Is ireland Available to defend itself?

davetherave wrote: »

It's all well and good buying cheap harriers but you then have the costs of retraining pilots to fly them, groundcrew to mantain them and the cost of getting spares. And just to bepedantic we have an air corp,not an air force.

RobitTV wrote: »

At the moment, Do we have the capability to protect our airspace? Answer: No

Stupidly Goverment's didn't invest much In the Defence force's, Thats why we have Aircraft Slower then WWII Spitfire's, As our main "attack aircraft".

Simples..Our defence forces are geared for dealing with an internal insurrection,not an external threat.

I Thougth we Just got a Bailout of 85 Billion?, Surly The goverment could buy some Harrier jets That were scrapped from the RAF? They couldn't be dear to buy.

It would have been an ideal aircraft for the ROI,no need for large runways,capable of being hidden in a large barn,and easily serviced in the field.
Buying a jet fighter system is not like buying a car.You need to buy the ancillary equipment and its maintenance equipment and parts for every system of the airframe.IOW weapons system needs spare parts,and servicing parts ,radar needs its spares etc.Trouble is alot of those parts are out of stock and not made anymore or available to make it a viable defence system.As well as that in what version do you want it?Air to air combat aircraft,ground attack aircraft,all weather capability?Each costs a few million euros per system.

We have a active army of around 8,500 - 9,000, They dont have much equipment if you ask me, They have some small tank's, and maybe some other not very useful weapons.

Just what is really needed if us peasents might get too uppitty,nothing else.

The navy over the years, is the only Branch of the Defence force's That has been invested in, We currently have 8 Navy ship's defending out water's, But They cant fire Missile's, Only use gun's.

Again,just what is needed for costal patrol and fishing protection and drug interdiction.not much else.

I Know you may be thinking, "Why do we need all this?", But seriously 21st century, We need a proper air force, And a proper navy, To actually DEFEND our airspace + Costal water's.

Against whom or what??We cant afford a proper viable defence force to make a viable conventional fight against anyone in Western Europe, bar maybe the Vatican or Luxembourg,and they are unlikely to invade us forawhile.Nor are the Russians likely to drop in anytime soon.

If you type in on google - "Russian bomber entering uk airspace" A Load of news reports from this year and last year will appear, A Russian bomber even went over The republic, Or somewhere near irish airspace.

So Do you think we need a proper Air force and navy?[/QU

Thats NATOs and the UKs problem.
Not that we should be worried about Putin giving his aircrews in outdated aircraft that were totally obsolete 30 years ago and no match for anything we can put up within minutes and we can spot taking off within minutes from their bases,somthing to do. It is Putin and his puppett pandering to the Russian nationalistic element of the military industrial complex.

Thing is,there is no point in us having a larger army as no one is planning to invade us,we couldnt afford one anyway in this depression.The only thing that is a possible threat to Ireland is a major uprising or civil unrest,and it is capable of handling that.As for the odd Russkie Bear lumbering about in the atlantic of the west coast,we have the UK and the RAF to deal with that.:rolleyes: