Irish in Libya

roundymac

Why has'nt the Irish Gov deployed an Irish Naval vessel to stand off Libya to rescue the 300 or so Irish people that are still there but have been advised to leave by the government. Others are doing so , the Uk and the Greeks that I am aware of so far.

Five Lamps

Question has to be asked as to why Irish people were in Libya before Gadaffi was overthrown i.e supporting his regime and you've really got to ask what the hell they are doing there in the past 2 years given the security situation.

In any case it's not 300. There's about 150 dual nationality folks and the number of ex-pats is sin the single digits. For the ex-pats. presumably their employer has an evacuation plan in place. Evacuations don't have to be carried out by the military.

There's no Irish naval vessel that could take 300 people off the coast of Libya. It's hardly worthwhile going out to collect the rest of them when they can politely ask the Brits or Greeks who all have ships in the Med.

Jawgap

.....because it takes resources beyond the capacity of the country (not just the Naval Service) to maintain a capability that would allow us to send, at short notice, a large enough ship beyond our territorial waters with the capacity to safely and securely stand off a hostile beach and extract 300 people.

How would protect the vessel against air attack?

Who's going to go ashore and get the 300?

How might they be transported out to the ship?

discus

Five Lamps wrote: »

Question has to be asked as to why Irish people were in Libya before Gadaffi was overthrown i.e supporting his regime and you've really got to ask what the hell they are doing there in the past 2 years given the security situation.

True enough.

A fair few of them will be people who went back to fight in either regime. Fair play, it's ballsy to go back to a civil war and step into contacts from day 1, but it's not the governments job to get them out once they decide it's too hot for them.

Sierra Oscar

A lot of those that are dual citizens do not want to leave.

syklops

Jawgap wrote: »

.....because it takes resources beyond the capacity of the country (not just the Naval Service) to maintain a capability that would allow us to send, at short notice, a large enough ship beyond our territorial waters with the capacity to safely and securely stand off a hostile beach and extract 300 people.

I honestly don't think the resources necessary are beyond the capacity of this nation of ours, we just choose to use our resources differently and when things get tight, we ask the Brits or Americans for help.

How would protect the vessel against air attack?

Equip the vessel with up to date Ack ack guns/SAMs. Ask for cover from other nations who are also in the area.

Who's going to go ashore and get the 300?

Armed Naval Personnel?

How might they be transported out to the ship?

RIBs?

Jawgap

syklops wrote: »

I honestly don't think the resources necessary are beyond the capacity of this nation of ours, we just choose to use our resources differently and when things get tight, we ask the Brits or Americans for help.

I would've thought you are talking at least like having something like an Absalon-class support ship like the Danes have, along with at least a couple of medium lift helis and probably company sized force to go ashore and secure whatever location was being used to remove the people from.

An Absalon costs about $225m (about half what HMS Ocean cost), excluding weapons systems and helis - do you reckon we can afford to build, operate and maintain a ship like that - and it be of ongoing use to the country?

What would we use for the rest of the time - it's a bit of overkill for drug interdiction and fisheries protection is it not?

syklops wrote: »

Equip the vessel with up to date Ack ack guns/SAMs. Ask for cover from other nations who are also in the area.

And how would you deal with anti-ship missiles?

Support from other nations?? - Who gives the fire order if an Irish ship is under threat?

syklops wrote: »

Armed Naval Personnel?

Seriously (again)? What training have they had to do that kind of work?

syklops wrote: »

RIBs?

Once again, seriously? - do you know how many people fit in a RIB? Assuming someone is going to have to drive it, and you are not going to send it across open water unarmed, that doesn't leave much room for the civilians you are trying to bring out......assuming they make it to the beach.

discus

Good post jawgap. There's no way in hell a single Irish PV can collect even 50 civvies off the coast in a day.

syklops

I would've thought you are talking at least like having something like an Absalon-class support ship like the Danes have, along with at least a couple of medium lift helis and probably company sized force to go ashore and secure whatever location was being used to remove the people from.

An Absalon costs about $225m (about half what HMS Ocean cost), excluding weapons systems and helis - do you reckon we can afford to build, operate and maintain a ship like that - and it be of ongoing use to the country?

Honestly this is a hypothetical discussion because there is not the political will to do what we should do which is to properly equip our defence department with resources it does actually need. Shur, we're neutral. We don't even need a defence department. :rolleyes:

$225USD? Which is 168M euro. Irish water is currently costing 2 Billion. What was the total bill for the eVoting machines? ~60M? As i said in my last post we do have the resources we just choose to spend it differently.

What would we use [it] for the rest of the time - it's a bit of overkill for drug interdiction and fisheries protection is it not?

Why do we need to use it for anything the rest of the time? The ERU don't check parking tickets when not busy. The ARW don't drive buses to get that 'added value'. When not responding to an emergency it could do what any other unit does, e.g. train and drill.

roundymac

discus wrote: »

Good post jawgap. There's no way in hell a single Irish PV can collect even 50 civvies off the coast in a day.

Why not, the way you and jawgap are talking about the Irish naval Service you think they were a bunch of incompetent retards.

Morpheus

how would you justify to a nation which is over 60Bn in debt to europe, the cost of owning maintaining and operating a 168m euro vessel (before weapons and aircraft fit) in irish waters when the role its designed for is so rarely used? that money could be better used elsewhere in the defence forces such as more OPVs and maritime air assets.

discus

I don't think that at all. You underestimate the hassle involved in getting civvies to do anything. Sure when the Aer Corps got into the country, the civvies couldn't even get themselves organised enough and they missed the flight - Aer Corps aircraft returned empty.

Just try to sort out shore security, support from deck mounted weapons, and back-up incase a RIB get's an engine problem. Try to get a few civvies onboard a ship from a RIB, from moving vessel to moving vessel. Then return journeys etc. An LE ship wouldn't have the trained man power to have a decent shore party.

Jawgap

roundymac wrote: »

Why not, the way you and jawgap are talking about the Irish naval Service you think they were a bunch of incompetent retards.

Sorry, but exactly where did I say that? In this or any other thread? I suggest you read what's written, then go read a bit more.

I happen to think the Irish Naval Service is excellent - it has a defined mission that it fulfils efficiently and effectively. That mission does not encompass standing off a potentially hostile shore to evacuate Irish citizens.

What the OP is asking about is power projection from the sea - there are only a few countries who can do it and even fewer who can do it well.

In July the US evacuated its personnnel from its embassy in Tripoli -let's assume an embassy is a good site to evacuate from and that when it was built that contingency was anticipated and the design of the site and the buildings allowed for it to be done efficiently.

With everything going for them, the Yanks went in to evacuate 78 diplomatic personnel (probably safe to assume they had had some training so wouldn't easily be spooked in the same way 'normal' civilians would be).

There was also a Marine security force at the embassy to provide immediate protection for the site.

To extract those 78 people from a prepared, secured site took 2 MV-22 Ospreys, three F-16 fighter jets, several surveillance drones, and a CRF of 80 Marines based out of Sigonella, Italy who train for this type of work.

.....and the OP thinks we should send a Naval Service ship to Libya, close enough so 'armed naval personnel' in RIBs can be used to bring out 300 citizens???

I don't doubt that for one minute that if PDF personnel were given the training and tools to the job they could do it, and do it exceptionally well, but expeditionary ops have never been part of the Irish military tradition or mission, and are never likely to be.

Lemming

In addition to Jawgap's excellent posts, if I recall, the RN were involved in evacuating not only British nationals, but European nationals including Irish from Libya and the like in recent times too.

Negative_G

discus wrote: »

I don't think that at all. You underestimate the hassle involved in getting civvies to do anything. Sure when the Aer Corps got into the country, the civvies couldn't even get themselves organised enough and they missed the flight - Aer Corps aircraft returned empty.

It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of people who refer to the Air Corps as the "Aer Corps".

I enjoy reading your informative posts Discus and it is my understanding that you are in the armed forces so you should know much better than your average civilian as to the correct spelling of one of the corps of the Defence Forces.

Nothing personal, just a major pet hate of mine!

Regarding the use of a Naval vessel to evacuate civilians; as Jawgap has already outlined, it won't happen. Regardless of how well trained Naval Service personnel are, the political will isn't there to do anything. They would be severely out of their depth to carry out such an op in any event.

As for the allocation of funds, one only has to look at the cesspit that is the HSE to see how funds are being spent.

discus

Won't happen again!!

Morpheus

a lot of those who run around in the muck dont really give a toss how the trolly dollies spell their name

Tabnabs

We just don't have the resources to go into hostile waters and extract people and bring them to safety. We'd also be unwise to get caught up in another countries troubles.




















*cough* MTB2 *cough*

*cough* Dunkirk *cough*

*cough* twice *cough*

Morpheus

And when irish citizens are caught up in other countries problems, as so happens, we're happy to let other other countries rescue them for us.

Reekwind

syklops wrote: »

$225USD? Which is 168M euro. Irish water is currently costing 2 Billion. What was the total bill for the eVoting machines? ~60M? As i said in my last post we do have the resources we just choose to spend it differently.

In fairness, that is not a sound comparison. The 60M for e-voting machines is a lifetime cost, including disposal/scraping. 168M for a warship is the construction costs alone and makes no account of crew or other operational costs. Actually running such a ship on an annual basis (taking no account of extraordinary missions like the one suggested) would be significant in itself.

petergfiffin

Just a few thing to bear in mind around this:

1. The Royal Navy didn't dispatch a ship to carry out a rescue mission, the ship happened to be in the area at the time as part of an 18month deployment and was simply diverted and while operating in a less than peaceful environment it wasn't in any significant danger "The ship's departure was not considered a rescue mission as there were still commercial means to leave Libya." http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28627158
2. The ship that carried out the evacuation - HMS Enterprise - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Enterprise_(H88), http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/our-organisation/the-fighting-arms/surface-fleet/survey/echo-class/hms-enterprise at 90m is approx the same size as Samuel Beckett and slightly larger than Le Roisin although it's layout may mean it can carry more. Also, it's significantly less well armed than it's Irish counterparts.

Taking both of these into account, if there had been a Naval Service vessel in the Med e.g. on a UNIFIL re-supply trip (if they still do those!!) and there were enough cause to warrant it then I think it's highly possible the Naval Service could/would have carried out a similar operation.

Anything beyond that, where there were a risk of a ship being engaged by anything other than small arms then it might have been a different story. As to carrying out mass evacuations/rescues under hostile conditions - we're nowhere near having the capacity to do that nor is it likely we ever will.

Negative_G

Morpheus wrote: »

a lot of those who run around in the muck dont really give a toss how the trolly dollies spell their name

Maybe so, but I'd expect professional soldiers to have more awareness as opposed to those that spend two weeks in Coolmoney

Jawgap

Negative_G wrote: »

Maybe so, but I'd expect professional soldiers to have more awareness as opposed to those that spend two weeks in Coolmoney

I think the point is that they do have an awareness, but they are not going to pander to them by actually spelling their name correctly or using it properly......and I doubt the Air Corps are going to give them the satisfaction of admitting, or even suggesting, it bothers them.

discus

Steady on, lads.

Negative_G

Jawgap wrote: »

I think the point is that they do have an awareness, but they are not going to pander to them by actually spelling their name correctly or using it properly......and I doubt the Air Corps are going to give them the satisfaction of admitting, or even suggesting, it bothers them.

I think perhaps you're taking me too seriously. It was a light hearted retort, similar to what I replied to.

I was simply highlighting a mistake which I've seen on the forum multiple times. The forum is a source of information so why not pass the correct information to those who aren't familiar with such 'pandering'. It's not too dissimilar to forum users infrequently highlighting that the Defence Forces is referred to as the PDF and not the IDF.

Anyway, I do not wish to derail the thread any further so let's get back on topic shall we?

Morpheus

ok as a mod, i shouldnt be baited about the spelling of one of the service branches....

however.... do you think that perhaps, some people (PDF and RDF) spell it as a mix between the Irish form Aer Chor and the english version "Air Corps" and thus confustication ensues and we end up with the bastardised yet oft mentioned Aer Corps!?

Finally, Charlie 253 (i think) was reconfigured for PAX and did fly to and touched down in Tripoli Libya but took off again back to Malta without any passengers. Lear jet was also sent to Malta as part of the mission.

Negative_G

Morpheus wrote: »

ok as a mod, i shouldnt be baited about the spelling of one of the service branches....

however.... do you think that perhaps, some people (PDF and RDF) spell it as a mix between the Irish form Aer Chor and the english version "Air Corps" and thus confustication ensues and we end up with the bastardised yet oft mentioned Aer Corps!?

Finally, Charlie 253 (i think) was reconfigured for PAX and did fly to and touched down in Tripoli Libya but took off again back to Malta without any passengers. Lear jet was also sent to Malta as part of the mission.

I think you are precisely right as to the confusion regarding the bastardised version.