Britains Armed Forces too small?

Seems to me Britain has weapons to deal with the more serious threats instantly.
To think such things as having millions to go out and fight a "conventional" War, is history in itself.

I'm not talking about mega powers v. the little guys, but the little guys should know when and where not-to get into wars with bigger nations.
Seems to me it just makes sense, especially these days.

Dallas

Indeed, seems I was a little off:




Seems they will cost around £1.5 Billion each. I think ours are cheaper partly due to being smaller (around 60% of the size of a Nimitz) but also not being Nuclear but Gas powered.

The initial estimates for the cost of our 2 new carriers was £3 billion, this is likely to rise to about the 4 billion mark (for both together) once they are built.


Although the official projected in-service date of the carriers is still 2012 and 2014, that was with the original build schudule starting in 2005. It is now the accepted belief that they will no be ready by 2014 and 2016 at the earliest.

Fine - but what about the a/c designed to fly off them? They are not ready yet and why should we [the poor taxpayer] still fund the JSF programme?

Eurofighter Typhoon is, I believe, designed to conduct CAP over the UK and maybe the battlefield and will be able to deliver ground support so why not just stick a very big arresting hook on it's bum and get Dowty to reinforce the nose wheel assy to withstand catapult take offs.

On the other hand, why not get on with an advanced Harrier and beef it up some. Save lots of dosh in the long term and give the Yanks something to think about whilst not sharing their tech with us.

Other than that, purchase the French Rafaele of maybe some nice SAAB jobby in British Racing Green, brown and black?

Yes, but it can be paid for. Terminate the thirteenths for all governmental officials. Besides, terminate the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Kensington Palace and St. James's Palace. In a few years, not much money would have been saved, but in decades, yes.

Not all of them have to operate in peacetime. Only one should. The rest should be in inactive reserve in case of war.

They can protect themselves.


I meant "when the aircraft carriers are ordered, F/A-18 fighters should be ordered".


I meant "only on one of these 25 aircraft carriers".



As I said, it can be paid for. Terminate the thirteenths for all governmental officials. Besides, terminate the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Kensington Palace and St. James's Palace. In a few years, not much money would have been saved, but in decades, yes.

[edit on 11-5-2006 by Zibi]

Ok, lets sum this proposed "future british forces" up...

- New tank while current one IS new, a new IFV whie the current one IS satisfactory. Well, it must be possible to build a tank that could have survived the Timothy McVeigh attack, why not build one then?

A new tanker, and a new tanker, and another new tanker - imagine all the possibilities! one could be a turboprop (well, actually WILL be in form of A400M), one could have flying wing design (the Horten, not the Northrop one), one could run on the new GenX engines, one could house a cinema... endless variations, I mean, transporting FUEL is a whole universe of its own!

Now the interesting bit...

25 new carriers of Nimitz dimensions, buy a fleet of F-18 for a few years, then buy another feet of JSF which is completely unnecessary since a Nimitz sized carrier that launched F-18s for a while would have catapults anyway. The main reason for this is to humiliate the arrogant Americans and French and having the undisputed most powerful Navy in the world again.

Buy several new ASW helicopters, one more advanced than the other. OK, those in service are doing their job, but the mills of the industry have to keep turning! But buy only a handful of them since they will only be stationed on ONE of 25 carriers anyway. The other 24 carriers will simply use their new HEAR-EVERYTHING™ Sonar and go around those pesky submarines, and then ASW helicopters start from their one carrier stationed in the GIUK gap and let them fly non-stop over to the Horn of Africa to fight that sub... after all, what did we buy all those new Tankers for?

The contact with possibly hostile submarines will be minimal anyway, since we have all but one of our 25 carriers parked in the ports anyway, but its nice to have them.

Next thing, the Harriers. OK, the soviet threat is gone and with it the reason of existence of the Harrier in the land-based Airforce, but lets buy 550 of these just because its fun to fly. And since the UK has so little space available on military bases despite the downsizing, noone can really argue against the need for 10 new airbases.

Paying for all this by erasing three big historical tourist magnets is just a logical consequence, after all they are blocking the view and the tourists are only in Britain to drink beer anyway. I am sure that by erasing them and cutting all the thirteenth payments the UK can assemble the necessary ~£200.000.000.000.

----

All perfectly doable and well-thought through.


NOT


The sad thing is that I believe he is serious.

Jesus! Where would these be built and how long would it take? We might have them functioning by around say ... 2100 . Where are we gona get all these people to man them, or are we going to go into the robotics industry aswell?

That sarcasm was superb, lonestar! Made me chuckle anyway.

It's scary to think that he does take it all seriously as well and believe in it....

Dude...to save enough for 25 Nimitz sized carriers, it would take a couple of centuries to save enough money from cutting these back.

Besides, all the Royal Estates and the Royal Family pay for themselves. Don't cost us a penny. And they bring in huge wedge too from all the Yanks and Japs that love all the Royal stuff....



HAHAHAHAHAHAHA....sorry, fell off my chair then! So, you want us to pay for 25 HUGE new carriers, then put 24 of them in mothball straight away? Oh my god......



How? I wasn't aware that carriers were the be and end all of Naval warfare. They can elminate any target, anywhere, at any time now..all on their own? Nice......

I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your insane post......

I think he forgot to mention that they contain secret compartments that release escort ships when the time arises

From what he's saying, it would seem that they would also have to come with a built in Gold mine and a Mint to print all the money needed to build:

25 New Carriers
buy 25 Airwings of F-18's
then replace them with 25 Airwings of F-35's
but 550 new Harriers
build 10 new Bases
design a new MBT
a new IFV
3 new tankers
3 new ASW Helo designs
and a partridge in a pear tree...

Would 1 gold mine pay for all of that lot How much would it all cost?

I'd have a stab in the dark and say that a conservative estimate for the purchase price would be somewhere in the region of £200 Billion. Not including operating costs of course .

The Treasury would have a fit of the MoD came up with that procurement package!

I wonder what Brown would say if the MOD asked for £200 billion? That's 7-8 years worth of defence budget! We might be lucky to get the funding for the CVF if one of the ships are called "HMS Gordon"

HMS Gordon sounds a wee bit too trite. How about HMS 'Lame Duck'? That just about sums up this Labour government's defence policy.

Not this Yank, I’m not a big fan of celebrities. Don't even know why you guys keep them around.

well laughable or not the UK's defence budget (2005) was the 2nd highest in the world behind the US.





[edit on 11-5-2006 by st3ve_o]

Officially yes it was, however in all likeliness China is in second place, they are believed to underreport the true figure of their defense budget.

Really? We must have missed that, then.

Let me tell you guys something.

My friends are just about to deploy to the southwestern region of Afghanistan. They will take over what equipment is left 'in theatre' by the departing troops. This equipment will have - by now - been through at least four if not five, operational tours.

It will need replacing. It will not function properly. Ammunition states are so low (for UK forces) that in certain areas, the local commanders are blagging off the Yanks.

Back home where supposedly they make the staff, I can't even get flourescent lighting tubes for offices, because there's no money! Urgent repairs to buildings are put on hold, because there is no money.

As for the Defence Budget rising in real terms over the last five years - of course it has. This country has been waging war for the last 5 years.

Why do you think the government wanted to bring the Harribirds out of Afghanistan?

It was costing too much to keep them in the air!

Civvies...........................................urgh!

nah man, china's estimate for 2005 was 283.8 billion yuan (about 35.1 billion U.S. dollars), and it says that on most sites i go on!!

i'm trying to get the offical figures - i used to know a link, but i can't seem to find it

but the UK's defence was something like ($59 billion) - in american dollars.