Given that the system is not designed to protect Europe from an Iranian ICBM attack and such benefits are secondary at a remote best, I don’t see how that’s a problem to be honest. As I understand it whether you place them in Scotland or Poland they already do precious little to that end; I don’t see how they can possibly protect anything much south of the launch site in the first place if they can only kill a missile before it launches its RVs. If they want to protect Britain all they need do is base Ticonderogas and Arleigh Burkes at points of interest, surely?
Not to mention that the Azerbaijan radar would have provided far better early warning radar coverage as far as I can see. And missiles in western Turkey would have surely done a better job than either Poland or Scotland at both defending the effective entirety of Europe and America.

Commander can you not see the massive contradiction in what you’ve written there?.

You’ve stated that shielding US assets in Europe as well as European countries themselves is a secondary capability and then stated, if a major goal was the potection of Europe, the missiles should be in Turkey!.

The simple answer here is that missiles in Turkey dont shield the US as the trajectory is wrong and, as you say, that is the primary goal for the system. The missiles in Poland simply do MORE to shield Europe than missiles based in Scotland would do. Seeings that there is no sincere reason why missiles in Poland are more threatening to Russia than missiles in Scotland would be there is no valid reason not to site them where they will achieve the most coverage.

I cant quite understand the concept of siting the radar needed to target the GBI’s a) within range of existing Iranian short range heavy rocket artillery and b) in a position where it would have to ‘look-back’ towards Russia to track the vehicle in the midcourse?. In every regard siting the radar as intended gives it a much better FoV, over the inbound flight segment that the GBI is going for the intercept in, and its considerably safer, physically, than it would be in Azerbaijan.

GBI’s in Scotland do nothing for the defence of Europe against Iranian missiles. The US has plenty of interests not to mention deployed forces in Europe. They want cooperation for siting of NMD infrastructure in Europe then benefits to Europe also have to come in somewhere. Remember that the UK has been touted as a useful target, in Iranian politico-military circles, as a good choice for ‘sending a message’ to the US.

No matter how often the paranoia light flashes, Coolio, Russia has no credible excuse to make such heavy weather of a system that, plainly, is nothing whatsoever to do with them.

Whats the purpose of the missiles on the IPV Ja?. I’m guessing you’re thinking of a way of putting a bit more punch onto the boats for dealing with moderately well equipped pirates/terrorists and for a second-role limited warfighting mission?. Local defence/coastal convoy escort sort of asset?. Interesting idea but I think your weapons choice might land the crew in a spot of bother mate!.

As seen off Somalia pirates, all over the place, have real seamanship skills these days. They also have access to a large range of weaponry. I think it was an LTTE manned tramp steamer that used an old Russian 82mm mortar to give the Sri Lankan navy a nasty shock from 3000+ yards a few years back!. If they can get their mitts on an old TOW or Konkurs type ATGM (as confiscated from Hezbollah) or even something like the Type 85 RL’s used by the Taleban all bloody over Afghanistan then that 25mm Typhoon might just be a bit too light for the job.

I think I’d want to truncate the foredeck superstructure extension at the first break. Effectively removing it from the platform currently occupied by the liferafts forwards. In the space created I’d bolt on a Mk110 57mm. Resite the SATCOM dome on the bridge roof and, probably, build out a platform forward from the mainmast to support a lightweight director (LIROD or similar type). Should get pretty good arcs and the Bofors mount seems to be perfectly serviceable aboard the equivalent sized Swedish corvettes.

Manual pintle mount mk44 miniguns or, if you feel the threat warrants, naval mount GAU-19’s on each beam on the gun deck for RHIB/fast boat threats close in and for the normal constabulary work.

The Gabriels are trouble IMHO. If you are faced with a target sufficiently advanced to need them against then the odds are, by the time they are in range of a Gabriel 2, they’ve likely already fired on you. If you want a military capability and beyond horizon-range targets (horizon-range serviced by the 57mm) then first thing fit a datalink terminal!. Perhaps you could mount 2×2 NSM cannisters athwartships behind the superstructure if you remove one of the davits and mount the remaining one again athwartships deploying over the stern. The missiles would be for-but-not-with, but, would at least offer some useable standoff capability on a bearing only attack or with offboard designation.

OK. Lets suppose it was only poor project management. So why India and Russia have had to talk about it at the highest of the levels, and yet its getting from bad to worse. Is this the norm? Serving officers of both nations have now made certain remarks about this deal. Does this normally happen?

I’m afraid I dont quite follow your reasoning Vikasrehman. This is a contract between the Indian Govt and the Russian shipyard. One side of the contract has gone south following incompetence. The Russian shipyard has, in the same fashion companies do all over the world, asked its government to help it negotiate a way out of the mess. What would you consider unprecedented about high-level negotiations to get the contract back on track?.

You do appreciate that it isnt the Russian Govt. that is asking for more money to complete this ship dont you?.

Good question Scooter.

I would postulate that the level of work done on Varyag at Dalian looks a lot more like preparations to bring the ship into some sort of service rather than a paint job for an amusement park or floating casino or something.

Varyag has been in the yard for over two years now. That in and of itself certainly seems to be suspicious.

An assessment I’d concur with. Although it must be pointed out that an aircraft-carrier lookalike tourist attraction must actually be made to look like an aircraft-carrier!. Still 2 years is a lot of yard time for completion of the internal spaces and a few coats of red lead.

The components RSM has indicated are all absolutely viable for post-build inclusion. Though it must be said the HVAC (life-support?) runs being left out from the initial build suprises me. Its easier to put in those conduits, along with major cable trays etc, when you are putting the hull together. The thing that might be the give away, if anyone knows it, is the power train i.e gearboxes and shafts.

These have to be very precisely fitted and balanced not just physically within the hull, but, also with the main engines. If the Chinese are intending to use different rated engines, to the original Russian spec, the gearboxes and shafts will need to be matched to the different output and revolutions range. That is a lot of work and at an end of the ship that would not be expected to see such work where it being completed as a casino?.

Oh come on Tinwing what use does the Russian Navy have for this ship?. Its going to go to the trouble of inducting and supporting a new fastjet type, alongside the investment made in the Su-30’s, just to get a modest carrier able to operate a modest airgroup to modest effect???.

The Russian Navy traditionally does things its own way but I cant see them being that stupid. They’ve stated a goal for more carriers in the same vein as the Kuznetsov….not the Gorshkov!.

I’ve been following this thread with a layman’s eye and have to wonder about standardization practices. My background is IT/Internet and it would seem logical to me that a common set of protocols would have been developed that both hardware and software had to adhere to so the costs and development times wouldn’t be as much.

I guess I’m thinking from an end user’s perspective and not a sales perspective.

Its not a situation that is limited to the military sphere at all though. I work civvy datacomms now and I can tell you that the same big problem exists here too. Multivendor environments. Get a piece of kit from one company to work seamlessly with that from another and you’ve had the blessings of the Great Pumpkin on you Charlie Brown!.

Case in point a few years back if you wanted to get a Cisco router to talk to a 3Com switch (two of the bigger players in the game) over fast ethernet forget it unless you knew the trick. Fast Ethernet is an open standard (IEEE 802.3u) and both vendors built compatible to that spec. Should work perfectly you’d think after all that is the point of the open standard.

Connections wouldnt work, out of the box, though as the algorythm that 3com used for autonegotiation of the speed and duplex settings of the link clashed with the algorythm used by the Cisco. The two would never sync up and the link would stay firmly down until you fixed the configuration of the ports both sides. I think its still Cisco best practice not to use autoneg!.

Open standard doesnt mean full compatibility anywhere you have multivendor products trying to get integrated. Now you might get the hint that integrating, for example, a weapon like Storm Shadow onto F-35 is something to be approached in the fear of god!.:D

Might I just point out that as a Ground-based Mid-course Defence system, the proposed ‘missile shield’ has no capability to defend Europe. I have not seen one single piece of information about the system which claims this capability and it is designed around one use and one use only; the interception of an ICBM flying stright by overhead, destined for the continental United States from Iran. From Boeing’s own website:

Over Poland and before a missile coming out of Iran is in mid course if re-entering over western France, Netherlands. Belgium, UK, Ireland etc. OK its not all of Europe but there are five european countries that would be covered to some extent.

And given the Iranians need to not double, not triple but quintuple their current missile range to hit Washington the one threat it does counter will not exist for some years.

You may have missed the earlier comments on them developing a space-launch capability?. Not a colossal leap from orbital insertion to ICBM. What does it matter if the threat doesnt come to pass for years?. Is the Poland site operational right now?. Besides, with any luck, placing a counter system in theatre before the ICBM is developed may reduce Iranian interest in spending the money to develop it. GBI wins without firing a shot in that case.

Even if you somehow credit them with this performance in the timespan people are claiming then all they need to do is fire eleven missiles. If you assume they have the R&D programs in place to build a world-class ICBM then I think you should probably assume they can build a dozen of the things..

A dozen missiles require a dozen warheads. Warheads that have to be fabricated out of specific raw materials, processed over a sizeable period of time. A dozen armed missiles represents a significant investment. Perhaps you should take a quick look at the development of China’s full-up ICBM inventory and the numbers they field. 10 GBI’s represents a conservative estimate of the force that Iran could assemble over the rough life of the missiles on Polish soil.