pjhydroThere does seem to be a lot of producing/supporting theory x and ignoring events that did not support the idea. One such theory is that conventional conflicts between nations with air forces and navies will not happen. Another is the idea that assymetric opponents will not employ sophisticated weapons.
The nature of theories and the nature of human beings, religion has done the “convenient ignoring” trick since the dawn of time.
The assymetric/non sophistacted theory went by the way when Hezbollah used a C802 to attack INS Hanit.
pjhydroHmm. According to everything I’ve read, the Seven Years War was the one in which Great Britain (as it then was) established global naval dominance, ended French colonial ambitions in North America, defeated Spain in Portugal, the Mediterranean & Caribbean, & removed all effective European opposition to British hegemony in India (there was still local opposition), while helping Prussia withstand assaults from France, Russia, Austria, Saxony & Sweden. That sounds hegemony changing to me.
Sorry been stuck in a muddy field with a group of 15 year olds for a week. First of all I would say its not my theory, though I have a certain liking for it. The full theory suggests that there are generally two conflicts, one where the hegemony is challenged and usually weakened and a second where the deal is done. So 7 years war would be the first, Revo-Napoleonic the second. The 7 years war does much of the damage to the French hegemony but the death blow is Trafalgar on the sea and the grinding down of French land power post 1806. It would be difficult to argue that the 7 years war puts pay to French global power.
1914-18 is where the UK has its power challenged, wins, but the country is bankrupted in the process. 39-45 essentially sees the end of UK world dominance and the collpase of our hegemony and the dominance of USA. As America slowly loses its grip I would suggest we will see nations challenging its authority more directly and while the USA with its proponderance of weapons will win a initial big bout, it is whether it can survive the war after next…
pjhydroYou missed out the 7 Years War.
Missed out more than that! But the three examples I gave are usually cited as hegemony changing conflicts that Britain are involved in.
This 100 year cycle sounds like the sort of theory historians & economists regularly come up with, then torture data to fit, before eventually (except for a few eccentrics) giving up.
Its a theory that has very mainstream adherents and I was certainly taught it at uni buy some quite high fullutin’ chaps. It holds a certain amount of water, though is just an observational theory – the “100 year” time frame is a very loose term not to be treated accurately.
I would suggest that as the power of the US continues to decline and others rise conflict will inevitably follow.
pjhydroIf we are taking Peer opposition then yes it is a whole different ball game but who are we likely to fight in the next ten years that falls into that catagory and wouldn’t the US also be involved? If the world situaion dramatically changes over the next decade then obviously a rethink would be needed, but I am basing my assumptions on current events and possibilities with a health dose of risk assessment.
The only certainty is that we will be involved in a peer level conflict at some point, I would guess (huge speculation) within the first half of this century. One of the constants of history over the last few hundred years is that Britain is involved in a very large high intensity conflict about every hundred years (1701-1714, 1792-1815, 1914-45 for example), many historians theorise its to do with the rise and decline of the current hegemony vs a new one etc and this takes about 100 years.
You are correct though, “bRush fire” wars will dominate for the near term and thinking needs to manily follow that line (though not exclusively).
As for the US…usually reliable, but often slow off the mark :p I kid. But seriously we do need to consider the possiblity of no US involvement and that means falling back on the EU.
pjhydroHistorically they haven’t exactly been a great deal better.
Agreed! John Nott in 1981, Options for Change, Front line first, great track record.:D
pjhydroI do not trust the Tories and more than i would trust labour with the defence budget.
My hope is that the defence budget has been in the press a bit recently about the cuts and Gordon brown/labour lying about increasing the budget year on year etc. This seems to have caused a bit of anger among the public. I think alot of people didn’t know how much equipment has been cut and how bad things have really got. Now they are starting to realise what’s been going on.
If defence starts to become a vote winner watch the parties increase there attention to it. Most of the public do not want to here of budget cuts when we are at war and want to see the budget go up to keep what equipment we have and fund the war properly.
When looking at UK defence from Joe public’s eyes all you would know is defence spending going up all the time. Look at our new fancy destroyers and submarines. The biggest carriers ever built in the UK with stealth fighters on board. isn’t eurofighter fantastic it looks mean and goes like stink. Oh no they have billions to spend on trident replacement.
This is an example of what news/headlines the public see. We hardly ever see BBC news saying another 2 warships being decommissioned this month! This will leave the UK unable to do a mission. There wasn’t even a main news story about how the Navy didn’t have ships in the Caribbean to help Haiti because of the cuts.
Most public don’t know what the difference between a destroyer and a frigate is. The knowledge is they are both grey and have a big gun on the front.
This makes joe public think everything is rosy in the defence garden. If you have enough cash for trident, carriers, stealth planes and eurofighters then everything must be fine. The only negative news story to make big 6 o’clock news is the odd general moaning about equipment. The government counters this with a headline about new armored, bomb proof Mastiffs head to war zone. What isn’t mentioned is that the army needs 5,000 to replace other vehicles and the government has only orders 67.
I think you argued yourself into a circle there old boy, you hoped the public was getting more aware then pointed out there is no way they could be.
To be fair there is very little difference between a Destroyer and a frigate these days, especially when T22B3 and T45 are the size of great uncle alberts cruisers….
And should joe public be defence savy? We never expect the general populace to be savy in other field such as education, law, farming, science. A topic only becomes a vote winner when it really matters. Defence does not matter to most people in the UK and hasn’t done so since the end of National service (not that i’m advocating a return of that!)
pjhydroWell said!
Now anyway about those Hornets…
pjhydroSee im more of the stirring type. Install this and remind them they now have 0 chance. Oh the other thing would be to also install 8-10 Harpoon tubes with this radar base.
The Harpoons we “fitted for but not with” to the Darings….?
pjhydroI do want to agree with Swerve there, a point forgotten in US circles a lot.
BUT! as for A400 in US service? AHHAHAHAhahahahahaaaahahaahaaaaahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaa…choke…splutter…was airbus marketing having their annual Amsterdam Coffee house lunch that day? What vote-sucidal administration would order A400 over Hercules of C17? Look at the chaos over KC-X. Dead end there, selling a few CN235s to the Coastguard is one thing, a large order for A400s???? HAHAHAHHAHAAAaaaaaaaaaa…..etc
pjhydroThe production method may be an issue but can this really be responsible for a 100 million dollar difference with its competitors? That would be an awfull lot of working hours (1000 man/year a plane?)
Difference between a Rolls Royce and a Ford Mondeo. Hand building something makes it so much more expensive. Typhoon has been built to such a degree of mass production accuracy that parts can be transfered from one airframe to the next without adjustment, something that you can’t really do on previous generation aircraft. But it pays the penalty in other areas like RCS.
pjhydro…Or considering the Argentinian Air Force is a shadow of its former self and has no real capability to do much of anything, especially over “LasMalvifalklandas” we could save the money and stick with the four Typhoons and the in place search radars. Or is that too sensible?
The question of whether the UK needs a Medium range SAM is an interesting one though, so far the money saved since Plasmadog was retired without replcement has looked wise as there has been no requirement in two decades for the UK to use or deploy such a system, but whether that remains the case is a point to ponder….
pjhydroAnyway….back to Hornets…..
I assume RAAF and CAF Hornets will be ok since they had all that centre barrel and wing work done during upgrades :confused:
pjhydroPersonally, I think the morale effect of occasional shells or bombs, most of which actually hit something, is likely to be even worse than constant random bangs. If I was under that, I’d be constantly wondering if someone had located me, & the next one would land right on top of my position. That seems pretty morale-sapping from my point of view.
Sorry forgot this point. Actually suprisingly no, battlefields are places of random death and troops (especially well trained ones) expect the odd hit and are used to the constant background “crump”. Being under an overwhelming barrage of bangs, smoke, dust and shrapnel is disorientating and shreds the nerves. The point is to overwhem the senses before you assault, far too many enemy positions would be in good order if you relied on a few pgms.
Lordjim- still owe you book details! Not forgotten, was going to give you ISBN as well.
pjhydroSome thoughts….
People seem very sure that technical wizardry will win the day. Against untrained militia that is certainly true for the most part, much as the breech loading rifle and the machine gun allowed small european armies to overwhelm much of Africa. But when we meet a peer don’t you think technical advantages will cancel each other out as they did in 1914? if everyone has PGMs and ISTAR we will all dance a merry dance and eventually fall back on some universal constants of war.
As an additional to that how long will some Istar platforms last in a full on peer ding-dong and will aircraft like tornado be able to merrily pop brimstones from medium altitude against a well SAMed up army? Doubt it. Then your back to low-level, high speed with masses of iron bombs (hence why the RAF still practices this).
PGM artillery to take on dug in positions…hmmm All well and good if your opponent has a few dug in positions and undeniably useful if you have located cps and hqs, but a battalion of 600+ dug into 2 and 4 man trenches and sangers? You are going to be plotting that for quite a while me thinks and of course a peer opponent will have counter battery fire, perhaps even land-phalanx which will easily deal with the few shells being fired at a time, but would be overwhelmed by a rapidly firing regiment of artillery.
ROEs – well yes indeed at present it would be a big no no, but will it always be that in a conflict we can be so ‘nice’?
Aircraft Vs Artillery? When you can move an artillery gun at 500+ mph, when it can perform recce, when it can instantly switch from guns to pgms to rockets to bombs, when it can be called off seconds before impact when a child pops its head up. When after attack it can suddenly be diverted several hundred miles to another target, when it can be launched from a safe base hundreds of miles out to sea, etc etc etc… then artillery will replace aircraft. Why reinvent the wheel?
120mm mortars – brilliant! lots please! Most infantry in the UK has no supporting artillery, most infantry in the UK is light role or mech. The RA has become a “medium gun” (in old money) unit for the main part, mainly due to cost (if you are buying fewer guns better make them big!) and the seduction of destructive power, forgetting the importance of suppresive fire from “field artillery” (AS90 is not a field gun despite the regimental titles) as demonstrated in all the last peer level conflicts.
Afghanistan is in danger of sending us down a blind alley, seducing us with technical superiority, reduced costs in blood and treasure and inflating various peoples pet projects that appear to work….sounds awfully like pre1914 to me……
pjhydroI’m not sure we will need that again. We can now put air bursts above that dug in battalion, & one 155mm gun can put a few overhead simultaneously. We can put them precisely above it, not needing to saturate an area to get a few shots on target.
But this is forgetting the morale effect of suppresive artillery. Post-45 analysis of weapon effects is full of German prisoners recounting how miserable it was to be under British field artillery barrage, likewise in 1982. The mental effect of incessant small bangs going off all around you is deverstating.
BTW, we’ve been involved in two higher intensity ground wars than the Falklands since then, & I don’t recall suppressive barrages by 105mm light guns. That was a highly unusual war, not least in our forces having very few vehicles. It was a throwback to the past, in some ways. We have to be very cautious about drawing lessons from the Falklands ground fighting.
Two points-
1) was the ground war in 1991 more intensive for the UK than the ground campaign in 1982? 82 actually lasted longer, had more pitched battles with a more aggressive enemy that stood its ground. Even 2003 didn’t really have engagements with the same bayonet thrusting intensity of Goose Green or Mount Tumbledown.
2)The force sent to the Gulf in 1991 was fully armoured so 155mm was fine and could be used in the suppressive fire mode as warriors protected the infantry. The force sent in 2003 was mixed with the armoured supported by 155 and light forces supported by 105 which I understand put in some good old fashioned stonks in support of the paras and cdos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te32GxL0R8M&feature=PlayList&p=B7CB05EC13498BB7&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5
(Could have been shot in NAfrica 1942….the end of the clip especially)
I would argue the reverse, we should be cautious about learning lessons from 1991 and 2003, we cannot rely on the enemy being as ameniable as the Iraqi Army and we should be training and equipping for an enemy of the calibre of at least Argentina who put up a very respectable fight.
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