European Politics Thread.

[xawery 0]

What are you on about? D@nte is talking about an area in France not the UK.

Haha, talk about a Pavlov reaction... Baff1 always starts an anti-EU rant as soon as the word "independence" falls.

Baff, when will you realise that you are already dependent? No country possesses the resources (be it labour, capital, or natural resources) to live in autarky. And that's a good thing; interdependence is the only thing that guarantees peace. If your economy is closely interconnected with your neighbour's, you will think thrice before attacking him. What you are promoting is a 19th century take on statehood. We've all seen what that leads to.

[Necromancer- 0]

A reply to Black Sphere in a different thread.. http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....st=4170

EU is not a political but economical union. Practice and history tells us they have no clue about the politics, and how to pose themselves, and to react in such situations.

Before editing you've mentioned EU's reaction in your post. What reaction? In critical situations EU's reaction time is of a dead corpse, backed with efficiency and credibility of an infant. As always all they can do is that brief Solana's blah blah blah, and back to managing a mastodont burocracy in Brussels.

Well what do you expect? Compared to other states formed hundreds of years ago, the EU is an infant. As said before in this thread it is a very slow process for Europe to grow into a fundamental "superstate". Compatible cultures, political and economical areas are integrating into eachother right now.

Other than oil and gaspipelines the situation in Iraq isn't very relevant to the EU.

[Journeyman 0]

What are you on about? D@nte is talking about an area in France not the UK.

Haha, talk about a Pavlov reaction... Baff1 always starts an anti-EU rant as soon as the word "independence" falls.

Baff, when will you realise that you are already dependent? No country possesses the resources (be it labour, capital, or natural resources) to live in autarky. And that's a good thing; interdependence is the only thing that guarantees peace. If your economy is closely interconnected with your neighbour's, you will think thrice before attacking him. What you are promoting is a 19th century take on statehood. We've all seen what that leads to.

Yes but independence does not mean 'trade embargoes'! We have good trade with the US and the China for instance but we are totally independent from them.

The amount of crap that emanates from Brussels ATM is killing the UK! Well it wouldn't be I suppose if it weren’t for the pedantic nature of our leaders swallowing every pill thrown at them, while countries like France just spit them back out!

Health and safety is the biggest laugh here ATM. You can't even have a half inch hole in your drive without an inspectors order to repair it! There is enough red tape and official bullshit in the UK right now we don't need any more! Not only that but the EU has opened us up to everyone from the former eastern block countries as well and so we have 'everyone' coming here to take our jobs too!

The EU for me is the worst think ever that we as a nation could have joined! We did just fine as a country before it and we would do just fine now without it! Roll on independence!    

[-Snafu- 77]

What are you on about? D@nte is talking about an area in France not the UK.

Haha, talk about a Pavlov reaction... Baff1 always starts an anti-EU rant as soon as the word "independence" falls.

Baff, when will you realise that you are already dependent? No country possesses the resources (be it labour, capital, or natural resources) to live in autarky. And that's a good thing; interdependence is the only thing that guarantees peace. If your economy is closely interconnected with your neighbour's, you will think thrice before attacking him. What you are promoting is a 19th century take on statehood. We've all seen what that leads to.

Yes but independence does not mean 'trade embargoes'! We have good trade with the US and the China for instance but we are totally independent from them.

The amount of crap that emanates from Brussels ATM is killing the UK! Well it wouldn't be I suppose if it weren’t for the pedantic nature of our leaders swallowing every pill thrown at them, while countries like France just spit them back out!

Health and safety is the biggest laugh here ATM. You can't even have a half inch hole in your drive without an inspectors order to repair it! There is enough red tape and official bullshit in the UK right now we don't need any more! Not only that but the EU has opened us up to everyone from the former eastern block countries as well and so we have 'everyone' coming here to take our jobs too!

The EU for me is the worst think ever that we as a nation could have joined! We did just fine as a country before it and we would do just fine now without it! Roll on independence!    

Been reading The Sun have we?

[Journeyman 0]

Been reading The Sun have we?

Never been able to read the Sun, it is too bright and full of mysterious events!

Try running your own landscaping business or tree surgery business or construction business, in fact any business for that matter! There is a new bit of laughable legislation enforced upon us nearly every month!  

[Baff1 0]

What are you on about? D@nte is talking about an area in France not the UK.

Haha, talk about a Pavlov reaction... Baff1 always starts an anti-EU rant as soon as the word "independence" falls.

Baff, when will you realise that you are already dependent? No country possesses the resources (be it labour, capital, or natural resources) to live in autarky. And that's a good thing; interdependence is the only thing that guarantees peace. If your economy is closely interconnected with your neighbour's, you will think thrice before attacking him. What you are promoting is a 19th century take on statehood. We've all seen what that leads to.

We are proud of what that led to.

In the 19th Century Britains ideals of statehood along with the those held by the Russians and Germans, amongst others, prevented the federalisation of Europe under Napolean. Twice.

We did it again to the Tsar and Hitler in the 20th Century too.

We are in living memory of millions of those who died to this end. The names of those who fell are inscribed at every church and school across the land.

Our children are taught songs about it, our teenagers the history.

Our statehood stands for the end of slavery worldwide.

It stands for the end of racial genocides.

It stands for peace in Europe.

Our peace has been a whole not nicer than the "other peaces" Europe has had on offer for the last few hundred years.

The saviours of Europe. That's us. That's how we see ourselves. That's what we think it led to.

I'll take 19th century British statehood over anything you have to offer. Every time. Any day of the week.

At no time in the history of man has any people prospered more.

Half the EU want to conglomerate to provide a tradeblock against the US, Russia and China.

And although people will "think thrice" about attacking people with interconnected economies, as you can clearly see with our oil wars of the Middle East, if you seek to mess with with that trade, to cut it off or make it less profitable, no matter how interdependant our economies are, you risk war.

It is our very "dependance" on each other that guarentee's it.

Half the EU see's itself, and it's primary reason for being, as an economic block against three largest military powers in the world.

Just because we live in the 21st Century not the 19th or the 20th doesn't mean mankind has fundamently changed it's nature.

Our economies are all interconnected, but my economy is not just interconnected with the EU's.

All my major investements are in Russia, American and China. I have very little investment in my EU partners at all.

You see, It's a global economy and the EU members aren't my only neighbours or even my most important ones.

So yes my country is already dependant and has been for 100's of years.

It is not however dependant on the EU, it is more dependant on all those countries that the EU seeks to rival or even stand against.

Preventing the EU from doing so is the only reasonable justification for British participation in it at all.

And that's what our neighbours can't appreciate. To them it is a slight.

We would rather depend on our other friends before we depend on them. We feel a closer bond of trust with our fellow anglo's, those who although physically farther away from us are directly genetically related to us.

Our actual blood family members.

I love my continental chums. Especially their highly developed sense of culture, but blood is thicker than water as they say.

But as long as we don't jump too closely into bed with any one group we remain independant of everyone. As long as our supplies never all come from the same unified source, we cannot be monopolised.

Without a cartel, our providers cannot dictate to us our terms of purchase. Instead they must openly compete with each other for our business.

We dictate our terms to them.

Obviously it is not in the intrests of our European providers for us to have any access to their competition at all and they actively seek to restrict it.

But as a net importer from the EU countries, we are not in a position to be argued with.

(Not as long as we can freely buy the same goods they sell to us, elsewhere).

We are independant, despite all the EU's best efforts.

It's is in our nations best intrests to always remain independant at all times.

Diversity of supply is of critical importance to any economy.

Our suppliers would all like us to be dependant upon them, but we must never allow ourselves to become so.

This is not a conquered nation.

Health and Safety is joke and half. You can't even take the squaddies out on a run without filling out forms. Some things in life aren't meant to be safe.

With regards to reading The Sun, it's a great pity that people such as yourself are unable to respect the ability of others to think freely and for themselves.

Narrow minded even, to try and blame people and insinuate that they are stupid or indoctrinated for not agreeing with you.

Is that the best you can do?  

The EU is great for Britain because the Editor of The Sun says it isn't.

Now there is a well thought out position to take.

Should I assume that if the world does as the Editor of The Guardian wishes, a new age of wealth, health, enlightenment and world peace will ensue?

What about the The Beano?

Are you a Beano reader?

[scary 0]

Taken from the Iraq Thread, this conversation is more appropiate in here.

Right the guns. The L85 wasn't perfect when it came out. Lot's of problems were reported and it took 15 years for the next variant to be put in service.

Of course the L85 wasn't perfect when it first entered service, nothing is. When the AR-15 was first issued it was truly awful, it has taken over 40 years to get to where it is now and the two standard variants combined perform less well than the single L85A2 that has only gone through one major upgrade even though the AR-15 has gone through many.

Quote[/b] ]I take it your talking about 'appropriate sovereignty' here. This is the governments excuse to keep feeding BAE huge amounts of cash. What they mean is to be able to fight without reliance on foriegn defence manufacturers.

At the strategic level, being self-supporting is hugely important. Being reliant on a foreign manufacturer isn't a good thing when you have a tiff with that country. We don't know who our friends will be next week, never mind in the next decade.

Quote[/b] ]However the theory does not work in reality. We are still dependent on other countries for our aircraft etc. to operate.

No we are not. At the moment we are choosing to co-operate with other countries with certain items for financial, political and other reasons. However, we retain the capacity and capability to manufacture those items on our own if necessary.

Quote[/b] ]America could really stop us going to war if they wanted to.

No more than we could stop them.

Quote[/b] ]And if a lot of countries don't want us going to war then it is probable we shouldn't.

Why not? It has never stopped us before.

Quote[/b] ]Giving BAE money may give some jobs in the UK but not a lot. Most of BAE's business is now overseas anyway so it doesn't do much good.

BAe's overseas business is because they are buying other companies out, not because work is being transfered abroad, even then, it's profits make themselves noticed in the UK. Around 1 million jobs in the UK are involved in defence, it is our largest area of manufacturing and accounts for a substantial part of our GDP.

BAe isn't the only company that gets to play in the UK's military theme park, anyway.

Quote[/b] ]And last of all defence money is for defence. There is an entire other government dept. dedicated to employment.

Many of these things are interlinked. Dividing lines are blurred.

Quote[/b] ]Yesterday's wars. What he means by that is the MoD are still buying equipment for fighting a conventional war.

That would be preparing for tomorrow's wars, which is what we do. Fight today's war, prepare for tomorrow. Also, much of this equipment does have uses in today's arenas.

Quote[/b] ]Same goes for army organisation. What the hell do we need 100-200 eurofighters for? Do the terrorists have fighters of their own? No. That money should have went to buying helicopters or gorund attack jets. Not to mention that the eurofighter was incredibly expensive and very late. More money was forked out for a cas version. Remember when it had 2000 attached to it's name? The year 2000 has been and past and there was no eurofighter in service at that time. Oops, bet that was someone's career over.

Lots of myths in here I'm afraid. For starters, Eurofighter is the company, Typhoon is the aircraft. The Typhoon has worked out to cost on par with other similar aircraft. The reasons its cost grew are down to the Germans moving the goalposts on an almost daily basis, and to a lesser extent, the Spanish who are also responsible for some of the delays (which are minor in the grand scheme of things, if necessary it could have been brought in service more quickly).

Now for the major mythbusting. The RAF always required the Typhoon to be swing role, they were alone in the partner nations for this requirement as the intention was for it to also replace Jaguar. From the very beginning of its development it was required to have a ground attack capability on par with its fighter capability. More money need not have gone on ground attack jets because it is a ground attack jet. More money was not forked out for a CAS version, CAS development just happened to be after fighter development for whatever reason the shiny arsed air jockeys decided. Block 5 planes are coming with all the capabilities as standard, the older planes will be upgraded incrementally. This type of spiral development has been standard for many years because of the complexities of modern avionics and systems software.

Quote[/b] ]Expensive toys. Eurofighter's in which quite a few are going to be mothballed - not enough pilots to fly all of them - even the RAF don't want all of the eurofighters that have been bought and then more money is needed from us to develop a CAS version

The RAF bought some of the excess planes that the Germans reneged on as it was financially expedient to do so. It kept the per-unit cost down, eliminated (a very large) cancelation penalty and means the RAF has all of the aircraft it requires for its service life which is cheaper than replacing them as they wear out/crash into welsh hills/get hit by nasty men.

What we have, if you ask any FAC that has been training with them, is the best CAS asset on the planet - which is a good thing.

Quote[/b] ]Anti-submarine Merlins that probably are not going to see much use and the frigates. Useless for fighting subs, vulnerable to aircraft and expensive. If you want to destroy a sub use another sub or an aircraft. Very cost effective methods.

The fact that the Merlins have an anti-submarine role is neither here nor there. All large ships carry a helicopter for various roles one of which is ASuW. The additional cost of equipping them for ASuW is negligable and it is mush better to have and not need than need and not have. Merlin is that good a helicopter that POTUS is replacing his Marine 1 fleet with them.

I don't know where you've got this idea that submarines are good at destroying other submarines, they're not, they are good at sinking skimmers and a few other tasks, but ASuW is not one of those. The RN knows how to conduct maritime warfare, it's been doing it succesfully for nearly 1,500 years and even took over the world for some time.

Subs are sandwiches, incidentally, submarines are boats.

Quote[/b] ]But we don't need all these traditional ships that the navy loves. Something like HMS Ocean or an aircraft carrier would have been better for humanitarian assistance than a frigate.

Capital ships without protection are just big targets. Without a DD/FF screen, any enemy would just put you and all your equipment at the bottom of the oggin before you became a threat. Big floaty tin boxes are relatively cheap, stuff for sinking big floaty tin boxes is even cheaper, defending big floaty tin boxes is where the cost comes in.

DD/FF are the Naval fleet's body armour. What you are essentially saying is that we should stop protecting sailors because soldiers are more important. If we did that, Terry Taliban and Alvin Qaeda and their friends would turn their attention to cutting off the logistics tail of the coalition.

Wars are won primarily with logistics and intelligence, the RN are the main providers of both. Without them any ground force would be unarmed and blind.

Quote[/b] ]If you could show any examples of what action they were in in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and East Timor I would appreciate it.

Iraq - Initial invasion was amphibious. Amphibious operations don't happen without naval bombardment. DD/FF screen prevented Iraq from putting LPD's, CVS, etc. with all their warfighting equipment in Neptune's icy hands. Currently provide Comms relay, SIGINT/COMMINT etc., protect vital oil platforms from attack (which have been attempted), provide an open seaway for the delivery of essential supplies. If an emergency evacuation is required, ensure that ground forces don't have to swim home.

Afghanistan - See Iraq apart from amphib. landing.

Sierra Leone - Provided fleet protection for HMS Invincible and HMS Ocean. HMS Norfolk landed the rescue party for President Kabbah. Numerous missile locks were recorded on the fleet in addition to receiving small arms fire.

Kosovo - Provided fleet protection for both the RN and the Charles de Gaulle carrier group. HMS Argus was used as a casualty reception facility.

East Timor - Provided vanguard for INTERFET. Provided the SBS troop that led the landings.

How well would the Falklands have gone without the RN?

Quote[/b] ]The type 23 frigate only has the ability to find a quiet submereged submarine. To listen to the echoes the ship must be travelling slowly. The sound pulses from the sonar also give the ships position away to the sub bfore the ship can find the sub. So why did we keep buying the 23's in the 1990's? The frigates also have a anti-sub chopper on them which does the anti-sub job better than the 23 can. In 2006 six of the 23's are going to be fitted with sonar 2087 however it is questionable if these are going to do as their advertised - by spotting the sub before the sub can sink it. 2087 is costing about 30 million quid for each 23. Moreover the rest of them are going to be left with the old sonar. Why bother when helicopters and aircraft can do the job better?

Type 23s use towed arrays that don't give away the position of the vessel and search much larger areas of the ocean than the dipping sonar on a helicopter can. The Type 23 is the best ASuW platform currently available. Helicopters and aircraft cannot do the job better, they are complimentary and alone are easily defended against.

The RN bought more frigates in the 90s because it cannot operate with 50 year old vessels. The RN currently has 17 frigates, in 2005 there were 19, in 2000 there were 21, in 1990 there were 35, in 1980 there were 53 and in 1960 there were 84. I think there may be a pattern in there that suggests your supposition of the RN being obsessed with frigates is somewhat wide of the mark.

There is a simple equation to all this: the Royal Navy needs ships, the Army needs men, and the RAF needs planes. Sniping at any one of them to attempt to improve another is detrimental to the whole.

[-Snafu- 77]

Taken from the Iraq Thread, this conversation is more appropiate in here.

Right the guns. The L85 wasn't perfect when it came out. Lot's of problems were reported and it took 15 years for the next variant to be put in service.

Of course the L85 wasn't perfect when it first entered service, nothing is. When the AR-15 was first issued it was truly awful, it has taken over 40 years to get to where it is now and the two standard variants combined perform less well than the single L85A2 that has only gone through one major upgrade even though the AR-15 has gone through many.

Quote[/b] ]I take it your talking about 'appropriate sovereignty' here. This is the governments excuse to keep feeding BAE huge amounts of cash. What they mean is to be able to fight without reliance on foriegn defence manufacturers.

At the strategic level, being self-supporting is hugely important. Being reliant on a foreign manufacturer isn't a good thing when you have a tiff with that country. We don't know who our friends will be next week, never mind in the next decade.

Quote[/b] ]However the theory does not work in reality. We are still dependent on other countries for our aircraft etc. to operate.

No we are not. At the moment we are choosing to co-operate with other countries with certain items for financial, political and other reasons. However, we retain the capacity and capability to manufacture those items on our own if necessary.

Quote[/b] ]America could really stop us going to war if they wanted to.

No more than we could stop them.

Quote[/b] ]And if a lot of countries don't want us going to war then it is probable we shouldn't.

Why not? It has never stopped us before.

Quote[/b] ]Giving BAE money may give some jobs in the UK but not a lot. Most of BAE's business is now overseas anyway so it doesn't do much good.

BAe's overseas business is because they are buying other companies out, not because work is being transfered abroad, even then, it's profits make themselves noticed in the UK. Around 1 million jobs in the UK are involved in defence, it is our largest area of manufacturing and accounts for a substantial part of our GDP.

BAe isn't the only company that gets to play in the UK's military theme park, anyway.

Quote[/b] ]And last of all defence money is for defence. There is an entire other government dept. dedicated to employment.

Many of these things are interlinked. Dividing lines are blurred.

Quote[/b] ]Yesterday's wars. What he means by that is the MoD are still buying equipment for fighting a conventional war.

That would be preparing for tomorrow's wars, which is what we do. Fight today's war, prepare for tomorrow. Also, much of this equipment does have uses in today's arenas.

Quote[/b] ]Same goes for army organisation. What the hell do we need 100-200 eurofighters for? Do the terrorists have fighters of their own? No. That money should have went to buying helicopters or gorund attack jets. Not to mention that the eurofighter was incredibly expensive and very late. More money was forked out for a cas version. Remember when it had 2000 attached to it's name? The year 2000 has been and past and there was no eurofighter in service at that time. Oops, bet that was someone's career over.

Lots of myths in here I'm afraid. For starters, Eurofighter is the company, Typhoon is the aircraft. The Typhoon has worked out to cost on par with other similar aircraft. The reasons its cost grew are down to the Germans moving the goalposts on an almost daily basis, and to a lesser extent, the Spanish who are also responsible for some of the delays (which are minor in the grand scheme of things, if necessary it could have been brought in service more quickly).

Now for the major mythbusting. The RAF always required the Typhoon to be swing role, they were alone in the partner nations for this requirement as the intention was for it to also replace Jaguar. From the very beginning of its development it was required to have a ground attack capability on par with its fighter capability. More money need not have gone on ground attack jets because it is a ground attack jet. More money was not forked out for a CAS version, CAS development just happened to be after fighter development for whatever reason the shiny arsed air jockeys decided. Block 5 planes are coming with all the capabilities as standard, the older planes will be upgraded incrementally. This type of spiral development has been standard for many years because of the complexities of modern avionics and systems software.

Quote[/b] ]Expensive toys. Eurofighter's in which quite a few are going to be mothballed - not enough pilots to fly all of them - even the RAF don't want all of the eurofighters that have been bought and then more money is needed from us to develop a CAS version

The RAF bought some of the excess planes that the Germans reneged on as it was financially expedient to do so. It kept the per-unit cost down, eliminated (a very large) cancelation penalty and means the RAF has all of the aircraft it requires for its service life which is cheaper than replacing them as they wear out/crash into welsh hills/get hit by nasty men.

What we have, if you ask any FAC that has been training with them, is the best CAS asset on the planet - which is a good thing.

Quote[/b] ]Anti-submarine Merlins that probably are not going to see much use and the frigates. Useless for fighting subs, vulnerable to aircraft and expensive. If you want to destroy a sub use another sub or an aircraft. Very cost effective methods.

The fact that the Merlins have an anti-submarine role is neither here nor there. All large ships carry a helicopter for various roles one of which is ASuW. The additional cost of equipping them for ASuW is negligable and it is mush better to have and not need than need and not have. Merlin is that good a helicopter that POTUS is replacing his Marine 1 fleet with them.

I don't know where you've got this idea that submarines are good at destroying other submarines, they're not, they are good at sinking skimmers and a few other tasks, but ASuW is not one of those. The RN knows how to conduct maritime warfare, it's been doing it succesfully for nearly 1,500 years and even took over the world for some time.

Subs are sandwiches, incidentally, submarines are boats.

Quote[/b] ]But we don't need all these traditional ships that the navy loves. Something like HMS Ocean or an aircraft carrier would have been better for humanitarian assistance than a frigate.

Capital ships without protection are just big targets. Without a DD/FF screen, any enemy would just put you and all your equipment at the bottom of the oggin before you became a threat. Big floaty tin boxes are relatively cheap, stuff for sinking big floaty tin boxes is even cheaper, defending big floaty tin boxes is where the cost comes in.

DD/FF are the Naval fleet's body armour. What you are essentially saying is that we should stop protecting sailors because soldiers are more important. If we did that, Terry Taliban and Alvin Qaeda and their friends would turn their attention to cutting off the logistics tail of the coalition.

Wars are won primarily with logistics and intelligence, the RN are the main providers of both. Without them any ground force would be unarmed and blind.

Quote[/b] ]If you could show any examples of what action they were in in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and East Timor I would appreciate it.

Iraq - Initial invasion was amphibious. Amphibious operations don't happen without naval bombardment. DD/FF screen prevented Iraq from putting LPD's, CVS, etc. with all their warfighting equipment in Neptune's icy hands. Currently provide Comms relay, SIGINT/COMMINT etc., protect vital oil platforms from attack (which have been attempted), provide an open seaway for the delivery of essential supplies. If an emergency evacuation is required, ensure that ground forces don't have to swim home.

Afghanistan - See Iraq apart from amphib. landing.

Sierra Leone - Provided fleet protection for HMS Invincible and HMS Ocean. HMS Norfolk landed the rescue party for President Kabbah. Numerous missile locks were recorded on the fleet in addition to receiving small arms fire.

Kosovo - Provided fleet protection for both the RN and the Charles de Gaulle carrier group. HMS Argus was used as a casualty reception facility.

East Timor - Provided vanguard for INTERFET. Provided the SBS troop that led the landings.

How well would the Falklands have gone without the RN?

Quote[/b] ]The type 23 frigate only has the ability to find a quiet submereged submarine. To listen to the echoes the ship must be travelling slowly. The sound pulses from the sonar also give the ships position away to the sub bfore the ship can find the sub. So why did we keep buying the 23's in the 1990's? The frigates also have a anti-sub chopper on them which does the anti-sub job better than the 23 can. In 2006 six of the 23's are going to be fitted with sonar 2087 however it is questionable if these are going to do as their advertised - by spotting the sub before the sub can sink it. 2087 is costing about 30 million quid for each 23. Moreover the rest of them are going to be left with the old sonar. Why bother when helicopters and aircraft can do the job better?

Type 23s use towed arrays that don't give away the position of the vessel and search much larger areas of the ocean than the dipping sonar on a helicopter can. The Type 23 is the best ASuW platform currently available. Helicopters and aircraft cannot do the job better, they are complimentary and alone are easily defended against.

The RN bought more frigates in the 90s because it cannot operate with 50 year old vessels. The RN currently has 17 frigates, in 2005 there were 19, in 2000 there were 21, in 1990 there were 35, in 1980 there were 53 and in 1960 there were 84. I think there may be a pattern in there that suggests your supposition of the RN being obsessed with frigates is somewhat wide of the mark.

There is a simple equation to all this: the Royal Navy needs ships, the Army needs men, and the RAF needs planes. Sniping at any one of them to attempt to improve another is detrimental to the whole.

Nice post, countered my arguments with points backed up by evidence and good explanation (and a bit of cheeky humour). Like I said in the Iraq thread I will look up those couple books you mentioned.

Although suspect L, D and D at least gave me an insight into defence procurement. Indeed there has been some cock-up's but it is not in a dire situation. However I think that money should be saved somewhere (no un-necessary cuts though) and the soldiers should get a pay rise. Would this actually be possible?

I would, if you don't mind answering, like to ask you Scary what you think of the situation with Officers. Is it true that each force has more officers than they need? And that some surplus officers are being put in 'pointless' desk jobs?

@ Baff1

Quote[/b] ]With regards to reading The Sun, it's a great pity that people such as yourself are unable to respect the ability of others to think freely and for themselves.

Narrow minded even, to try and blame people and insinuate that they are stupid or indoctrinated for not agreeing with you.

Is that the best you can do?  

The EU is great for Britain because the Editor of The Sun says it isn't.

Now there is a well thought out position to take.

Should I assume that if the world does as the Editor of The Guardian wishes, a new age of wealth, health, enlightenment and world peace will ensue?

What about the The Beano?

Are you a Beano reader?

I was simply asking if he was a Sun reader as that is the type of rants  The Sun comes out with. Biased arguments that put Murdoch's political agenda across. Im not saying theres anything wrong with reading The Sun and did not put him down for reading it or mean to anyway.

And no I don't read The Beano but I do read The Broons and Oor Wullie!

[TrevorOfCrete 0]

i know the RAF is particularly short on officers.  I believe the army has ample, and alot do end up doing 'desk jobs'. Not sure on the Navy.

[scary 0]

Nice post, countered my arguments with points backed up by evidence and good explanation (and a bit of cheeky humour). Like I said in the Iraq thread I will look up those couple books you mentioned.

Thank you very much, sir. Although, having defended crabs and matelots makes me feel dirty.

There is a lot of misconception regarding the Navy, not only because most of its work is done out of the public (and media's) eye, but because it has the singularly worst PR known to man.

Quote[/b] ]Although suspect L, D and D at least gave me an insight into defence procurement. Indeed there has been some cock-up's but it is not in a dire situation. However I think that money should be saved somewhere (no un-necessary cuts though) and the soldiers should get a pay rise. Would this actually be possible?

L, D and D certainly did point a lot of people in the direction of defence procurement, and the premise of giving the public an insight into the business is a good one, it's just unfortunate that the book was tainted with the author's prejudices.

Money savings in procurement could come from giving back the power the services used to have, thus trimming the civil servant bean-counters out of the equation who will, on submission of project 'x', be quoted a cost of, say, 100 million, reject the design of 'x' - a piece of equipment they have no experience with - order it to be redesigned, which costs 6 million, and the now redesigned 'x' is quoted at 98 million, so the whole thing costs 4 million more than if they kept their mouths shut. Take a look at CVF for an example: civil service interference repeatedly changing the design and then settling on something very similar to the original has cost more than one of the hulls will.

Other savings could be made by returning what were traditionally service jobs to the services instead of paying companies like Sodexho, Flagship etc. to do them badly.

Pay doesn't actually come out of the same budget as procurement, it is a ring-fenced separate fund and has no impact on the size of other areas of the budget.

It's a good job this is anonymous because I would get strung up otherwise, but I don't think a pay rise is the way to go. To be honest, I don't think the overall package is that bad. There aren't many places were you would be taken on as a trainee with no qualifications for 12.5k, rising to 15.5k after initial training. When allowances, additional pay for AdQuals and length of service, trade pay and retention bonuses are taken into account, coupled with the comparatively low cost of living and add on the military pension, the pay does compare quite favourably with civilian jobs. Recruitment isn't the issue, retention is where the problems lie, especially among SNCOs.

Welfare has the negative effect on retention, in that many people, especially as they start getting into the properly grown-up age bracket, don't want to spend months of their life away from their families, whether on ops or exercise. The modern world is a fairly easy place to live quite comfortably in and many people place quality of life above money. What the answer is, I haven't got a clue, it's way beyond my payscale.

Quote[/b] ]I would, if you don't mind answering, like to ask you Scary what you think of the situation with Officers. Is it true that each force has more officers than they need? And that some surplus officers are being put in 'pointless' desk jobs?

Ahh, Page's other bee in his bonnet. If you take a look here, specifically at table 2.8, you will see the relative changes across all ranks in the Armed Forces over the last 17 years.

You will notice that OF4 and above hit certain numbers and remain fairly consistent despite the overall number of personnel falling slightly over the last 10 years, but there are good reasons for this.

Firsly, some professionally qualified personnel, such as surgeons, enter with rank that allows them to compete with civilian pay - they usually enter at OF3 or 4, which skews the figures.

Secondly, many posts are not suitable for JOs. Rather than just being camps/ships etc. COs, Senior Officers also have positions in tri-service command, NATO, EU, Government advisory, Liason Officers with foreign militaries, theatre command, project management and as Defence Attaches at Embassies.

Thirdly, there is the strategic element. In the event of there being a major shooting match that requires the use of reserve forces or perhaps even general conscription, it is very easy to fill the low ranking positions, it is not easy to fill the posts that require 15+ years service.

Finally, there is retention. If a glass ceiling is created, whereby good Officers are kept in lower ranks, then they will leave. Not many people that could easily command a 6 figure salary on civvy strasse would be happy being stuck at OF5 for 10 years. It's better to have an SO3 doing a SO2 job than to have no one doing the SO2 job.

When taken as a whole, we are short of Officers just as we are short of Other Ranks. Are there Officers riding an easy desk until retirement? Some, but not many - I worked for a 2* for a while and he worked solidly from 0800 to 1800 and then took his laptop home, often finishing around 2200. There was a 2 month waiting list on his calendar for anyone wanting an appointment likely to last an hour.

[TrevorOfCrete 0]

really interesting link. The main cause of deaths in the armed forces is road accidents. amazing really.

[BlackScorpion 0]

JUST in case anyone didn't notice... Nine people died at Jukola yesterday. High school head master, a school nurse and a total of 7 students, including the shooter.

BBC

USA Today

Why does this touch me a bit more than maybe the average forum user? It happened less than 200 kilometers away from my home town. The gunman was merely 5 months older than I am, and also went to the same kind of school I go to. Apart from the 2 staff members, the victims were of my age, aged between 18 and 16.

A total of 69 shots were fired, all by the shooter. The gun was a legally obtained SIG Mosquito, a .22LR variant of the famous P226. The shooter had rougly 500 rounds and was also equipped with Molotovs cocktails. The shooter has been described as an intelligent, highly educated but lonely and extremist young man.

[xawery 0]

Apparently, he saw himself as a defender of race purity or some such. Prior to the shooting, he had posted clips of himself on youtube, announcing the massacre. They were swiftly removed; did anyone get the chance to see them?

[BlackScorpion 0]

They've shown quite a few bits in news, and atleast few sites still feature the original bits.

I can dig you a link if you want to see them. From what I've seen they're not gory but... "politically incorrect".

[-Snafu- 77]

They've shown quite a few bits in news, and atleast few sites still feature the original bits.

I can dig you a link if you want to see them. From what I've seen they're not gory but... "politically incorrect".

I suppose it won't be long before the Game Banning Brigade jump on this latest incident?

[baddo 0]

Please do not give his ideas any advertisement. I can confirm that the material he published in the Internet was sick. Definitely insane ideas. It's all you need to know. Seriously mentally ill person. Do not spread his words I am asking you.

[R3MF 0]

But we don't need all these traditional ships that the navy loves. Something like HMS Ocean or an aircraft carrier would have been better for humanitarian assistance than a frigate.

Capital ships without protection are just big targets. Without a DD/FF screen, any enemy would just put you and all your equipment at the bottom of the oggin before you became a threat. Big floaty tin boxes are relatively cheap, stuff for sinking big floaty tin boxes is even cheaper, defending big floaty tin boxes is where the cost comes in.

DD/FF are the Naval fleet's body armour. What you are essentially saying is that we should stop protecting sailors because soldiers are more important. If we did that, Terry Taliban and Alvin Qaeda and their friends would turn their attention to cutting off the logistics tail of the coalition.

Wars are won primarily with logistics and intelligence, the RN are the main providers of both. Without them any ground force would be unarmed and blind.

agreed.

but the real problem with defence spending is that; "there are no votes in defence" so politicians don't give a damn, and as a consequence defence spending has been on a downward spiral for the last 60 years.

what needs to be done is to:

> legislate for a minimum level of peacetime defence spending of 2.5% of GDP

> legislate for an annual review to determine if we are in fact at peace

> do as the UKNDA suggest (see sig) and immediately put defence spending to 3.0% of GDP in recognition of our war-footing in tandem with 15 years of underinvestment.

[raedor 8]

Really nobody who wants to discuss the declaration of independence of Kosovo? No WWIII theory?

C'mon guys, you become old an boring...

[Colossus 2]

Erm.. well. I'm not that familiar with the pre-20th century history of Balkan, who settled in Kosovo first, etc..

But I still think it's fair for them to declare independence. I doubt it would have happend so peacefully if the ultra-nationalists in Serbia won the election.

[Smartti 1]

Really nobody who wants to discuss the declaration of independence of Kosovo? No WWIII theory?

No WWIII theories from me, sorry.

One possible side effect I find interesting. Russia warned that it might change its attitude towards other similar regions if Kosovo gains international recognisation. Specifically the Caucasus region. For example inside Georgia there are two de facto independent states and one autonomous republic. Might get messy again if Russia increases its "influence" there.

About Kosovo, personally I like the idea of nation states and therefore accept the birth of this new republic. Though this isn't pure case of it: they shoud've split the northmost municipalities back to Serbia.

But well... what I'm to talk about politics...

[Sennacherib 0]

Really nobody who wants to discuss the declaration of independence of Kosovo? No WWIII theory?

C'mon guys, you become old an boring...

i'm happy for the people of Kosovo, i hope that they will have a democratic and peaceful country. this is a great step for the freedom of the peoples around the world.

- next step for them: UE

[klavan 0]

EU gets prones another time in front of USA interests.

To me it looks like the USA wants a break between EU and Russia relationships, in an attempt to avoid Europe to become less dependant from american controlled energy sources.

Naturally IMHO.

[Mr_Tea 0]

EU gets prones another time in front of USA interests.

To me it looks like the USA wants a break between EU and Russia relationships, in an attempt to avoid Europe to become less dependant from american controlled energy sources.

Naturally IMHO.

We Europeans work on that, no matter who control whatever energy sources.

Good luck to the people of Kosovo, and show the world that Muslims can build an democratic state, with freedom for all that live in it.

[Smartti 1]

The independent Republic of Kosovo seems to be getting some recognisation. Wikipedia has nice and clear listing of recognising countries, but it seems to be under constant change.

No WWIII yet...

[otk-member 0]

What the way for Russia?

Possible, first of all, we shall recognize independence of Abhazia, South Ossetia, Prednestrovie. Than we will set a question for recognize independence of Northern Ireland, the Spanish Basques, Turkish Chyprus and other, other...

And, possible, we will give those small nation a weapon for protect democratic principles and independence. Will send a peacekeepers army... And more, more, more...

Now we have free hands. And Europe will talk again about "Empire of Evil".

Europe want this? As we see - yes. So, let it be.

P.S. We really don't want to do this. But a confrontation can make something of this a reality...

P.P.S. And we (russian mapmakers) will make a missions and campaigns about this.