You're in the army now - well, maybe.

[Dagworth]

9 hours ago, Hroth said:

35 years from '45 to '79 when the walls came tumbling down.

The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989.

 

Andi

[Michael Hodgson]

14 minutes ago, C126 said:

Are those in the modern fighting forces really wanting assistance from 'amateurs'?  I thought the professionals looked upon Territorials and conscriptionists as a bit of a joke, like Special Constables in the police forces.

 

 

I think traffic wardens would be a better police analogy than the Specials!  Have you ever notied the smilarity between an emperor penguin and a traffic warden?  Dark jacket, clean white shirt, yellow epaulettes and the way they strut about with their noses in the air!

 

Regulars tend to see themselves as professionals and look down their noses at Teritorials as part-timers playing soldiers and at wartime conscripts who they see as unenthusiastic amateurs.  It's much the same in the other services.  My father volunteered so he joined the RAFVR and had VR on his uniform lapels.  So everybody knew who was a "proper" airman.  Similarly the Royal Navy had the RNVR or "Wavy Navy" recruited from those who had experience on merchant vessels.

 

It is said that at the start of every war, we go into it trained and equipped to fight the last war.  But before long innovators on both sides had looked at military problems with fresh eyes, developed even more effective weapons and tactics while a lot of the old boys died out continuing to use their obsolete but tried and tested methods, and survivors tended to be seens as "Colonel Blimps" by the new boys.

[RichardT]

The kite is being flown not because anything has changed in Europe or on the Ukrainian front, but because there’s now a very real prospect of a Trump presidency in November. Whether you believe that he is simply an old-fashioned isolationist or whether you believe that he is compromised by Putin, if he gets back in then we and the rest of NATO can no longer rely on the USA as an ally.

 

RichardT

Edited January 30 by RichardT

[Reorte]

4 minutes ago, RichardT said:

The kite is being flown not because anything has changed in Europe or on the Ukrainian front, but because there’s now a very real prospect of a Trump presidency in November. Whether you believe that he is simply an old-fashioned isolationist or whether you believe that he is compromised by Putin, if he gets back in then we and the rest of NATO can no longer rely on the USA as an ally.

Well for four years at least. Can't see Russia rebuilding what it's lost in Ukraine in that time, but we do need to pick up now (should've done a long time ago). The best way to avoid WWIII is for the aggressive types who have no problem with the idea of conquest to realise it's simply not viable. The only other way is to let them have everything they want, and that's everything.

[jjb1970]

59 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

It's not much of choice when it's a question of joining the military and risk being kllled or stay at home and risk being killed.

Ask somebody who lived through the blitz or failing that, a Ukrainian.

 

If an enemy is coming here to kill me, I'd rather have a gun to defend myself than a pitchfork.  There's a lot of nasty people in this world, and I can understand why kids living on sink estates carry knives.  Politicians can make it illegal to carry knives or to commit genocide, but if they haven't the resurces to enforce it, people will inevitably look to what they can do for themselves.

 

Or you could ask soldiers sent to fight wars far from home and which have largely been the result of our interference (with others such as the USA, France, the NATO bubble in general) in other peoples affairs. Wars which achieved little (if anything) positive. Twenty years in Afghanistan, who knows how many dead and maimed and we left it with the Taliban in charge. Before we invaded Iraq, Iran had marginal influence in that country and Islamist extremist groups were suppressed, after our work Iran's influence increased massively and Islamist extremism spread like wildfire in the region (helped by us dividing them into good and bad Islamist extremists in Syria and Libya depending on what was convenient at the time). Maybe as a country we need to do some self reflecting. On genocide, it's worth watching the initial decision of the ICJ on that subject last week, a decision which doesn't seem to have given western governments any pause for thought.

[Kickstart]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

If an enemy is coming here to kill me, I'd rather have a gun to defend myself than a pitchfork.

 

Unless we stock up on weapons soon, likely a pitchfork will be the equipment for conscripts. Seems likely we still have 200k SA80s (half of which will be the early non updated version), and sold / scrapped all the SLRs, and doesn't seem we have the manufacturers to build up again in a short timeframe.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Mallard60022]

Grief, this is getting far too serious. I know I can ignore it, but...

I'd rather have a chat about wobbly wheels and bits falling off Rapido 15XXs than  being reminded how fookin bad things are across the Globe.

F. Rossi.

[pete_mcfarlane]

11 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Years later, talking to a mate who'd been in the RAF, an aircraft mechanic at a base with Victor bombers, he told me the following about a conversation he'd had with one of the pilots.  This pilot had worked out that his instruction, to destroy an airfield and everything else in a 5-mile radius somewhere in Eastern Germany, and then return to base had not accounted for the undeniable fact that the base would have been a lifeless smoking radioactive hole for some hours before they got back to it. 

The French went for the approach of building their nuclear bombers (the Mirage IV) with only enough range to get to Moscow to avoid the crews having to speculate on this. 

 

10 hours ago, Hroth said:

@The Johnster  The current problem with Russia is that Putin was a KGB operative in East Berlin when the wall came down and  he takes the "Westernisation" of the former Soviet Bloc as a personal insult and a direct threat to Mother Russia.  From his pov all he is trying to do is to recover that precious buffer zone against the capitalist West.

I've heard it said that the problem with Putin was that as a KGB Major he was far enough up the hierarchy to be fully invested in the Soviet system, without being high enough to be able to see the flaws. Rather like Hitler being gassed and in hospital when the German army collapsed in Autumn 1918 and so not being able to see how completely hopeless their situation was. 

[C126]

Cheer up @Mallard60022 !  We might see some Speedlink traffic return before the balloon goes up...

 

 

 

Time to look out those Bachmann VEAs.

 

 

[MartinRS]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I'd rather have a gun to defend myself than a pitchfork.

Pitchfork? I don't even have a pitchfork! Does anyone know how many pitchforks the Russians have?

 

"Mister President, we must not allow a pitchfork mine shaft gap!" George C. Scott as General 'Buck' Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.

[APOLLO]

1 hour ago, Mallard60022 said:

Grief, this is getting far too serious. I know I can ignore it, but...

I'd rather have a chat about wobbly wheels and bits falling off Rapido 15XXs than  being reminded how fookin bad things are across the Globe.

F. Rossi.

 

Wobbly wheels ? -- Russians have huge balls of steel !!!

 

 

http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/yarmolchuk/monorail.html

 

Brit15

[Michael Hodgson]

3 hours ago, RichardT said:

The kite is being flown not because anything has changed in Europe or on the Ukrainian front, but because there’s now a very real prospect of a Trump presidency in November. Whether you believe that he is simply an old-fashioned isolationist or whether you believe that he is compromised by Putin, if he gets back in then we and the rest of NATO can no longer rely on the USA as an ally.

 

RichardT

Trump was right about one thing.  Europe isn't pulling its weight on defence budgets or manning levels.  All through the cold war, they did more than us - that is beginning to dawn on at least some of our politicians.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, MartinRS said:

Pitchfork? I don't even have a pitchfork!

 

Neither do I.  We're not going to be much use in the forthcoming peasants revolt!

But perhaps that nice Mr Molotov will invite us over for cocktails?

[C126]

For those of you readers who would like to scare yourselves witless with those 1980's memories of nuclear holocaust, but can not bear to watch Threads, I recommend :

 

https://www.waterstones.com/book/attack-warning-red/julie-mcdowall/9781847926210

 

Soon out in pbk.  Lord Peter Hennessey's writings are good, as well.

Edited January 30 by C126
New www link.

[woodenhead]

3 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Trump was right about one thing.  Europe isn't pulling its weight on defence budgets or manning levels.  All through the cold war, they did more than us - that is beginning to dawn on at least some of our politicians.

Because the US is led by the military industrial complex and oil, so it generates the means to wage war but typically does not suffer its direct consequences as does the Middle East or Europe.

[Kickstart]

Nato GDP spending target seems a bit strange. The UK is one of the higher, but then the UK also has areas like the Falklands to protect. Germany is pretty much surrounded by NATO countries so spending is purely on NATO defence. The USA has high defence spending by GDP, but half its coastline is not in the NATO area and unlikely to be a target for an aggresor to NATO, plus has forces in Korea and Japan , and various overseas bases.

 

Add in how much went on Iraq and Afghanistan operations, which were well outside the NATO area and limited in the participants.

 

That said, not sure what a better way would be of targeting a level of spending.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Michael Hodgson]

8 minutes ago, Kickstart said:

Nato GDP spending target seems a bit strange. The UK is one of the higher, but then the UK also has areas like the Falklands to protect.

 

 

 

OK, so we've lost Hong Kong, but don't forget Gibraltar!  And the Channel Islands.

 

The Argies call the Falkands Las Malvinas, though they're not Argentinian all. Their name is just a corruption of les Malouines, named after St Malo, as it was a French colony before we captured it ... though Spain also had them for while.

Edited January 30 by Michael Hodgson

[Neil]

Oh dear, what have I started? My assessment of the survey is less doomsday than most of the above unless you happen to be one of the blue team in the seat of government. I take it to be a bit of kite flying to see how popular it might be with those party faithful who look like drifting off to the yellow team and those recently recruited to the reds who will in all likelihood return to the fold. How this correlates with chocolate biscuit preferences is uncertain but I'm sure there will be marketing specialists who can link choices to demographic groups; Foxes for preference but hob-nobs will do at a pinch.

[drduncan]

Calm down all. It’s just the army doing a bit of posturing to get everyone thinking that they have the only solution to deal with Russia prior to a defence review some time in 2025.  
 

They are terrified that people will realise that they can only give the Russians  the sort of war the Russian want and the Russians are most likely to win ie short, land centric and a single theatre of operations. To deter Russia - which is the name of the game - you have to persuade the Russians that they are going to get the sort of war that they don’t want and can’t win ie long, multiple theatres of operations, and not land focused. 

 

Besides, the Poles and many other members of NATO have lots a tanks already. The British army won’t even be noticed if it doesn’t turn up (strategic irrelevance is another fear for the pongoes....). 
 

D

 

 

 

[The Johnster]

Yeah, we'll fight the to the last Pole/Finn/Swede.  The Finns have given them a hiding before, btw.  If your basic concept of hairy-chested military and manly prowess is the ability to operate heavy weaponry when you're drunk, probably best not to take on the Finns...

 

The Russians have conclusively proved that they are unable to win a conflict which is exactly what they wanted, land-centric and a single sphere of operations that they originally intended to be short; the Ukrainians, who I confidently predicte would last two months tops, had other ideas.  So, by your reckoning, the Russians can't win the war they want and can't win the one they don't want either.  This sounds rather promising until you factor in that there are people in postitions of power in Russia who would be happy to push the nuclear button.  The Bare-Chested Rider being one of them...

 

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Yeah, we'll fight the to the last Pole/Finn/Swede.  The Finns have given them a hiding before, btw.  If your basic concept of hairy-chested military and manly prowess is the ability to operate heavy weaponry when you're drunk, probably best not to take on the Finns...

 

Anyway here are some Finns blowing up a Russian army truck with a home made landmine for giggles.

 

 

[APOLLO]

Many years ago the west feared The Cossacks, brave and fearless fighters.

 

The Cossacks are mostly eastern Ukranians.

 

The Russians have bitten off more than they can chew.

 

Brit15

[Hroth]

21 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

Anyway here are some Finns blowing up a Russian army truck with a home made landmine for giggles.

 

 

 

A very Finnish pastime!

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

17 hours ago, Kickstart said:

Nato GDP spending target seems a bit strange. The UK is one of the higher, but then the UK also has areas like the Falklands to protect. Germany is pretty much surrounded by NATO countries so spending is purely on NATO defence.

The media obsession with 2% GDP target also masks the fact that the UK, France and US historically spent a much higher percentage of their budgets on equipment than the other European NATO members. That has changed for the better over the last few year as European countries have ended conscription and moved from the model of lots of conscripts with lorries and rifles and (not much else) to the all professional model with less but better equipment. 

https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf

 

I can't help thinking that a lot of the criticism is down to us (for once) collectively preparing for the next war, so our forces are no longer able to fight the 1980s version of WW3. 

[jjb1970]

17 hours ago, Neil said:

Oh dear, what have I started? My assessment of the survey is less doomsday than most of the above unless you happen to be one of the blue team in the seat of government. I take it to be a bit of kite flying to see how popular it might be with those party faithful who look like drifting off to the yellow team and those recently recruited to the reds who will in all likelihood return to the fold. How this correlates with chocolate biscuit preferences is uncertain but I'm sure there will be marketing specialists who can link choices to demographic groups; Foxes for preference but hob-nobs will do at a pinch.

 

Unfortunately I do not think it is just domestic politics.  Similar kites are being flown across Europe and a US Army senior officer flew the same kite not long ago. One of the lessons Ukraine has reminded us of again is that in a real war numbers count. Deaths aren't in the hundreds or low thousands like in Iraq or Afghanistan  (not counting the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and Afghans obviously.....) but tens of thousands, probably well into hundreds of thousands now. And equipment expenditure on a biblical scale, the collective west can't supply Ukraine's shell needs. In that type of war numbers count.