Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

The TX or T7A which is replacing the t38 and other trainers,

Same as social media having an outbreak of "experts", most declaring that nothing should be done, or somehow pretending that the last 10 years was an exception rather than the norm for defence spending.

They're not without sin in Libya or Yugoslavia either...

And who could forget Crimea?

To get back on topic, if this country decided to go the fast jet route, why procure Gripen when Finland and the Swiss have determined it's more expensive to operate than the F35? The idea of procuring jets to intercept stricken airliners or shadowing Bears is really quite silly. You either do it right or get someone else to do it.

I was thinking about this whole debate and wanted to get some context.

Everyone says we can't afford the defence costs.

Let's look at some comparable numbers: Denmark.

Population:

Denmark: 5.8m

Ireland: 4.995m

GDP 2020:

Denmark: €355bn

Ireland: €455bn

Defence Spending 2020:

Denmark: €25bn

Ireland: €1.3bn

Denmark has about 4 squadrons of aging F-16s, with old Drakens as trainers and reconnaissance.

According to Wikipedia, it has 12 large and 4 medium naval vessels and a couple of dozen small craft.

Ireland can afford this, if it wants to.

So does everyone on Irish Twitter that somehow sees everything wrong with actions of the West, yet somehow can defend the Russians, prime example being Mick and Claire.

Sergei Lavrov is engaged in convenient forgetting....such as overt/covert Russian support for Serbia (weapons and manpower) in the Balkans War, current aid and support to the odious Syrian regime, it's own behaviour in Chechnya and it's historical behaviour in Afghanistan.

What do you mean? The current spend is about that yeah (of course with the usual issue with our figures), either way you look at it the Option 3 gets us to circa 1% of gdp. Back in the mid 90s we spent 1% or above, in the 80s it was at times above 1.5% of gdp. Now of course as I said due to the smaller size of the economy then the real term value was much less even at that spend, however in 08 while we spend only circa 0.6% on defence that was 1.5 billion (ie basically the Option 2 suggestion).

So by any reasonable discussion this idea that it's an impossibility for the state to spend 50%-300% more on defence is ignoring the last 30 years or so of spending.

yeah 25Bn Kr is closer to the mark. About 1.4% of their GDP. something we should be aiming for.

The fact that the Gripen wasn't in the running for the Swiss tells us all we need to know - if there's one country in the world that considers the ability to intercept important, it's them.

My point in the last line is that Ireland should not be replicating in the smallest, most tokenistic way the competencies of other nearby countries. Our interests are - regardless of our supposed neutrality - European interests. It makes sense for Poland to unilaterally procure fighters, tanks and self propelled artillery. Should we also procure that materiale? Should Poland procure OPVs?

8 - 12 fighters does nobody any favors. The fact that our airspace is supposedly undefended in peace time should not keep us up at night. What should keep us awake is spending a fortune on fighters, taking resources away from assets that are useful to Irish interests and complementary (i.e. not replicating) European defence capabilities.

@donvito99 just realised something if we say some how get 10 F35s , before we get them we would need to revamp casement and possibly any aerodrome, new maintaining facilities and likely hardened security just for the aircraft ,but then we would need to buy advanced trainers and several advanced simulators before we get a single qualified pilot to fly one ,

The is definitely more to the cost than it first seems ,

Again open to correction.

An island nation on the periphery of Europe, geographically ….

that means the primary manner of attacking us would be air or maybe by sea..

But…. Not a single attack jet aircraft to defend ourselves , we have just under 3000 kilometres of coastline to defend..9 or so ships if seaworthy and enough sailors with which to do it… one ship per 333 kilometres of coastline.

if we were in any peril our defence forces are so unable, so under resourced, it would like trying to put out a fire with a mars bar ffs…

having personnel is one thing but if they don’t have what they require to do the job you are asking them, you might as well have zero.

Before I googled I said .. “ ok I’m willing to bet our naval services are under resourced, undermanned too” it’s an Irish thing so…

Yep… we don’t have enough resources to keep us safe…to maintain our wellbeing…”a shortage of sailors, poor pay and allowances, increasing responsibilities, lack of powers and old infrastructure, “naval commanders have told Oireachtas members.

Incapable of defending us by air, so by sea ? Nope can’t defend us that way or by throwing fig rolls at the would be aggressor.

so we are a sitting duck on the periphery of Europe.

at home I have a good alarm, Windows and doors with security certs, and a baseball bat under the bed for whatever use that will be, hit a home nun probably…. But fûck it….

730 people in the Aer Corps, but not a single aircraft with which the country and its citizens can be defended…. Yep, great isn’t it..

be like Manchester City having 300 admin staff but not bothering signing players… weird.

Just for balance, manpower shortages particularly in Navies is nothing new or particular to us. The RN had destroyers and frigates laid up for years for manpower shortages and never for example had the manpower/budget to sustain all three Invincibles in service for extended periods. Other Navies like the RCN or RAN for example had significant issues sustaining SSK crews, and I think the RAN still have a couple of frigates out of service. All of these services had budgets that dwarfed the entire DF budget, and agin that’s a result of the political decisions or the DOD back to the founding of the state.

An also the fact that they used syria as a sales office to show what there weapons could do as they levelled the place. Did the aircraft carrier break diwn when it was there?

That’s true for anything we buy. If we get ships with war fighting capability the naval base will need upgrades. If we even just buy fully equipped MPAs we’d need to upgrade the weapons storage, any fighter whatever would be picked will need those list of upgrades. Though yes kicking any fighters and MPA to Shannon makes the most sense.