Not quite right there 'nissi'.........nations such as the US need aircraft carriers, as they live in a land far far away from the rest of the world, and they need aircraft carriers to transfer their forces (i.e. an aircraft carrier is a mobile air force) to areas of unrest. Obviously in Europe there there are not many nations that have sea coastlines, and those that do, do have a carrier of some sort. Mind you the Germans dont!. I read yesterday that Germany is to close down many military bases. Why? Your a rich nation.
Ok, that is right But so much americans say, that we should build more carriers in europe ... And that is not right... Yes, we close down our bases. We close 31 military bases and reduce some bases. We reduce our militar from 250.000 soldiers to 185.000. We stopped this year our Wehrpflicht ( Every boy/men had to go to the army for some months to learn to shoot and defent his country ) We only buy 40 instead of 80 Tigers now.... We only buy 80 instead of 122 NH-90 Helicopters .... . Yes we are a rich country but we make every year about 80.000.000.000 liabilities and that is to much A soldier in germany is double so expensive like a american soldier so we can save every year about 5.000.000.000. And why should we have such a big army ? The cold war is over. Hitler had 1933 only 100.000 soldiers and 1939 he had the best army. I'am not Nazi but u can see that a country can build in some years a great army. gr
Have you ever even met any Greeks, Spaniards or Dutch? I have never met any of these nationalities that have expressed any interest in 'projecting power'. That they are former colonial powers means nothing. Most have washed their hands of all but a few insignificant pieces of land. Meanwhile, the rest- Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovakia etc- have you ever seen any desire from any of these countries to be authoring carriers to project power to Antartica? Understand- if Europe wanted to throw its money away like this, I wouldn't object. But why would any of them need a single carrier to protect the Black Sea? Or the North Sea? I enjoy a 'what if' scenario as much as the next guy, but I don't see any of the people you claim to be protecting clamoring for any such protection. And what purpose do you envision such Battleship for that are not now accomplished by airpower?
Germany had the added benefit of having just fought in a massive World War. Virtually every German Officer above the rank of Major in the German Army in 1939 had extensive combat experience. Also, Germany utilized paramilitary groups to keep a larger pool of men at the ready. Finally, as early as 1922 Germany was violating Versailles. Once Hitler came completely into power in 1932 the Germans were blatantly violating the treaty and building a modern military. You're point doesn't hold true. Also, weapons were significantly less sophisticated back then which made it much easier to quickly train larger numbers of competent troops.
I think you'll find that many of Europes politicans find their power projection capabilties seriously lacking. Libyra, and Europes heavy reliance on the U.S., exposed this. European leaders realize that without power projection they have a severly limited ability to impact global events. If a dictator in Myopia ignores a European directive, there's little Europe can do without the U.S. to help them. Economic sanctions aren't nearly as effective as a carrier battlegroup sitting off the beach. U.S. influence on the world is so large because it's the only country in the world that has the ability to become the dominant player in virtually any region on earth.
The nation of Russa traditionally has never had a very large or a very powerfull Navy. And this goes back hundreds of years. OK, now we are getting into actual tactics here, very nice. And any admiral that suggested this kind of arrangement should be shot, ore retired for senility. OK, we have already discussed the makeup of the northern Fleet. And trust me, you will need a lot more then 3 subs in your fleet. More like 5-10 times that number. That that is just to close and secure the GIUK line, and that does not even count any subs you want on patroll and hunter-killer missions. And a Super Carrier in Norwegian Waters? Are you absolutely insane? You yourself have gone on and on about how you need carriers for "force protection". What exact force do you need to project in order to protect Norway from? You are actually planning on putting a carrier in confined waters, within east reach of ground based aircraft? That is nice, if you want to see that carrier on the bottom of the sea. The area around Norway in a defensive operation is perfect for land based aircraft. Any aircraft used in this kind of operation would all be land based, which are much more powerfull then naval aircraft. There is a reason if you look through history that Naval Aircraft were not used in defensive operations, only in offensive operations. And mostly then far away from allied airbases. When attacking Japanese islands in WWII, Japan did not send in her carriers to defend, she in fact had them run from the area of conflict as quicky as possible. It was the US that brought in the carriers on offense. And when Wake Island was attacked in 1941, the Navy immediately tried to rush in carriers to help defend the island. Task Force 11 was composed of an oiler, a seaplane tender, 3 heavy cruisers, 10 destroyers, and the USS Saratoga aircraft carrier. Thankfully, people in the Navy realized that if the task force made it to Wake, the carrier would come under immediate attack and the outcome would have been the loss of a precious carrier, with no real help to the island itself.
OK, wait a minute here, are you pulling my leg? A "Stealth Battleship"? That is an oxymoron if I ever heard of one. And putting on thinner armour would totally defeat the purpose of the ship in the first place. One of the reasons the Iowa class lasted as long as it did was it's impressive armour. Cut that down, and you have just a big lovely sinkable target. And come on, torpedoes on a Battleship? Do you even think the big mother of a ship is going to get anywhere close enough to fire them off? And against what? Is it going to go racing on past the Destroyer screen to engage itself what is rightfully the target of destroyers? Battleships did not go out of date because of modern weapons. In fact, the big older ships were often more able to defend themselves then the modern ships can. Look at the damage the average WWII ship could withstand. Then look at the UK ships during the Falklands, and the USS Stark and USS Cole. A WWII ship would have laughed at that kind of damage, but the US ships took heavy damage, and UK lost several. The reason that Battleships went out of favor is that their job was essentially eliminated. They were primarily designed to take out other capitol ships (Battleships). But with the advent of Naval Aviation, it was shown that a carrier could eliminate them from over the horizon, before they even came close to being able to fire their own guns. Look at the Battle of the Coral Sea for an example of what was comming. The US lost 1 fleet carrier, 1 destroyer, and 1 oiler. Japan lost 1 light carrier, 1 destroyer, and 3 frigates. And not one single ship fired at another ship, the damage was entirely done by naval aviation on both sides. That is what killed the Battleship. Aircraft got better and better, and it was realized that odds were they would never get close enough to really make a difference in a naval battle again. They were only kept until the 1960's for the power of their guns in landing operations. And then that ended, they were mothballed. Granted, they had a 10 year return in the 1980's, because of the threat of anti-ship missiles. And they were all modified in order to fire cruise missiles, so they could once again be effective outside of the range of aircraft. But with the improvement of defensive systems like CIWS, they once again found themselves being mothballed.
I know that is why it would be a modern battle ship. Or as I said not really a battle ship at all but a bigger crusier. I was wrong about it having little armour, but it woud still have stealth, and those big guns. No it couldn't go speeding past destoryer, because of it armour, it would all the weapons it could carry, it would be a sea superiority ship, able to kill anything apart from a carrier, this is why the 4 battle ship would be with a carrier at all times. It would also defend the carrier and take hits, so the carrier can keep attacking. The US is trying to do the same sort of thing with it's new destoryer.
Look the whole for in Norways water would be power projection, again Russia, meaning they could no longer bully Norway, you said yourself the Russian subs are not that good, so when would there need to be 15-30 subs, and the Astute costs 1.8 billion euros each, so the most the Europeans could have is 30. So the would be in the north sea, moving from Norway to the UK because of weather, plus Norway allready has 6 subs. And in think Norway needs more air bases in the north, so I would build them and have better jets. So what the plan would be doing in Norway is backng up what they already have.
The Falklands isn't over a sea of ice. But an Island where people live. Here is your proof http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Norwegian_Navy_bases I am sure the 50,000 greenlanders care.
Holland has 2 islands in the caribbean, Spain has bits of land in Africa and Greece still want Cyprus. I think Norway has part of the Arctic. Carriers in the black see would project more power their. Doing everything.
Hypocrisy epic. So when it is about dividing Arctic, you are all about "closer" and when it come towards your land it suddenly changes. And what? lots of bases near the Barents sea. Nobody cares about their opinion. 141 mil Russians+33 mil Canadians>>>50000 Greenlanders. So, you haven't respond, in what way do we threat Canada and Norway?
You do not need to project power from Norway to Russia by aircraft carrier, they are right next to each other! You save all the problems with carriers and simply use land based aircraft! Look, if the US and Canada or the US and Mexico ended up getting into a war, how many aircraft carriers do you think you would see off of their coast? Probably none. They are so close, the US would simply use it's land based aircraft to do the missions. They could easily do the missions, and be able to do it faster while carrying more ordinance. And yes, Russian subs are generally not as good (as in being a stealth platform) as the US subs. However, they are often faster and can dive deeper. And you certainly do not want to have them running wild behind your lines if you can prevent it. One of the war plans created to prevent this from happening was the GIUK gap strategy. It was used in WWII to help keep German subs from operating in the Atlantic, and would have been used again if the Cold War ever went hot. This is the Greenland-Iceland-United Kinddom gap, and if you are going to try and keep that much area secure you are going to need a lot of subs, both to quietly try and detect the barrier from being penetrated, as well as to persecute any penetrations detected. Because if this is going to be an operation without US involvement, then you are going to need a lot of subs and surface ships, or you are going to have to recreate the United States SOSUS sonar system.
Yes, that may be true. However, Cyprus is an independent nation, as agreed upon by the UK, Greece and Turkey. And I remember the Greek Junta which then resulted in Turkey invading the island. It took decades to calm the situation down to where things sit today. That invasion was in 1974, but the wall seperating the Greek and Turkish sides of the island only came down in 2008, 34 years later. And you are aware, are you not, that in addition to being an independent nation, Cyprus is also a member of the EU? Are you really willing to give up a member nation of the EU to another member nation? If so, the EU is already doomed, and nations will start leaving your alliance in droves. The more and more you say about this, the more and more it sounds exactly like the use of force projection for invasion and a return to colonization. Yea, there are islands controlled in the Caribbean. There are a lot of islands, and most of them could be used as a base for land based aircraft.
I said that about Greece as a reason why it would want to spend money on a bigger navy, not because I want Cyprus to be Greek or Turkish, it should be independent of both nations, free to drill for oil in it's own waters, free to be it's own member of the EU, even if it isn't in Europe. I want the rest of the world to fear the Europeans the same way they fear the US or the British empire. I don't want the Chinese or Russia to think we are wimps any more. I don't want to re colonise the world, just control parts of it that the US doesn't, in alliance with the US, sort of like a post WW1 world, just Britain will be the Europeans. Hardly the Dutch territory is half an island. And you think I would just have the carriers in the same place all the time for defence, no they would be moving around in their area, so the carrier in the Carribean would be based at French Guiana, but move around through out the Carribean and central Atlantic.
Thanks I am learning quite a lot from you mainly, and I see you think my battle ship idea is so bad you just didn't reply. But I don't think I would use GIUK, but hem the Russians in even more by having the patrolling from Norway to Svalbard to Greenland, which Canada would help with. meaning a smaller patrol area and enough subs and ships, plus a carrier for air patrols, in need be. Would you say the Russian subs would be better than the Astute class? Which was so good acording to the MOD, that the UK doubled it's order for them. I would also move up more Corvettes upto 10.
Oh I have no doubt that many European politicians would like that kind of power. I just don't believe European voters feel that same kind of desire- or the need to expend the kind of cash required. But hey, if Europe wants to become a world's policeman now, and wants to be able to intimidate Sri Lanka or Argentina, more power to them.
Carriers on the Black Sea. I think that should be the theme of this thread. If you can't think of why thats a bad idea, I really think there is no point in this discussion.
One of the advantages of GUIK is that it gives the appearance of being loose enough to tempt any force attempting to penetrate it through stealth, instead of by an open attack. And once again, what would an aircraft carrier do in a sub war, other then get sunk? Aircraft Carriers are not ASW platforms. They do not conduct ASW operations, that is the job of helicopters and destroyers primarily. Even the subs involved in GIUK would generally not be attacking enemy subs themselves, they would call in the reports and steer in surface assets to the target. Instead of a carrier involved in this, you would be better off with 5-6 destroyers and a couple of frigates or cruisers. Once again you are useing totally the wrong asset for the task at hand. And the airccraft used would most likely be the venerable P-3 Orion (with more then 50 years in service). Even though these are Naval aircraft, they are shore based. And the UK does not currently use a dedicated ASW airplane, so they would probably borrow some at need from the Canadians. Oh, and I did reply about the battleship. Here it is again since you missed it. Yes, as much as I myself hate to say it (being a former Marine, I love the power of the big guns), the age of Battleships is over. Unless you are talking about puny 3rd world nations without an effective air force, ship to ship battles are a thing of the past, as obsolete as Boarding Parties Away and Blood Over The Gunnels.
Nothing. But then again, it is not designed to prevent that from happening. What that is designed to prevent is the cutting off of support and transit over the Atlantic. As early as WWI, it was realized that England is a gross importer of food. The islands no longer produce enough food to feed themselves, so rely on food from Canada, the US, and even Argentina. Yes, even today, the UK is still the largest importer of Argentine Beef. So it is critical that these lanes be kept open. The Baltic is not a major transport passage, it is essentially a large dead-end. And the area can be protected by land based aircraft with ease. The English Channel is a non-issue here. The water is much to shallow to even be seriously considered by the Russians or anybody else. That can even be defended simply with a handfull of fixed sonobouys and a few helicopters. What the UK requires is to prevent a Russian submarine force from breaking into the Atlantic Ocean. Because once they accomplish this, they can go anywhere and do anything. Just like the Germans were able to do in the early days of WWII.
Yes I see where you are coming from. But this plan would be for Europe, which has enough food. What I would want to stop is those European ships and ports from being attacked. Also there are the north sea oil rigs that the Russians could knock out, meaning, Britain would have to import more oil and gas, and cut off one of Europes biggest oil supplies. So for me GIUK is a cold war plan, that wouldn't work as well now, as it would have then. So NSG would be a better plan. Do you not think so?
Then it is even more important that those sea lanes be kept open. Because a lot of equipment that the various militaries of the EU (including NATO) need in the event of war comes from the US. Just think of the number of pieces of military equipment come from the US. A lot of the aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces, and the like need replacement parts from the US. Then add to that the ammo many of them use, from PATRIOT missiles, AMRAAM, Sea Sparrow, SM-2, SM-3, TOW, the list goes on and on. The last thing you would want is to have a major war break out, and be cut off from your only source of resupply. Because even if you want it "all Europe", that would not happen for decades if it could ever happen in the first place. And why in the world would anybody ever consider giving free access to your coastlines to the enemy if you could avoid it? Because once the subs are free in the Atlantic, the surface ships will not be far behind. Sail south a bit, then you are within cruise missile range of Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, and the rest of Western Europe.
