Liger30Sorry old boy, but I really don’t care if their relatives live in poverty in the Caribbean. I didn’t cause it, and it’s nothing to do with me. I live in Britain, and I want British taxpayers’ money to be spent defending Britain, not wasted on some futile attempt to assuage the neo-colonial guilt of the Guardian reading classes. If Britain is not the world’s policeman, it certainly isn’t the world’s daddy either. India has got larger armed forces than Britain, and we are giving them aid? Come off it!
As a matter of record, slavery did not make Britain rich. It made some British people rich, and made the ports of Bristol and Liverpool rich, but the main impact of slavery on most British people was to rot our teeth with cheap sugar. The industrial revolution made Britain rich, that’s what set Britain apart from states such as France, Spain and Portugal which all had large colonial holdings built on the slave trade.
Completely agree.
The Guardian is a curse for this country. Worse than even L’Unità here in Italy. Newspapers written by people that seem to live in a completely different world, so absurd are most of their claims.
Liger30“Bleeding heart stuff” such an easy term to throw out there and means nothing other than ignorance of history and the ignorance of the social structure of the UK. I dare you to go into the centre of say Brixton, lewisham, Battersea and stand with a sign on your chest that says “Africa is not MY problem….” Perhaps on your back you could add a line like “I don’t care that your relatives live in poverty in the Caribbean”
So the Royal Navy’s support and defence of the slave trade in the previous 200 years is over looked then? We just concentrate on the dramatic U-turn as it suits our conscience to do so? I’m afraid the story of this tiny rain soaked island that appears to have not much going for it is dramatically changed by Empire and most importantly slavery. Where do you think we got most of the money from? How do you think a poor medieval state that was scraping around in the mud in the 15th Century, barely having an impact on world history, suddenly became the richest most powerful state on earth? I’m afraid (and it is a very bitter pill to swallow) its because we used our navy and merchant navy to seize resources and in particular people from Africa. We took these people, moved them to where we could use them and then worked them for all their worth and raked in the money.
Its a problem of our creation, a stable Africa is a peaceful africa and therefore (and I am not suggesting we hand over CVF money) helping to repay the centuries of damage we inflicted has to be a role of the UK and other western governments.
Britain did nothing that the rest of the world did not do. Slavery was common practice in Africa before than it was in the rest of the world. Most african slaves were regularly bought from other african tribes who enslaved its own people as a daily work.
While slavery is not nice, your vision of the “evil empire” is seriously flawed. When africa was powerful, it came in Europe seeking slaves. The saracen pirats didn’t do that? The arabs did not do that?
How many europeans have been killed, slaughtered, and sold as slaves?
It was common practice of an age now gone. The old Britain wasn’t evil. Not more evil than anyone else. So, our regret should be commesurate to this simple truth. The rest is bleeding heart stuff. International aid must be used strategically. And UK, Europe, are not responsible of the state of Africa more than Africa itself is. If Africa had been developing before colonialism began, there would have been no colonialism, simple as that.
If Europe was building empires with rifles and unitary nations and Africa was fighting with rocks and spears and in tribes, it means they were already underdeveloped well before colonialism began.
Proof is the beating that Italy took in more than an occasion trying to build its own empire in Africa attacking the Negus, who had a not-so-underdeveloped army.
Or you really believe that, had it been the other way around, with Africa strong and Europe weak, they wouldn’t have colonized us…?
Liger30sorry to disappoint you gloom but the long leads for Astute 7 have been ordered indicating it will be ordered. This are only plans we have many many of these some they do other they don’t. Reducing the deterrent is unlikely Fox has made some interesting comments from Chateem house http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100047163/liam-fox-sometimes-you-have-to-fight-for-peace/
I’ve just come back from Chatham House, where Liam Fox has been outlining his thinking on British defence. In a nutshell, he says we have to have the means and the willingness to deploy serious military power in order to deter potential threats to the realm. (I’ll try to get a link to the full text soon.)In the question and answer session that followed, Dr Fox was challenged about some of the alleged contradictions in his approach. One of the main issues: how does the whole full-spectrum conventional-forces-as-deterrent notion relate to the admission that the greatest probable threat comes from non-state actors. (”Oi, Osama, stop that terror plotting now or I shall unleash my Astute-class subs on you. When I find you, that is.”)
But my favourite exchange went like this:
Q: Are you concerned that you sound like a bellicose neo-con? What happened to peacekeeping?
A: I hope that to those who might pose a threat to the UK, I sound bellicose. The trouble with peacekeeping is that there has to be a peace to keep. Sometimes you have to fight for the peace. Sometimes you have to die for the peace.
seems that all power projection stuff seem safe to me with those sort of comments.
I think you don’t get me right. I don’t talk gloomy because i like to do it. Was it for me, the RN would have 2 CVFs fully loaded with planes out at sea in Us-style carrier battegroups, it would be planning 3 Camberra-like LHD ships to replace, in good time, Ocean, Albion and Bulwark and it would line 4 SSBN successors and no less than 10 Astutes. If the RN gets 7 Astutes, i’m the happier man around.
I’d like you to post here a source for long-lead items for the 7th Astute, though, because i heard that there have been long-lead orders for up to the 6th, not the 7th. I’d be very glad to be wrong, if you can prove it. Believe me, i’d like to be wrong.
As to the SSBN successors, we’ll see. I think that, no matter the good phrases and promising words, Liam Fox will be very hard pressed to sacrifice at least one of four replacement SSBN. And i don’t know if he’ll be able to stand up the pressure and avoid such an event. I hope he will, but i’m really, really not sure.
Liger30Just a point on SSN’s The number of SSN’s completed is dependent on how many can be completed before the next genaration os SSBN’s take up all the construction hall. If the Astute design has more problems then there will be only 6, if they can be built to the current schedule, then 7, if faster or the SSBN is delayed then 8.
I strongly have to disagree with you, unfortunately. By now, we’ve overcome that stage. If there was money and a contract was placed, we could have all Astutes, up to the much needed 8th, no problems.
The fact is that there is no money. We’ve some certainty up to the 6th Astute, some money has been spent on it. A 7th is planned, but we’ll see if it’ll ever be built.
The 8th has already been dropped from plans: the official confirmation came in 2008. At the best, the RN will have 7 Astutes. More likely 6.
Unfortunately.
And the SSBN may be only 3, no matter the risk of being unable to provide continuous presence at sea. Liam Fox seems to have said it today, for what i read in the news.
Most likely, four Vanguards will be replaced by 3 boats at this point. The shrinking continues, regardless of who is in power.
Liger30Argentina has had quite some time to do something about that but there has not been one whisper from anywhere that they are equipping to do so and these days even ludicrous rumours go round the world in minutes.
What should have done? Invaded Mount Peasant…? I don’t get your point. If they do try to invade the airport, IT IS Falklands II starting right away.
I don’t get your point.
They can’t invade or disable the airport without facing all the consequences.
Liger302 New interesting images of the proposed Merlin AW101 ASaC:
Full article is found here: http://www.defence-update.net/wordpress/20100713_aw101_asac.html
Liger30Not true, I’m afraid. In 1981, junior officials in the relevant section of the Foreign Office were expressing concern about Argentina’s behaviour & intentions. They were ignored by senior officials & ministers. Granted, few though there was any possibility of a war, but NO ONE is not true.
In 1990, there was deep worry about Yugoslavia in many quarters, & it was widely reported in the press. I remember reading about it at the time. There was already a crisis in full swing by 1989: it just didn’t turn into open warfare until 1991.
Consider this –
“At home and abroad, Serbia’s enemies are massing against us. We say to them ‘We are not afraid’. ‘We will not flinch from battle’.” Slobodan Milošević, November 19, 1988
Churchill hadn’t told everyone about Hitler’s danger? Didn’t he push the british armored forces all the way to Lubecca, didn’t he sent troops to greece and Italy and didn’t he pushed for taking Berlin before the Russians because he was warning from long time everyone about Stalin and URSS…?
The isolated, ignored alarms are good only for regret afterwards, and for praising the capability of certain great men to see into the future events far more clearly than most others could.
But the great public did expect the war…? If they did, they did not get ready in time. Not for the world war, not for the Cold War, not for the Falkalnds and not even for the Balkans.
That was what i meant. How much people back then used to say “there will be no war”…? At least as much as there is today.
The First, the Great World War wasn’t supposed to be the “war that will end all wars…”?
It wasn’t. And up to today, 07.13.10, so much people still is ready to swear that there will be no war.
Not even if there’s friction between nations for oil, sovereignty brawls, and the so-often announced climatic changes, potable water shortage, the end of the fossil combustibles, the shortages in the supply of rare metals for the electronic industry, the religious hate, the old hates, the new hates, the economic crisis and all the rest.
Isn’t it a tad careless to claim that in such climate “there will be no wars tomorrow”? For me, it is bull****. Idealistic, wonderful, but it is bull****.
We can argue about how, when, and how much a nation or another will be involved. But with 17 different wars going on even now in Africa alone and all the other troublespots and with everything that could possibly go wrong… To assume that peace will last is absurd.
As a matter of fact, we are not at peace. Not even now. Much as so many still refuse to call Afghanistan a war, and so many still try to partecipate in it but not fight it. A contraddiction, again, but a fact.
Liger30I’m afraid I can’t agree with this bleeding heart stuff. The Royal Navy actually ended the slave trade two hundred years ago, and these states have been independent for fifty years. They are not the responsibility of the British state and the British taxpayer. If any private citizens wish to make charitable donations to African education then good for them, it’s their decision how to use their own money.
I agree totally.
Besides, colonialism began in 1700 and was possible only because Africa was divided, weak and technologically lacking.
Colonialism may have damaged them (not so sure about it, all things considered, because Europe left them a lot of things they hadn’t, from buildings to roads to trains), but to start with, the entire continent was behind Europe of well over a century in terms of development already.
If Africa had been not on par, but even just ALMOST on par, there would have been no way to colonize it.
The bleeding heart syndrome is a tad excessive, and exaggerated.
Liger30And just to put one final nail in the coffin of Liger’s worries for the fleet, with the recent successful firings of Sea Viper the first 2 T45’s could go from unarmed to world class air defence asset in however long would be needed to prepare a taskforce.
In a Falklands situation I wouldn’t be too worried about SSN numbers either, 1 was enough to put an entire nations fleet into port last time, so 1-2 with the fleet this time and one demonstation that they’re there would do the trick again probably. Although generally i’d definitely feel better if they had 8-10 SSNs. The last SDR set a floor around there didn’t it?
I know perfectly well of the latest firings of the PAAMS system. But i’ll feel better when the Daring itself fires its first Sea Viper and validates the concepts into practice.
And you are wrong. HMS Conqueror WAS NOT the only SSN down around the Falklands. Even a few of the last diesel-electric subs were deployed south back then, and until the General Belgrano was sunk, the Argies hadn’t exactly been waiting in their ports. An ari attack from their carrier, the Venticinquo de Mayo, was erased merely because of adverse weather.
After HMS Conqueror’s victory, the carrier was called back altogether, but that was an (arguable) choice of the Argies.
If the First Sea Lord almost cried to get at least 8 Astutes, he evidently sees a need for them. Shame that, at the most, 7 will come in line. At the worst, 6.
And to have 1-2 subs to deploy to a crisis zone swiftly, you need to have a minimum fleet: with the SSNs being in months long cruises, you may have several of them very far away, and others unavailable for refit or other reasons.
Just as 2 aircraft carriers are the least number required to have one always available (the combined availability of the two CVFs was stated in 550-some days a year, i think), the rest of the fleet has its needs.
In ten years of labour, over 60 ships left the RN. Only 15 were ordered in the same time. But i see that no one is worried about the shrinking of the fleet.
I don’t like it, personally. Some shrinking was evidently due… but so much…? In ten years the RN grew far smaller. Next thing we see is the replacement of Type 23 and 22 and of the minesweepers. How much smaller will it get…?
Liger30Nissan, Honda, BMW, General Motors, Ford, Tata, Toyota . . . . their HQs are in other countries, but there are factories, design offices, etc. here, & also many component suppliers.
It’s much the same with civil aviation, & some other industries. Lots of production, lots of employment, but many HQs are abroad.
And there are, of course, a lot of firms that don’t grab headlines, but are world-class in their niches, e.g. some of the CVF suppliers.
Oh, come on! You are a damn optimistic person. The true british car industry died long ago, and we all know it. Of course there’s still some production in the Uk, otherwise everyone will be on the streets… But how much of what is daily used comes from abroad? How much heavy industry was lost in Europe in the last years in favor of Asia?
Shipbuilding in the UK is almost completely dead, and up to 1966 the merchant fleet of the Uk was the biggest in the world. In the early 1900 EVERYONE all the way up to Japan would come to the UK to have its ships built up. And now there’s little more of a shadow left of that industrial triumph.
How much the UK did lose in terms of industry, seriously…?
Even Westland is a shadow of its recent past size… and italian owned.
What’s left in most cases is crumbles of a recent past. The industrial policy of the UK (even in the policy generally horrible of the entire Europe) has been disasterous. And the latest economic crisis, i think, showed that financial services do not make up an economy as stable as one based on manufacture.
Liger30There isn’t going to be a second Falklands war. We are not about to fight Iran (the Israelis, Saudis and the US will beat us to that one), we are certainly not going to fight the Chinese or the Soviets, sorry Russians, anytime this side of hell freezing over so I would suggest we don’t have to sweat, “there will be no war tomorrow” to paraphrase…
I’d like to know what all this certainty is generated from. Are you really so sure? Why?
In 1981, NO ONE would imagine a war with Argentina.
In 1990, NO ONE saw the Balkans crisis coming.
In 1935, even, just a few saw the IIWW coming. The others were “sure it would not happen”.
I agree that it is unlikely, but saying it is not going to happen goes too far. A lot of wars were “not going to happen” and yet happened. And we can’t assume that men did improve that much in the years.
Liger301. I’ve not been optimistic ‘at all costs’. I’ve merely pointed out facts.
2. Exactly. It’s fiction, for the sake of emotional effect. It has no relevance to any comparison of capabilities or analysis of likely outcomes.
3. Yes, but that was in completely different circumstances: total war, where national survival was at stake. The circumstances of the ceasefire & handover of the fleet was also completely different. German armies did not surrender. The fleet was handed over as a guarantee of compliance, & an inducement to stop the Allies advancing. This is a different scenario, where there is no possibility of Argentinean forces continuing to advance. Again, it is not relevant.
4. No such assumption has been made. What has been assumed (& perfectly reasonably) is that Argentinean air attacks would be far less effective than in 1982, & there are good reasons for that:
– Argentina has fewer combat aircraft than in 1982
– those aircraft are only slightly better than in 1982
– their weapons are barely better than in 1982 – in most cases no better.
– the RN has far better SAMs (including greatly improved & mature Seawolf, vs brand new & still not fully debugged Seawolf & Seacat in 1982) & radars now
– the RN has far better defences against anti-ship missiles than in 1982, both soft-kill & CIWS
– the RN has some completely new abilities, e.g. shipborne AEW
– almost all the RNs ships have been designed since 1982, taking into account the lessons of that warOh yes, & there’s a fully manned military air base on the Falklands, with Typhoons & hardened shelters, which the RAF can fly straight into from Ascension.
Setting bomb fuses correctly won’t be enough to make up for that. The balance has shifted against Argentina.
Look, i totally agree with you and your facts, you know. For one, i’m very fond of the capabilities of the RN ships, and know these as well as you can know them without being in service on the ships.
But, there are problems too. The fleet would be far more sure with Sea Harriers with AMRAAMs still covering it from above.
The numbers of available ships has drastically gone down, and the SSN force is going to get awfully small.
And at the moment, the fleet is in an historical low about readiness for a “true” war: Daring is still in trial and pretty much unarmed.
Just 5 old Type 42 are left in line, and as many as 3 have had their Sea Dart system removed as cost saving measure.
Invincible goes out definitively this year… (hopefully not scrapped but changed in a museum, it would be a crime dismantling Her)
This leaves the fleet actually vulnerable at the trial of truth: there’s not much available for proper air defence right now.
The Type 22 may be retired earlier than planned to save money, and we’ll know this from the SDR. Seriously, it would be the easier cut to save some from the navy’s budget, and they may be tempted to go this way.
Phalanx is definitely NOT on every ship… not even on Daring, yet.
Numbers aren’t all, but they matter.
How many Type 42 would be able to sail south for a crisis now…? 2, perhaps 3 at the most.
They could give good cover, but JUST in a certain area.
Problems do exist. But i’m sorry if i got the wrong concept out, i know the navy has far better kit than it had back then. And i’m the happier about it. Pretty much every service does… But numbers are a major issue.
Argies have less planes, but the RN has less ships too. That is a worry.
Liger30It comes down to parking spots.
The British CVF’s are never going to have to worry about this we never load out a carrier the way it should be. Still want it to have emals and have the following on board at all times (government directive if needed) 33 F-35C 3 Hawkeye and 4 Merlins. Gimmie that and you would have one happy camper. Sod strike carrier I want fleet carrier with the ability to cross deck with US and French Carriers.
I don’t think it is even really about parking spots… A single island would be larger than any of the two, so the difference wouldn’t be that serious.
As amazing as it may seem, the double-island concept is a novelty that had never before come out.
But you know, there’s even been someone who proposed building the island in the MIDDLE of the flight deck, and have two runways on the sides of it, converging in a single sky jump. Unbelievable, yet it happened…
As to the rest, i’d be glad to have a CVF at sea all the time, full loaded with its own airwing. But the UK is not going to have such luxury… and what matters is to be able to do it when needed. We’ll have to be happy with that.
Liger30We haven’t had an empire for quite some time, I wonder why it is our responsibility to educate the children of Africa?
It is not our responsibility.
Normally, it is the Guardian who would suggest such demented ideas, like a recent article that horrified me, that suggested that cutting the Armed Forces altogether would end the economic crisis and do only good and make the Uk a sort of fairy laidy that the whole world would admire.
Epic bull****.
Not to point out that such a proposal would change 300.000 servicemen in unemployed, welfare-backed people (too easy to forget that soldiers ARE WORKERS), add to that all the civil servants and stuff, other 300.000 job losses in the industry, and the death of the last productive branch of british industry left, the Defence sector, which moves as much as 35 billions every year.
I wonder what kind of economy system the Guardian dreams for the Uk… Save for Rolls Royce, what globally-relevant industry is left in the country if we exclude defence?
Shipbuilding. Nope. South Korea’s domain.
Cars? Let’s not joke. Aston Martin is awesome, but it is not the few hundred supercars which move an industry.
Computers…? Not really.
What scares me is that there’s people WRITING, READING AND BELIEVING such idiocies.
Liger30I’m not a fan of optimism at all costs. I don’t like to assume as a fact that everything will work perfectly. Because in war it never happens. Sea Wolf and Sea Dart have their limits. And there can always be failures. We saw that in 1982 already. There even were some Sea Wolf misfires.
And with only 7 SSN in the future fleet (hopefully), some air-launched anti-ship strike capability would be nice, at least for the embarked F35. I’m hoping that the planned SPEAR capability block 3 will have some use in that kind of attack as well.
As to the fleet surrender, i’m guessing that Robinson used it to make the scene more emotional, and better get through his alarm about losing ships and capabilities.
As it stands, i would like to remember, Ocean may not be replaced at all when she is paid off. And that is a shame i’m hoping won’t happen, but that i fear will become a truth, seen how things have been going so far.
But i’d also like to remember you all that when you lose a war, you pay the toll. Germany did hand ships to the winning nations, included Prinz Eugen: the UK is depicted doing the same handing Ocean, i think, to Argentina at the end of the conflict.
Regardless of steaming away or not.
Assuming tout-court that the defences of the fleet would stop all aircrafts incoming is a bit too optimistic. And dumb bombs still do serious damage when they hit.
And we have to assume that argies did learn the lesson abount altitude and bomb fuzes at the very least.
I’m not saying Robinson’s scenario is completely realistic, but i’m saying it is totally wrong to assume it would be a happy trip for a pic nic to have another war down there.
Mount Peasant works two-way, you know. If they were to capture it, for a thing, they wouldn’t have to launch their planes from Tierra del Fuego and have 5 minutes for the attack before running on Bingo fuel.
That already would be a game-changer factor.
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