Chris Werb

What you mean is LastDingo has been suspended for responding to constant goading by American right whingers. The folks here who are happy to characterise their opponents as rats etc. but are too intellectually fragile to accept a similiary robust expression of an opposing viewpoint. Since I am a moderator here, but have been excluded from the deliberations in the MODERATOR forum for some time, I have long since assumed I had been expelled from the otherwise right wing cabal running this site. In all the time I was a moderator, I never used my powers to shut down an opposing viewpoint. I am sorry it has come to this. This is a sad day for TN but it long since lost most of its military enthusiast following and just became another Trumpster circle jerk. To those of you who get to read this before Murph and his neofascist cranks delete it, thank you for your patience. Goodbye.

In RN service, the US 3", in use on the otherwise excellent US supplied Captain Class (US Evarts) was regarded as most unlikely to penetrate the hull of a surfaced U-boat. Why did it take so much time to get a worthwhile AP round for it into service? The RN had a special 4 inch anti-surfaced U-boat round in service toward the end of the war called "Shark".

Brown or slightly off-white guy and/or espousing islamic religion = terrorist White guy with right wing leanings and/or racism vs brown or slightly off-white people or foreigners and/or hatred of those with religions other than Christianity and/or views significantly to the left of his = lunatic Simples!!!!

More https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/tank-depot-lenta-italy-june-2019.118569/

I think Poland's belief that it's air force would even get off the ground in the event of a conflict with Russia is bizarre. F-35s are an enormous waste of money. That's way off topic though. Has anyone heard any more about the potential K2 buy?

Sorry Murph, did you read any of the last few posts? If it's a bioweapon it's an amazingly crap one.

I really don't think Egypt's navy is even a factor for Israel - it's more of a national prestige thing for Egypt. I think Egypt attacking from the air would put them at odds with their sponsors, the United States. However, a larger problem Israel has is its lack of strategic depth which poses a risk from even relatively moderate range precision munitions. It's airpower is particularly vulnerable as it is dependent on runways (I'm sure they have rapid runway clearance and repair in place, but it's still going to be problematic in the first few days from the onset of a conflict). I'm a lot more confident of their ability to shoot down ballistic and quasi ballistic threats than cruise missiles. I read somewhere (might have been yourself) that Israel is looking at protected dispersed underground storage for key munitions etc., which would make a lot of sense.

Egypt, Syria, and reshaped Hezbollah. Of them, only Egypt is a near peer. But history has shown that in less than 20 years, the reference threat can turn completely, from multiple peers to low intensity warfare, and back to peers. The IDF needed to constantly move between preparations to high intensity to low intensity and it was always with a delay that resulted in unnecessary losses and some inefficiency. So now the strategy is to constantly be prepared for multi-front warfare against peers, with some modifications always in place to be ready for low intensity and hybrid warfare. Sure, disbanding a whole brigade sounds bad, but Israel has another 11 of those which might still be a bit much considering it wants "only" 10 expanded Brigade Combat Teams. It still expands the maneuvering forces by creating additional light infantry units for increased strategic mobility. Egypt is a semi-stable country. A political change is not expected anytime soon, but it had seen some government overthrows. In the future, it can unilaterally tear up the peace treaty. Syria is recovering, and only the Turkish invasion is a setback. Overall, I expect Syria to regain substantial military capabilities until 2030, and to become a significant threat again before 2040. Hezbollah is constantly evolving, and from simple Katyusha and Grad rockets plus some advanced ATGMs, it has evolved to operate limited armored formations, cannon artillery, has deep penetration units, and operates in formations of battalions. They were once in possession of simple cruise missiles, but could possess by 2030 far more advanced and capable ones, and from long range rockets they could advance to SRBMs. Even though most of Israel's enemies are "low tech", they still have substantial capabilities to inflict a lot of harm in a very short time, even if they have to expend most of their munitions to do so. To counter that, the IDF has been particularly interested in tech that reduces engagement times, to permit its forces to clear out vast areas as fast as possible. I think that's a very good assessment, Zuk. However, I think it would be very pessimistic to see Egypt becoming a peer threat in even 20 years. Syria more so given it's economic devastation and remaining internal problems, despite its apparently much deeper emnity. Both have pretty lacklustre regimes in charge and economies that won't be able to fund a massive increase in capabilities in the near future even if their military institutions could absorb it. It wouldn't just need an influx of funds and technology but of competence. I know that happened before, but Israel is so way ahead in so many ways and has so many alternative means of dealing with the kind of massed armoured forces that would need to be deployed to invade that it's hard to see a repetition of 1973, even allowing for the changed geography. Israel wouldn't stand still over the next 20 years either. So, I agree losing an armoured brigade, given that the existing ones are becoming ever more capable vs an opposition that is not, is a big deal at all.

Realistically, what peers could Israel face that would have the remotest chance of taking them on successfully, conventionally at some point over the next decade or two? You mentioned recently that Israel disbanded or intends to disband the last Merkava 2 brigade. In their existing security situation that would appear a perfectly sensible thing to do.

So do you think reactivating the Iowa class battleships would be a good idea?

The idea is to engage from outside MANPADS envelope - c. 11,000ft straight up. APKWS handily outranges that. Fitting DIRCM and/or other countermeasures should not be too problematic. The Leonardo Miysis for example is claimed to fit small aircraft and UAVs.

That's the conclusion I reached in game. My favourite vehicles for lethality vs combat persistence (disregarding survivability, infantry capacity and other factors) are the Piranha DF30, CV90/40, Pizarro and BMP-2.

I've just been reading Hitler's u-boat war and Blair mentions Doenitz' opinion that all weapon system development should be undertaken by Private industry given the colossal fuck ups made by German naval weapon design agencies. You also have situations (particularly in the US and UK) where private industry came up with failed r severely compromised designs because the objectives they were given by government were unattainable, mutually exclusive or downright idiotic.

But what happens when innovation has no clear commercial application until after its built? There were plenty of those all through WW2 and the cold war. For example, that link above on the laser. They said it was an invention in search of an application for years. If Hughes had not built it under a military contract, it would probably remain theoretical. Re-read what I wrote. Especially the bit in Italics

So we're continually stuck with the same old thing because the next generation of tank or AVLB/ARRV has to be on the same platform as its opposite number?