Romania have received there full order of second hand f16s, now they purchasing f-35s. It’s hilarious how laid back we are on purchasing or procurement of jet aircraft.
With effectively a hundred years of inertia to overcome are you surprised?
Never surprised about it man
I'd have to honestly disagree with the suggestion that we were fielding "current" gen aircraft at any time, the Hurricanes had effectively been moved out of air to air and into Ground attack by the time we had them in service, and the Spit/Seafire is a misrepresentation, they were still in frontline RAF service because of the disruption of WW2, without that they would have been replaced far earlier by later gen fighters but the invasion panic of 1940 had massive impacts on the future pipeline of aircraft with many being cancelled or delayed to concentrate production on the in service or near service airframes. That and the fact that the Spitfire design lent itself to upgrades far more than planned.
It’s design would be two generations out of date, late WW2 propellor design, and first gen jets, so F5? But when you combine it with the lack of radar/C&C I’m not sure they were much more use than air show planes anyway. I remember the AC having issues sustaining planes in Shannon during the was, were either the hurricanes or spitfires used outside of Baldonnel post war?
24! The Swiss are buying 36 F35s, it’s neutrality on steroids this week lol. I’m really looking forward to the outcome of all this. Recommended transports and 12 ships or urged to crew 9
Slow your roll, that’s for the Option 3 “after policy discussions”, ie even if it gets accepted it’s two governments away at best before an order. Most interesting is the fact that it’s a lot more realistic than the WPs have been about the threat environments and the position that defence spending on a shoestring must come to an end.
At least the fact it's out there in public now how ill equipped the defence forces actually are is progress in itself.
To be fair, anyone could and should have known that already.
I’ve just been browsing twitter, army helicopters, army planes and my personal favourite..”we have soldier’s if they can’t do the job get rid of them, better of funding the HSE”.
Ah yes the mythical solution to everything wrong with the state "sure just give it the defence budget"... Think I've seen it suggested to fix Health, the Housing Crisis, Cost of Living, Poverty...
Coming up on Pat Kenny😊
He is normally a testbed to gauge public opinion they should be fun, better off on Joe Duffy if they are looking for anger
It's funny how for approx. 70 years, the state hasn't given a hoot for defence of its interests, and then another run of the mill DoD exercise suddenly causes the goalposts to move so violently you may as well be playing a different sport altogether.
The global trend of course suggests that our efforts may be too late. A 9 ship navy with two crews for each, that could take the best part of 2 decades if we're lucky?
Pirates flags everywhere lol
I can just guess the comments from that alone…
Yes and no, it seems this report has been vastly more factual that the whitewashes of the two WPs have ever been (remember the 00 one?), so there’s that but also all they are laying out is the suggested options for the goalposts. The primary radar has been highlighted since the last WP as a “nice to have” so it’s not surprising, and stuff like the renaming have been kicking around for just as long. The major changes as suggested in Option 3, ie the headline of fighters is something that they are flagging as what they think we should move towards but over a period of 10 years or so.
So Dr Tom has pictures if F16s up. The British Times has F15s so what will the DOD go for?
Guessing neither.
Does anybody have the link to Dr Tom and Pat kenny interview, I missed it due to “Work “....and driving, radios aren’t allowed apparently
The report is up
Thank you very much for that I really appreciate it, just got a notification from RTÉ saying that the report is now final and has been produced to Coveney, One of the key points indicated in the report is that it should not be long fingered. It is expected to be provided to the government ministers in the next 5 to 6 months. The document is available five minutes and has been pushed out already. There may be a hint of we can use this for political point scoring I would imagine.
The likely issue is getting Finance to sign off on even the extra 500 million for option 2, and the accelerated capital program. Though even if option 3 is selected the report suggests 2040 before the fighters could be generated, from my quick read. Option 2 for both the Navy and AC/AF looks like the best short/medium term option.
Brilliant news in the report on our defence service .Just what the citizens have been crying out for. Everyone happy to park those pesky things like health service, housing, transport and the cost of living while we hurl bundles of cash at the wannabe top guns and wannabe marine.
Super post
You mean those areas that have had multiples of funding year on year and could consume the entire suggested budget without making a blind bit of difference? Jog on.
What a stupid and uninformed comment to make, you do realise that Defence has one of the smallest budgets of government departments don't you?
Defence had been neglected for decades and it needs to be corrected, the proposed defence budget from the report will still result in a budget a fraction of that provided to the departments you mentioned.
The funds have been available for the last 30 years but because of attitudes like yours it's been spent on anything but defence.
Edit : I know, I know, don't feed them.....
Interesting type of " adult " who wants to play with guns and jet planes .
The Air Corps has tested dozens of potential aircraft in it's time and yet, it has been continuously denied them by the DoD/DoF. The Alpha Jet is a case in point; our pilots constantly urged that they bought and the French were more than willing to sell them to us, at a reasonable price, as we had a strong relationship with them. A fine aircraft, with twin engine safety, excellent performance and firepower....and we ended up with Fougas. Obsolete before they even landed here. Same with transport aircraft, same with medium lift helicopters. Rinse and repeat.
They are tools of our trade. If you don't like having a military, vote in politicians to abolish it.
[Moderator]More to the point, if you can't be civil, you will be gone. This is your warning.[/Moderator]
