SupraStar 3000 Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 With the worlds economic climate the way it is I do understand the need to make financial sacrifices and that our armed forces (who require so much funding every year - 4th in the world) do need to compromise BUT i find it so frustrating our government are so inconsistent and disorganised with their saving strategies! A few weeks ago everyone was talking about how woefully unadequately our soldiers on the ground are and in desperate need of new helicopters, armored vehicles and basic equipment...... now a few months later we face more defence cuts. If we need defence cuts why do we implement so many military projects, go through the development stages only to scrap the idea a few months later. What about the billions of pounds that we've already plowed into planning and manufacturing, not to mention contracts and securing thousands of jobs etc. Why cant the government forecast the economic future and agree on a strategy before spending money. They just dont seem to fully appreciate the wider implications of defence cuts. For example, Without the new aircraft carriers we wouldn't need the JSF jets which itself would have been a major benefit to the troops on the ground ANYWHERE in world without the need for a friendly airbase. Oh,.. and we've already scrapped the Sea harrier force in preparation for the new jets. A sea harrier force that was perfectly capable and adequate of doing its job. Another suggestion is to join forces with the French. BOLLOX!! What a f*cking farce that would be. During the falklands the bloody French sold the Argentina armed forces the exocet missiles that killed our guys on HMS Sheffield. Now we're considering sharing our equipment,.. Oh and selling one of our latest Aircraft carrier to India. Why cant we stick to our guns and see these projects through to the end. Commit to plans and save elsewhere. Need more money. Easy!!! Cut all the benefits to the unemployed. Job done. *rant over* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 You should run for PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave17 Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 This country is just poor. I want nice shiny new aircraft carriers, jets and to maintain our nuclear deterrent, and build more submarines. I'll quite happily pay my taxes just for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 This country is just poor. I want nice shiny new aircraft carriers, jets and to maintain our nuclear deterrent, and build more submarines. I'll quite happily pay my taxes just for that. We also want nuclear power stations and when they are worried about storing the waste we should ship back all the waste from europes nuclear stations, what is it doing sat over here anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SupraStar 3000 Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 Long gone are those days when britannia ruled the waves! 60yrs ago when had one of the largest and most successful battle groups. Then,.. just when we need a carrier force for the Falklands we scrap it. Now we're considering no sea force. (jet powered anyway) Lets just hope Kazakhstan or Kuala Lumpur dont decide to invade us by sea otherwise we're screwed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwilkinson Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 The problem with current society, ergo government, is that we live in a period of relative peace. Gone are the days when people generally feared other nations and the threat of invasion. I speak here primarily of Europe and 1st World Countries. People are so focused on Terrorism and gorilla style warfare that we forget the implications of deterrents. When I was at RAF Cranwell I did my good old defence studies in which we learnt about the concept of mutually assured destruction which existed between ourselves, US and Russia. While this focused on the perceived threat of nuclear proliferation the same concept applies to all manner of defence orientated assets and capabilities. I just hope that with an ever decreasing military capability, no nation, god forbid, decides that some of our territories abroad look appealing. We barely held out in the falklands let alone with our current capabilities. Government defence planning is a joke. Why cant we just by off the shelf products from the states. The C17 is testimony to how easy this would be and how good the product is. Hired on lease and then overused to the extent we had to buy them. The US have a much bigger budget to blow on development and we should utilise their development. Testimony to how bad we can get things is the Typhoon. I remember seeing its first inception the EFA flying at Farnborough in 1987. Now in service its the wrong type of aircraft for the job. But the RAF have to make it look like its the best thing since sliced bread. Sorry I've lost the thread and now I'm on a rant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heckler Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Oh,.. and we've already scrapped the Sea harrier force in preparation for the new jets. A sea harrier force that was perfectly capable and adequate of doing its job. The Sea Harrier was scrapped to pay for the GR9 upgrade which is flown by both Naval Air Squadrons and RAF - The upgrade was a farce also, but that was down to the company doing the upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SupraStar 3000 Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 does the GR9 have the Blue Vixen radar?,.. as according to Sharkey ward "Sea Harrier Over The Falklands" thats what made the FA2 such a good fighter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colsoop Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Future wars will be fought in different ways. The powers that be have to decide where the money is best spent for the future which is pretty hard to do. The nuclear deterrent will remain in the form of the nuclear subs. Cuts have to be made i expect more regiments to be merged together and a few more RAF bases to be closed. The navy will take a fair cut too. But money is wasted really badly within the defence budget. The main problem being that they put contracts out to tender. Now these contracts are normally badly written or poorly put together and they don't seem to include everything that they want the product to do in the first place or down the line decide it has to do something extra after contracts are exchanged. This results in extra costs and time delays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swampy442 Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 You wanna see a farce, Heckler will know of this too, the Merlin aircraft. Only bought to bail out british industry, dont think theres been an aircraft more unsuited to its job. Now after billions wasted on developing, running, buying Danish Mk3a versions, converting them theyre gonna hand the whole lot lock stock to the navy and spending billions more on..... more Chinooks. Thats the new focus, Afghan type conflicts. Expedient forces, go in fast and hard so fast jets are obsolete really. Can do that job with UCAVs now. We had the option of off the shelf US kit but british industry got the contracts, jobs etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SupraStar 3000 Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 oh, and dont forget those Chinooks that have been in storage for years because they have the wrong US 'software' installed or some such technicality Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swampy442 Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Because they tried to 'modify' Boeings source code, fecked it up then couldnt recover it.... Theyre going back into service soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abz Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 How about we stop invading other countries as soon as America has a fit Do agree with a lot of the terms, I know quite a few guys on the forum are in the British army & when I have met them they have advise how poorly equipped they were, though I am sure they said things were getting better & more decent kits were being sent. Apparently all the US Army had loads of kit & they have had to borrow from them & our guys had tacky kit, what a bloody embarrassment, not like we are a third world country... or are we? Our billions of taxes get use for more important things like paying lawyers who work for the county court criminals earning over £1 million a year to help criminals! An all the Chav's who have never seen a days work & have managed to live on the dole for 30 years & still have money in the bank! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abz Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 oh, and dont forget those Chinooks that have been in storage for years because they have the wrong US 'software' installed or some such technicality I saw 2 of these last week while I was working in Canary Wharf... I was on a call so stood near the window & watched as they followed each round in circles (think they might have been training) & going in different directions. I have to say it was an amazing sight & I was pretty surprised how quickly they turned & moved for such big beasts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwilkinson Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Because they tried to 'modify' Boeings source code, fecked it up then couldnt recover it.... Theyre going back into service soon. I worked out of RAF Odiham back in 2004. I remember attending a meeting with the Station Commander and OC Engineering about the unused Chinook helicopters. They had been in storage for awhile back then and the newspapers had got hold of the fact we had unused helicopters (not that anyone at Odiham had seen them). It caused a bit of a headache for the publicity Officer for a bit. I remember it being some sort of software issue which was being thrashed out by one of the development teams at RAF Wyton? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swampy442 Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 II was pretty surprised how quickly they turned & moved for such big beasts. Oh yeah, theyre very agile, I meat to film them in Afghan when they come in for fuel. Come firing in, flare it out whist piruetting (sp) and dumping it on the ground. Very capable. I really like them, but you'd never get me in one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abz Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Oh yeah, theyre very agile, I meat to film them in Afghan when they come in for fuel. Come firing in, flare it out whist piruetting (sp) and dumping it on the ground. Very capable. I really like them, but you'd never get me in one! Care to explain why? I was on the phone or I would have recorded it, though the missus could tell I was not listening as she kept repeating herself & I told her what I was seeing. Just strange seeing something of that size manovoure like that, here is a video I found for the peeps who don't understand what I am on about: rQ6mKs-cKxw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supradoopa Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 This country is a bloody sham! The Goverment is so scared of upsetting other countries, can't control the illegal immegrants that are flooding our country and now more cost cutting to our defences. Why don't we just hand the country over to the EU while were at it, and let Germany run it. I say bring back Thatcher she had more balls than Blair and Brown put together! Actually I might just quit my job, emigrate to a middle eastern country then come back here claim benefits, get a nice free house and maybe complain about how bad the UK is, and have more rights than a UK citizen. The above is my opinion alone and is not intended to upset anyone. If it does then man up it's not like this country is going down the pan : d Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abz Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 This country is a bloody sham! The Goverment is so scared of upsetting other countries, can't control the illegal immegrants that are flooding our country and now more cost cutting to our defences. Why don't we just hand the country over to the EU while were at it, and let Germany run it. I say bring back Thatcher she had more balls than Blair and Brown put together! Actually I might just quit my job, emigrate to a middle eastern country then come back here claim benefits, get a nice free house and maybe complain about how bad the UK is, and have more rights than a UK citizen. The above is my opinion alone and is not intended to upset anyone. If it does then man up it's not like this country is going down the pan : d Racist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supradoopa Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Next is the n/a versus TT topic. Just kidding Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathmonkey Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 You wanna see a farce, Heckler will know of this too, the Merlin aircraft. Only bought to bail out british industry, dont think theres been an aircraft more unsuited to its job. Now after billions wasted on developing, running, buying Danish Mk3a versions, converting them theyre gonna hand the whole lot lock stock to the navy and spending billions more on..... more Chinooks. Thats the new focus, Afghan type conflicts. Expedient forces, go in fast and hard so fast jets are obsolete really. Can do that job with UCAVs now. We had the option of off the shelf US kit but british industry got the contracts, jobs etc Not exactly... I worked on all versions of the Merlin for a long time... the RAF version is just a bus... the Navy version is a different thing altogether. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Headroom Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 If you look through modern history, there have been periods of relative peace, where governments have slashed defence budgets, then WHAM! we end up in a war. This senario was carried out before both world wars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westcoaster Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Why do 'we' need a nuclear deterant anyway? Why spend billions on a weapons system designed not to be used? And, can it be moved from my backyard to somewhere on the Thames please! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SupraStar 3000 Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 If you look through modern history, there have been periods of relative peace, where governments have slashed defence budgets, then WHAM! we end up in a war. This senario was carried out before both world wars totally agree! I don't know what kind of weapons we'll use in WW3, but WW4 we'll use sticks and stones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imi Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 How about we stop invading other countries as soon as America has a fit the defence industry is apparently valued at 150B......tough to let a cash cow like that go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.