RAF begs French: Find Russian sub

[Blue Marlin]

@Blue Marlin I am not fan of politicians eitheir but to be fair they live in the real world. They have to balance finite resources with infinite demands. Are you prepared to pay more taxes? Or are you prepared to slash NHS spending to buy extra toys for the military? No offense I am not and most British taxpayers are not prepared to do that either. The politicians just smell out the general feeling of electorate and policy is accordingly influenced. Most politicians know raising taxes or slashing NHS is big no no with the UK public. This is bitter reality.

The other thing you need to keep in mind is military profile is fashioned by threat assessments. Russia is primary threat with terrorism being second. All West European countries defence policy is premised on joint NATO response. So I need not fear the Russians because I know if it ever came to it UK response would be part of NATO joint attack.

Therefore looking at RAF or RN in isolation of the wider join defence structures is rather silly in this day and age. The whole point of join defence is each country has to maintain a smaller force as it is only a component in a bigger enterprise. Thus looking at British forces in islolation is rather silly I think. The request for French help is nothing extraordinary. It is the mainfestation of joint defence. On another day in another situation the French might need British help.

Smaller threats that fall outside the remit of NATO Britain is more than capable of handling.

true they do have to make tough decisions.but it terms of military capability i do feel we are a bit behind. course we have the best attack sub and the typhoon and the typhoon is having a bit op operational problems in terms of maintenance.

 

[waz]

No problem, France is a close ally. No harm in asking friends for help.

The UK government is in talks to buy the Japanese P-1 for our maritime surveillance role. You can see my old RIAT thread where I spoke to the aircrews of both the RAF and the JMSDF.

 

[Blue Marlin]

No problem, France is a close ally. No harm in asking friends for help.

The UK government is in talks to buy the Japanese P-1 for our maritime surveillance role. You can see my old RIAT thread where I spoke to the aircrews of both the RAF and the JMSDF.

i mentioned that in my post which i got from your thread

 

[mike2000 is back]

As i said "Anyway,it's not a problem,the UK helped us with their C-17s in Mali,so it is normal to help them. WIN-WIN. "

i know bro we help each other just like in Syria as well where the Royal air force drones also provide intelligence to France for precise strikes against ISIS apart from Mali operation which you mentioned.

However, that's not the only point i'm trying to make.Just like @Atanz said,its also true that politicians have to make hard decisions. Since even though we are a developed country with high living standards we still need/want to focus on improving our people living standards by giving them the best healthcare,education/welfare facilities etc and for that we need to make cuts on some other sectors.

Nevertheless, even considering all these issues, it still doesn't make sense why our leaders will give the go ahead to our defence giants to build such an aircraft and spend billions doing so, only to finally scrap the whole project and destroy the whole aircraft when it has been completed/operational. I still don't see how that helps save costs when all the hard work has already been done.

To make things worse, they destroyed the whole 9 nimrod , meanwhile they could have easily sold it off to gulf states or Asian countries who would have been more than happy to buy such a world class aircraft . I know maybe they didn't want to leak/transfer some critical tech to other nations who might have purchased it, however i still think it would have been better to sell it off even with the blue prints than destroying everything(since we would have earned over a billion from this at least), that's a total waste to be honest and NO it didn't really help us save anything, since we are now in the process of buying an aircraft with similar capabilities to the one we built and destroyed ourselves. I know that Cameron now realizes he made a huge mistake(even though our military chiefs warned him against scrapping our Nimrods back then), but as you know politicians never admit they were wrong.

 

[Penguin]

I don't see what the problem is. The Dutch discontinuedal 13 of its P-3Cs in 2005, and they were solds to Germany as replacements of their Brequet Atlantics. The whole point of having an alliance is that you can devide up certain work, specialize. With the cost of systems these days, that is sometimes the only way to maintain capabilities of the alliance (rather than of the individual nations`, which simply can no longer afford to own all capabilities).

 

[Indus Pakistan]

true they do have to make tough decisions.but it terms of military capability i do feel we are a bit behind. course we have the best attack sub and the typhoon and the typhoon is having a bit op operational problems in terms of maintenance.

Frankly my knowledge on miltary harware is pretty basic but I do know that any substantive threat to UK mainland would be faced in conjunction with other partners in NATO. I cannot envisage a scenario where UK mainland is threatened and that threat leaps over Scandanavia, France - Germany and the low countries or from the Iberian peninsula. All such routes of attack would trigger NATO response. Of course I am excluding the possibility of any of these being sources of threat. Bottom line defence of UK is part of larger jig saw and that is something we have to keep in mind.

I think with the new QE2 carriers and new aircraft UK is going to fulfill more than it's share of NATO defence. I do think though that the defence forces need now to be ring fenced. No more cuts in manpower.

I have no concerns about UK's future security or stability eithier from foreign military ( read Russia ) or terrorist groups. The Russians in my opinion are spent force and they just rely on oil revenues to keep them afloat. I am not saying Russia is is to be conseigned to the scrap heap but it's days of real threat ( 1980s Soviet Union ) are over.

As regards the terrorists that will also pass by. They are pests at best. The biggest terrorist threat to UK has already been defeated. That was the IRA, the best organized, best ran, best trained terrorist group by far which was defeated over three decades although lot of blood was spilled. In comparison the Jihadi threat is nominal. Not saying that they won't score now and then like recent Paris attacks although touch wood I don't think we will get them in UK now.

What I would wish is UK government ( any ) would bloody invest in massive infrastructure improvements because of this country does not do this in few decades it will be loking rather haggard and Third Worldish. The Motorway network needs massive investment as it is nearly half century old now, the housing stock needs massive investment which again in many parts of UK is looking tired out.

I think UK has got too much into consumer spending, banking, retail, service sectors and ignored construction/engineering.

Ps. Corbyn is just a stop gap temp for the Labour Party until they find some new blood untainted by the Blair/Brown years in power. He is William Haig of the Tory party who just kept the seat warm until something promising came along. In the Labour context he is Micheal Foot - from few decades ago so not sure if you guy's know about him.

@mike2000 is back

@Penguin

The good thing about being on the extreme western fringe of Europe is any danger would have to hit you guys first ( no bad intended ) thus giving UK some depth and time in reaction. You guys are like the bullet proof vest for UK. Any incoming projectile from the east loses it's kinetic energy by being absorbed by you guys. Think of of WW2.

Of course the downside is UK gets battered by rain from the Atlantic winds !!! Still a good umbrella sorts that out.

 

[Blue Marlin]

Frankly my knowledge on miltary harware is pretty basic but I do know that any substantive threat to UK mainland would be faced in conjunction with other partners in NATO. I cannot envisage a scenario where UK mainland is threatened and that threat leaps over Scandanavia, France - Germany and the low countries or from the Iberian peninsula. All such routes of attack would trigger NATO response. Of course I am excluding the possibility of any of these being sources of threat. Bottom line defence of UK is part of larger jig saw and that is something we have to keep in mind.

I think with the new QE2 carriers and new aircraft UK is going to fulfill more than it's share of NATO defence. I do think though that the defence forces need now to be ring fenced. No more cuts in manpower.

I have no concerns about UK's future security or stability eithier from foreign military ( read Russia ) or terrorist groups. The Russians in my opinion are spent force and they just rely on oil revenues to keep them afloat. I am not saying Russia is is to be conseigned to the scrap heap but it's days of real threat ( 1980s Soviet Union ) are over.

As regards the terrorists that will also pass by. They are pests at best. The biggest terrorist threat to UK has already been defeated. That was the IRA, the best organized, best ran, best trained terrorist group by far which was defeated over three decades although lot of blood was spilled. In comparison the Jihadi threat is nominal. Not saying that they won't score now and then like recent Paris attacks although touch wood I don't think we will get them in UK now.

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there will be no mainland threat for a very long time if so not ever again. the qeac (queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers)
at a good deterrent but the f35 b is useless. i still think the f35c is better and they should have chosen that from the beginning. terrorists are pests and do need to be removed.

What I would wish is UK government ( any ) would bloody invest in massive infrastructure improvements because of this country does not do this in few decades it will be loking rather haggard and Third Worldish. The Motorway network needs massive investment as it is nearly half century old now, the housing stock needs massive investment which again in many parts of UK is looking tired out.

I think UK has got too much into consumer spending, banking, retail, service sectors and ignored construction/engineering.

i had a feeling you would bring up the motorway network when talking about the upgrading infrastructure. i would assume you and the 3 series is stuck behind a hgv doing 40 for 20 miles going up the m6. am i right. or when they put a speed limit on for road works and theres no work going on. its as if some retard decided to make our lives hell.
where i live in particular it is considerably nicer as compared to its neighboring towns and cities. i go to preston every day and its one of the worst cities in the uk. its a sh*t show over there but not far from preston where i live it very good the local borough is spending ten of millions of pound upgrading the town the bus shelters are nice the train stations is revamped. actually we were the best place in the country to live. but if you go to burnley its one of the worst.

Ps. Corbyn is just a stop gap temp for the Labour Party until they find some new blood untainted by the Blair/Brown years in power. He is William Haig of the Tory party who just kept the seat warm until something promising came along. In the Labour context he is Micheal Foot - from few decades ago so not sure if you guy's know about him.

@mike2000 is back

@Penguin

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corbyn is a nut case, i want a tory government, but i want my local borough to be labour as it still is for the past 40+ years. i use to support labour but now i dont. ps. sajid javid has a decent chance to be the next tory leader or chancellor. Osborn wont be the next leader as he is considered to posh and stuck up and boris is a good candidate but he said he's not interested but hey its a politician speaking so he's lying most likely. may is no good that leaves javid but i see him as a bit weak.

The good thing about being on the extreme western fringe of Europe is any danger would have to hit you guys first ( no bad intended ) thus giving UK some depth and time in reaction. You guys are like the bullet proof vest for UK. Any incoming projectile from the east loses it's kinetic energy by being absorbed by you guys. Think of of WW2.

dont know what your on about.

Of course the downside is UK gets battered by rain from the Atlantic winds !!! Still a good umbrella sorts that out.

even that does not help. i spent £30 on a on a sturdy umbrella and under strong wind and rain it broke the umbrella and hit a lady behind me. and blew of in to the road to be run over by a bus. what you need it themal pant and top along with normal casual clothing with a final huge regatta coat. that keeps me warm. sure you may look like a hit man when you wear it at 11pm walking down an alley but it keeps you warm.