Turbina: Mate it might interest you to know that the IDF has an Island base just off the coast of Somalia, it’s a former Soviet base that is now run but the Israeli’s though the land is still owned by Somalia and they pay for it each year.

To say that they lack expiditionary warfare experience is not entirely accurate. Each year they hold excercises in which they practice sailing down to this island and raiding it, the people on the island practice defending it so there is a huge precedence here for such a role. A small Carrier in the class of Chakri Narubet does tend to make sence now as does F-35B’s in IDF/AF service, still since they receive their anual defence budget from the US as an aid package, I think it would be more up to America to allow the IDF/N to have such a vessel in service.

I was just talking with a friend of mine in Israel and she has just lost a friend in the recent actions.

It is clear that someone is supplying very very sophisticated arms to the Hezbollah and also training them in counter insurgency warfare, the use of IED’s will come into play soon as the Army move north to secure Lebanon.

I agree with the Arab council that Peace has failed in the Middle East, someone over there wants the whole region to destablise into chaos. Afghanistan has renewed violence, Iraq is a mess and now Israel just as a Palistinian state was about to be set up. Ten years ago under the leadership of Bill Clinton, the US set up peace deals with all Arab members then fighting, to lay down their arms, today George Bush said that he is not going to tell Israel how to defend itself, how ironic, you’ll do it for other countries George but not Israel. I loved Putin’s little snide comment about democracy in Iraq, it was well put and shows how educated he really is. TBH, the biggest problem in the middle east has been other countries interfering with local politics- France, the US, the UK even Russia. Perhaps what we all should do is let them be, let them sort it out and if they want something, then we can provide, not force our way in.

Tiddles: Mate the hanger deck is part of the transport deck and occupies the forward section of it, HH-3H’s are easily accomidated in there and are capable of fitting on the lift- though for more troop movement you would have either three AB-139’s or five AB-212’s instead of the two HH-3H’s. Interestingly enough, on the San Marco, the forward and aft deck spots are for EH-101’s but these machines are too big to fit on the lift or inside the ship, so I guess that in times of war, these ships would be in company with one of the two carriers.

I still think that Italy should finish the San Gustino in the same configuration as the other two san class vessels giving a fleet commonality, but I think the Oto gun on the forward deck is a clear statment that this vessel is a self contained unit capable of all methods of breaching beach heads in one hull rather than needing support of other units like the other two. I was sure that there were originally four San units but I can’t see any reference to the last one (San Gustino, San Gregorio and San Marco).

Turbina: Mate like a lot of the IDF/N’s plans, they have to be put on hold, Currently the IDF/N is buying two new Type 212/214’s to supplement it’s fleet of Three Dolphin class SSK’s. A replacement for the Sa’ar 4.5’s has just been released and rhoumor has it that they are looking at the Formidable class FFG’s that the RSN has just received. The Eliat class (Sa’ar 5’s) are also going to be replaces as the IDF/N has had so much trouble with this class particularly in seakeeping (very top heavy and roll too much).

Tiddles: mate we had that design on this forum before. The 963CV was to have operated VSTOL S-3 Viking sized aircraft that never materialised. Go back to page tow of that “Small Carriers” thread.

Here are the pics though:

Hey Wan, mate back in the 30’s this guy built a sub that could fly, it could only submerge to conning tower but could fly to 9000ft and had a top speed of 130mph.