor might spring a leak in the next 250 years.

Only 10,000t! We should ask the Italians how much they cost, harriers on that displacement Is a bargain. All we need to do now is turn the MRSS requirement into an LHA, buy some Protector STOL and we have 6 new light carriers probably for £400m apiece with a couple of 40mm each.

We should get our barriers back from the yanks and build a load of illustrious class, they worked and worked well

“Barriers”…. 🙄

Spell corrector on the phone screwed up harrier as you are certainly well aware, if you want to not pick instead of going for a real argument then fine. But the reality is we have the fifth largest economy and a dismally half funded half baked military that is out gunned even by Greece. The russian economy is a fraction of ours and yet they can muster 500 tanks for a single assault in Ukraine, you can argue they aren’t good thanks and I would agree but good or not a shell from them bloody hurts

“Nit Pick” 🙄

She is more comparable to an Invincible CVS than a QE/POW. Invince had Dart and a hull mounted sonar 2016 (!)

Better still she could actually get to sea and deploy

Well I doubt they would work nowadays. Olympus TM 3 Marine Engines aren’t exactly common these days in fact the only one I know of in the UK is here in Derby in the RR Heritage Collection.
Other than the shaft issues (which will be fixed) the QE are a way more effective, efficient and cost effective design.
They just need MOD to properly fit them out with sufficient F35B, adequate AEW and self defence weaponry.

Yes, those engines will now be rare, same reason the Vulcan no longer flies but rolls Royce built them once and can do so again, they may even be able to build a better engine, or maybe we refit the hull with different propulsion but not now we towed them to Turkey to be destroyed, not even giving that work to the UK taxpayer who was funding it

Indeed they all came from the same aviation cruiser concept, which seemed to be all the rage in the 1970s.when these heavily armed small limited carriers were designed.

If the Italians have a brain they I’ll keep her and have both carriers, i don’t know why we seem unable to maintain more than 10 ships at a time, we have naval bases capable of more. Yes so old ships need one of the steel in their hull replaced, what the hell do people expect, some of my old cars need steel replaced and they don’t sit in the sea all day

Translation…. “If the Italians have a brain … THEY’LL…. keep her.

Correction…. “and have both carriers”…. They would then have Three not two.

Are you lost mate ?

To be honest 3 is clearly better than 2 so even better if they keep the old ones and have more, pity cam moron wasn’t that intelligent

Eh the QE’s were ordered by Blair !

Indeed they were but who scrapped the 3 we had? We could have had 5.

We could have kept the Harriers, theyare obviously not useless as the Yanks are STILL using them successfully today

ah, no reason why not, its quite strong.

We made it all of the way to Japan…

Once upon a time

I said my dingy can be as well armed as the royal navy, given that we don’t have that many f35s between air force and navy and nothing foe them to carry I can still outgun you as i can piss i to the wind

you actually said that your rubber boat with your bow and 8 arrows was…..”more heavily armed than our entire armed forces”…..

How would you like people to comment when presented with this sort of material…… 🤔

What I would like is for people to understand that its so damned close to true that it is not a joke, We have two MASSIVE military forces to face up to in the very near future and one we should be facing up to NOW before they actually win in Ukraine. Hot air from europe (including us) and unfulfilled promises have led DIRECTLY to russia winning yet more territory in this last month. The USA is NOT standing by europe, Ukraine or frankly anyone, its history is appalling from failing in Iran, Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam to running from Ukraine, stabbing us in the back over Suez and not getting involved in WW2 until the Germans and Japanese declared war on them! Hell they even left us to rot over the Falklands preferring to bleat that they were friends with Argentina. (yes there are claims they helped behind the scenes, but they didnt). To claim the USA will honour its commitments to NATO is to fly in the face of every single shred of evidence from well over 100 years. To believe that they will step in to help Taiwan is so fanciful that it wouldnt even make a pantomime plot, The russians have PROVED to their Iranian and Chinese friends that the USA is all mouth and no trousers, and is in the process of proving that it has so thoroughly infiltrated and cowed europe that we are unable to stand up on our own. We have practically no officers of any experience in the armed forces and it seems from the Telegraph the treasury mandarins are about to tax the bejesus out of the few remaining which will inevitably mean they leave. We cant recruit any more because we dont apparently have the prescribed mix of people identifying as martians and people with purple skin. We cant even expect to be able to start making the stuff we need any time soon, after all we have spent 30 or so years doing the russian bidding through our own civil service destroying our aircraft industry, our shipping industry, our steel industry, our automotive industry even our cloth industries, we cant make tanks, army lorries, ships, planes, guns, or even uniforms any more. We are already in ww3, we wont admit it, the russians are NOT stopping at Ukraine, the iranians are NOT going to stop at funding people to do their dirty work and will eventually decide to go all in on Israel, the chinese ARE going to decide that they have nothing to lose by taking Taiwan, then the Philippines and from there the rest of the far east. We are already in ww3 and we are STILL cutting back our military capability.

Harriers are profoundly limited aircraft, they cannot operate against integrated air defence systems, are very short legged, carry limited munitions, are very challenging to operate and fall out the sky more regularly than any other front line fighter…..they made sea vixens look safe.

finally they have no combat record against forth generation fighters…the Falklands was a great victory for the harriers and fleet air air….but that was against 3rd generation fighters at the maximum combat range…who could not really use afterburners and 3rd generation strike aircraft with little air to air combat capabilities…we don’t know how effective an AV-8b would be against a 4th generation or 4.5 generation fighter.

And how many did we lose during the Falklands? Oh yeah, none, do they hardly fall out of the sky, sounds like a top gear enthusiast.all fighters have limited range, and all have limited munitions. Yet if you don’t have a runway because some nice enemy has put craters all over yours then limited range and limited munitions taking off from anywhere that’s going is better than nothing. They were created because German bombing of airfields came close to them winning the battle of Britain. Ask the Ukrainians if they would like some harriers, i bet they would, as i said the US are using them today to shoot drones and we used them to shoot down supersonic french aircraft. As to air defence, well first is to be able to defend yourself before worrying if some bloke called Putin thinks you can’t evade his missiles when with a quick inflight vif you can

Well mate, 235 harries have been lost to accident or combat…that vast majorly to accident and I myself have seen one drop out the sky..

harriers have a profoundly limited range..it’s a major weakness. Combat range was only around 300nmi and only 200nmi for ground attack from a carrier, the combat radius of most modern strike aircraft is around 500-600nmi

total weapon load out is 8000lbs an f35B can cart around 18000Ibs of weapon load.

as for a Viff it’s not manoeuvre that has been used in actual air to air combat…shedding all your energy is a death sentence. It was infact tried once when a harrier tried to slow down to get position on a slow moving prop aircraft..it failed.

I know why harriers were created…but we are talking about navel aviation here..not land based close air support…which quite frankly can be delivered by rotors…who probably have a better chance of surviving against an integrated air defence system as they can hide behind a hill…harriers have by and large been a option of last resort for navel aviation…if we could have had a fixed wing option we would have…there is now a better option..it’s called an F35B.

No plane can operate against integrated air defences without anti radiation missiles and long range missiles.

Harriers have AIM-120 so they can fight.

Btw an USMC Harrier just downed 7 Houthi/Islamic Iran drones.

I mean they can fight air to air with AIM-120’s

I’d say the US operates a sound policy in thoroughly maintaining assets until a capacity is replaced 1/1 by the new iteration, e.g. AV8B for F35.
We’re now hearing that another issue affecting the endless delays in forwarding F16 to Ukraine is those otherwise excellent assets need for very well maintained runways.
This is why I pondered, some considerable time ago here, the efficacy of using prop-driven ground attack aircraft suitable to austere landing conditions, together with what I envisaged would be numerous pilots familiar with flying such driven craft.
This mindset:- a) from personal experience of adapting quickly to the basic principals of the weekend variety at least; b) again in my case, never getting used to helicopters; & c) extrapolating that, in any reasonable timeframe, jet fighters were beyond me as well!
Still we await the F16, of course, beyond even any period I contemplated for a country at war.
Separately, now the Saab Gripen rationale looks great, but that’s another subject.

I don’t buy the whole it’s big therefore more of a target argument. Carriers stay 100 miles off the coast, and at that distance, whether it’s 150m or 300m long barely makes a difference.

“The Illustrious class”…. actually they were called “Invincible class”……
“which carried supersonic issues and shit down supersonic keys”

Crying here, simply in pieces 😂😂

OK, on a proper keyboard so maybe we wont get the alterations to what I actually typed. You knew the class so that’s fine. The harriers carried supersonic missiles and shot down the supersonic planes the Argentinians used (I know they weren’t all supersonic). We have 48 F35s now we have ordered enough to take that to a total of 74. Each of our carriers can in theory carry 72 of these, so we have enough to equip a SINGLE carrier, we have nothing else that they can use. So when we have to fight russia, china and iran we dont have enough carriers anyway and we don’t have enough aircraft to do more than one at a time, leaving one as putin suggested to be used as target practice. As I understand the situation is similar for the tiny number of other surface ships – we are reported to not have enough ‘expensive’ (as the treasury thinks) missiles to fully equip the tiny number of ships the Royal Navy still possesses. The other forces are not in much better condition, 137 Typhoons and half of the planes we should have for the only carrier we can equip, and thats it, the russians are reported to have lost 130 aircraft fighting an enemy with a tiny airforce, how long would it take to lose our aircraft against russia – a week? You can scoff and laugh but the situation for our armed forces is dire, they are now so cutback and destroyed that we might as well scrap the little left. The russians have created this situation, we have let them. It is time to kick BOTH major political parties out and cull the civil service and instead arm ourselves as we need to.

Everything is a compromise in ship design especially carriers..the more space and time you put into non carrier ops the less navel aviation capability you have…

a prime example are the Russian carriers…they had huge numbers of ASuW missiles as well as anti air missiles, but from a carrier ops point of view they were some of the worst in the world.

the invincible class carried a full sea dart system and magazine..but this did compromise the flying ops..so it was removed to increase aircraft capacity and flying ops.

Another really good example were the British carriers vs US carriers in WW2..the British carrier paradigm was for armoured carriers, they effectively has the same level of protection armour wise as a cruiser..but this did eat into the numbers of aircraft they carried…the U.S. carriers were focused on maximising the number of aircraft and carrier ops…

Generally it’s agreed that if something interferes with or lessens air ops in a carrier it’s sub optimal and that all available weight availability should be for aircraft and aircraft weapon systems…remember every missile you carry for the carrier to use is one less missile you can carry in your magazines for your aircraft to carry.

but you do need a balance and have some self protection on the carrier but this should always be last ditch as all areas self protection and offence should be either it’s air wing or it’s escorts.why is this:

offence wise:
the air wing is far better at offence than any surface ship because:
1) using your air wing for ASuW or strike does not give away the position of your ships.
2) ships have a major sensor issue and that’s the radar horizon and detection of emissions..no ship can see beyond the 20mile or so radar horizon and if a ship tries to look with is search or fire control radar the enemy will find them first.
2) putting an aircraft in harms way and losing an aircraft is better than losing an escort and losing an escort is better than losing a carrier.

defence wise:
1) always better to have your sensors on a platform that can be down the threat axis.so it’s better to have the capability to put more air platforms down threat or send escorts down the threat axis
2) always better to have your defensive hard kill down the threat axis. So it’s better to have more aircraft down the threat axis or send escorts down the threat axis
3) firing a missile on a carrier will stop air ops for some time as your will scatter fod all over your deck and a carriers primary offence and defence is its air wing. So it’s far far better to have an escort fire that missile…

basically a rule of thumb should be if it interferes with or reduces your sortie rate or ability to sustain sortie rate ( by reducing your weapon or fuel stocks) don’t do it.

If your carrier needs more protection you should:
1) up the sortie rate of your air wing
2) increase the number or capability of your escorts.

for me the only change I would have on our carriers is: change out the 30mm for bofors 40mm mark 4 or 57mm with smart fused and guided ammunition.

I would also always ensure it had a type 31 glued to it as close escort. And ensure it had at least 2-3 gp/ASW frigates in the ASW screen and 1-2 AAW destroyers.

I would also improve its air wing by putting all the Merlin’s back to ASW and having the AEW on a platform with greater ceiling. As well as ensuring the F35b had some form of anti ship missile and stick storm shadow on its wing pilons.

Now that sounds an interesting idea ! Nah can’t be Cameron’s 🤣

I was down there 10 years ago on a battlefield tour. I was really surprised at the number of South Americans working there (Note I am not been xenophobic, rather just pointing out the large number of migrants on the Island) Loads of Saints but saints have been part of the furniture since after 1982 Finally I dont trust Cameron, this government or even a Labour Government one bit. They say one thing, whilst doing another, they have form of shafting the British public

I suspect Cameron is making the visit because its just part of the job. I doubt there is any agenda.

Up until i logged off at 3.30pm, all i saw was typical normal debate… must have missed something that happened later 🤔

Maybe. Jim was getting stuck in 😆

Agree. And look at some of the crap being posted.

Yep. Some of it is pretty unbelievable stuff from people who are supposed to be interested in defence matters.

Well. I’m seriously considering buying a rubber boat and a Bow and 8 arrows……… 😂

I’m reading it and came to a couple of conclusion’s. I’m off to the pub so I don’t get tempted to get involved & I’m beginning to think Defence of the U.K and its citizens should be selective.

😆

Morning DM….. just out of curiosity, i took a look at the very first articles and comments from @ ten years ago…. there were some rather silly comments way back then too….. I think I joined a year or so later…… Recently there has been rather noticeable increase in new “Members” who seem to already be getting stuck in……

The FB site, I sometimes view, is a rich source of comedy gold too but at least you get to view the commenter’s profile and get some sort of Idea about them…..

A lot of comments get deleted there too though.

Reckon we should all have to post here using our actual names with Photo’s…. That would be rather interesting…..🤔😄……

That would be an issue for the faceless Trolls who feed on the fact that many of us care and are concerned for the armed forces.
And they inflate the issue with posts out of all proportion to reality and ignore all other factors at what makes a military effective, to try to spread despair and despondency.
Or, they get off on having a good moan and dwelling in it rather than seeing both the positives and the negatives.
I lament cuts as much as anyone else, but you have to he realistic and see both sides, and also compare to others strategic position and responsibilities, in our case, the sheer cost of CASD.Z
The fact that successive governments have dismantled so much of the military post cold war BY DESIGN also gives them easy ammunition to fire.
But “drive by posts” such as “we’re shit Mongolia has 500 more tanks than us” are worthless unless those other factors are added.

I think “Dave”… just like “Rodney” (only Fools and horses)….. might just have a few different accounts… It’s a pattern that keeps appearing ….. the trouble is, we tend to get to know each poster by what they type and the style in which they type it….. not to mention the typo’s !!!! and I believe “Dave” is playing with us…..

Wyn Beynon disappeared shortly before Dave turned up… he liked to “Stir People Up” and actually went to school with Herodotus apparently where they both studied Geography …. Interesting to see that he was a retired Priest with a sense of humour and knew lot’s about Defence too…..😎