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Ireland - lack of air and naval defence.

ShotgunPaddy

[Moderator's Note:

Yes, there's a Walter Mitty Forum for silliness like this, but the topic seems to keep coming up. Thus, this thread has been 'stickified' as the first pont of call for any complaints about the lack of Ireland's military capability, any other threads started on the subject will either be merged into this one, or moved to Walter Mitty.

The more creative your solution for the re-instatement of Ireland into a position of 'World Military Power', the better.

NTM ]

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Given Ireland's lack of adequate naval and air defence, should we not look at partnering with another European state? Britain was, and in many respects still is a hostile nation but what about the French. We already cooperate closely with French forces in Chad. Should we ask the French to station an aircraft carrier in the Shannon Estuary and share the running costs?

Share your thoughts.

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coolhandspan

With brexit on the way what are the chances of Germany of France lending us a few jets to patrol Atlantic... I reckon 200 million would get us some jf. 17s from Chinese, maybe six of them. Would need a fair warranty on them though... Lol

BoJack Horseman

coolhandspan wrote: »

With brexit on the way what are the chances of Germany of France lending us a few jets to patrol Atlantic

Expand on that.

You understand that once the UK leaves the dying EU she doesn't disappear right?

The UK will do its thing as always & the militarily feeble Germans don't care about the Atlantic.

Besides, what is wrong with our existing MPAs?

sparky42

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Expand on that.

You understand that once the UK leaves the dying EU she doesn't disappear right?

The UK will do its thing as always & the militarily feeble Germans don't care about the Atlantic.

Besides, what is wrong with our existing MPAs?

I'm presuming he means fighters for patrol rather than MPA's. As to defence spending Merkel and Co. do seem to have realised that they have cut too deep with plans to increase spending out to 2020 and the proposed joint EU fund.

Boreas

If the Irish government could find €200 million for military spending would it be better for them to donate it to (for example) Estonia rather than buy 6 Chinese jets that would likely rarely be flown? I'm sure the money would go further and be better used by them.

Silvera

Boreas wrote: »

If the Irish government could find €200 million for military spending would it be better for them to donate it to (for example) Estonia rather than buy 6 Chinese jets that would likely rarely be flown? I'm sure the money would go further and be better used by them.

I understand where you are coming from, but every country should have/needs to have their own - even token - air defences in place.
Ireland, being a non-aligned country, even more so that most other European countries.

Boreas

I think Ireland is at a decision point. Either military spending needs to go to 1%, more than 3 times the current level or roughly €2.8 bn a year, which would allow a small but modern military with FREMM type frigates, fast jets etc etc. Or we need to follow countries like Costa Rica and abolish the military. The Naval Service would become a civilian fisheries protection service, the Air Corps would be replaced by an air ambulance service and the Guards could have a new 2000 member paramilitary wing.

coolhandspan

just bouncing idea around, are these chinese/pakastani jf17 jets REally that bad? How many are needed for a squadron 10+?

Heraldoffreeent

coolhandspan wrote: »

just bouncing idea around, are these chinese/pakastani jf17 jets REally that bad? How many are needed for a squadron 10+?

Don't know much about the Chinese/Pak fighters, but the Indian Navy have decided not to accept the Tejas LCA. Most of those 2nd world fighters seem to be shiny on the outside but a bit meh when it comes to performance, capability and innards.

Not to mention the 10,000 mile logs chain which wouldn't be acceptable to the DOD, or the bodging needed to use Western missiles and systems.

If we are looking at a mainstream fighter, then based on Logs, performance and price the Saab is probably the only game in town if we are looking for something new. Failing that, F16/F18 second hand, even then, price per flight hour would be pretty awful.

fiachr_a

Jawgap wrote: »

Mind you, if we had a few ol' tanks we could scatter them around Dublin tomorrow during the Garda strike

Three formation planes over Dublin last week to protect us from the seagulls.

sparky42

fiachr_a wrote: »

Three formation planes over Dublin last week to protect us from the seagulls.

How cute:rolleyes:

Sgt. Bilko 09

Our air corps is a joke.

Silvera

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

Our air corps is a joke.

The Air Corps is not a joke ...it's lack of aircraft is.

Negative_G

Silvera wrote: »

The Air Corps is not a joke ...it's lack of aircraft is.

The Air Corps (and the DF as a whole) is completely unfit for purpose in its current guise.

There are a multitude of reasons for this.

The number one reason being the complete lack of political will to achieve anything outside of the absolute minimum with the Defence Forces. It is nothing more than a token effort.

Followed very closely by the complete disinterest in defence matters from the general public. This is legacy issue which has become a cultural one. And it is one that can't be easily changed.

The DF budget is a pittance in comparison to other public service bodies. Any additional spending will simply be equated to hospital beds, homeless etc.

There is no money or votes in defence, so nobody really cares. While I am extremely hesitant to use it as a sample size, check out the comments on the Journal today regarding the Air Corps flyover of the Aras. Overwhelmingly negative.

Defence has been run on a shoestring for decades and now with the mass exodus of personnel, the chickens are finally coming home to roost.

The blame lies solely at the door of the civil servants and politicians.

The Garda commissioner recently stood before the PAC to answer questions about current issues as she is the accounting officer for AGS.

When defence related issues were raised by the PAC, it wasn't the COS who stood up to the mantle. It was the dept sec gen. That alone speaks volumes and tells you exactly who is calling the shots.

Sgt. Bilko 09

Silvera wrote:

The Air Corps is not a joke ...it's lack of aircraft is.

That was my point. They had ample opportunity during the boom to purchase and never did.

sparky42

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

That was my point. They had ample opportunity during the boom to purchase and never did.

While the money was going up due to larger national budgets, the actual % spend on defence was falling since '96, throughout the boom FF spent little to nothing on defence across the board. In terms of purchases, you'd need a major mindset change from the politicians to the public to actually get something different.

Silvera

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

That was my point. They had ample opportunity during the boom to purchase and never did.

It's the mandrins in the dept of finance who have control over what aircraft Air Corps gets or not. If it was left to the AC 'heads' they would would be many more aircraft in the current fleet.

Blame the dept of finance mandrins - not the Air Corps.

sparky42

Silvera wrote: »

It's the mandrins in the dept of finance who have control over what aircraft Air Corps gets or not. If it was left to the AC 'heads' they would would be many more aircraft in the current fleet.

Blame the dept of finance mandrins - not the Air Corps.

Well that could be said for every department (and control on spending isn't automatically bad considering some of the waste we've seen), the main issue is that sadly the Mandarins since the foundation of the state have been allowed to treat Defence the worst, without any public or political concern

AnGaelach

Negative_G wrote: »

The number one reason being the complete lack of political will to achieve anything outside of the absolute minimum with the Defence Forces. It is nothing more than a token effort.

Even getting the bare minimum is an impossibility at this stage.

Negative_G wrote: »

Followed very closely by the complete disinterest in defence matters from the general public. This is legacy issue which has become a cultural one. And it is one that can't be easily changed.

Absolutely - the only people I've seen calling for increasing the budget of the DF is the National Party (who aren't even a party), and they're more interested in introducing a system like Switzerland where everyone will have training and a weapon - not so much interest in developing an air force or maintaining a stronger standing army.

Blue House Bear

Round and round we go to the point of frustration over the lack of anything proper in the Aer Corps, Defence Forces, Naval.

Until such time that this country is hit with some form of deadly attack there will not be visible public money spent on something that the public can outcry over. Think of the money that is wasted every day in departments and projects that the public can't actually see.

You can't open a tabloid without some sensation of a headline about how much the government spent on this or bought that, how much did Enda spend on flights or how much was the latest batch of Garda cars.

Leonidas BL

http://www.stavatti.com/stavatti-submits-javelin-t-x-in-response-to-usaf-apt-rfp/

10 million each, low observability, Mach 1.5, 2 internally mounted sidewinders.
Maybe we can dream...............

Silvera

Leonidas BL wrote: »

http://www.stavatti.com/stavatti-submits-javelin-t-x-in-response-to-usaf-apt-rfp/

10 million each, low observability, Mach 1.5, 2 internally mounted sidewinders.
Maybe we can dream...............

Link wont open?

Leonidas BL

Silvera wrote: »

Link wont open?

Seems to be working.....

SpannerMonkey

Leonidas BL wrote: »

Seems to be working.....

Nope i cant open it either

Leonidas BL

Balls OO

Try the main page and go to documents and news releases.

http://www.stavatti.com/

Jawgap

The 'E' variant of the Grippen has just had its first successful flight.....

......just sayin'

Silvera

Leonidas BL wrote: »

http://www.stavatti.com/stavatti-submits-javelin-t-x-in-response-to-usaf-apt-rfp/

10 million each, low observability, Mach 1.5, 2 internally mounted sidewinders.
Maybe we can dream...............

10 million does appears to be 'good value' ...where a new fighter/trainer jet is concerned.

Leonidas BL

Silvera wrote: »

€10 million appears to be 'good value' ...where a new fighter/trainer jet is concerned.

It's actually $10 million or about €8.9 million. How can ya beat that, even second hand? They are perfect really.

donvito99

Leonidas BL wrote: »

They are perfect really.

For a country with different defence requirements to Ireland.

- Does the occasional marginal airspace delinquency by Russian aircraft warrant fast jets?

- Does Ireland face any conventional threat, being non-aligned and "neutral", requiring the large number of sophisticated fast jets that would be required to adequately deter such a threat?

- Does Ireland have a political/defence doctrine requiring intervention abroad that is ordinarily best conducted by fast jets?

The answer to all three is surely no. The notion of "a squadron of" whatever trainer aircraft is proposed this week, or a dozen Gripen C/Ds, isn't viable based on the above. We simply to not have the need, and if we did, we would never have the resources to appropriately meet the need.

Leonidas BL

donvito99 wrote: »

For a country with different defence requirements to Ireland.

- Does the occasional marginal airspace delinquency by Russian aircraft warrant fast jets?

- Does Ireland face any conventional threat, being non-aligned and "neutral", requiring the large number of sophisticated fast jets that would be required to adequately deter such a threat?

- Does Ireland have a political/defence doctrine requiring intervention abroad that is ordinarily best conducted by fast jets?

The answer to all three is surely no. The notion of "a squadron of" whatever trainer aircraft is proposed this week, or a dozen Gripen C/Ds, isn't viable based on the above. We simply to not have the need, and if we did, we would never have the resources to appropriately meet the need.

That's the attitude, we'll get places with you around. Sure why not let the British patrol our airspace for us whenever something unidentified fly's off our coast. Embarrassing really.

Jawgap

donvito99 wrote: »

For a country with different defence requirements to Ireland.

- Does the occasional marginal airspace delinquency by Russian aircraft warrant fast jets?

- Does Ireland face any conventional threat, being non-aligned and "neutral", requiring the large number of sophisticated fast jets that would be required to adequately deter such a threat?

- Does Ireland have a political/defence doctrine requiring intervention abroad that is ordinarily best conducted by fast jets?

The answer to all three is surely no. The notion of "a squadron of" whatever trainer aircraft is proposed this week, or a dozen Gripen C/Ds, isn't viable based on the above. We simply to not have the need, and if we did, we would never have the resources to appropriately meet the need.

Yes, we know......this thread is just a bit of craic and an excuse to discuss jets