Lindermyer[QUOTE=Taygibay;1644971]Sorry to intrude on such a very national subject but…
I would like to remind Arrows of a missing option in his proposal,
namely cooperation/joint venture!
Bad examples of such collaborative efforts abound, agreed but…
one of your examples of success is Franco-British, the Lynx, that is!
The Lynx wasnt a Franco british effort nor was the Gazelle or the puma the first is british the others are French.
Rather than developing there own aircraft or issuing an open tender The British agreed to buy Gazzelle and Puma, and the French bought Lynx, both nations got much needed exports and a piece of kit they needed.
Aircraft development however was not a collaborative effort (thankfully)
edited to add – there were workshare/ manafacuturing deals.
However they are probably the best way to run collaborative ventures.
LindermyerDoes anyone know the ball park figure for a new double hulled tanker to military spec?
why mil spec?
For the general tanker role a couple of small comercial vessels (with the necassery replenishment at sea rework) would suffice
If required im sure a helipad and dry stores facilities could be grafted on.
Obviously this would not apply to the replacement for the forts
LindermyerBest westland dust off ZB500
LindermyerBattalions aren’t in Norway in a continuous fashion, and the battalions training in Norway are Royal Navy’s Marines, if we want to say it all. Yet the Commando Brigade manages to also supply battalions on a regular basis for Afghanistan. If the whole army was as efficient as the Commando Brigade, there would be a lot less problems in deploying larger forces abroad.
Similarly, i don’t know the schedule of the jungle training in Belize, but i don’t think it is done on a continuous base either.
I don’t think there are battalions stationed permanently in BATUS either. There’s a team as small as 8 men that rises to 50 in time of exercise and activity, and a normal exercise sees 30 days of operations for Two Tank Squadrons, two Infantry Battalions, an Armoured Engineer Squadron, and a Close Air Defence troop with supporting REME, artillery and services.
Also, BATUS is training and not operational deployment, so i think that overall these are hardly justifications for an availability rate that’s pretty damn low.
RAF Regiment, which saw a new deployable Squadron created recently, together with a new deplyable HQ created with base in Waddington.
Light Role infantry also rotate through Arctic training
The Cdos are also over deployed – hence adding a 4th (infantry at this time possibly a Cdo in the fullness of time) battalion to fulfil the line obligations
Belize et al are probably only 1 battalion each a year (4-6 months tours), howerver that is a battalion that has deployed away and should then not be sent away for another 2yrs.
If you factor those in + any other duties you can see a how the army is overstretched- incedently this includes 3 Cdo who operationaly are another army brigade at this time.
regards
LindermyerBritish army at the moment should cout:
16 Airborne, 3 Commando (Navy, but it is a brigade), 19° Light Brigade, 52° Infantry Brigade, 11° Light Brigade HQ (created for Afghanistan, it is not a real brigade with its own equipment), 1° Mechanized Brigade, 4° Mechanized, 12° Mechanized, 7° Armoured and 20° Armoured.
9 Effective Brigades plus the skeleton of a tenth.
In total the British Army has 36 Regular Battalions available for service and this total combined with the 14 TA battalions (excluding The Royal Gibraltar Regiment) could give a mobilisation strength of 50 infantry battalions.
One Gurkha battalion is in Brunei on a regular base, a couple are stationed in Cyprus as a reserve, one is in the Falklands and 3/4 are in Afghanistan on detachment.
This should be the situation overall.
Couple of things youve missed
Battalion on jungle warfare training
Battalion(s) doing arctic warfare training in Norway
Battalion doing desert training thats not including any in Canada
This all counts as tours.
In case you werent aware that 36 battalions includes the regiment & SFSG
and both Ghurka battalions,
TA battalions are not generally deployed (or deployable) in there own right they are used to reinforce/ flesh out a regular formation (Teeth arms – logs and medical formations do exist in some cases as TA only formations)
Regards
obviously there is some fat there but not as much as some people believe
LindermyerOh indeed, but I would not expect the Germans to be in a position to deploy great numbers for a whole raft of reasons, including lack of experience as a major one. As for the UK that doesn’t wash and something has cerainly gone wrong in the last couple of decades in organisation, logistics and leadership. The UK used to have units all over the globe and a myriad of long term counter insurgency ops on the boil.
Today the UK can’t send more than a reinforced brigade without whining it hasn’t got enough resources – yet the UK posesses 8 brigades within the structure of two “active divisions”, 2 “contingecy” brigades (3RMC and 16AA) and on top of that a third divisonal HQ that is active and then three reserve divisions posessing TEN brigades (some of which contain regular units.
SO an “Army” that has 10 regular active brigades and 10 reserve brigades can only muster one reinforced brigade for a long term op? I’m afraid a big cull of numbers has been on the cards for a while, its a very inefficent organisation frankly. yes the politicos have a share of the blame, but much of this is down to Colonel Blimp and chums.
Re manning
While there does appear to be a lot of tail other factors have to be taken into consideration.
There is a 5-1 ratio to rotate the units through Tours and training (given the 6 months on 2 yr at home ) so for 30-40 ballalions 6-8 can be deployed at any one time without to much pain .
However this also a requirement for training deployments (4-6) months in norway, belize, falklands + QRF battalion + NI deployments if required
so over the course of the year on average 4 battalions are deployed for peace time roles.
even if afghanistan is only 3 or 4 battalions on tour this amounts to another 6- 8 battalions worth a year
so of the 36 battalions 12 could be away for a period of the year at this point you are rapidly approaching the point where people are away a 3rd of the time,
This is not good for marriages and domestic tranquillity so retention suffers
short term isnt an issue but long term, the army isnt big enough to constantly rotate that much of its manpower for 10 years, thats why the over stretch.
The A.H. assets are probably at full stretch with afghanistan alone.
In gneral insert service, unit , asset of choice into the above.
Im sure there are only 7 or 8 (inc RM) active brigades at this time an infantry brigade has been created for Afghanistan (ie assets are from other Brigades)
LindermyerRather than spending massive amounts defending the Falklands, and distorting British naval strategy in the process, surely it would make more sense to negotiate a solution with Argentina, including a deal to share oil revenue, and if necessary, attractive lump sum offers for the 3,000 or so inhabitants to re-locate to Britain.
There was a revenue sharing deal unfortunatly it was torn up by the argentine government) last year
As to the suggestion the islanders are relocated that is actually offensive, the UN grants all the right to determination, the Falkland Islands have voted to remain independent of Argentina.
regardless of the some what murky history the current inhabitants have been there for the best part of 200 years. they and they alone should decide the fate of the Islands.
LindermyerWhat a disappointment. 🙁
Next, you’ll probably tell me they also did away with sodomy and the lash. 😮j/k 😀
well the lash has gone …..
LindermyerIt is reported to have 9 seats for passengers. The Lynx was always joked about because having the gunner meant carrying a passenger less, and it carried 8! Where is it the loss in passenger capability…?
Not having seen the wildcat myself, I can only speculate. Its possible that a workstation / avionics rack of some description is mounted in the cab – you would easily use a couple of pax like that.
Or it could even be the new seats take up more room
LindermyerI’d like to see a proper figure. I don’t think the Wildcat carries any less than Lynx MK9A. Less what? Less soldiers? No.
Less cargo? Possibly, i won’t say no, but i’d like to see proper evidence of this assumption, because it soulds very weird.Anyway, the armoured floor and the crashworthy seats ARE an improvement. I’m sure the soldiers flying into the choppers would agree with me on this point.
Whilst offering a fantastic sensor suite, and having many other attributes, this kit has led to the displacement of a few Pax.
I have been told that this is more of a physical space issue than weights.
The concerns for the army are that the wildcat is the helicopter the navy wanted and needed, for the army its to big for scouting and insufficiant space for a utility
LindermyerAny news regarding potential UAE sales
LindermyerI take it you don’t remember just how much havoc the PT boats caused during WWII then.
And anyway, this is not a copy of the Bladerunner 51, that’s just hype
I take it you dont recall the havoc wreaked on Iraqi fast attack craft by sea Skua.
Edit – someone beat me to the punch
re post above
Most warships are limited to around 30 knots simply as afunction of hullform, drag and engine power ie its damn hard to get a 6000 t monohull frigate to 50Kts without a ridiculously high fuel consumption and probably an additional engine or 4
LindermyerSlight confusion re ardent i was pointing out that other ships were hit and sunk without claims of luck, I wasnt referencing any wepon system.
back to invincible she stayed in the area for a while just in case argentina felt like a 2nd crack.
sorry if i seemed a bit tetchy but there is a group of posters that periodically pollute a thread with garbage, along the lines of Invincible being sunk and a replacement being built in secret and this all being a huge cover up (that would have to involve 15-20 thousand people). Thus the RN lied and besmerched the reputation of 2 brave airmen, i perhaps did you an injustice of jumping in with both feet to stop that line dead, in which case i of course unreservedly apologise.
As for the lack of air movements on radar – even if vince was down Hermes would have aircraft up. Uk records suggest aircraft were operating, that doesnt say that argentine records are false either it means exactly what was said nothing on radar.
back to Glamorgan Im pretty sure the Exocet failed to explode (the helicopter did however), a ton of missile at mach 1 will make a mess anyway.
The less than stellar performance of the exocet, should not be taken as a slight to the argentinian forces.
As a point of note post falklands the RN switched to Harpoon- as the nation on the wrong end of the vaunted exocet, that suggests to me they were less than impressed with its performance.
LindermyerThe Falklands are British sovereign territory, & were in 1982. They have a considerable degree of internal self-government now, but the Falklanders have full British citizenship (the 1981 revocation of it by the British government was cancelled after the war), & thereby are EU citizens.
Perhaps ive got confused
I thought that the whole issue of Britain giving them to Argentina was a non starter as Britain does not own them (any more) and that the Islanders are British Citizens because they choose to be.
Not that it really matters either way, the fact is they are not covered by NATO
LindermyerHy Jonesy, how is “Ripley” doing ?:)
Yes, I do enjoy talking about this subjects, especially amicably and open minded.
As Marcelo said before, the MOD Board produced a document with a few details that “do not match”, Marcelo is the specialist on this matter so I will await for him to go further.
What we somewhat “mildly” resent, is the fact that almost always, the biggest exploits of the Argentine pilots are presented as sort of “chances”…, The Coventry just crossed paths with the Broadsword and thus got sunk and the latter saved by the bell ( There is a beautiful pic of Cap Carballo and Lt. Rinke in the last attack run on the Broadsword by Lt Bell RN (Lucky ship!)
The Atlantic Conveyor……. well………. none of the missiles exploded…… the Sheffield was “dormant”…….. on the 30th of May, two of the bravest Argentines alive even “lied” or mistook a Class 21 with a CVN…..
That´s why we value so much this space or room, we can analyse, ponder things again, and perhaps find out some things that we never noticed before.
I do not trusts “official stories” so much….
Cheers,
Re Sheffield – she had unfortunatly blinded her own radar – and it appears the exocet failed to explode.
I would say given the procedural confusion between vince/ hermes and the CAP (read Sharkey Wards book) and given that our picket had blinded her own RADAR. It was probably fortunate that Sheffield was hit and not something more important.
The Exocet not exploding is irrelevant as Sheffield was a loss anyway, the only difference that made was to the casualty count.
Coventry I think you miss the point – By turning she stopped broadsword firing, that almost certainly saved 1 argentine pilot. Coventry would however
probably would have been hit regardless. Argentina knew exactly how to defeat Sea Dart (Hence flying so low)
Conveyer again Exocet failed to explode – The ship was lost anyway – im not sure why you feel this was regarded as Chancy. The exocets failure to operate as advertised in no way detracts from the skill or bravery of the Argentine pilots, The luck is that by not exploding most of the crew got off.
The Final point is slightly offensive in that you effectivly claim the RN are lying
Youre implication is that it is not possible for the pilots to be mistaken and so we say they are lying, by default you are calling several thousand members of the RN liars, because they strongly deny Invincible was hit (or as some would have it sunk)
On this one I suspect that in the confusion the pilots were mistaken, It wouldnt be the first time and certainly wont be the last.
Incedently you didnt cite Amazon, Ardent, Glamorgon (saved because the exocet failed to explode).
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