Quick Update

Just occured to me to check the spam folder. Found a comment by Repulse on the recent return of the original frigate article and an anonymous comment on the article about Independent air forces. Both have been restored to their proper place in the comments. 

The war against genuine spam continues.

News and Stuff

So I haven't been on twitter (@defencewithac) in a while, except to post links to articles, but having had the chance to sit down and go through it I saw some interesting links that I thought I'd share.

The Ukraine

The rapidly unfolding events in Crimea and the Ukraine have certainly given people lots to talk about, especially in the defence community. What's intriguing for me is how yet another government strategic review has essentially been proven redundant before the parliament that produced it has even finished.

You could argue this happened back in 2011 with Libya. Having removed aircraft carriers from the Royal Navy, it took just a few months for a situation to arise in which they would have been quite handy. And now we have the Ukraine, which casts a shadow over the governments decision to withdraw British forces from Germany and reduce the size of the armies armoured component.

Now am I suggesting that Britain should be gearing up to fight world war three on the North European plains? Erm, no. But what the incident in Ukraine has shown is that Russia is not afraid to exert its muscle when it comes to nations along its borders, or what it views effectively as former Russian territories. It's shown that the UK and NATO needs to maintain the ability to employ conventional deterrence just as much as a nuclear component. And I think it's shown that the British withdrawl from the continent, as if the UK has no interest in continental matters, is pre-mature.

The argument in favour of the Independent Air Force

The other day over at Think Defence a tired old issue was raised in one of the comments; the argument against independent air forces.

Now that's an argument that has been done to death multiple times, but it occurred to me in the moment that one of my original intentions for setting up this blog was to provide a repository for what were essentially long comments that could be quick referenced. And so today I'm going to do just that and write a sort of extended comment on independent air forces.

Critical Thinking

With the budget tightening over the last few years (I feel like every post seems to start like that) decisions have been made over which capabilities to axe and which to keep, which to enhance and which to keep static or allow to fade. Understandably this has driven much discussion in the defence community, which in turn has led to a number of varying solutions being offered up.

But one of the things that plays on my mind when I read these various suggestions is "are we preparing for/thinking about, the right challenges?".

The Concentration of Effort

I've had an idea on paper for a few months now that was stirred again while reading Heinz Guderians book "Achtung - Panzer!", which I picked up second hand for the princely sum of 1 British penny. If I get time in the future I might start doing reviews of the military books on my shelf, but that's for another day.

The thing that reignited my earlier idea was when Guderian mentioned that tanks should not be dealt out in penny packets to support other arms, but instead should be concentrated together to deliver a decisive blow. It's the "concentration of effort" that I'm interested in here, but on a slightly grander scale.

With the UK's defence budget gradually dwindling and the size of the armed forces subsequently contracting, might more be achieved by a concentration of effort across the armed forces, as opposed to the penny packeting that occurs now? Allow me to explain.

Droning on

I know, the titles get worse each time.

Today I want to look at drones, on account of the recent PR offensive surrounding Taranis, which was probably best covered over at Think Defence (p.s. many thanks to TD for the 700 additional pageviews his recent promo generated!). This won't be specific to Taranis, more of a general thoughts.

The return of the (original) Frigate?

Evening.

As you've probably guessed I've been pressed for time lately, popping in at Think Defence now and again but otherwise detained from writing. Well today I've got a few minutes to spare so I'm going to touch on something that seems quite a popular idea, but I'm not so sure about, that being the idea of smaller ships for the Navy.

The Threats Ahead

In December of last year, Think Defence posted a tongue in cheek piece about the "biggest threats in the next ten years". The post itself may have been a comical stab at the defence industry, but the comments section got going with ideas and theories about the legitimate potential threats that may exist in the the next ten years. And as old TD's trying to stimulate the online defence community to have a discussion about the SDSR due in 2015, I thought I'd weigh in with my own thoughts.

To start the new year, a quick look back

So, 2014 then. And what better way to start the new year than with a slight change of schedule to look back at a post from the past? If that makes sense. It did in my head at any rate.

See I was flicking through some old posts yesterday, just looking back on the year that was 2013, when I came across this old nugget about second hand procurement. In it I referenced the potential sale by Air India of eight of their Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, and so it occurred to me to go and check up on that and see if they'd been sold yet.