Jonesy,

We’ve had over 40 years of EU propaganda and still there is vast unease at our continuing membership; that is why we’re holding a referendum. Tell me what is good about membership and why we should be gratefully accepting. Don’t talk to me about xenophobia, especially not in a scornful fashion. Xenophobia is a natural condition and should not automatically be linked with ignorance.

You might not like to accept it; you might choose not to believe it but, we the British are vastly different to Continental Europe. Our outlook is outward and international. After four centuries of world pre-eminence we are constitutionally incapable of being what amounts to a client state of the EU or anyone else. We are made to ‘paddle our own canoe’ forming partnerships and alliances around the world and not subject to the control of an undemocratic, un-elected, corrupt European elite who believe that we owe them a favour rather than the other way around.

I think that I understand your politics – each to his own. We as a nation thrived before the EU; we will thrive after. Mr Carney and Mr. Hawking are probably worthy people but, they are not necessarily correct in their political views anymore than I am about mine. I well remember the furore about membership of the Euro. All kinds of hell and damnation would attend upon the British people if we refused to join. The fuss went on for months. What eventually happened ? The results is in front of you. We prospered outside and the rest of the EU bar Germany are now in dire straits.

John,

Xenophobia is to be scorned by definition….it is an ignorant condition. We the British are the end product of a couple of thousand years of invasions in and out….our DNA, apart from the minority of purebred Celt, is a blend of Germanic, Norman, Roman and several flavours of Scandinavian and thats just those of us who favour the paler shades!. We are absolutely NO different from those people we share a direct DNA heritage with. I’m not sure how its possible in this day and age for that not to be glaringly obvious!.

Myself?. I’m from Liverpool by birth so, perhaps, I’m just more used to the melting pot concept than others, but, half of my team are based in Germany and I have, alongside the locals, Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Germans, Belgians and a few others knocking around between UK and Germany. Thats as well as a few lads from the ‘anglosphere’ Kiwi’s, Aussies etc.

Now weve covered the genetic issue, so, if ‘British’ is a condition that defines us then it is in our values…..tolerance, fairness, application, resolve, decency. That being the case I can take you to estates back up on Merseyside where the sole ambition of the young is to inherit their parents council house!. Those values….nowhere to be seen….I see more ‘Britishness’, as I recognise the meaning of the term, in my lads every day….whether they were born in Brussels, Melbourne, Manchester or Stuttgart. We go out socially…we all drink heavily and eat heartily….and like it….we all laugh at pretty much the same things….or each other when there is a cultural difference….and we are stronger for it. That scales up. We dont need to be politically integrated….we dont need to be closer than we are to Europe….but we do need to be in there and with a full voice.

Its amusing really that a short while back we were all sneering at the Scots for their perceived pride and wilful ignorance in wishing to go it alone with independence. So many could see what the objective reality was. Given the fall off of oil prices god alone knows where the jocks would be now if they had split off. Now we have people who panned the Scots back then who’re clamouring to try and make exactly the same mistake the Scots swerved!. You couldnt write it with a straight face!.

Jonesy

Don’t waste your time wondering how ‘broken’ British society really is judged by Britain’s outburst above, with which many of us would agree.

Instead, use your time more productively, wondering why is it, that if the EU is the all wonderful institution so beneficial to all our lives, that a more than significant portion of of the British want out. Could it be that it is not all that it is cracked up to be and has led to that ‘broken UK society’ to which you refer? If such isn’t the case why are so many moaning and bent on leaving ?

Same point John. Ignorance, xenophobia, poor education. When the likes of Mark Carney and Stephen Hawking are giving the financial and technological reasons for staying in and Boris Johnson and Nige Farage are chest-thumping their overly emotive monologues of the joys of being out its easy to see where the smarter folk are on this.

The size of the out vote will give a scale to the number of abject idiots in the country. Simple as that.

I did read this online which seemed apt (I’ve cleaned parts up up for here) –
Dear Mr Obama, shove your trade up where the sun doesn’t shine! We weren’t at the back of the queue when you needed us on operations, twice in Iraq, and then again in Afghanistan. I guess it’s only a ” special relationship ” when it suits America. If you need help in future, you can always call on Germany, winners of so many wars, or Italy, but only if you’re already winning before you invite them, and of course, the mighty French, but give them some notice, so they can get their military production running at full strength, by putting their white flag factories onto three shifts. Good luck with that.
Signed
BRITAIN

Oh, and just as a little P.S.
The last time you went to war without us, the Viet Cong handed you your butt on a plate

How’s that for the entire discussion in a nutshell!. Ignorance and mindlessly emotive twaddle all concentrated into a neat package!. The President of the sole remaining superpower on the planet notes that his nations trade interests would favour the ‘large’ multinational trading block that is Europe over a single nation entity that would be the UK and that is a surprising statement?. Surprising to the extent that would, somehow, justify suspending our core internationalist stance and refusing to participate in important military interventions out of some kind of pre-pubescent tantrum?.

The description of the French, Italians, Germans etc being what this drills down to. Simple xenophobia. Dont like Johnny Foreigner. Will be interesting to see how the voting comes out in this…be a useful litmus test for how broken UK society actually is!.

If you had to keep Metel, why not loose the forward pair of AK630s (more like on Kashin Smetlivy)?

Simply there was more space created by the removal of the rear pair going off Cayce’s overhead. Plus more open area immediately behind the launcher ramps for easier exhaust management.

But why not remove Metel and stick in 2 six-packs Club-U? Then, they could carry a mix of missile e.g. anti-ship (3M-54), land attack missiles (3M-14) or even ASW (91R). Or Yakhont.
(In the pic below, do note the option with 2×4 mounted crosswise behind the rear stack: might that work for Uran also?)

Uran can work off a fairly elementary targetting system….as witnessed by the Kashin fit. My first thought, in fact, was to pull Metel for the 6 pack Yakhonts off Nakal. My second thought was ‘what missile uplink/combat system upgrades does Yakhont require to be deployed’ which quickly led to the thought ‘how long a service life are we talking about for a modified Udaloy’. For minimum ship impact and, therefore, cost it seems to me that the Uran’s are probably about as far as you’d really want to go.

As for athwartships mounts I looked at that as well. Just aft of the second funnel group is a rather large, and useful looking, crane….seen quite well in the below image:

…and its a bit tight behind the first funnel group as well and it looks like shooting a missile might actually torch one or other of the ships boats. In routine ops those boats, like the crane, will be very handy so anything that disrupts or damages them could be considered unhelpful!.

Those ungainly ships……

Taruntal ungainly???

Please see attached photo’s. I’ll grant you these are the early design and not the stretched superstructure later version, but, they represent ship-porn at its most knee-wobbly!.

My guess is that they get rid of the 2x torpedo launchers on the rear deck. That looks like ample space for a Kh-35 quad launcher.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]245138[/ATTACH]

Personally I’d delete the after pair of gatlings and site a single quad angled outboard on each beam there before losing those torpedo tubes….if the Metel bins had to stay that is.

The Status-6 ocean-going multipurpose system is supposed to be mounted on nuclear submarines Belgorod (Project 09852) and Khabarovsk (Project 09851). The first one, formerly a cruise missile carrier, is being rebuilt into a special-purpose submarine, and the second one is being built from scratch. Both subs are at the Sevmash shipyard. Funny for enemies. :highly_amused:

This is the auv platform that will, completely unattended, be left to patrol around distant waters carrying a large nuclear device. You can’t see why that is never going to happen?. I’m sure a mother submarine conversion for large auv’s is entirely practical and sensible. I can imagine many uses…absolutely none of which involve nuclear delivery!.

Still the US appear, at cursory glance, to be mad enough to actually push forward this ASW drone nonsense why shouldn’t Russia push for the win in the ‘clearly raving’ stakes!.