“Who are we to question this choice?” We are the people who pay their wages and look to them for the best service and protection possible.

We are also the people who pay the wages of firemen and NHS doctors….do you often tell them how to put out fires or, perhaps, critique the odd appendectomy down the local hospital???

I’d suggest, as stated earlier, the police are aware of the pro’s and cons of being armed far better than the layman is. 82% against is pretty decisive that the threat outweighs the benefit. Tragic as this event is its noticeable for its savagery in a society that rarely produces such undiluted displays of malevolence.

That we live in that kind of society, not just that our police can be unarmed, gives me a huge sense of pride generally. Some of the price for that pride has just been paid by two young women and they could have paid no higher amount. For them you can only offer a quiet thankyou for a job seen through to the end and hope that somehow their families and friends can find a way to cope with their stunning loss and pain.

The ‘Marine Forward Base’ you are talking about is Camp Bastion a modest little setup likened in scale to the town of Reading!. Also a base possessed of a 3.5km hard strip runway so its just happenstance that the AV-8B’s were the aircraft hit…it could just as easily been a conventional type. Bagram has been attacked in the same manner several times…I dont recall your equal consternation for USAF F-15E’s though??.

Of course if the aircraft had been parked on an aircraft carrier several miles off shore the low-tech threat like 20 lads in friendly uniforms and suicide vests is somewhat diminished…so more amphibs with STOVL deck capability is the lesson that comes from this it seems.

But then they go and kill innocent people. Whilst the video was very offensive, you can’t justify killing the ambassador who had nothing to do with its production.

The irony there Matt is that you are making exactly the same mistake that the islamic rioters are. This isnt the Libyan people ranting and raving….this is some people in Libya ranting and raving….the difference is very significant.

The elements rioting are largely doing so as they’ve been led by the nose to do so by their religious leaderships…they would find it inconceivable that someone hasnt led those making the film in the same manner. The people stirring the pot, the radical islamists, know that they can pick whichever bogeyman they fancy as it doesnt really matter to those rioting provided ‘someone’ feels their wrath. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers as the saying goes…and unfortunately its not just sections of Mohammads followers that fall into that category…I know several devout, true, believers of other religious persuasions capable of equal faith-based stupidity!.

I have always liked the description of religious conflict as ‘the act of arguing, beyond reason, as to who’s imaginary friend is the bigger!”. I think that really conveys the level of intelligence required to pursue such lunacy.

A western reaction knee-jerking to the view “stuff the ungrateful muslim ****’s” is just what militant Islam wants to see out of this.

Libya gave them a big problem. It wasnt principally a US operation and there was no outcry over insidious hands trying to control oil. It was, on the public face of it, genuine international support…and real materiel support at that…for those wishing to rid themselves of an entrenched and unpopular dictator.

Last thing hard-line Islam wants is too many of its adherents thinking for themselves, getting an appreciation for freedom and self-determination and realising that there is a big wide world out there that is not unfriendly towards them. That being something the Arab Spring has been close to doing, but, hasn’t quite got ignited fully yet. Something like this film, that can snap the faithful back into their pious narrow-visioned world, is a gift from….well….Allah!.

If our, the wests, reaction is aggressive its a gift to the extremists who will use it to make a ‘them vs. us’ issue out of nothing and all the good work that has gone in bringing freedom from tyranny to those states will be wasted. The important thing to note, I think, is that the muslim world would have been up in arms about this film anyway….regardless of the Arab Spring…those Danish cartoons and that half-wit pastors antics last time show this clearly. If we disconnect this issue from the work to help people in the middle east its a lot easier to deal with.

Shalav,

Sintra’s covered most of this perfectly. Just to add one more thing though – check the following link: http://www.mar-it.de/Radar/Horcalc/horcalc.htm

Just so you can see for yourself, in the calculator, tap in values of 7000m for the radar antenna (roughly 20,000ft patrol altitude of an AEW aircraft) and 300m for the target aircraft. You’ll see that the radar horizon….below which the target aircraft is undetectable…is less than 230nm away. If the radar plane is staying over friendly territory, and in friendly SAM coverage, the first chance that a defender has to see the inbound air target will be at a range already within CASOM striking distance of coastal targets ashore. Note that this is at first detect only…the AEW aircraft still has to raid assess, direct interceptions and wait while defensive aircraft close to target. Mix a few dozen MALD and MALD-J’s in with the CASOM strike and even PLAAF’s wealth of fastjet assets could be stretched to respond with alert forces.

Keeping hostile carrier forces away from your shore isnt a job for shore-based missiles or for FACs with or without 300km ranged missiles. Its done with nuclear powered fleet submarines and with defensive carrier groups of your own. The SSN’s to persistently deny seaspace using their inherent endurance, discretion and sensor platform capabilities and the carriers to exercise sea control and present an unsustainable threat to the supply lines of any aggressor naval force entering theatre. The PLAN are well aware of these factors…getting up to speed with them just takes time and that goes for them the same as it does for everybody else.

How are FACs pushing anything back 300km when LACM and air-launched CASOM strikes are knocking out port facilities, complete with FAC flotilla’s alongside, from up to 3 times that range?.

Pinko

Is there any rational behind ur belief that if it’s shipborne AESA, it must sit atop?

Yes…its called the radar horizon.

Citing current European naval AESAs are hardly convincing because most of them are simple tasked FCRs except Simpson, function wise

CEAFAR/AUSPAR and APAR both are search sets with very high datarate horizon search modes. The Aussie mount so much so that it has a physically separate X-band FC installation.

If money is not the issue, type 45 will be more than happy to adopt fixed paneled Simpson radar with max aperture possible, 360 degree seamless coverage and let go the top position to a dedicated horizon search radar like what we find on 052C.

Topweight. Why do you think the T45 has the beam it does?. You cant put high weight loads on top of an 150ft masthead on a ship. As for money do you know what we spent on MESAR/Sampson?. Putting in 4 fixed panels cost wise would have been a drop in the ocean compared to the development costs of the system. BAE also determined that they were unhappy with the 4 fixed panel array as it presented the opportunity for an attacker to concentrate a streaming attack on one bearing and saturate one panel.

The only system that combines phased array technology with a need for a separate horizon-search set is the US SPY-1. This is because, as the US has admitted, SPY-1 wasnt optimised for low angle work…it was designed to manage large numbers of high altitude tracks. The SPQ-9B is installed in US ships not because its the better setup, but, to cover deficiencies in the primary radar!.

If you want a even closer analog, the VSR onboard DDG 1000 is a S band fixed AESA. Having you seen it sit very high?

Do you want to have another look at the DDG1000?. Its radars are sited above the bridge and the uppermost panel is quite a distance up…its just that the design has filled in the superstructure between where the masts would be. Compare the radar layout between 052D, Burke/Tico and DDG1000 and you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, if you’ll note, I’m asking if there is any confirmed proof that the set on the Chinese ships is an active array. I’m not being critical of the Chinese ship even if it IS a passive phased array as that would have some clear advantages given their strategic and tactical challenges. I’m saying that the installation looks odd for an AESA so is there confirmation anywhere that it actually is one.

The fire control sets on S-300 arent AESA if you look at the AFV’s mounting FLAP LID, TOMB STONE, GRAVE STONE you see the phase shifter planar array and a primary feed horn mounted at the back of the vehicle. Those systems are PESA’s not AESA’s.

Granted, for special taskings, you can build big AESA arrays but at sea, whoever you are, the ability to push back the radar horizon is more important than any other consideration especially….as in the PLANs case….if you cant rely on having airborne radar coverage. The RN is in the same situation…hence the stonking great radar mast on T45!.

ABM doesnt really fit either….just who’s BM’s are the PLAN worrying about to the extent it defines their primary AAW escorts capabilities?. The primary air threat systems to deployed PLAN ships have to be tactical antiship missiles of US, European and Taiwanese origin and the tactical strikefighters that launch them. Thats the opposite target set to what the 052’s are apparently configured to fight?.