Hi Shiplover
I thought this thread had unfortunately run its race as we had covered a fair bit in the process. Re the HC600PT,on post 48 were the specs. which you posted along with excellent pics., however there is no view of HC600 from above. Do you know if it has a through deck, the specs. state 2 helo take off positions, which would have been 1 aft and 1 forward,but the specs. show op. capacity for 7 VSTOL? The fantasy version is more heavily armed, with harpoon/exocet & sea sparrow & maybe RAM, with a waterline breadth of 59ft. would there be weight capacity for this extra armament topside,in fact all diagrams show a ship with a Garibaldi like topside armament all on 6000 tons.and 127 metres. length plus an overall width of 29.8 metres. Nice pics. and very interesting to study but if ever built I think they would have been top heavy and not very seaworthy. I should add that I have no experience with shipbuilding at all. Finally I will say that the ultimate fantasy ship is the RN CVF, as an outsider [Aust.] the vibes are that they will go the same way as the CVA 01 of the 1960s [I think] in fact I would be prepared to bet money on it & I am not much of a gambler.

I understand your bet on the CVF but I have to say that I think it will go ahead for several reasons. Firstly much of the build will take place in labour held constituancies, to cancel would put labour seats at risk in teh next election. Secondly cancellation of the CVF will signal a government decision to turn the RN into a self defence force with no force projection i.e. UK will stop taking an active role is world politics except perhaps in a minor special forces capacity. The government are not ready for that. Thirdly the UK government are comitted to a long term plan to keep UK military ship building going by giving it a steady stream of work. CVF is a major part of that scheme. Last but not least the deal is almost signed.

Hopefully I am not wrong, time will tell!

To get back to the thread, if the F35B were to be dropped for any reason, would or could the Brits come out with a new version of the Sea harrier / Harrier? Is so what would it be like?

It would be a nice thought but probably not. If the F35B was cancelled the MoD would probably go for the F35C and fit cats to the CVF. The cost of developing a new VTOL aircraft would be prohibative.

The UK joined the JSF programme not just because they wanted a VSTOL aircraft but also because they needed a stealth aircraft. Any domestic Harrier replacement would need to be both VSTOL and stealthy. Again nice thought but unrealistic. BAE seems to be putting a lot of effort into UCAVs rather than new manned aircraft.

IRA stopped violence for one single reason – they lost motivation and support. A terrorist organization without support of simple masses is just a bunch of wannabe criminals and renegades. Simple masses in Ireland have discovered economic growth and better lifestyle, there goes your willingness to fight down the drain.

That is what Israel should do – eliminate motivation and support. And what do they do? Exactly the opposite. Nasrallah nas never been more popular than he is today.

That is what I have to disagree with. I, for example, completely ignore my country’s actions from the past.. Both Nazi and Commie times are dead and gone and I don’t care about them at all. And if someone should come and tell me I owe him something because my grandpa killed his grandmother’s cousin, then I would say sorry, clear this issue with my grandfather personally.

Of course! Hitler’s wish to eradicate Jewish race would have meant nothing without wide support of simple people.

Wonder why they were and are so hated. Such things never come without reasons.

I see a big difference here. I am talking about Israel as a state while you are obviously talking about Jewish race. That’s two different groups. All you claims about Holocaust are only indirectly related to Israel since the history of Israeli state started as late as 1948.

Right. But I can guarantee you that Palestinians living on the West Bank behind the fence in isolation, dirt and poverty know very well why they are still fighting.

Not gonna happen. I don’t see the tiniest signs of will from both sides, not just Arab.

:confused: How can you find this disturbing and at the same time agree with me about the war between Israel and its neighbours never coming to an end?

I am being realistic. I don’t say what’s right or wrong, I simply say how things are. Since they don’t wanna talk to each other, negotiating a peace process is out of question. Then the war shall end only if either Israelis get outta there or Arabs get outta there. Make your pick, I will tell you what my
expectance is:

1. Arab population will grow quickly – in 30 years they will kick the 500-550mil mark + more Muslims in Indonesia, Pakistan and Iran
2. Israeli population will grow more slowly – in 30 years some 10mil – at the same time the percentage of Jewish population in Israel will have decreased from current 80% to some 65-70%.

If you wanna move 250+mil Arabs so that 7 mil Israelis have their peace, then be my guest but the way I see it, the jewish state of Israel will sooner or later vanish into history and transfer to a mixed country by natural process rather than by violence.

What was disturbing was that you seemed to be advocating ethnic cleansing. Did I misunderstand and you do not promote such action?

I don’t understand you. Hezbollah’s rockets only started to fall after Israelis crossed border to Lebanon.

BTW, in what way do hundred obsolete tactical missiles from the 50s endanger the existence of Israeli state equipped with nuclear weapons and 4+ gen fighter aircraft??

So why don’t you help Russia or England first? They also got state sponsored groups from Chechnya and Northern Ireland attacking their civilian installations.

States are not entities of their own. States are formed by individuals. If no individual is personally responsible, how can the whole group be called responsible?

My country, Slovakia was a former Nazi ally 1939-1944. So what? It was a completely different Slovakia with completely different people than it is now.

Germans alowed Holocaust because they wanted to, that simple it is.. And they did not want it before 1930, they wanted it in 1939. What is here left to speculate?

LOL.. Intolerant neighbours? Maybe Israel should start thinking about how to make them more tolerant. By raining JDAMs, bulldozing villages, building fences and invading countries at will you are not very likely to make new friends.

So what do you suggest then? That Arabs completely forget what happened, embrace Israelis with a smile and make a bis a$$ garden party with grilled pork and vodka, for example? Guess what, that will never happen. As long as Israelis sit there, they will always have to deal with neighbouring states that don’t tolerate them. So they only got two possibilities on the long term – to get out or to eradicate the whole neighborhood. Or there is a third possibility – to slowly fade away. With 7 mil population and 1.2% growth rate (10mil in 30 years) they don’t stand much chance against 250+mil Arab population with 2.3-2.5% yearly growth rate. (524mil in 30 years).

I’ll say it again, I am not excusing the excesses of Israel just putting their actions into context.

Hizbullah had been firing rockets into Israel well before Israel invaded. It wasn’t just 100 but at times 100s per day. Where did they get these rockets (thousands in total) from?

Terroirsm in England from Irish republican organisations such as the IRA stopped years ago. The reason? They decided to stop the violance and talk with the British government. These talks, supported by facilitators who were independant from both sides, resulted in an end to such terrorism. So yes international action did help. By they way the IRA was not state sponsered, they got their money through private donations and crime.

The fact that Slovakia is different now is a credit to it’s people. What I am saying is that a state cannot ignore it’s actions from the past just because it is a different place now. That would be like saying somone who comits a murder and then completly changes as a person and renounces his crime should not face punishment.

Yes you are right Nazi Germany allowed the Holocaust to start in 1939 becasue the state wanted it. However the environment that allowed the Holocaust to be acceptable was formed much earlier. The build up of hate toward the Jews was slow, the only way it probably could have been stopped was to stop the hate as soon as it started to form and not let it build up. My point was that persecution of the Jews is a recouring theme in history, it happened in Europe many times before Nazi Germany was even thought of. If we start to regard Israel as a problem or inconvienence now and don’t remember the mistakes of the past we might be destined to repeat them. You may think “No Way” but that’s probably what Germans would have thought in 1930. We must guard against repeating the mistakes of the past.

I agree with your paragraph on intollerant neighbours. The problem the Middle East has is similar to how things were in Northern Ireland. Both sides fought each other for so long that it got to the point where neither side could understand exactly why they were fighting.

I tend to agree with you, there probably never will be peace between Israel and her neighbours. The only way for that to happen would be for both sides to stop attacking each other and talk. As long as retaliations happen on a tit for tat basis there is not much chance of that happening. About 3500 years ago someone wrote that there would be war between the Arabs and Jews “from generation to generation.” Sad.

Your last paragraph is very disturbing. Advocating a whole nation should either leave their homes or be killed is to advocate ethnic cleansing on a mass scale. This is to do exactly what I am warning against i.e. forget the past and start down a path that could lead to repeating it.