I don’t know about suicidal.

I am 99% certain that attacking a military group, during a large-scale conflict, with precision nuclear weapons won’t initiate a full-scale nuclear exchange that would target the civilian population of the countries involved.

In fact, that really means that any retaliation to such a nuclear strike on military forces would be “suicidal.”

Well for one thing the US has more tactical nukes to use against any Chinese targets it wishes. Would the Chinese govt. sit back and watch the US systematically nuke the nations military back into the stone age without resorting to strategic use?

I couldn’t agree with Flubba the Wildcat is the wrong helicopter but not only because the reason he states.
Why does Britain waste the money developing and building aircraft that no one else will buy i.e. Nimrod MR4 and Wildcat.
The P8 could be purchased at half the unit price, AgustaWestland already build a helicopter which could meet our needs the AW139 or AW159 (both of which are designed for the battlefield) and I would think could easily be developed to have a naval capability – so in addition to the defence budget issues UKPLC still build aircraft for one small customer i.e. the MOD and because of the small production runs can not be cost effective.
I know the arguement is British jobs but there needs to be a compromise in favour of the armed forces but how often do we read about projects running over budget and who eventually pays for these bad decisions? – the soldiers, airmen, sailors and the tax payers.

First the AW159 IS the Wildcat isn’t it? Do you mean 149?

As Fed said, the P8 is actually less capable than the MRA4. If the original plan had been stuck to and entirely new build MRA4’s produced, we might have been able to offer it for export. We don’t know that it wouldn’t have sold, just that it can’t now.

And the current Lynx is a very popular export model, the Wildcat, if actually marketed (something the UK govt. seems to have forgotten is actually useful when trying to sell) could well sell more, especially in the naval version.

People seem to assume now that when a UK project starts, it is solely for the the Uk now, with exports not even being considered. Maybe that’s right since the DEO was disbanded by Mr Brown, but maybe if the govt went out and actually tried to drum up some orders we could still get some. You don’t see Sarkozy sitting around waiting for French products to fail, he flies off to prospective countries to plug his merchandise, Brown wouldn’t.

IIts pretty much the same loadout as a type 45. I just think we needed something wiht a little more kick to it.

We’ve got tomahawks in there and the two 155 mm Advanced Gun System and phalanx is added

How many/what type of VLS? Obviously not just the T45 standard A50’s.

Any ABM capability like some of the Tico’s?

(I’m dreaming of a T45 that can do more than scare the living hell out of Somalis and Drug runners).

Aren’t Zumwaults around the 14,500t mark? Or is that a Tico?

Anyway, the Burkes weigh in around the same as that cruiser of your Stan, and they couldn’t take 2 AGS mounts. Remember when the US says Destroyer, it’s better to think Cruiser, when they say Cruiser it’s better to think Battleship. Supersize everything ;P

If in fact the Chinese will be deploying such a weapon, its reassuring that the AEGIS System has evolved to provide a counter to the threat.

Indeed. Why would they think this would work as useful deterrent more than any other systems as the US has a deployed an proven defence against the weapons that can simply move with the carrier.

CEP of ballistic missiles are what ? 150 meters at best ? Assuming the ship stands still from the time the missile is launched ?

Not a missle expert, but sounds silly when everyone else is developing long range supersonic cruise missiles.

Unless it has megaton nuclear war heads that takes out the whole area. That would be interesting against a US carrier group!!

Interesting isn’t the word i’d use. Suicidal perhaps.

A few points . . .

Firstly, the insurgents now know what the sensors on the UAVs show: field of view, definition, etc. Since it’s likely that some of the stuff intercepted is IR, they’ll also have a good idea of that. Useful information, I think.

Secondly, they’ll know what sort of things the UAVs look at: what they focus on after spotting, etc. Also useful information.

And maybe, sometimes, they’ll be able to link something they’re intercepting to what’s happening in real time, & use it.

The really, really stupid thing about this is the admission that the US military were aware years ago that the video links could be intercepted in theory, but didn’t think the insurgents would be capable of it. Call them savages, you think of them as savages, & you underestimate them. It’s just as stupid (& as racist) as thinking that Japanese would be poor pilots because those slitty-eyed runts are all short-sighted. Some people never learn. I wonder in how many other ways the US military are underestimating their adversaries?

I guess it is a side effect of being a superpower. No doubt the British used to do it too as we went on our jaunts through Africa (although there were plenty of notable occasions where if anything we overestimated them too).

But a lot that has been coming out of the Chilcott inquiry this week suggests they’ve been underestimating Iraqi insurgents for quite some time after vastly overestimating the actual Iraqi military in 2003.

The one upside is that the Americans can throw money at the problem and make it go away quickly (see the MRAP program and this issue which is now fixed).

And even when they underestimate the enemy, the US military isn’t entirely stupid as some would like to think, they’d made it a lot harder to tap into the bits of the drone that are really important, like flying the thing.

-The insurgents can trace (even if it is scramled it is there) the opponent. They are capable of doing things not known. Suprise is less. What is next? Laser to destroy the UAV sensor? Sam? The reality is that if they had only AK47 and caves then they would have been dead long time ago.

-The UAV is controlled by sat. I do not think they can control the UAV or the sat. It takes a lot of bandwith so they might saturate frequencies.

Urm, they don’t need fancy weapons to cause an issue, they’re just clever. Don’t jump the gun and start assuming they’ve developed high tech weapons. A laptop and $30 software is not hard to come by even in Iraq. A decent (able to kill) IED can be made out of left over tank shells, mines or even fertiliser and diesel. Add these cheap, easily available weapons to a cunning and determined local force (the insurgents) and no matter how many stealth bombers you have, it’ll take time and your own cunning to beat them.

And what good is it for the insurgents to trace where the operators are as you suggest they can? Well done Mr insurgent, you’ve worked out that the man flying the drone with the hellfires pointed at you is sitting in Creech AFB in Nevada, go get the pickup started and you can go sort him out.

The whole review was smoke and mirrors. The REAL defence review will be after the next election – perhaps a year afterwards?

Now what was that about sleight of hand?

What are you talking about?

All 3 main parties have committed to an SDR straight after the election, which was why many of us were confused why they went ahead and started cutting stuff now without deciding what we actually need through the SDR.

I fear the fairly light cuts we’ve had now are more of a stopgap to keep us going and win a few cheap votes with the Chinook purchase for “our lads”. The next govt. will have to sort out the remainder of the mess which is when more cuts are likely to come unless the Tories suddenly decided to actually invest in defence.