Poll: DELETED_74993

Were we right to get involved in Libya?

  • Yes

    Votes: 306 50.9%

  • No

    Votes: 295 49.1%
  • Total voters
    601
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The Running Man said:
Well after the war with Argentina over the falkland island we werent that active until 1991 which was 9 years later. Excluding Ireland, but then you dont need 4th gen fighter jets for that situation.

Its then another 8 years until the balklands conflict and then we have Sierra Leone...

So the type of force that we have is completely wrong for the type of engagements that we have actually faced over the last 30-40 years. It is wrong in shape, structure, and armament. Why? Because the army, raf, navy are all competing for funds, lieing to politicians to exploit the lack of knowledge about potential dangers and threats in order to increase or sustain budgets on weaponry that is never likely to be fully utilised. How many tanks does the british army have? when was the last time we used tanks en masse in any kind of ground battle?
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i think you will find it is contractors who pitch an initial low cost and then rise it exponentially during the process, look at the airbus for such an example.

then on the mod's side there is leaving it till the last minute and then have to slap a uor on it, which means the manufacturer can put another 30% on.

sigh, i thought we had got rid of this "not the war we were prepared for" thing.

there is nothing in our inventory that has been useless for afghan that didnt already need to be replaced before we entered either conflicts. again for example the wolf landrover.

as for tanks, they can be used very well in afghanistan. canada and the dutch and the US do. we just havent deployed them due to the cost and bad image it would send to home, so its not like they arnt unsuited.
Warrior is out there.

as fo planes, every plane type has had a visit out there apart from typhoon, which will be going out next year.

and i again believe the MOD started its calls for funds when we got involved in two long occupations without a funding rise above the peacetime rate of 2.1%. not altogether unexpected to be honest.

lets not pretend politicians didnt mess with it either. the extension of the time for building of the aircraft carriers cost an extra 2billion to the project, it was a political decision to hack 4billions worth of nimrod, it is the politicians that cut the type45 and typhoon numbers so unit cost skyrocketed, and who introduced the ridiculous PFI method to purchasing equipment.
and finally it is the politicians that who engaged in a spending spree panic at the last election to try and buy votes with no consideration of how to pay for it.


Why did Blair go to meet with gadaffi? to win BP an oil contract. If you understand that we can make peace with a dictator who sanctioned terrorist style activity to build private commercial relationships, then it isnt too big a stretch to understand that we then might turn on a dictator for the same commercial purposes.
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i have no doubt this is the case that we will profit from his downfall, even more of a case to intervene as well as supporting the uprising.

SO you end up with MOD whispering one thing to the government, in an effort to substantiate the hardware that they have, and you have private businesses demanding that the government takes action to benefit them too...to suppose that neither of these things were factors, along with some unknown want to be the 'right hand man' to americas own oil led wars had no impact upon our country choosing to go to war is what i would call naive.
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you will find america was the last country to come on board and they are already signalling an exit in fact it is the british and french that pushed the hardest here, so do try and give up this old mantra.
 
`Nutella,

Do you not think it odd that the UK has a spend of 2.5% on military budget? Given that the average within the EU is 1.8% and Germanys is far lower than ours. Even france which arguably has some remnants of an empire left are only at 2.1%...Nothing to do with contracts and the will of politicians to fund british arms companies?

The Eurofighter isnt designed for ground attacks. Even when it has those capabilities added, it still isnt ideal. The Tornado certainly is less than ideal, left we forget Iraq 1. Its just fortunate that we, well the US used some missiles to take out base defences and SAM sites+radar first.

We have an army of what, nearly 400MBT's, when are they likely to see combat? Answer, never. They are cost effective in terrain like the Afganistan land. The chances of losing one without it actually making any useful damage is too high a price to pay. All it takes is one IED/Mine/RPG and bam, thats however many millions gone up in smoke.

i have no doubt this is the case that we will profit from his downfall, even more of a case to intervene as well as supporting the uprising.
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that very much remains to be seen. If the rumours are true and that it is al quaeda running the show, then unless we actually bust them up like we have done to gadaffi, then we cannot guarantee oil supplies for BP as we would like to.

you will find america was the last country to come on board and they are already signalling an exit in fact it is the british and french that pushed the hardest here, so do try and give up this old mantra.
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Thats only in the last skirmish. Prior to this, USA led the way almost universally in each and every conflict in the middle east! France pushed for war for political reasons (namely the prime ministers lack of popularity). We wanted war because... err...not really sure. Possibly some MOD codger in wet behind the ears Cameron ushering him into it, 'oh think about the civilians, whilst really thinking about keeping military spend up.
 
ianh said:
Sorry, but Brimstone has been in use in Afghanistan for about 2 years, just normally against blokes on donkeys etc instead of Tanks.
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Well unless their the new more modern eDonky! ©2002 Gazzisoft inc (which I don't believe the Taliban have access too), then I doubt they have the armour of a tank.
 
The Running Man said:
`Nutella,

Do you not think it odd that the UK has a spend of 2.5% on military budget? Given that the average within the EU is 1.8% and Germanys is far lower than ours. Even france which arguably has some remnants of an empire left are only at 2.1%...Nothing to do with contracts and the will of politicians to fund british arms companies?

The Eurofighter isnt designed for ground attacks. Even when it has those capabilities added, it still isnt ideal. The Tornado certainly is less than ideal, left we forget Iraq 1. Its just fortunate that we, well the US used some missiles to take out base defences and SAM sites+radar first.

We have an army of what, nearly 400MBT's, when are they likely to see combat? Answer, never. They are cost effective in terrain like the Afganistan land. The chances of losing one without it actually making any useful damage is too high a price to pay. All it takes is one IED/Mine/RPG and bam, thats however many millions gone up in smoke.
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The Challengers 2 were used extensively in Iraq. In a Basra area representing a heavy risk of IEDs and RPGs they lost one destroyed (friendly fire by another Challenger 2) and two damaged (one from an RPG, one from an IED, 3 casualties, no fatalities). One particular C2 was hit by 70 RPGs and survived. another...

In one encounter within the urban area a Challenger 2 came under attack from irregular forces with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. The driver's sight was damaged and while attempting to back away under the commander's directions, the other sights were damaged and the tank threw its tracks entering a ditch. It was hit directly by fourteen rocket propelled grenades from close range and a MILAN anti-tank missile.[9] The crew survived remaining safe within the tank until the tank was recovered for repairs, the worst damage being to the sighting system. It was back in operation six hours later after repairs.
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I have friends who may be deployed if we do but beyond that I simply no longer care. In this economic climate and even in a better one we cannot afford to run an oversized arm forces to merely act like the world police and pretend like we matter and that people care.

Slash defence spending and focus on a string navy/air force and a small but versatile and elite ground force for defending these isles in the laughably remote chance another world war does break out. Apart from that sit back and let them all kill eachother while we focus on improving our own lot.

All the money saved on war could be reinvested into renewable energy/nuclear and alternate forms of transport to make us less reliable on people who's general mindset is still the "might is right" beleif of the past and that killing their own and others over a stupid bloody book is acceptable behaviour.

/rant off
 
The harriers are drastically outdated now, if we absolutely have to own VTOL aircraft we can just buy some F-35's which are a much better design and we don't even have to pay for the R&D which saves billions of taxpayers pounds (Buying F22's would have been less than half the R&D costs of the Typhoon program and that excludes actually buying the Typhoons themselves)
 
ubersonic said:
The harriers are drastically outdated now, if we absolutely have to own VTOL aircraft we can just buy some F-35's which are a much better design and we don't even have to pay for the R&D which saves billions of taxpayers pounds (Buying F22's would have been less than half the R&D costs of the Typhoon program and that excludes actually buying the Typhoons themselves)
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What don't you understand about 'There's no money left'.

:confused:
 
ubersonic said:
The harriers are drastically outdated now, if we absolutely have to own VTOL aircraft we can just buy some F-35's which are a much better design and we don't even have to pay for the R&D which saves billions of taxpayers pounds (Buying F22's would have been less than half the R&D costs of the Typhoon program and that excludes actually buying the Typhoons themselves)
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Err we are buying F-35s, but they won't be delivered until after the new carriers are put into service. I don't think the US will let anyone - even us - buy F-22s either.
 
scorza said:
Err we are buying F-35s, but they won't be delivered until after the new carrier is put into service. I don't think the US will let anyone - even us - buy F-22s either.
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Corrected for you!! :p Only one carrier is being put into service and the other one is being mothballed and maybe converted into a helicopter carrier.
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Corrected for you!! :p Only one carrier is being put into service and the other one is being mothballed and maybe converted into a helicopter carrier.
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LOL thank you :p Aren't we refurbing HMS Illustrious into a helicopter carrier atm? Though how many helicopters we'll have to fly off her I don't know.
 
These are the modern aircraft the Royal Saudi,Egyptian,UAE and Algerian air forces have:

1.)319 F16 fighters including Block 50 and Block 60 versions.
2.)at least 237 F15 fighters
3.)86 Mirage 2000 fighters
4.)111 Tornadoes
5.)24 Typhoons
6.)69 Mig29 fighters
7.)44 Su24 attack aircraft
8.)28 Su30 fighters
9.)5 K3 and 8 E2C AWAC aircraft
10.)8 KE3A tanker aircraft

We could have just helped them with intelligence and organisation.
 
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