Sky News and ARRSE

Delancey

Check out the lead item in todays Sky News bulletins - all about the Defence Spending Review / Defence Cuts in the UK , Sky quote extensively from the ARRSE Website - wonder will Boards.ie Military Forum ever enjoy such fame ?

goldie fish

delancey42 wrote: »

Check out the lead item in todays Sky News bulletins - all about the Defence Spending Review / Defence Cuts in the UK , Sky quote extensively from the ARRSE Website - wonder will Boards.ie Military Forum ever enjoy such fame ?

Politics.ie is already regularly used as a source. I guess it depends how bored the journos are.

OS119

the House of Commons defence select commitee have used both Arrse and Pprune as a source for questioning various people in the past - its got to a point where the questions on arrse are being asked verbatum by the commitee - much to the discomfort of those being questioned. the Nimrod enquiry was a particular favourite, Ppruners from the kipper fleet provided 'killer' questions about Nimrods airworthiness that the commitee wouldn't have got near without that inside knowledge, and without such questions the RAF and MOD could have pulled the wool over the commitees eyes.

several proper, serious defence hacks are arrse/pprune members, as are some very, very senior officers. internet forums can be surprisingly influential in the formulation of policy.

Morpheus

Wish our Govt would read IMO and boards then. Probably cant even find the "any" key though.

goldie fish

Morphéus wrote: »

Wish our Govt would read IMO and boards then. Probably cant even find the "any" key though.

It's next to the "alt" and "alt gr" keys.

OS119

Morphéus wrote: »

Wish our Govt would read IMO and boards then. Probably cant even find the "any" key though.

from reading IMO and subsiquent Dail reports, it seems that some TD's - or at least their staff - do read IMO, and use the information gleaned on there to ask pointed questions of ministers...

its the reason i can be a bit of a knob when it comes to 'policy' threads - people interested in the future of the Irish military should remember that what they write here could, in effect, be treated as a submision to political bodies that make and shape policy. just arsing about, making smart alec one-line answers saying 'it'll never never happen', and making policy/equipment/doctrine suggestions without putting forward a reasoned justification spoils the likelyhood that the sensible, thought through, achievable stuff will get taken forward.

Morpheus

speaking of which, looks like the uk are being savaged, not as bad as they thought but nonetheless its a major reduction in capability to lose the harriers, 1 carrier and most of the tornados plus their surface fleet reduced to 19 vessels (19, is that correct? I thought they'd a much larger fleet, or is that specifically 19 front line vessels?) trident delayed by 5 years and aircraft carrier replacement not completed til 2019, -7000 soldiers and -100 tanks and artillery. loss of at least some of the tornados to be replaced by the eurofighter.

OS119

that seems to be the jist of it - the Nimrod MR4A looks like its for the chop as well.

it seems Dave 'B' got binned in favour of Dave 'C', with POW being built with CATOBAR, and QE being retrofitted at some later date, so its not all dumb.

its certainly true that this 'review' marks a significant reduction in UK combat power, however the UK retains a more than credible ability to go to far away places and break things and kill people - and one could argue that Harrier GR9 has a pretty limited capability to engage in high-end state-to-state warfare without an awful lot of 'prep work' being done by other platforms.

not a happy chappy, but it could have been worse - and its recoverable, the US P-8 program could be dipped into at a later stage, Trident doesn't need replacing in the next 20 years (particularly if the doctrine of having one boat permanently at sea gets quietly dropped), we could take a second bite of the F-35C cherry at a later date, we're going to have enough Typhoons to beef up the Falklands garrison to keep the Argentines from taking advantage of the 'no carrier' timespan, and Type 26 Frigate could be re-started at anytime...

Morpheus

what about the fleet reduction from 24 to 19.... is that correct?

is that 24 frontline combat vessels to 19?

I read it on some website but was convinced the UK had a much larger surface fleet.

OS119

Morphéus wrote: »

what about the fleet reduction from 24 to 19.... is that correct?

is that 24 frontline combat vessels to 19?

I read it on some website but was convinced the UK had a much larger surface fleet.

i think thats RN major combatants - the RFA has that many ships on its own. the money seems to be on the Type 42's getting the chop - they are on their arse in terms of being obselete in their AirWarfare role, and the Type 45's are lightyears agead of them, as well as the scrapping freeing up several crews.

E2A: the '19' figure relates to escorts, not major combatants, so its 19 escorts plus the amphibious fleet, plus the 7 Astute submarines, plus the Mine Counter-Measures, plus the RFA (one of the four Bay class ships is being decomissioned)..

any chance a Mod could put the later posts on this thread onto T2's thread so its a bit more coherant?