pjhydroIndia has strong growth and large reserves, although there is some concern about its Debt to GDP ratio.
How it spends its money is its affair and with the staggering debt level we have, which is growing month on month, year on year, it is irresponsible to make any area of expenditure sacrosanct, most of all expenditure on other nation’s problems.
Most wars are caused by territorial dispute and ambition and religious and racial antagonism.
The UK is placed about 20 by GDP per Capita, India about 140. GDP growth frankly means Bug all as its relative, Azerbaijan, Eq Guinea and Iraq are the best performers in GDP growth currently. If you increase GDP in India by say 50% the percapita GDP will have gone from 2,780 dolars to 4,170 dollars. That would be matched by Growth in the UK of between 3-4%. The two are incomparible, India is starting from such a low base that it will take decades to reach the levels of the UK and india has not got a growth rate of 50% or even 10 its more like 7% (matched by 0.07% growth in the UK). At that rate standard of living in India will match the UK in 2010 some time around the middle of the 22nd century….
Wars are fuelled by want, greed and negelct. people only listen when their leaders have something to offer, territorial disputes are the outpouring of doctrine and ego, the soldiers who fight those wars are usually driven by more desperate requirements.
pjhydroGot it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Asat_missile_20040710_150339_1.4.jpg
It’s an ASM-135 ASAT. The fins are the same as is everything else. Makes no sense, of course.
What about the ship though? It appears fake enough, I must say. Only appears for a second or two. I don’t get it. They could easily get for free a video from US Navy showing any Aegis vessel firing an SM-2 in a drill. Would appear far more realistic…
The point was it was supposed to be a British Ship….and maybe we have missiles the rest of the world doesn’t know about (rolls around on floor laughing like lunatic while looking at a picture of Type 45 with empty silos) I mean Bond is very realistic representation of the work of British Intelligence as it happens, as is the series spooks….:D
pjhydroI used to think that the Gov would sort out its defence funding once we were involved in a war where, regretably, large number of servicemen and women would come home in body bag as a result of lack oft resources and equipment. how niave was I, this Gov actually carried on cutting the budget when we are a war. If I could I would charge the Gov with negligence for endangering the lives of our armed forces above what can be expected due to their poor management and duty of care.
Potentially unpopular but I would point out (in a cold way) that there have not been many body bags. If I could be emmotionally neutral for a moment, we lost 255 personel in the Falklands in 74 days. Casulties in Afgahinstan stand at 247 in (190 “in combat”) in 8 1/2 years of operations, thats approx 29 a year. Compare that to Northern Irelands 29 years of troubles where the UK lost 714 personel which equates to 24 a year.
Cold statistics I know but aids perspective….
pjhydroAnd to add insult to injury an new Tory government would slash defence but ring fence overseas aid both to countries in need and those like India, which are better off than we are. Madness.:mad:
Have you ever been to India? In what sense or definition are they “better off than we are?” I’ve been looking but I’ve yet to find a slum in the UK, yet a lone a slum on the scale of Dharavi…but hey its along time since I’ve been up north. I can pass you some snaps from my time working in some of the poorest slums in India and East Africa if you want to do a comparison…..
Overseas aid is a useful preventative method, most wars are caused by disconent, negelect and want.
pjhydroI wondered what forumites make of this article in the current Spectator by Max Hastings – no stranger to defence matters.
He has a massive Army Bias, read his autobiography.
pjhydroThe Village Idi – all of that makes a lot of sense, except you final paragraph. I am not sure that that is true, to be honest. There is a media driven upwelling of sympathy for “our boys” when coffins return but then I think the military is forgotten much of the time.
This government has done nothing to promote the causes we are fighting for nor the servicemen who are doing the fighting. And because of the whole mismanagement of the Iraq affair from both political and military points of view the public’s view is prejudiced and jaundiced.
I think it goes further and there is a large amount of war fatigue and sympathy fatigue. People are starting to forget its even happening, much like Northern Ireland, another bomb another casulty, oh dear. People can feel sympathy with the bereaved early on but we have reached the stage where it all starts to feel hollow and meaningless, the circus of Wootton Basset certainly hasn’t helped, the constant bombardment of wrist bands, Album releases, charity walks etc, people get tired of it, the same way Haiti will be forgotten in a few months time. Few people understand what the war is about, politicians spout meaningless soundbites about security at home that never stand up to serious thought. “The war” has now been going on almost as long as both World Wars combined but to the publics untrained eye looks to have acheived little for much blood and treasure. To underscore it all, it has such little impact on the vast majority of people in the UK, the armed forces are very small, so few people actually know people serving let alone people who have been killed or injured that it could almost not be happening.
pjhydroPlus One
IMMOO each air arm should have or two helo types max
Likewise fastjets, one type per air arm (A10s for AAC then! Although that would be pushing the definition of the word fast admittedly)
Turboprops I’m prepared for the crabs to have two types until the hercs fall apart and then ACC should get Spartans whilst crabs get A400M
But Al you are marginalising the RAF you short-sighted evil-minded buffoon I hear you cry. Nope I want streamlined supply chains and training chains and for the RAF to do RAF things not duplicate at great cost FAA and AAC capabilities. So B1Rs and EW Tiffies in recompense.
Your are not far off sanity here, though I would say if its pressurised then its RAF fodder as pressurisation requires particular engineering skills etc. As for B1R you are spot on. The RAFs biggest problem is thats its real, unique original role (as defined by Lord melch…Trenchard himself) Strategic Bombing was taken away from it in the late 70s. That was the role an independent airforce was designed for. I remember a post Falklands article in Janes that looked at the possibilities of the RAF operating the B1, I seem to remember a force of 27 (3 sqns of 9) being proposed.
pjhydroThere is far too much sense being spoken here.
TY. It happens from time to time.
pjhydroIn some ways the new arangements do make sense. With the RN concentrating on Merlin and WildCat, the Army on Apache and Wildcat and the RAF on Chinook. It should stop all the arguements about who does what.
The RN quite clearly has the marinised stuff, Merlin always being foremost a craft designed for RN ships, the Army has the Tactical airframes and the RAF sticks to bulk transport. Many people forget that the Chinook in the RAF is actually the descendent of the Tactical Transports in the Dakota/Valetta/Argosy/Andover lineage and operates in much the same way, hence why they should be in the RAF.
It never made complete sense why the RAF operated smaller stuff like Puma. If the Army gets the promised extra Wildcats (some sources say 12-18) + the AH9As which are being kept then they have a nice Utility force they will do much of the Pumas small team work at a reduced cost.
pjhydroYes.
No.
Grim is right. New Chinooks that are flying now are actually chinooks purchased by the Major Government back when 911 was still just the US emergency number. THE new chinooks anounced with the base closure are 22 new beasts yet to be built, a glint in the eye of the defence minister one might say.
The closure of Cottesmore was actually announced a long timeago and would have occured with the intro of JSF but its been brought forward.
pjhydroRe the Guardian article –
There will not ‘certainly be a big reduction in Joint Strike Fighter numbers’.
Didn’t say there wouldn’t be a reduction though…depends what you mean by BIG minister? (a phrase said to many a Tory minister in the early 90s….:diablo:)
pjhydroYes but here’s the really important question: how many brigadier/general/admiral/air marshall posts are going to be axed?
Well indeed….part of the theory behind supersized units would be less middle-rank officers ie. one FJ sqn of 18-24 a/c commanded by one WgCdr rather than two 12 a/c sqns commanded by two WgCdr and proably with fewer sqn ldrs too. Whether this would then translate into fewer more senior scrambled egg I doubt very much.
As for the Barmy I imagine they will make the super-sized brigades a two or three star appointment to look after themselves..
pjhydroEnglish version? I thought the only difference was the name?
It is. No idea where 400kms came from? New EU Kms?
pjhydroAs far as I understand 250km is not far under the range for Stormshadow, I guess the extra weight is kit to make sure it actually hits the target and is reliable. JASSM might be lighter and go 100km further but it won’t if it don’t work…..
pjhydro“Today targets across Iran were overwhelmed by US acronyms. “we had no idea what we were dealing with” said one confused revolutionary guard “I was told to look out for a USAF JTAC guiding in CAS carrying JDAM, JSOW and JASSM and LGB using GPS and SALH so I decided to just FO.”
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