NATO return to Cold War force structure

[TrustMe]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Tracked Rapier would have been ideal, at least with a considerably cheaper missile. Commander had a helmet mounted cueing system, which would then locked the radar up. Close the hatch, press the fire button.

Working from memory. I think tracked rapier was designed for Imperial Iran and got shut down after the revolution.

Rapier didn't have a good time in the falklands war. One reason was because the missiles when positioned on top of a hill couldn't be angled downward enough to track Argie aircraft flying low level below were the rapier was positioned. This error was fixed post war. 

Going back on topic. I don't think a missile should be used to track cheap kamikaze drones. It's much to expensive.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well, if it's cheaper than an MBT, it's still a good trade.

[TrustMe]

True.

[Martineleca]

On 2/3/2025 at 5:06 PM, TrustMe said:

Working from memory. I think tracked rapier was designed for Imperial Iran and got shut down after the revolution.

It's amazing how much of the US or especially UK arms development and sales volume was linked to Iran due to its oil wealth and strategic NATO-adjacent status, yet those same industries could not pressure their respective governments to lift a finger in supporting the Shah against a violent islamist/marxist revolution that took out one of their most crucial allies...

[TrustMe]

3 hours ago, Martineleca said:

It's amazing how much of the US or especially UK arms development and sales volume was linked to Iran due to its oil wealth and strategic NATO-adjacent status, yet those same industries could not pressure their respective governments to lift a finger in supporting the Shah against a violent islamist/marxist revolution that took out one of their most crucial allies...

The Shahs military buildup was intended to be not only against pro-republican states like Iraq and Egypt but also to stand against the mighty USSR for at least in a short while. After the revolution the mullahs wanted to sell these weapons back to there makers in the US and the UK. They probably would of done so except for the start of the Iran-Iraq war made all such negotiations mute.

[Stuart Galbraith]

There were also fears they were expansive. There was a pretty good piece of fiction in a 1976 issue of playboy, where the Shah uses all his shiny new toys to go and invade Iraq, and dominate the worlds oil supply. The author finished the piece in a post war America, where everyone was riding around on horses and getting their milk directly from a cow. It sounds laughable now, but it was a serious concern at the time, where Democrats criticised the arms build up as potentially dangerous. Nixon believed the way to stabilise the middile east was pick a reliable proxy, then arm the ass off it, so it could fight wars that the US would not have to. When the Shah failed, the US picked Saudi Arabia instead, which is hardly a match made in heaven either, and as we saw when it came to it, needed the US to fight for it anyway.

[Martineleca]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

There were also fears they were expansive.

Projection and gaslighting are specialties of the KGB that the Western media establishment continues to fall for every the time, while magazines were eager to promote fantasies of royalist regimes planning expansion South Vietnam had just been conquered by the North, half a dozen third world countries were about to be violently turned red and Cuban proxy forces were beginning their bloody march across southern Africa and central America...

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, but South Vietnam didnt just buy 1000 Chieftain tanks and 56 F14 Tomcats, or an amphibious landing forces that could drop forces anywhere they wanted, OR a navy that could give them cover whilst they did so. So Im far from convinced that wasnt the Shahs ultimate ambition.

[Martineleca]

13 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yes, but South Vietnam didnt just buy 1000 Chieftain tanks and 56 F14 Tomcats, or an amphibious landing forces that could drop forces anywhere they wanted, OR a navy that could give them cover whilst they did so.

Similar to the South Vietnamese, the Iranians were willing to shed blood to maintain regional stability when Americans suddenly lost their nerve, nevertheless they continued to seek out political support from Washington and when it was not forthcoming things went awry rather quickly.

Retrospectively Imperial Iran needed so much arms because it acted as the linchpin to the entire Middle East, it simultaneously deterred the Soviet Union from becoming too aggressive in Afghanistan, actively countered their proxies in Oman and the gulf of Aden to ensure the free flow of commerce and to a degree even kept Ba'athist Iraq in check, all of that collapsed along with the Shah and set the West up for four decades of deep involvement in the sandbox quagmire

[Martineleca]

On 2/11/2025 at 6:31 PM, TrustMe said:

After the revolution the mullahs wanted to sell these weapons back to there makers in the US and the UK. They probably would of done so except for the start of the Iran-Iraq war made all such negotiations mute.

In strategic terms after the realisation what a collosal blunder allowing the Shah to fall was for the West's energy and national security, failing to back a viable counter-revolution in those chaotic early months of 1979 was arguably even worse. Large segments of the nations military were greatly opposed to what were essentially dark age fanatics gaining control of their hyper advanced force and would have been ready to act in taking them down had the green light been given to do so by their former allies, that's what the CIA and MI6 ought to have been working on rather than dubious weapons buybacks...

[bojan]

4 minutes ago, Martineleca said:

...allowing the Shah to fall...

What was an option?

[glenn239]

49 minutes ago, bojan said:

What was an option?

In 1979?  To intervene in a large country to prop up an unpopular and corrupt leader less than a decade after Vietnam?   I'm guessing....no.

[Martineleca]

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

In 1979?  To intervene in a large country to prop up an unpopular and corrupt leader less than a decade after Vietnam?   I'm guessing....no.

Despite some rejoicing in certain "anti-war" circles of society the collapse of South Vietnam was for the most part considered a preventable tragedy rather than a foregone conclusion, the US essentially abandoned them even though it had made a commitment of support in the Parris accords a mere two years before. America also vetoed any plans from its more determined allies like South Korea to send troops to Saigon, the invasion by the North that occured in the span of four months was entirely based around the belief that no one would aid the South directly and would have likely been halted in the event of rapid deployment of a few US or ROK divisions. This also proved the dreaded Domino theory, with the Indochina bulwark gone hundreds of thousands tons of arms and supplies that had previously gone to Hanoi could now be redirected to sow chaos on other continents, eventually leading to the threathening of half the industrialised world's oil supply at the end of the decade, 1979 would have been as good a time as any for the US to stop the rot which it finally did one year later in 1980 through the insitution of a revamped Truman doctrine, too late to salvage Iran by that point though.

[Stuart Galbraith]

As already said, the abandonment of South Vietnam was not an afterthought. It was the actual plan to prop them long enough for someone else to get in power, whom would then abandon them. And so it proved.

As for Iran, the US propped up Noriega and Marcos for donkeys years, till it didnt suit their interests to do so anymore. To be fair though, I dont think intervention in Iran, where the capital was hundreds of miles inland, was altogether straightforward. Eagle Claw rather illustrated that.

[glenn239]

7 hours ago, Martineleca said:

Despite some rejoicing in certain "anti-war" circles of society the collapse of South Vietnam was for the most part considered a preventable tragedy rather than a foregone conclusion, the US essentially abandoned them even though it had made a commitment of support in the Parris accords a mere two years before. 

I'm of the opinion that with the USAF the South Vietnamese might have held out.  But by the early 1970's the Americans were done with Vietnam and with foreign adventures in general for decades thereafter.  That's the pattern with US foreign adventures.  They have a shelf life after which the Americans WILL cut the cord.  

I have no idea if the American army could have propped the Shaw of Iran up, but it seems fantastical to me that in 1979 the US could muster the public willpower for another potential Vietnam.  I just don't think it was in the cards.

[LeeWalls]

14 hours ago, glenn239 said:

In 1979?  To intervene in a large country to prop up an unpopular and corrupt leader less than a decade after Vietnam?   I'm guessing....no.

You know I was for you when I knew you as the Siebel Ferry guy but since I've come to discover that you are actually the "root for burning Jew babies in ovens and then go and act all OUTRAGED when someone points out that terrorist should be SHOT AND KILLED" my position now is pretty much FUCK glen AND Stuart* and both donkeys they rode in on.

 

*I'm kidding about you Stuart.  I think you have a good heart with a head that had received a few wayward knocks along the way.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, well I sure there are few here that would seriously disagree about the knocks, least of all myself..

Good heart? Probably not. Maybe I'm just not ready to see the world our Grandfathers fought for pissed away by a few drunks and certifiable morons that think smashing stuff up is an act of creation.

[glenn239]

3 hours ago, LeeWalls said:

 my position now is pretty much FUCK glen...

Cool.  Glenn has two n's.

[Martineleca]

4 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I'm of the opinion that with the USAF the South Vietnamese might have held out.

At the time the Spring offensive began the US had supplied South Vietnam with some (inflation adjusted) $50 billion worth of military hardware and yet for all that available firepower the ARVN suffered from an acute shortage of ammunition from all types that the emergency aid package rejected by Congress would have addressed only in part, stopping all that equipment from falling into enemy hands ought to have given enough excuse for even limited intervention from two US Navy carrier groups present just offshore. 

[Martineleca]

22 hours ago, bojan said:

What was an option?

The seriously deteriorating condition of the Shah was somehow hidden even from his own chiefs of staff who futilely waited for orders while the crisis was developing, when his majesty fled the scene confusion spread among local commanders who faced total blackout from their contacts with the West. This inaction was apparently urged by Secretary Vance who dreamed of imaginary "moderates" coming to power when a full blown islamist revolution was already underway, it would be the last time President Carter sought his advice as subsequent energy and hostage crises doomed his re-election chances, there would not have been a need for deployment of any US troops as the Imperial Army of Iran was more than capable of dealing with this internal subversion had it received the necessary political support from its supposed allies to do so...

[Martineleca]

On 2/14/2025 at 5:03 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

Good heart? Probably not. Maybe I'm just not ready to see the world our Grandfathers fought for pissed away by a few drunks and certifiable morons that think smashing stuff up is an act of creation.

It could be said that the precarious global situation we are now in has as in times before grown out of too much goodness in our hearts projected to enemies abroad, the late radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh used to say that the job of the military was to break things and hurt people and attention should never be swayed away from this purpose to suit the latest political fad, a lot of common sense is sometimes present in a statement like that which on its face may appear simplistic.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Im not sure there IS any political fad in the military, other than starving them of funds and over committing them. I think the likes of Trump are looking at the wrong problems, just so they can scream 'fixed' at a populace that knows nothing of military affairs. Its not trans people destroying the US military, its the Generals that allow 200 dollar toilet seats and manage black projects coming out their ears with zero accountablity. That and admirals that could seriously look at LCS and see anything other than what it was, an overarmed yacht.

[seahawk]

Better than Navy which has more admirals than ships....

[TrustMe]

3 hours ago, seahawk said:

Better than Navy which has more admirals than ships....

I think for the UK it's two Admirals for every ship  

[Martineleca]

7 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Im not sure there IS any political fad in the military, other than starving them of funds and over committing them. Its not trans people destroying the US military, its the Generals that allow 200 dollar toilet seats and manage black projects coming out their ears with zero accountability. 

Putting an emphasis on any characteristics of a service member other than being the colour green and best that can be is poison for cohesion of the force in question, these are the words of my father who was an officer in a communist army describing how only those who toe the line set by the party ever get promoted, leading to all sorts of incompetents reaching high rank because of their political reliability and no ability at all, it's not a good look to be compared to that when you're in a free country...

Edited February 16 by Martineleca