Defence Cuts

[Waynos]

I agree completely, and thats from someone who wished that they at least tried to fly the P.1154

 

[buffnut453]

I agree completely, and thats from someone who wished that they at least tried to fly the P.1154

Me too! Imagine those flying over the Falklands!!!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I agree Adler. But with a caveat. Wait for F-35 to establish itself before retiring F-16. But keep the production lines open for foreign sales. But keep the A-10 in the C configuration and use F-35 as mini-AWACS to feed them. I see the A-10 as one of our more pertinent platforms in these changing times.

I agree. I think the F-16 is eventually replaceable, but I think the A-10 is perfectly suited for today's environments and battlefield.

 

[Colin1]

I agree. I think the F-16 is eventually replaceable, but I think the A-10 is perfectly suited for today's environments and battlefield.

I do too
one of the biggest challenges facing the free world is how to target a shapeless enemy like terrorism. The upside is that it's terrorism's very shapelessness that precludes it from possessing tangible battlefield assets - the F-16 won't fly over terrorist battlespace and have to compete with anything in the air; in my own opinion, the obsolescence of the F-16 and other same-generation platforms has been stretched to the right a bit.

The A-10 is as important now as it was during the Cold War, impressive loiter time, a truckload of varied ordnance strapped to its pylons and a target area cruise speed that gives the pilot a chance to eyeball any target foolish enough to pop his head up. The F-16 driver has a smaller chance of seeing those.

 

[timshatz]

but I think the A-10 is perfectly suited for today's environments and battlefield.

Also agree. The A10 is the like the A-1. One of those birds that doesn't get retired until it falls apart from useage. Miss it when it's gone type of bird.

When you think of the history of small wars, the A-1/A-10 type of bird is perfect (hence the reason why SOCOM is looking into getting a similar bird). As Colin noted, it's loiter time, load capability and surviveability make it the top of the line and best bird for the situation. When you are chasing around some dudes in the mountains, having a bird like that around is mobile firepower/friend in need type of support that often times is the crucial factor.

F16, so-so. It's got the F22 and F35 coming up as (almost) direct replacements. Great bird. But....

Another point about the A10 versus the F35. A bullet through the A-10 is a patch job. A bullet through the F35 (if it gets that low, low enough to intimidate) is probably a several million dollar fix job.

 

[Colin1]

...When you are chasing around some dudes in the mountains...

Yep
was thinking Tora Bora/Afghanistan/Pakistani border-type scenarios when I posted

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Another point about the A10 versus the F35. A bullet through the A-10 is a patch job. A bullet through the F35 (if it gets that low, low enough to intimidate) is probably a several million dollar fix job.

It's more costly to fix an F-35 in that comparison but not that much...

 

[red admiral]

I wonder why it is that almost every independant observer/internet expert etc thinks, as I do, that we would be better off buying the F-35C, except for the MoD who are adamant that we buy the shorter ranged, more expensive and less capable version?

That's not really true.

The real decision on the carriers for STOVL vs conventional was taken about 15 years ago. STOVL performance looked promising and came out with a cheaper ship. There are also a couple of other ship basing factors in favour of STOVL like sortie count and heavy weather operations. The UK chose JSF, got tied into a STOVL carrier but are left at the end of development with a much less capable aircraft (and a need to procure STOVL AEW and transport aircraft). Changing CVF over to conventional now would cost a lot. Timing also comes into it, as if we change to conventional now, we're left with steam cats and a delay into service. If we delay into service even longer (say 2020+) cost spirals, but we are able to get a much more usable EMALs onto the ship.

It all comes down to cost now. Conventional is cheaper in the long run, but costs more now, and we can't afford more now.

I'm not sure about the anti-Typhoon sentiment. It's a far better strike aircraft than Harrier or Tornado but can do air-to-air as well. Cancelling Tranche 3 wouldn't give much in the way of cost savings due to the political agreements. The best result would be having India or Japan purchase significant quantities which would give emphasis for proper upgrades (CAESAR, bigger tanks and EJ270 would be my picks)

 

[BombTaxi]

So in a nutshell, cut social programs.

Sorry to go way back through the thread, but I just have one observation to make.

The UK's terrorist experience is in some ways different to the US's. We have a proportionally much greater chunk of our population susceptible to radicalism, and they're smart and well-organised. Tridents, Typhoons and even good old boots on the ground are no use against these guys unless we declare martial law for the whole country. Our only hope is to stop them being radicalised in the first place. This means better policing, better education and bettersocial integration, plus co-operating with the Pakistani govt to shut down the training camps, and trying to cut off funding wherever we can find it.

Apart from shutting down the training camps, none of this can be done by the armed forces. It has to be done at home, every day, every where. That means social spending. Social spending aimed at preventing radicalisation isn't a luxury nor a fault of our welfare state. It's a vital weapon and we need to keep using it.

 

[CharlesBronson]

The decommisioning of the Ark Royal wasn't a mistake. I was on her for a short time in 1974 and she was pretty well clapped out then. The mistake was losing her capability.

The Ark Royal would have deterred an attack for a number of reasons including:-

1) she had the ability to strike against the mainland
2) AEW aircraft were on board
3) The F4 would have dominated the airspace.

There is one caviet and its a big one. All Argentina needed to do was wait for the Ark to go say three months into a major refit and then attack.

Hehe, I was accurate in a 50%, thank for the reply Glider.

It seems to me When it comes to defense cuts it's always OK unless the project is located in your district, then it's important to keep those jobs.


Wheels

Sorry I ovelooked your post, my reply to that is Hell yea, I prefer an defebse expenditure than a cut to use that in some obscure social welfare program. At list the defense jobs are quality jobs, and we have in our province the state military factories working at an pitiful 10 % of his capability.

 

[Matt308]

Apart from shutting down the training camps, none of this can be done by the armed forces. It has to be done at home, every day, every where. That means social spending. Social spending aimed at preventing radicalisation isn't a luxury nor a fault of our welfare state. It's a vital weapon and we need to keep using it.

Yeah but you can't have it both ways because it is a zero sum game. If social spending to prevent radicalism is a necessary defence of the nation state, then you MUST cut other areas of your social spending agenda. Surely you don't advocate spending the same or more in our current budgetary climate.

I don't wish for this discussion to get derailed into politics, nor will the mods allow it. But one must approach budgetary cuts from a holistic perspective. Unless the premise of the discussion is that all budgetary line items must take an X% cut, then there will always be give and takes. It is a foolish gov't to make cuts based upon departments/agencies/adminstrations. Rather the gov't must priorities goals/objectives, prioritize them based upon necessity for their realization (near-/mid-/far-term), determine existing gov't spending that supports thos goals/objectives and only THEN make cuts.

 

[buffnut453]

Cutting social programmes is always hard because people start to rely (lean on) on what become national institutions. Ask anyone on a UK street if they want to move from the NHS to the US model where individuals must personally fund health insurance to the tune of thousands of pounds per year and the answer will be a resounding "no". The new UK Government is making noises about doing something about reducing social programmes, like making it profitable for people to work rather than receive the dole and hence get roughly 1 million people back to work who've been essentially living off the state for the past 9 years (according to one set of stats published by the Beeb). Other sacred cows are harder to sacrifice but, in the current economic climate, tough decisions need to be made by all governments across all branches.

 

[parsifal]

The problem with Naval cuts and the big ticket items like aircraft is that it takes at least ten years to replace them, and in the case of specialised skills like carrier aviation, once you have lost it, it takes the better part of twenty years to get it back. In a future conflict, I doubt any country has the forecasting skills to see that far into the future.

For Britain, her number one priorities have to be :

1) Protection of British sovereignty and territory
2) Protectiion of British seaborne trade and maritime interests
3) Force projection and intervention capability on the continent
4) Contribution to international obligations such as Iraq and Afhanistan
5) Internal security and protection from terrorist threats and civil unrest

....in roughly that order

The nuclear threats are a success and a good investment for precisely the reasons they are being attacked now. They succeed in their primary mission if they are never used. People often forget that.

The maintenance of the carrier capability are essential (still) to achieving objectives 2, 3, and 4, and probably serve as a deterrent against possible incursion (objective 1). If history teaches us anything, its that apparent periods of peace and stability can transform very rapidly. It would not take much, for example, for the Russians to go feral and impose a "blockade" on Britain to achieve or support some political agenda they might have. It would not be difficult to see the US retreating to n isolationist standpoint if therir economy keeps copping it the way that it has....if the US suffers a nuclear strike from a terrorist group with demands along the lines...."retreat to your own country" a weak administration might just do that.

I believe that Britains force structure should identify its missions and craft its force capabilities to be well rounded cadres as has always been British policy. In terms of strategic deterrents, and for the capabilities like naval power that require long lead times, the Brits have to maintain a ready use capability....they cannot afford to let those capabilities slip away

 

[Matt308]

For Britain, her number one priorities have to be :

1) Protection of British sovereignty and territory
2) Protectiion of British seaborne trade and maritime interests
3) Force projection and intervention capability on the continent
4) Contribution to international obligations such as Iraq and Afhanistan
5) Internal security and protection from terrorist threats and civil unrest

....in roughly that order

The nuclear threats are a success and a good investment for precisely the reasons they are being attacked now. They succeed in their primary mission if they are never used. People often forget that.

The maintenance of the carrier capability are essential (still) to achieving objectives 2, 3, and 4, and probably serve as a deterrent against possible incursion (objective 1). If history teaches us anything, its that apparent periods of peace and stability can transform very rapidly. It would not take much, for example, for the Russians to go feral and impose a "blockade" on Britain to achieve or support some political agenda they might have. It would not be difficult to see the US retreating to n isolationist standpoint if therir economy keeps copping it the way that it has....if the US suffers a nuclear strike from a terrorist group with demands along the lines...."retreat to your own country" a weak administration might just do that.

I believe that Britains force structure should identify its missions and craft its force capabilities to be well rounded cadres as has always been British policy. In terms of strategic deterrents, and for the capabilities like naval power that require long lead times, the Brits have to maintain a ready use capability....they cannot afford to let those capabilities slip away

Now we are talking. You don't have to agree with Parsifal's conclusions, but his methodologies make resounding sense. Strategic planning is imperative in establishing defence budgetary priorities.

 

[buffnut453]

Now we are talking. You don't have to agree with Parsifal's conclusions, but his methodologies make resounding sense. Strategic planning is imperative in establishing defence budgetary priorities.

And therein lies the problem - the strategic aspirations inevitably outstrip the available funding resources. Historically, this has meant shaving capability from across numerous programmes rather than taking hard choices and eliminating one or two high-profile but expensive/high-risk procurement efforts.

Again, the UK's strategic deterrent was useful as part of concerted, NATO-centric effort to prevent what was perceived as the direct threat from the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Now that we are no longer in a bi-polar political world, exactly who is the UK's independent nuclear deterrent deterring?

 

[Matt308]

... perhaps a rogue nation state with a weapon of mass destructino, perhaps an current EU partner who becomes panicked with it's economic state or perhaps a well secured EU partner who is fed up with those in the union who refuse to balance their budgets. I don't profess to be a world defense analyst by any stretch, but I would never vote to give up my nations one strategic deterent that puts the fear of god in my rational enemies.

 

[Waynos]

Whenever I hear the argument about the UK needing to have nukes as they are a deterrent, and one that has worked for 60 years and so must be kept, I think about all those other poor countries that have never had them and which are constantly under attack, like Poland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, ........er, hang on?

The UK will never be in a position to fire off any nukes (see quote below), so we may as well spend the money on stuff we CAN use, like the majority of our allies do. We are not the world police any more and we are crippling ourselves trying to be. Stop it!

While there is a point that the USA should not shoulder the burden of looking after everyone else, I feel that 'our' contribution to the nuclear deterrent is too small to be of any value at all. How many times do you need to be able to blow up the world? The US already has that covered many times over and I think we would make a better contribution, and also reduce America's burden, by investing in better conventional forces. The way we are going at the moment we will end up with the nukes and nothing else.

No offence to any nationalities reading this, I'm just using past examples, but Argentina, for instance, is not deterred at all by Trident. They know as well as us we wouldn't use them under any circumstances against them, however the carriers, in a better equipped navy supported by a better equipped air force and a better equipped army would be a real concern. Enough even to deter an attack on Sovereign territory perhaps.

Instead of British soldiers being blown up in Land Rovers while nuclear submarines pointlessly fly the ensign, they might be ferried to the combat zone in helicopters and do the job with a higher survival rate?

I am reminded of this exchange on Trident from 'Yes Prime Minister' between Jim Hacker (the PM) and his Permanent Sectretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby

Jim: It's a bluff, I probably wouldn't use it.
Sir Humphrey: Yes but they don't know that you probably wouldn't.
Jim: They probably do.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, they probably know you probably wouldn't but they can't be certain.
Jim: They probably, certainly know that I probably wouldn't.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, but even though they're probably certain you know you probably wouldn't they don't certainly know that although you probably wouldn't, there is no probability that you certainly would.
Jim: What?

 

[Matt308]

Uncle. God save the Queen.

 

[buffnut453]

... perhaps a rogue nation state with a weapon of mass destructino, perhaps an current EU partner who becomes panicked with it's economic state or perhaps a well secured EU partner who is fed up with those in the union who refuse to balance their budgets. I don't profess to be a world defense analyst by any stretch, but I would never vote to give up my nations one strategic deterent that puts the fear of god in my rational enemies.

But you fail to identify how the UK having nukes would deter any of these potentialities. A rogue state, if truly rogue, would still use nukes whether or not the other si de had them - the key question is whether the UK would ever use nukes. If not, then they aren't much of a deterrent because Threat = Capability + Intent. I just don't see any circumstance in which a Western nation would resort to a nuclear response. Far better to maintain the moral high ground, obtain the necessary UN approvals, then shwack the offending nation with overwhelming coalition-based conventional firepower.