AspisAre You sure that they look that huge ?? … IMO rather small more like the S-37’s twin tail. :confused:
Deino
In deed. I think that the more distant of the 2 fins may look as part of the closer fin (blending because of the poor image quality) and thus give the impression of a huge tail fin.
It does look “flankerish” though.
AspisRe; the sonar missing or losing a component, we cant see that as it’s under the water line.
Yes, but Defencenet somehow got a picture of it, but doesn’t want to show it. :rolleyes: When i first read in Defencenet “feather-torn chicken” and “torn from several parts of the vessel” i thought that the sub has lost many tiles in multiple parts. Yet another exageration of Defencenet. It seems that it was in 1 area instead.
About the sonar, I intend the information from “Adrias”, here:
http://www.defencenet.gr/forum/index.php?topic=19474.0
I trust him more than Defencenet. And he says that the sonar is intact. At least he doesn’t pretend to be serious writing about “chicken without feathers” or “let’s see who wears pants and who skirts” or “peeled off like a playmobil” like the so called serious journalist of Defencenet. Once upon a time, Defencenet was pubblishing the best magazine. Ever since the change of ownership, it followed a downwards spiral for me to the point that i stopped buying simply because the teenager-like way of writing was getting at my nerves. Not to mention the blatant political bias and support for specific weapons. The peak was when they pubblished an obvious photoshop picture of the greek parliament in flames, presenting it as official picture used by turkish Aselsan company to sell her products. Only a moron wouldn’t understand that a) it was too badly photoshoped to be used by company, b) that it’s impossible for a company to use as advertisement for her rockets the “bombed parliament” of a neighbour country. And yet they published that as “shocking news”. After that, as well another incident with yet another gaffe they did pubblishing information from a turkish prank as “news”, about the Milgem, for me, Defencenet has to prove its news.
So regarding the reports of a 8m square piece coming away from the conning tower take a look at the HN picture No.DSC_2624.jpg Hi rez version (I use ACDsee to zoom in), look at port side panel directly under the Sub’s name plate , notice the colour difference of this panel and also look at right hand seam and also notice what appears to be some over paint to the adjacent panel. Another clue look at the panels rivets they all look black and freshly painted as apposed to the other adjacent panels which show some signs of paint loss.
I thought the same even by not looking at the high resolution pictures. Even the low resolution show something weird on the side panel.
I also believe as reasonable the explanation of Adrias at post no. 82:
“As far as i know from the tests we do in the shipyards, we always test the subsystems and the entire system beyond the official limits given by the manufacturer. If for example, the manufacturer gives 250 bar pressure limit for a “line of the submarine”, we and the Navy will go at 270 or 280 bars. If something is for depth of 100m, we will bring it to 110 or 120m. The same happened in the sea trials of Papanikolis, to put it simply, our people “ripped it”, they went over the manufacturer limits, surpassing at some occasions the sailing envelope. This doesn’t happen just in submarines, but to any ship of the Navy comes out of the shipyards. It’s a philosophy which would be good if it didn’t change. In this way we know that every weapons system is delivered can endure over the official limits and won’t “crack” with the first misfortune or in other words “better to crack it in the tests, rather than in a war operation”. This is the dogma of the shipyard as well as the Navy’s.
Every navy has the need to do voyage repairs occasionally since ships can encounter weather conditions which will lead to damage. The decision by the operator on whether to put mission or ship safety first will have some bearing, but no ship or submarine can be expected to be unbreakable (though politically charged ones may particularly good targets). Sounds like they decided to explore the limits, suffered some damage and repaired it within days. The rest of the HN submariner community may well be thankful for the resulting knowledge.
Yes, now that the dust is settling, i am more prone to believe the same. If Defencenet would provide the photo with the sonar missing i would maybe change my mind questioning the concealment of this news, but, in other case, i believe the version of “bloating” the issue for political reasons on the part of Defencenet. The Papanikolis is probably the only vessel in the HN that even a housewife has heard of, so anything related to it is very exploitable. Already Defencenet’s article caused questions about the event in the parliament and ironic comments in opposition press (Defencenet also openly supports the opposition).
AspisAspis, you are generalising East and West. These never existed in the terms you explained, except from cold war era of course. In fact it is the propaganda of Cold war era that East vs West concept exists. And world history started much earlier my friend.
I use the terms east and west, for practical purposes, as it would be rather inconvenient having to mention each country every time i want to make the comparison between the current “establishment” in the economic power and development and the “new” or rising powers. So i prefer the use of these 2 terms, from the point of view of the average contemporary european. I don’t mean that there are 2 unified blocks somewhere. And i am aware that world history goes much back in time, but since i am talking about the future developments, i conventionally take as starting point the current situation.
Ähhhm Aspis could we please go back to the original topic and leave this really stupid “Germany bashing-theme” ??
It is not a Germany bashing theme. It’s my honest evalutation and if you think about it, you may understand why Britain was since day 1 against the euro project and you may also find a correlation between the establishment of eurozone and the worsening in Britain’s economy recently. Germany is 1st in trade balance, Britain is last in the EU. It’s not that Britain is doing in the last few years something different that she was doing before… But if i have 100 euros to buy goods and i spend 90 of them to buy german goods and 10 to buy british goods, Britain will see economic damage, won’t she? I ‘ve written much more worse and in all seriousness things about Greece here to the point that some Greeks would get upset with me, but again, it’s my opinion.
If by bashing you mean the 4th reich, it’s maybe a different understanding of humour. I ‘ve read in this forum much less humourless or just plainly insulting comments about Greece, to the point of people celebrating my country’s troubles, but i ‘ve always took it like a sport and replied. We laugh with ourselves too. The “Hellenic”: http://www.ethnos.gr/summary.asp?catid=11419&subid=2&pubid=46480961
and our “last visit”: http://www.ethnos.gr/summary.asp?catid=11419&subid=2&pubid=45864949
Anyway, each person has different tollerance levels, by all means, i didn’t intend to distract your attention from the main topic. It’s just that i see direct connection between economy and RAF’s and RN’s “health”.
Aspisit shows that the Germans didn’t need the third reich to conquer Europe! they can do it with out it!! es lebe die heilige Deutschland!!!
Of course! The means to achieve a target can vary. The important is to achieve the goal. We call it 4th reich obviously.
AspisDefencenet didn’t pubblish photos of the sensor of the mine avoidance sonar…
Also, i tend to believe as more serious the opinion of a greek forum member who works in the Skaramanga shipyards and has worked in the U214 built in Greece. His opinion:
A GRP was detached in deed, but Defencenet made a drama out of it. The sonar sensor is intact. Such GRP losses have occured before in U209 types, when rapidly emerging under very bad weather. The trials of Papanikolis were on purpose too hard, remaining on surface in conditions where normally a submarine would submerge to avoid the bad weather. But instead it kept on surface to test the stability.
The Navy released photos from the official ceremony. Maybe it is my idea, but i think the side panel under the sub’s name, could be the part that went missing. Looks a bit different in colour and doesn’t seem 100% fitting (4th photo). If that is the case, then there is no sonar sensor there and Defencenet bloated the story to attack the goverment (wouldn’t be the first time).
The MoD, as expected, said that the sub won’t be sold (who would buy it? the Poles wanted discount, but if sold at less than bought, the minister would be accused of damaging the state and public interest and would end up in parlament enquiry comittee).
AspisIt’s been devalued. From $2 to $1.55, & from €1.50 to €1.18. It used to be cheap to visit the USA, or any Euro-zone country – but not now.
I know, but it’s still stronger than the euro… The pound in the late 80s-early 90s was a powerful currency. But now, if you want to go on like this, IMHO, you must bring it to 1:1 or less to the euro. The Germans are sweeping the entire eurotrade already… And it’s not just the trade. They are taking over the consumer market too. In Greece, they are in the supermarket and mall sectors, practically not just exporting their products, but also taking the daily greek consumption and all profits end up in Berlin… Before the euro, both these sectors were held only by Greeks. The euro opened the way to the Germans, because the Greek businessmen, couldn’t keep out the Germans anymore ,using the weaker drachma like they did before. The drachma was killing the Germans in competition for our market. The euro and common regulation leveled the playground for them. How are you going to compete against this with the pound still higher than the euro? They are already in a dominating position in the market. This is why Germany invented the euro… To kill the competition and allow penetration of otherwise expensive german products everwhere, secure a market area and prepare for the showdown with China.
AspisA quick calculation after looking at a Daily Telegraph article on the internet has shown me that even after an 8% budget cut the UK still has the 4th largest defence budget in the world after the US, China and France.
My question is why are our forces been reduced so dramatically and the number of personnel, aircraft, ships etc. we operate are so small in comparison with other nations?
Is our equipment that good, do we pay to much for what we purchase or those who procure the equipment just bad at the job they do etc?
Some obvious factors, others will be more knowledgeable for specific sectors.
1) Your armed forces are professional and being a country with high wages, you spend a lot for your wages.
2) You operate very often away from your home. This is very costly. For example, in an evalutation of our navy, a frigate, which operates in the Aegean, costs 55000 euros a day, with 70% of the time at sea, 30% at port. If it’s 50% at sea, it falls to 25.000 euros. This includes everything, from food, to spare parts, fuel, wages etc. Smaller ships cost less. That’s why on daily basis we use small ships for patrols, while only a few frigates are on some islands anchored on standby inside ports(and most others in the main bases) and only patrol periodically for some hours every week. Imagine how much more it must cost to the Royal Navy, to partecipate in missions half way around the world, far away from your support facilities and having to stay at sea for much longer (which also has negative effect on maintenance, because this can’t be made on optimal time periods but when the conditions allow it). In Afghanistan Greece has only 170 men (mostly engineers and medics with some SF guard, because being a leftist country a greek gov can’t risk partecipating with “imperialistic” personnel) with 74 vehicles, 1 mobile hospital and 2 C130 and pays 12,5 mln euros a year. Imagine how much you pay for Iraq, Afghanistan and various other mission abroads.
AspisChina, Russia, India…getting stronger by the day. Meanwhile the RAF and RN become barely visible to the naked eye. God help Britain.
Britain, unless the eurozone collapses, i am afraid will have to choose between isolation and living less comfortably and as other option, joining the “dark force” and accept Germany’s victory. Because that’s all about actually. Once more Germany vs Great Britain, this time in economic terms. And Germany outsmarted Britain with the invention of the euro. If you think about it, if you accept the situation, you won’t be so bad after all.
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/8249/euorder.png
But, in any case, the East is rising, debt-free, full of competitivity, with resources and ambitions, to claim portion of the welfare of the West. This is what is happening.
http://buttonwood.economist.com/content/gdc
Look at the light green full of hope in the East and the “rotten apple” green of the west… As in every historic period, there is “rise and fall”. We are living the “fall”.
They are the future. The West can only try to maintain in the long run a reasonably comfortable way of life, but no more. In the past, the West has used colonialism and wars to harvest the resources of the rest of the world to keep itself rich. Globalization was a good american idea to help the ailing US economy by exporting her crisis (it’s tragicomical, but when Lehman Bros poped, even some greek peasants got “burnt”. I couldn’t help myself laughing when i saw them in the tv, and thought “who would have thought that greek farmers in some mountain village would become part of the Lehman Bros meltdown and pay part of its price”) and also putting China in the global economic system sustaining part of US debt. But the price to pay, was, the transfer of production to countries with low work cost. “Unfortunately”, these weren’t ready to keep forever the role of “cheap workforce for the West”. They used it to grow themselves and acquire know-how from the same products they were manufacturing for the West. And now they will claim their share of world’s wealth, reducing the one available for the West.
Who knows, maybe one day it will be the West the one that will be the “cheap labor” of the East.
In older times, the West would react with some war that would ensure that the East would fall back many years and stay poor. But in today’s world with nuclear weapons, this is not easy. To be honest i think at some point some major war will become inevitable, i don’t know how and where, maybe it will be “proxy-wars” for control of resources.
In the meantime, Britain could try devaluating the pound (which of course would make lose purchase power towards euro- and dollar- products and raise inflation, but would increase also exports) or… accepting the position of Germany’s leutenant inside the EU. The EU won’t have easy life against the East either, especially if it keeps like today with no political cohesion, but at least as a whole, it ensures a more secured market, with producing countries selling to consumer countries thanks to the common currency). In the long run, the EU will have trouble with the East too.
Russia did it the “hard way”. It collapsed, so that it can rise again thanks to the natural resources. Unfortunately the EU can’t rely on huge oil and gas resources. So it will unite or perish.
Come on, just say “jawohl”, how hard can it be? 😀
AspisMedia war between Defencenet and the Navy.
The Navy press center came out with announcement saying that in deed, a “small part” of the metal cover of the conning tower fell off, but this is “normal” after 2 months at sea trials at harsh conditions (8-9 Beuaforts wind , 6m high waves), where it proved that it is ok (including the inclination). It has already been repaired. It adds that Defencenet’s article is “inaccurate”, has “no source inside the Hellenic Navy Staff” and did not cross reference the news before putting them in the internet.
Defencenet replies, that the incident is not normal, that the Navy is concealing and says nothing about the sonar that was also detached and threatens to pubblish photo and asks “did the tile with the sonar fell off or did it not? Here’s the question”. Also denies that the Navy can control what 10.000 officers do,so that they can know whether or not they have sources in the Navy Staff.
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16301&Itemid=139
According to defencepoint.gr,
The piece that fell off is 8 square meters.
Papanikolis. No other submarine managed to cause so much scandal and soap opera clashes without actually sinking than this. Unlucky till the very end.
I am not submarine expert and don’t know whether the Navy Staff got orders from the political leadership to hide the sonar incident too or it’s Defencenet’s wrong information, but i do find strange that 8 square meter pieces fall off a conning tower and this is to be considered “normal due to the weather”.
God bless the crew!
AspisThat is why they reduced orders from some 600 down to 330 and then down to 187 airframes. A typical image of a tremendously successful project 🙂
IMHO, the F22 project was successful as an aircraft from a technical point of view. The problem is that USA hasn’t been living its more fortunate period economically speaking. Even if we make the hypothesis that USAF didn’t get any 5th gen aircraft and instead decided to rely on Super Hornet, F16 B60s and a “stealthy” F15, it would still have no equal rival for the medium term future, if not for anything else, for the sheer number of aircrafts. Once you realise this, for politicians, cutting the “expensive” one, becomes very easy. And of course, every time they were “cutting” numbers, the cost was going up due to the lesser number of aircrafts and the veto for exports. If they had allowed an export version of the F22, maybe USAF would have taken more units too, because it would reduce costs.
Just look what happens in Europe too. Many big countries are cutting down their aircraft numbers.
AspisNo, actually they were built by Boeing (McDonell- Douglas), and the AMRAAMs were A not the present D. But I concur, paper perfromances are better than real life (for all missiles).
I mean, the aircrafts that shot down some Serbs or Iraquis. I remember some F16s were involved too and it’s built by LM. Not that it makes much of a difference. I know it was AMRAAM A, but the problem wasn’t the lack of range (Amraam A had 80 km declared as operational range), but that the pilots couldn’t ID earlier the enemy. It’s not the missile’s fault, it’s the platform’s fault. You can build a missile with 400 km range. If you can identify your target at 40km, then the max range is good only in theory. They do have a use, again, with tactics. For example, if you successfully do scouting and you arrive to ID your targets and pass them to other aircrafts staying more behind, then the range has a use. But, i am not so sure if a 6:1 kill ratio is to be expected, because the others may do the same or employ other tactic. The enemy doesn’t have to fly alligned in a single line just to make life easier for you either. And the scouts will probably suffer the heaviest losses.
AspisAccording to Defencenet, claiming “absolutely reliable sources inside the ministry of defence”, Papanikolis arrived to Greece with a disaster…
– The GRP protective skin, outside the steel hull, lost plates in several points, arriving in Greece like a “chicken that lost feathers”. The plates “peeled off” because of the rough weather during navigation.
– The external anti-mine external sensor of the sonar, was during the navigation detached and lost in the bottom of the ocean.
Repair works were being done overnight so that the sub can look normal for the official entry in service ceremony tomorrow.
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16292&Itemid=139
I hope it proves to be one of the hoaxes of Defencenet, but otherwise it’s ridiculous.
AspisThe point is the people that developed the F-22 also developed the F-35. They of course have the most knowledge of the capabilities of both types.
Let’s not forget that Lockheed Martin was right about the capabilities of the F-22. While, the critics claimed the Raptor was a big waste and would never live up to it’s expectation.
Sorry, if I don’t take their word for it and instead listen to Lockheed Martin, JSF Partners, and every Expert Associated with the Program.
Critics are like A$$holes. Everybody has one……..;)
Ok, i will take only the EADS folks as selling an exagerated story. LM tells the truth, because they built well the F22 (but alas the politicians found the price exagerated).
Just a curiocity. Has LM ever explained at what range in real war conditions (transponders off) the F35 will have positive target ID against a legacy fighter so that it can shoot its missiles? I ‘d be curious to know. Because many of the aircrafts that were shooting Serbs or Iraquis at 15 kms were built by LM too.
Aspis1. Do you honestly believe exercises actually tell you much about the capability of an aircraft? If so, then WHY do they have “wartime modes” of all relevant sensors, EW and weapons?
2. I hardly think AMRAAM is the only weapon system that suffers such an issue. Combat ID is required before ANY weapons launch. Meteor/R-77 etc are going to suffer JUST as much unless some sort of “weapons free” declaration is made and who can honestly see that happening in this day and age?
Probably you misunderstood me. My english betrayes me often. I do my best, but my best if often not good enough.
I am saying the same things as you do actually! I find some exercizes that limit the real range of the missiles just because the scenario asks so, to be almost useless. But unless USA attacks Russia or China, beating the Serbian or Iraqui airforce isn’t proof of excellence either.
I don’t claim that only the AMRAAM has the ID issue. ALL BVR missiles have the same issue. I think part of the range competition has to do with marketing and hope that target ID will improve in the coming years. Well, the broad use of IRST in most recent aircrafts is an improvement actually, but not the definitive solution yet.
Weapons free areas can be declared (it’s the same concept of designating “SAM kill boxes”- as of this time, anything flying in known to the friendly aircrafts coordinates will be regarded as hostile and fired upon-), but the risk is still great if the enemy is capable of resistance, because he can draw your airforce to areas that you hadn’t planned. Designating such areas is easier when the enemy is lacking too much power.
AspisWe heard much similar criticism about the F-22 during its development. Today it’s regarded as the best fighter in the World. (bar none);)
Personally i had no doubt about the F22. It was designed to be the best air superiority fighter, its kinetic performance surpasses anything out there, its stealth is the most elaborated out there and carries the proper armament inside (including the AIM-9X). This also justifies its high cost.
Using the F22 as “proof” for the F35 is a logical “jump” which i can’t follow. It’s like “since the F15 was the best A-A fighter, then so is the F16”.
It may very well be second to F22. But, unless they go against some decent opponent (against Iraq or Serbia even the F16 is king), the only non promotional information available will come from the users that will get both the F35 and a “4.5” gen fighter. I mean, LM could sell ice to the penguins. They all do, but LM goes one step further. And unlike the F22, the F35 wasn’t designed for air superiority, it was designed as substitute of the F16 and F18.
Maybe it will be the “silver bullet” capable of doing anything, i just want to hear what some more unbiased users will say. Some northern european countries that don’t build their own aircrafts will also get it and soon they will be out in exercizes and it will be interesting.
EDIT: Oh, my reserves about the effective range that AMRAAMs will be used in REAL war (not exercizes), remain also for the F22. Of course if the opponent is very weak, it won’t make too much difference. Old tech aircraft radars for example will probably be jammed to death with USAF’s massive jamming power.
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