fabe

Yes, compared to the world of hurt conventional US forces can impose on the country. At best firing those missiles will put a small dent in U.S. capabilities in the region. The U.S. will still have the ability to remove every power plant in the country, destroy every bridge, turn civic buildings into rubble, eliminate port facilities, break up concentrated military forces, etc. And Iran couldn’t do any more about it than Saddam could. The imbalance is too great. I don’t know what the resulting war would look like, but if we just look at conventional forces there will far more dead Iranians than there will be dead Americans.

The negative effects to the U.S. will come from unconventional warfare, including economic problems derived from volatility in the energy markets. That seems like a far bigger risk from military action against Iran than their conventional response.

Given Brazil’s location, seems like the only potential ‘big’ enemy would be the U.S. Unless maybe they’re thinking of taking the Falklands from the Brits to outflank Argentina in their rivalry to dominate the vital south atlantic region. That would be an interesting little war.

Otherwise, unless they join the U.S. in trying to manage the arabs, which European or Asian power is going to want to fight the Brazilians?

According to an article in Janes Defense Weekly (9/8/04), the Dutch are reorganizing their military to make it more capable of supporting overseas operations. Given the requirements of the budget, they had to cut something, so it’s not surprising that the Orions were on the chopping block.

In recent years, the defense ministry said, more than 50% of the Orions’ flying hours had been in the Caribbean flying coast-guard type missions. Now that there aren’t many Russian submarines floating around the Atlantic, the primary mission of the Orion- ASW- is not a high priority for them, and they think the he coast-guard missions in the Antilles can be handled by smaller, less-capable patrol aircraft.

Although they’ve recently used three modified Orions as ISR platforms in an overland role, but this mission was apparently not important enough to Dutch planners to justify the cost of keeping the Orions in the inventory.

If it makes anyone feel better, the Dutch did received a used tanker recently.

Garry

Interesting idea. Be able to move around MBTs and IFVs like they do infantry squads and light vehicles.

For the US, however, I’d think the main benefit for airships would lie in strategic lift. Shipping our heavy forces by rails, trucks, and sea thousands of miles is such an obstacle to force projection that we’re spending a lot of money building less capable lightly armored forces just so they can be moved to third-world hellholes faster. With super-lift capacity we wouldn’t have to make that tradeoff.

Some of the huge airships on the drawing boards are capable of carrying massive loads, and supposedly they would be capable of landing cargo in areas without airfields and with a minimal amount of preparation. There would supposedly be time savings involved from being able to move loads point to point, because the airship would pick up the unit at its base in CONUS and fly it direct to the battlefield. No need to drive equipment to the coast, put it onto ships, then offload it in the foreign port.

On the other hand, the idea that an enemy could shoot down an entire battalion at once is a little intimidating.

MPA

If the French only wanted to destroy the aircraft used in the strike, why did they also destroy the Hinds and at least one Mi-8? Seems like the smart move after suffering a government airstrike is to remove the government’s abilities to threaten troops or rebels from the air, particularly when the French have limited fighter support within the country.

Airships would be cool. And the largest ones would appear to have the massive lift capacity the army wants. But they’re slow and unsexy. And they no doubt have many drawbacks that will keep them out of transport service.

Still, they’d be pretty cool…

Couldn’t it be fair to say that in determining which non-U.S. carrier is best, you look at the mission it’s intended to perform?

The U.S. maintains its huge carrier fleet to be able to have strike and air dominance in several parts of the globe simultaneously. It’s got to possess maximum offensive and defensive power against a hostile and well-equipped opponent.

But you look at GB or France or Italy or Thailand- what missions are they looking to perform and what is the maximum threat level they need to face? France, for example, may need to have a floating airfield to support only the occasional peacekeeping or coalition war mission against a low-rent opponent. If it can carry a small fleet of multirole fighters and helicopters and go out for six months without breaking down, that might be enough to meet the French Navy’s requirements. Same for GB and Italy.

I can’t imagine why Thailand needs a carrier. Does anyone know why they wanted one?