nocutstoRAFIt seems that the secanario was much more about politics than it was defence spending – however I found it interesting that we all pretty much looked at Gripen as the obvious choice of fighter for air defence.
nocutstoRAFSorry to post a second post on the thread before a reply. I just cannot stop thinking about this topic, I suspect it’s due to me having only a moderate feel for modern naval and air combat and little or no feel for ground combat, and by suggesting how Durango could protect themselves allows me to test my understanding and get a better idea of how it all works. So please be harsh (but fair and detailed in your response) in your criticism/feedback.
Kicking out the 2 billion limit and working on the principal that the main short term threat is PRB sizing the port and then staging their army through the port and that the Government is stable (hence the reason Jonesy did not list paramilitary forces under the Army) I would propose that to provide a deterrent force that makes it too costly to invade Durango in the next four years the armed forces need to:
a) Stand up at least one light infantry battalion, possibly a whole brigade, equipped and trained to deal with urban warfare, so heavily equipped with MANPADs, anti-tank weapons, claymores, and mines. Base them in the capital and use them to slow down and even stop PRB regular forces from seizing the capital.
b) Introduce a home guard/territorial army force, but with a Swiss twist, so that each recruit is provided with 2 sets of fatigues, 1 AK-47, a bayonet, suitable side arm and 2 clips for the AK-47 and the side arm to take home, so that they can mobilise. Offer special training course to all reliable and security checked NCO’s and above retiring from the army in guerrilla warfare and making IED’s so that in the event that PRB invades they can spearhead the “cells” of troops fighting the PRB’s forces
c) Buy modern Anti-shipping missiles and base them around the port, and have mobile batteries based in the North of the country.
d) Buy a mobile SHORAD system and make sure you have enough sets that you can protect both airfields, the port, key infrastructure, major army bases and the key buildings in the capital. Maybe supplement with as many Gepards and Stormer HVM’s you can buy – if you got them all that would be 94 Gepards from Germany and 151 Stormer HVM’s from the UK
e) Deploy two squadrons of shore based ASW helicopters, ideally they should have two squadrons of at least 8 helicopters, and 12 in each squadron would be better to allow for maintenance and training. They would then use the ASW helicopters to cover littorals to stop PRB’s submarines closing the sea lanes.
f) Maintain a QR force for both Southern and Northern airfields, if you can afford to bring up to speed a lot of new pilots I would deploy 1 squadron of 20 JAS39 in the Northern airfield, split as 12 C and 8 D, with the D’s acting as type trainers. I would apply the Mig-23-98 upgrade to the Mig-23BN’s and deploy them in the Southern airbase, and if funds permitted I would also add another 8 JAS39’s to the Southern airbase.
g) I would expand the training capabilities (I assume that the basic fixed wing and helo trainers are not listed as not currently armed) and buy at least another 5 L-39’s
h) As previously stated I would add a maritime patrol capability of 4 CASA C295 MPA’s based in the Southern airfield, covering the important shipping lanes, both for SAR, ISTAR and to help prosecute any of PRB’s SSK’s in war
i) I would also expand the CAS capabilities, and deploy 24 WZ-9 Harbin’s in 3 small squadrons, one in the north, one in the south and one near the capital. I would also deploy 1 large squadron in the Northern airfield of Fantan Q-5’s to provide CAS and naval strike. This should help slow a ground offence before PRB captured the airfields and achieved air superiority.
j) I would upgrade the Koni’s and try to expand to 5 Koni’s, I would also buy 3 – 4 patrol corvettes such as the Pohang or if funds allow Ulsan class Frigates, this provides a decent force for ASW and general patrol duties.
k) I would also buy a Wonsan minelayer and I would see if the Netherlands would sell 3 – 4 of their Alkmaar minesweepers, then I can if need be deny the PRB’s navy a safe harbour and try to stop them sowing mines of my coast.
l) I would try to stand up at least one more squadron of FAC, possibly second hand Osa-II, and ideally I would have at least of 8 FAC (M) in 2 squadrons of four, if I could not get Osa-II I would do what Turkey has done and go to a Germany dock yard for my FAC’s. This should give me enough fire power in the littorals to make it expensive to invade.
m) I would look at buying one or two SSK’s, possibly type 209 or type 214 class to patrol my littorals
nocutstoRAFGiven that PRB seems the main threat and the main risk appears to be an invasion from PRB who is on good terms with Russia this is the main threat to protect Durango from (invasion from PRB with sea denial by their submarines). It seems to me that the options for Durango are to primarily buy arms from either US, UK, Sweden, Spain, Italy, South Korea or China given that FDR has close ties with France. I suspect my plans would top $2 billion easily.
Army
Strengthen their coastal defences – I would buy several coastal batteries of RBS-15’s – as a first step I would find out what happened to the batteries of MK II operated previously by Sweden, and maybe do what Finland did and upgrade them to MK III. Not sure of the costs but I guessing Swedish or possibly Finnish second hand you could get several batteries for ~$100 million. I would also follow the Finnish plan and mount on trucks for mobile batteries.
I would also buy a good number of RBS-17 as this seems to me an ideal weapon to deal with landing craft or an amphibious assault.
I would also buy decent number of batteries of SHORAD and medium range SAM as it seems to me that it will be very hard for the Air Force to expand much without a lot of costs as they would need to expand their training capabilities before introducing more aircraft.
At the very least I would see if I can get hold of Rapier as it retired later this decade, and all the Stormer’s that have been retired, assuming the Starstreak turrets have not been removed.
Air Force
Obviously they should try to get more Mi-14’s for ASW, possible from a third party rather than Russia, but given the low numbers still in service that seems unlikely. The could complement by buying the NAS-332 version of the Super Puma from Indonesia in a ASW role presuming Indonesia Aerospace is allowed to sell that version. I would go for around 8 more ASW helicopters if possible.
I would also buy 4 CASA C295 MPA’s.
Finally I would replace the 12 MiG-23BN’s with new 12 JAS-39’s, though I expect with the weapons, simulators and spares that you would spend half your budget just on the JAS-39’s.
EDIT: Presuming that I have not spent $2 million I would buy 24 newly built WZ-9 Harbin attack helicopters and around 20 Q-5E/F’s with laser guided bombs. Will obviously need to expand the number of L-39 trainers and buy a suitable helicopter to train the new Harbin and Fantan pilots.
Navy
With what is left I would commission from South Korea as many Pohang-Class corvettes I could afford, equipped with RBS-15’s instead of Harpoon to try to avoid introducing yet another class of missile into the armed forces. Alternatively I would buy the one Egyptian example and the two Libyan examples of the Koni, upgrade them in South Korea, bring them into service, then upgrade the 2 Koni’s currently in service to be roughly in line with the Algerian Koni’s.
nocutstoRAFI think China will never do that even with the oil and basing (for what? why would they want to end up in that mess)….
Maybe, but China will increasingly need cheap oil to keep its economy growing, and China is showing every evidence of wanting to have influence outside its usual sphere of influence. I imagine that if China invested heavily in Iran that they would tie a lot of strings to Iran and Iran’s ability to act independently would be seriously eroded, and Iran would be turned into a 1970’s style client state.
nocutstoRAFApart from the sanctions preventing this currently – I doubt very much China or Russia find Iran a particularly comfortable client and Iran is in a very weak bargaining position IMO and needs to be as self-sufficient as possible otherwise the end up paying money for goods they will never receive.
Of course if they really want to annoy the US they could sign an agreement with China to sell their oil exclusively to China at below OPEC rates, and give China sea, air and land basing rights, in return for say 6 new Type 056 Corvettes, 3 – 4 squadrons of JF-17 and a couple of regiment’s worth of advanced SAM’s such as the HongQi 9 which was “inspired” by the Patriot missile.
nocutstoRAF“Altantiques for RAF” – presumable if France offered to transfer a short squadron of 4 -6 Altantiques Mk 2’s to the UK for joint SAR operations on the proviso that we carry out the same upgrades as they are planning we would not say no?
nocutstoRAFThe powers that be have certainly been vocal making it clear it was operational costs that lead to the Nimrod not being brought into service and assuming that the posters in the various threads on PPRUNE are correct this certainly appears to be backed up the “test pilots” posting on PPRUNE. However you cannot discount the fact that they grounded the Nimrod’s for safety reasons before the decision was made, it may have been politically convenient but there I cannot help but feel that there was more to it.
Still I imagine having half the proposed airframes to do the same job would impact significantly on the through life costs given that they would likely be clocking up many more flying hours per year than originally planned.
nocutstoRAFShrug – Depending on who you listen to, the MRA4 was either scrapped because it still needed a lot of work to bring it up to contracted standards, and lessons learnt in Afghanistan meant that it needed upgrading almost straight away; or it was scrapped because it was going to cost a small fortune to operate and we had too few airframes to do the job required.
Personally I do not know enough to comment if either of the interpretations of events I have seen unfolded on places like PPRUNE is correct. My personal interpretation is that Nimrod’s of all flavours have had too much bad press, they needed to be seen to cut a big ticket programme, and they need an exportable MPA so they cancelled MRA4 and in a year or so’s time we will join another programme with an aim of producing an exportable MPA.
nocutstoRAFI’m very worried about maritime patrol. Given that the problem for the UK is budgetary, I can’t see us buying any new type in the near future. In the short term it’d be cheaper to put some of the (paid for) Nimrod MRA4s into service. Longer term, maybe we could either tag onto someone else’s replacement programme if the MRA4s are scrapped, or revive them if they’re stored.
I agree, we have a gaping hole in capabilities due to not bringing into service the Nimrods. Setting aside the issue of overland ISTAR and ASW, we definitely need a long range maritime ISTAR platform with good comms for both SAR and for tracking shipping. I am hoping (despite there being mounting evidence that it was not the case) that the Nimrods were not brought into service solely due to being lemons, and that they will procure another platform to fill the capability gap.
nocutstoRAFNO.
If they were going to buy an MPA, they would buy the Nimrods.
But they aren’t!
Does not depend upon if they truly cancelled Nimrod due to operational cost, or they cancelled it as it was a lemon? If it is the latter then they may well buy new MPA in the future (we certainly need something better than a Hercules for long range SAR)
Are there even any spare Atlantiques lying about?
What happened to the ones Germany retired about five years ago?
nocutstoRAFI guess it would not make much sense from the point of view of managing the weight of the Son of Neuron or Taranis to install a pair of Adour’s? I just worry that if they can cut entire capabilities due to cost that the MoD is not going to be all that keen on paying development costs for a new engine for a UCAV.
Jumping topics but is there any glimmer of hope that the UK might get back into the maritime patrol and SAR business by joining the French programme for a small MP aircraft? I also read (I think on a comment on Think Defence) that the German’s are considering a programme to replace their P-3’s later this decade, is there any scope for Anglo-German cooperation in this area?
nocutstoRAFIs there a need in Argentina for that mix though? One multirole type would be fine, I don’t see any need for a hi/lo mix of fast jets. If the lo end were composed of Pucara style aircraft, then that could be an option.
As Buitreaux said Argentina wants 108 jets, has a preference for the Rafale but cannot afford to operate 108 Rafale, so I was picking up on this and suggesting a cheaper low end fighter to complement the Rafale.
Another suggestion could be for an advanced jet trainer such as M-346 which they could operate both for training and in armed capacity alongside the Rafale’s.
I’m not so sure about the EJ200 but perhaps a development of that would do as long as you want to stay subsonic and long ranged….
How about sticking with a Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour? It is already an Anglo-French product, so no need to for any fancy arrangements!
nocutstoRAFThanks Buitreaux – given that ToT is key part of modern fighter jet deal surely it is possible that Brazil and Argentina could work to together on a locally designed and built single engine light fighter jet, with either Swedish or French consultancy, and I guess foreign engines (I consider the Rafale the better choice here if Dassault is willing, as you could build a single engined light fighter around the Snecma M88 engine and French avionics with less risk of complications with the USA that if you went with the GE engine)?
Also has Argentina considered the JF-17 with French avionics, at risk of controversy but I do not think it can be considered quite as capable as the Gripen or the Rafale but it would be cheap enough to purchase if Argentina was considering a Hi/Lo force mix of 12 – 24 Rafales and a second fighter.
Apologies for de-railing the thread and to anyone who takes objection to my personal opinion on the relative merits of the JF-17, Gripen and the Rafale.
nocutstoRAFSo would the carrier be optimised for air defence or for sea control? Also would Argentina go for the winner of Brazilian F-X2 competition even if it was a surprise win for Gripen (and the proposed Sea Gripen) or would they stick with the Rafale (if at all possible)?
nocutstoRAFBeen reading this thread with interest.
While I agree that the UK would unlikely to conduct a naval blockade for two years before retaking the islands, what the UN thought is rather irrelevant, the UN (rather than the UN security council) has passed a resolution on majority vote which states the UK and Argentina should negotiate the status of the islands (diplomatic speak for handing them over to Argentina) the UK simply refuses to pay any attention to this and the only way to make it binding is if the UN security council pass a resolution, which cannot do while the UK has a veto.
BTW I think intentions trumps capabilities, but I rather live in a world where we had both as having intentions without capabilities gets lots of people killed as you end up in a simple battle of attrition and having capabilities without intentions results in everyone taking advantage of you as they know that you will only respond to a direct attack against your country. I expect in the next decade a situation will arise (likely one we cannot predict) which will test both.
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