Trident or Aircraft Carriers or JSF

lunarwolf said:
BTW aircraft carrier = modern navy; not having an aircraft carrier is like having no navy. harrier although funky idea is completely useless plane unless you want to support beach landings, but honestly cheaper alternatives for that (limited air to air capability, sub sonic and vertical take off = no fuel to fly)

so either adapt Typhoon, or buy Rafale, all are better than f18 super hornets anyway
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The Harrier isn't a useless plane it is an old one, in it's time it has proved itself capable in all the roles asked of it. Sadly the end of the line has been reached in terms of upgrading it to meet todays demands.

It's been said a dozen times in this thread the Typhoon will not be navalised it is too expensive and it's multi-role capabilites to limited to suit our carrier requirments.
 
lunarwolf said:
BTW aircraft carrier = modern navy; not having an aircraft carrier is like having no navy.
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Your analysis is correct but once upon a time Dreadnaught-class battleships = modern navy, until it became clear how devastating air power could be against traditional navies.

I think that in this new age of austerity and terror, we need navies to be cheaper and more effective - building bigger and bigger aircraft carriers is getting too expensive, just as building bigger and bigger battleships was in the '30s. Maybe the future isn't large aircraft carriers flying expensive super-sonic jets, but drones and missiles launched from smaller, cheaper vessels - maybe even subs, or something else entirely that hasn't been thought of yet.
 
a1ex2001 said:
It's been said a dozen times in this thread the Typhoon will not be navalised it is too expensive and it's multi-role capabilites to limited to suit our carrier requirments.
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check out these pictures ;)

http://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13494&p=138039
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2009/05/typhoon-tranche-3-why-we-need-it/

BTW the Rafale is designed on the Typhoon, France pulled out because at the time UK and Germany were not interested in a carrier variant. the biggest work probably would be to redesign undercarriage for hard carrier landings

How is typhoon multi-role too limited for carrier needs? care to expand?
 
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AcidHell2 said:
what were we meant to do though, not invade and allow Afghanistan to harbour terrorists and terrorists camps.

we did try diplomacy and they refused to help out or hand over the key players.
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We should have left it well alone, Terrorism is a unfortunate but infrequent fact of life, you can't please everyone and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have done more harm than good ... not to mention the human and material costs.

If it was about saving lives, spending the money on giving everyone Appendectomy's would have been more effective. On a worldwide basis putting the cash into Aid for third world countries would have helped millions of people. The money the UK alone has spent would have been enough to provide ten years worth of clean water for the billion or so people on earth without access to it. The US could have replaced every home destroyed in Katrina.

Terrorism is overhyped - you're more likely to win the Lotto jackpot than be injured by a Terrorist during your lifetime. We have far more important things to be concerned with.
 
Zarf said:
We should have left it well alone, Terrorism is a unfortunate but infrequent fact of life, you can't please everyone and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have done more harm than good ... not to mention the human and material costs.

If it was about saving lives, spending the money on giving everyone Appendectomy's would have been more effective. On a worldwide basis putting the cash into Aid for third world countries would have helped millions of people. The money the UK alone has spent would have been enough to provide ten years worth of clean water for the billion or so people on earth without access to it. The US could have replaced every home destroyed in Katrina.

Terrorism is overhyped - you're more likely to win the Lotto jackpot than be injured by a Terrorist during your lifetime. We have far more important things to be concerned with.
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Great post. The "return on investment" of wars truly is rubbish.
 
scorza said:
Your analysis is correct but once upon a time Dreadnaught-class battleships = modern navy, until it became clear how devastating air power could be against traditional navies.

I think that in this new age of austerity and terror, we need navies to be cheaper and more effective - building bigger and bigger aircraft carriers is getting too expensive, just as building bigger and bigger battleships was in the '30s. Maybe the future isn't large aircraft carriers flying expensive super-sonic jets, but drones and missiles launched from smaller, cheaper vessels - maybe even subs, or something else entirely that hasn't been thought of yet.
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yes i agree that one day planes will be unmanned but we are there yet, but if you look at Afghanistan, aircraft carriers are vital for support for troops on the ground. wether or not you agree with the war, there is an important role for carriers
 
clv101 said:
Great post. The "return on investment" of wars truly is rubbish.
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Zarf makes good points, and i agree; however there is a return on investment, because wars provide jobs and technological development - it's unfortunate that the result is human casualties and destruction, but it does stimulate parts of the economy. look at WW2 and the great depression, military spending was key to ending the depression
 
lunarwolf said:
Zarf makes good points, and i agree; however there is a return on investment, because wars provide jobs and technological development - it's unfortunate that the result is human casualties and destruction, but it does stimulate parts of the economy. look at WW2 and the great depression, military spending was key to ending the depression
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The same $70 billion the UK spends on defence could generate far more jobs and technological development if spend in other areas. Sure, defence industry provides jobs - but not as many per dollar as other industries. 'Science' for example offers a much better return on investment.
 
clv101 said:
The same $70 billion the UK spends on defence could generate far more jobs and technological development if spend in other areas. Sure, defence industry provides jobs - but not as many per dollar as other industries. 'Science' for example offers a much better return on investment.
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Can you please give me some evidence on this, I'm quite interested.

Cheers,

Stelly
 
clv101 said:
The same $70 billion the UK spends on defence could generate far more jobs and technological development if spend in other areas. Sure, defence industry provides jobs - but not as many per dollar as other industries. 'Science' for example offers a much better return on investment.
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maybe, hard to quantify. also there is a lot of science in military ;), it's just not used in interest of humanity, but a lot of science developped by military makes its way to civilian -> gps, internet etc...
 
clv101 said:
Watch this TED Talk.
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? nice video, i had seen it before. not sure what point you are trying to make? is it worth investing in reseach? my answer is yes, wether it's astronomy or military- knowledge is the key to progress which benefits humanity.

reality is, countries need military (even Switzerland). That is an historical reality. As a result of military spending, there have been many applications that became very usefull in civilian world.

the point of this thread, as i understand it, is that there needs to be cuts in the military and which should be cut - trident, carrier or jsf programs.
 
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One of the columnists in the Telegraph has pointed out the overseas aid budget is £7Bn a year and this has been ring fenced. 3 years of overseas aid would pay for Trident, or JSF or the air craft carriers.

Gobsmacked.
 
Do we realy need the nuclear option?

Seems to me that the cat and mouse games played out by the rogue and developing nuclear nations are played out on a global scale, thus america takes the number one lead anyway.

An awfull lot of money for something that'll never realy come in to play, it hits the fan america will makes noises on our behalf.

Excuse my simple thinking, but as long as there's one good guy in the world, that is the counter threat to anyone trying it on, is there any need for multiple options with different nations?

Curious as to why that wouldn't be the case.
 
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