Prob should be in the news thread but, yes, its finally been confirmed that the hoped-for T45 hulls 7 and 8 are now officially cancelled.

The ‘jam tomorrow’ aspect is that FSC is being ‘brought forward’ which is plainly another lie because 1) FSC is not even defined yet so there is nothing to actually bring forward and 2) the need in the RN is plainly for AAW over GP/ASW.

Looks like the recent decision by Sarkozy to swing the axe at his forces as emboldened the muppet show types over here too.

Since 2 Horizons are building, and 5 Lafayettes in service, it’s pretty clear it would be 11 FREMMs.

By the time that the first FREMM is in commision though Lafayette will have been in the water nearly twenty years. By the time the FREMM-10 and 11 are built and in commission only the last two Lafayettes are likely to have much life left in them.

I’m pretty sure that the MN will be pushing for the replacement of its ‘second-rate frigates’ with FREMM if its going to have so few escorts. Second-rate duties could be passed over on to whatever the French replace the 6 Floreals with….any news on that surfacing yet?.

The USN arent the only people facing, potentially, the swarming small boat threat. The AK630 driven off an optronic or even a local-area optical sight could be quite effective in a light ASuW role. Adding a few antitank missiles, possibly with a blast-frag noisy bit (Korabl version?), adds to that capability cheaply and, theoretically at least, with little adverse effect on the mount.

That is the nature of alliances though Swerve. There will always be an issue of asking someones consent to deploy. In the ‘EU force’ that will be the French or the Germans and if they are conflicted ethically, politically or, cough….cough, financially the ‘EU force’ will not sail!.

In the NATO force structure US forces, as well as everyone elses, are chopped to NATO command. That means that, officially, we do not need to ask US permission or ‘kow-tow’ to use those assets any more than the Dutch, for example, have to Kow-Tow to us to use our NATO-assigned assets. In practice some diplomacy would happen to make sure that the wheels were greased I’m certain, but, if the US chose to withdraw its NATO-commited forces becuase it did not like a particular European lead that would be a major issue.

Like I said before Sarkozy is trying to get the lid off a very big can of worms with ‘Priority’ written on the label. How soon, after the ‘EU Force’ is created do we get EU decrees stating that the European entity has priority over NATO tasking?. We should be putting extra resource into building the European strength inside NATO so that it becomes a more balanced partnership and that European NATO partners can act independently within the framework already long-established. Anyway you look at it this iniative from Sarkozy is wasteful, small-minded and divisive.

It is up to China to decide what is acceptable to them, and if they view attacking civilian telecomms as a red line, then the Americans can cross it at their own peril.

IF that were the case Wolf I think it fairly obvious that the Chinese would declare an EEZ or airspace incursion a ‘red line’. The onus would be on them to put something credible up as a strategic threat to hold at risk more targets in the CONUS than they can do currently or with a few early generation SSBN’s. See Libya, Col. Qadaffi, ‘Line of Death’ and ELDORADO CANYON for illustration!.

Was the RAF too busy to lend the RN a hand? IIRC, the V-bomber fleet were ready and able to make bombing runs, but it was flet that to attack the Argentine mainland would widen the conflict to an undesireable level.

In a word yes. The RAF was over-extending itself, by some margin, generating the Black Buck sorties of one Vulcan over target every few days and keeping a couple of Nimrods and the odd Hercules flying over the South Atlantic. A Black Buck mission could’ve been diverted to an Argentine mainland target, but, for the effect one bombload would have on any significant military target its was judged unwise. Especially with the risk of having a Vulcan brought down, thereby undoing all the propaganda of the ‘boys-own heroes’ socking it to the enemy even in obsolescent, but iconic, aircraft.

Mick

In fact, the highest level of European forces available to NATO can already be commanded from any French, Spanish, Italian or British carrier or LPD — so having such a vessel as a flagship would not be something new.

Entirely true within NATO as a framework. So why does Sarkozy want us to be committed to operate in an EU-only context when the only difference would be the elimination of US assets and input. Input that could be remarkably important?.

Sorry to sound cynical but I cant imagine that this would be being raised by Sarkozy if the French were currently cutting steel for PA2.

This is surprising. I really cannot see any scenario where it would be used on anywhere other than Chinese soil. After all, those tactical SSM lauchers are not leaving Chinese soil?

Poorly worded on my part. That was what I was indicating – that these would only be used on Chinese soil and hence be brought in to play only when a very significant attacking force was engaging Chinese targets. To an attacking force that advanced the concept of leaving fixed C2 nodes unmolested, to allow these mobile C3 nodes to use them, is faintly absurd to me!.

Well, in a Taiwan scenario as plawolf says, and against other countries like Vietnam etc which have little capability to project power over Chinese Mainland.

I think the Taiwan scenario reasoning is deeply flawed I’m afraid. The Chinese are not going to be suprised at standoff weapons knocking out phone exchanges if the Americans are attacking. They themselves, surely, have targetting lists that incorporate similar facilities in Taiwan – it makes little military sense to allow your opposition such communications channels.

So red lines on hospitals, schools, civil defence installations etc certainly. Telephone exchanges and civillian broadcast centres no chance.

The Vietnam thing does make a bit more sense though. I, with my western bias, naturally equated mobility with surviveability. Perhaps it is more for point of presence than surviveability. Lots of China and limited numbers of fixed militery installations with the kind of technology and trained staff to undertake the C3 mission. Here you have a ready ‘plug-in’ C3I node that can be airlifted to theatre, self-deploy wherever there is road infrastructure, link into the local PSTN/GSM network and be online providing capability relatively swiftly.

Makes a lot more sense than a ‘surviveable’ C3 asset thats, largely, tied to non-surviveable comms assets!.

That is not that unprecidented, because if you think back to the Falklands, the RAF was not allowed to attack Argintine bases on the Argentina mainland even though they were used for attacks against British forces as that was considered to be an act that is far too likely to escalate the conflict to a higher level, which was something no-one wanted to see.

We had a look at attacking the Argentine mainland, just as they had a look at attacking Gibraltar, we decided that the results for the huge effort that would have to be expended weren’t worth it. The decision was military and not political.

From what it says, it doesn’t seem to be wholly reliant on public phone network. It can leverage on existing public network as an additional capability over and above the battlefield local network, that’s all. That’s not a bad idea, considering that relying on existing commercial infrastructure means the network can be made more robust and range can be extended without much additional hardware cost. Besides, it is a C3I system for tactical surface to surface missiles, not strategic missiles, so it can be reasonably expected that in a good number of scenarios China’s civilian infrastructure would remain untouched.

Appreciated YF, but, again the ‘battlefield local network’ at tactical SSM ranges is going to be radio based and subject to degradation either electronic or explosive in nature. Any combat situation liable to see the use of such a C3I node on Chinese soil would, naturally, involve an aggressor who is advanced enough and smart enough to obliterate fixed C2 nodes, such as regional PSTN exchanges, as a significant concern.

I’m, genuinely, curious as to what scenario’s you think would allow for that aspect of China’s civillian infrastructure to remain intact whilst an attack was in progress?.