Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

I presume the plan is for primary radar to be monitored by the IAA and not separately by the AC?

I have every faith in Austria, using the opportunity to get their Tranche 1 Typhoons Feet wet.

That seems strange. The threat is to safe navigation and that's the IAAs job. The AC are short of controllers as is, will the man in the tower in Bal be keeping an eye on this on the side?

It's a bit of a stretch to say that the civilian system "doesn't do a good enough job". Give them a primary radar, they'll do the job.

We're fabricating scenarios here in order to justify QRA, in my opinion.

Putin would only love for us to waste a couple of hundred million on jets, forgetting that we're an island.

You can't fix a stricken airliner from a Gripen.

Bears and airliners won't be on a collision course if the IAA can see them. Anything more dangerous than that is unacceptable to the Finn's, Swedes, Danes, Germans, Brits and French (and whoever's doing air policing in the Baltics at the time) before it's our problem.

We dont have anything to bomb in our area such that fast jets are justified, whereupon QRA becomes a useful thing to do in peacetime.

Tactical radar on the other hand is needed and entirely within the remit of the Army.

Strategic radar is a peacetime facility best utilised without the DF as a middleman.

I disagree with basically all of that and thats fine.

But let me ask you; you're concerned about situations and scenarios being exaggerated or fabricated, yes? if I described to the You of 10 or 15 years ago, the World the way it is today, the pandemic, the politics, the War, the post-truth society, the cyber conflict, the old alliances gone and new ones forged, climate, energy, food, water, supply chains, damaging tech, all of it - would you not think I was off my fruit and nut? Because I would....

We have no idea what might have been unconscionable before that could materialise as a challenge or a threat in the near future. Strategic radar is a military competence in most of the Countries in Europe, nay the the World and this whole initiative is about Ireland trying to arrest 50 years of underinvestment and get to the level of bare minimum, not engage in provocation.

I mean Sweden and Finland just effed their neutrality in the bin with about 3 milliseconds of thought. Thats the game board at the moment, those are the stakes.

A primary radar operated by the Defence Forces does not automatically lead to Ireland getting fast jets or needing tactical bombing capacity, but you'd better have a chat to the Brits - with all their unstable politics - because their air force activity in our back yard is only going to increase. The question is, do we want them involved in any way with what is our sovereign and foreign relations responsibility.

Not really, while there has been a long running debate in those countries, up till the invasion the support for joining NATO was still a significant minority in those nations. The Russian invasion massively altered their defence planning virtually overnight.

And yes for “non NATO” nations we are left with Austria and Switzerland in Europe having fighter fleets, neither of them are going to be in a position to support us.

Doesn't look well for their submission when they attempt to spell Air Corps twice and can't get it right.

If they want 'policing', let them liaise with the Guards do it.

If they can see aircraft, and they know exactly what the aircraft is thanks to the other countries who have identified and passed this information on, what exactly is an expensive QRA adding?

As they say "policing" with a small "p".

Again I disagree.

If Poland were Ireland, they'd have submarines, frigates, inshore PTBs, ASW aircraft. But they aren't, so tanks is the ballgame for them. Tanks and big fat self propelled guns and MLRS. Just like the type being sent to Ukraine from NATO as we speak.

Spain has a massive land area and two large island archipelagoes, one a good distance from the Homeland. So a Spanish Marine Corps makes total sense.

Just not to you, because you dismiss any genuine strategic assessment in this much more dangerous World.

Far better military minds than you and indeed me, wrote a report and told us where we're lacking and where we're vulnerable. They came from far flung lands to do it, they used their hundreds of years of experience to inform it and they offered solutions, the implementation of which are of no consequence to them personally.

Your whole approach is mere wishful thinking. The beaches will be busy tomorrow, but there should still be enough room for you to stick your head in the sand.

As Jonny would say, fine bus, sign me up for 60.

As for Main Battle Tanks, I've been wondering if the Ukraine War may actually hasten the end of such a vehicle.

When you see the ease with which an Aldi bought drone and a small unit with a shoulder launched Javelin can destroy a Tank, without ever being seen, it makes the 4 million dollar T-90 look like a very poor investment indeed.

The Centauro makes plenty of sense as an IFV and tactical fire support platform, along with tracked carriers like the Bradley and Level V APCs, but slow, cumbersome, blind Tanks, without even that much firepower to destroy much else except other armour - their relevance lessens every day, especially when a Centauro is 25% the cost.

We are a NATO a standard force, we aren’t going to be buying that.

I

He probably wasn't on a sightseeing tour.

Not a chance in us even vesting an interest that aircraft or anything made in China. C919 is probably the only aircraft made in China landing anywhere our aerodromes giving the agreement with Ryanair.

The list of mistakes that Russian forces have made in Ukraine is fairly epic at this stage, though I have seen some mil sites referencing that Ukrainian drone loses have been increasing as Russians are starting to improve their operations, from a low base of course. Without question the environment that MBTs are operating is becoming more challenging but improved combined arms can reduce some of those threats.

Of course if the environment has become to hostile for MBTs with all their active and passive defences to survive in, what hope do lesser armoured vehicles have?