Interesting articles

Assuming everything stayed the same, the least worst time for us to have got serious about defence and global threats and abilities would have been post GFA/911, after that it would have been post the Crimea Invasion, after that it would have been immediately after the second Russian invasion. Each time would have cost money, more each time of course, but cheaper than now.

Now without question is the second worst time to be looking/needing substantial defence procurement, take for example Denmark who is going to spend an extra 5 billion on procurement, it would have been 10 billion, but there's no capacity within the defence industry to use that extra money right now. The Worst time of course will be the future, but we are still slow motion in our ambitions.

It was utterly predictable and something I've argued about before with out slow pace of LoA2 capital investment, and its only going to get worse before it gets better.

The Irish government appears to be subtly conditioning public opinion by spoon-feeding the media carefully framed articles on defense, military spending, and the capabilities of the Army, Navy, and Air Corps. Over time, these narratives emphasize vulnerabilities, international obligations, and the need for modernization, gradually normalizing the idea of increased defense budgets.

By repeatedly highlighting gaps in Ireland’s defense infrastructure and comparing spending to other nations, the media primes the public for what would have once been seen as excessive military expenditure.

As these stories accumulate, the notion of significantly higher spending shifts from being a political challenge to an accepted necessity, paving the way for large, sustained increases that would have been difficult to justify in a single move.

While I understand your cynicism Sparky, there are a relative blizzard of developments, such as this news, which suggest things are picking up pace.

Interestingly, the first thing the Tánaiste did on return from the Munich Security Conference was go to McKee and meet all the General Staff, GOCs and Flag.

I cant say I'm at all happy with our subcontracting the design for Command and force structure out to the Yanks. While they most certainly have the think tank capacity, their success in transferring their doctrine into actual operationalisation leaves a lot to be desired.
We, and not justt "because Trump" need to be focusing our operationalisation efforts upon well proven Western European, Pelagic and above all else, European supplied solutions.
Sweden, France and to some extent the UK are the best options IMO, with of those?
France is IMHO the country best placed to both lead the way in advising and designing force structure as well as supplying equipment for every operational need.
We have urgent and in maritime patrol and air defence quite a desparate need, I'd much rather that any additional funds we add to the defence budget are spent within the EU and with as much potential for local offsetting as possible.

he has the memo already so when it goes to cabinet is his personal choice as for more spending, is he suggesting a supplementary budget or just the briefed review for the spending plan in the summer?

the interview in the examiner with him said “weeks” so let’s see I guess?

All of the NS ships are capable of receiving an improved sonar. Well I'm not sure about the Lake Class, but its not as important for them anyway.

Its more than that though, Ireland needs to be offering funding and facilitation for an improved cooperative undersea surveillance system with the EU, as a matter of urgency.

There can now be no reliance on the US Navy, and the remaining NATO forces are already under serious pressure for resources for similar work in the Baltic.

Nothing insane about it if the validity of the audio model is correct IMO. I have no doubt at all that such simulation software is used by Navies and as someone who partakes in a little flight swimming myself, the effort that folk put into fidelity on those models is the insane part 😉

War thunder might get the headlines for leaks, but spend a bit of time on DCS or IL2 forums and the attention to detail is intense.

Any and all training and assistance tools we can lay hands on, must be considered. I'd reinforce an earlier comment I've made,

We, and not justt "because Trump" need to be focusing our operationalisation efforts upon well proven Western European, Pelagic and above all else, European supplied solutions.

We need to ensure we liaise with our allies to gain as much a headstart as possible. I'd also hazard that Sweden has a lovely library of Russian sonar signatures given the long history of Baltic shenanigans.

**Edit**

Game is still available too

Just fit out of sensors and equipment.

from the article:

Mr Harris said that this would mean more investment in “recruitment and retention” and “aggressive procurement”, with a primary radar system weeks away from going to tender.“I’ve instructed my officials in the Department of Defence to pursue a much more aggressive procurement strategy in terms of radar and sonar.“We need to get access to this as quickly as possible, because we have obligations to ourselves, and I think we have obligations to the wider world in terms of our coastline.“We live in a country where our sea space is an awful lot larger than our land space, and we need to make sure we give our Defence Forces, our naval service, and our air corps the capabilities there in terms of monitoring.”

Also the changes to the Triple Lock are to go to cabinet next month.

I mean not the worst idea to buy him off, but I doubt it.

Give him a sea wall at Doolin, be grand 😉

We shouldn't be buying **** all from America. Let Lockheed and Raytheon and all the rest feel the pain from overseas orders too.

Those comments from Harris are infuritating and long serving senior DF officers must be livid. You'd swear to read it that he has just slid in on his shrimp sandwich and diagnosed all the shortcomings and opened the cheque book.

GOVERNMENTS HAVE BEEN TOLD THIS STUFF AND WARNED ABOUT IT FOR 5 DECADES SIMON, IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD. 🤬

Anyway..monitoring EEZ is all very well. Some more aggressive and dangerous kit is needed as well. I'd suggest a dozen of them Super Tucanos...top of the range version. And why arse around for years gettin consultants treadin water to come up with a bespoke ship? Simple answer: go to Fincantiery Vard and buy two of the top of the range series 7 corvettes. Also a pair of them German or Swedish subs. That will do the trick to scare the **** out if Jonny Russian and tell him we mean business!

I don’t disagree with you, however if this purchase is something that’s been nailed in since before his election and his openly siding with Russia, which is likely, and not going ahead means another period of time while the powers that be accept something else and go forward, is it better to bite the bullet and go for it?

There’s no perfect answer to the question of Europe going all European for defence, with nations facing much larger questions like the future of the F35 purchases for example.

As. Harris and his comments, of course since the founding of the state the same situation has been highlighted over and over, and arguably we are “no worse” than we have ever been, since all we have ever been is “feck all and ask the U.K.”, despite some fantasy’s on social media.Lets take the win that we now have the Tánaiste openly talking about LoA3 and the price tag, it’s better than we have had in the past.