- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 34,090
- Reaction score
- 64,368
- Points
- 148
I'd ask that we try to keep politics out of this thread as much as possible so it doesn't suffer the fate of every other thread in which politics has been discussed.
-
Changing RCF's index page, please click on "Forums" to access the forums.
The Military Thread
- Thread starter The Human Q-Tip
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 34,090
- Reaction score
- 64,368
- Points
- 148
No. And it's not a minor issue to "convert" a modern plane to being carrier capable. There are all sorts of aeronautical/aerodynamic issue involved.
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
- Messages
- 26,794
- Reaction score
- 56,115
- Points
- 151
Well, @BimboColesHair, they've been talking about it since Crimea was annexed and now they've finally done it. In my view the Army (from 700 AFVs to 1500) and Air Force (90 to 160 JAS-39E) need to be doubled to deter Russia with a credible defense. Double the number of attack subs too. And no, Fox and Friends, it is not due to fucking immigrants.
Sweden Reinstates Conscription, With an Eye on Russia
GOTLAND, Sweden — Late last year, Christer Stoltz, chief of contingency planning for Gotland, Sweden’s largest island, got an unusual letter from the central government in Stockholm, telling him to get ready for war.
Municipalities around the country should “increase their ability to resist an armed attack against Sweden from a qualified opponent,” the letter from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency said. The planning was also intended to respond to natural disasters, oil spills or cyberattacks that could disrupt power and water supplies. But there is no doubt that the Swedish authorities are nervous, given Russia’s more assertive posture and the mounting uncertainties about the future of Europe’s alliance with the United States. On Thursday, the government announced that mandatory military service — abolished in 2010 — would be introduced starting next year. Four thousand men and women will be drafted into the defense forces.
If not quite returning to a war footing, Sweden is at least reviving a level of preparedness that many thought had gone the way of the Cold War. “For two decades, our contingency planning was low,” Mr. Stoltz said in a recent interview. “Now, we need to look at our plans.” In May, Gotland will join all other municipalities in a “Contingency Week,” when Swedes will be taught how to hunker down for 72 hours in case of an emergency. Soon, the authorities will begin to dust off public shelters that have not been inspected for two decades. For Sweden, the new uncertainties about security are even more pressing than they are for most other European countries. Sweden is neutral and not a member of NATO, so to a much larger extent it must rely on its own defense abilities. Mixed signals from the Trump administration toward Europe have made even NATO allies wary.
“The threat of the U.S. no longer wanting to honor its security guarantees is the most important development in the history of the alliance,” said Henrik Breitenbauch, the director of the Center for Military Studies in Copenhagen. “It has created high levels of concern all over Europe.” Peter Hultqvist, Sweden’s defense minister, said Sweden and other European countries were too quick after the Cold War to dismiss potential threats in the region. “Politicians at the time maybe thought that the future would be more sunny than the reality is today,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Hultqvist said: “From my point of view, many mistakes have been made over the years. The security situation and what could come in the future was underestimated.”
Now the country is moving quickly to make up ground. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Baltics seemingly became a region of stability. Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which line the Baltic Sea, joined NATO, and later the European Union. In Sweden, military spending fell to 1.1 percent of G.D.P. in 2015 from 2.6 percent in 1991.
All that changed with Russia’s annexation of Crimea three years ago and the Russian support for the insurgency in Ukraine. As of last year, Swedish military spending was up 11 percent. Even so, Sweden’s military is simply not that big, particularly when stacked up against a threat from Russia. So everyone gets involved, including the civilian authorities and civilians themselves. Announcing the return to conscription on Thursday, Mr. Hultqvist pointed to a “deteriorating security environment.” “The all-volunteer recruitment hasn’t provided the armed forces with enough personnel,” he said. “The reactivating of conscription is needed for military readiness.” Gotland, which serves as something of a forward defense for the Swedish mainland, 55 miles to the west, was already remilitarized last September.
Strategically located in the Baltic Sea, the island is not far from the heavily militarized Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. “We see a lot of activity in the Baltics and a lot of training, provocative flights and military exercise going on in our neighborhood,” said Marinette Radebo, a spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry.
The change has been sudden.
Pfc. Emil Kling, a member of the Wartofta tank company who is now on Gotland, said he had thought he was signing on for something completely different when he joined the armed forces. “If anyone had said three years ago that I’d be in Gotland now, I wouldn’t have believed them,” he said. “Things have changed fast politically.” A member of a logistics platoon, Private Kling had hoped to serve abroad. February found him practicing maneuvers on a shooting field on the frosty shores of the Baltic Sea as fellow soldiers gathered around a bonfire to keep warm. The regiment is temporarily defending Gotland while a new, permanent battle group is training on the mainland. This summer it is expected to move to a base still under construction.
Visby, Gotland’s main town, is no stranger to hostile foreigners. The city walls and towers, dating back 850 years, were erected to protect it from the threat of the Danes on the Western edge of the Baltic Sea. Just inside the walls’ South Gate, Birgitta Stenstrom runs a quiet book cafe. She is not convinced that the tanks south of town are the right answer to the threats against Gotland, and to Sweden. “Attacks from cyberspace is the real danger,” she said. “I’m worried about all the infiltration like the supposed Russian manipulation of the U.S. elections. Even if I don’t know if that’s true.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/world/europe/sweden-draft-conscription.html
Sweden Reinstates Conscription, With an Eye on Russia
GOTLAND, Sweden — Late last year, Christer Stoltz, chief of contingency planning for Gotland, Sweden’s largest island, got an unusual letter from the central government in Stockholm, telling him to get ready for war.
Municipalities around the country should “increase their ability to resist an armed attack against Sweden from a qualified opponent,” the letter from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency said. The planning was also intended to respond to natural disasters, oil spills or cyberattacks that could disrupt power and water supplies. But there is no doubt that the Swedish authorities are nervous, given Russia’s more assertive posture and the mounting uncertainties about the future of Europe’s alliance with the United States. On Thursday, the government announced that mandatory military service — abolished in 2010 — would be introduced starting next year. Four thousand men and women will be drafted into the defense forces.
If not quite returning to a war footing, Sweden is at least reviving a level of preparedness that many thought had gone the way of the Cold War. “For two decades, our contingency planning was low,” Mr. Stoltz said in a recent interview. “Now, we need to look at our plans.” In May, Gotland will join all other municipalities in a “Contingency Week,” when Swedes will be taught how to hunker down for 72 hours in case of an emergency. Soon, the authorities will begin to dust off public shelters that have not been inspected for two decades. For Sweden, the new uncertainties about security are even more pressing than they are for most other European countries. Sweden is neutral and not a member of NATO, so to a much larger extent it must rely on its own defense abilities. Mixed signals from the Trump administration toward Europe have made even NATO allies wary.
“The threat of the U.S. no longer wanting to honor its security guarantees is the most important development in the history of the alliance,” said Henrik Breitenbauch, the director of the Center for Military Studies in Copenhagen. “It has created high levels of concern all over Europe.” Peter Hultqvist, Sweden’s defense minister, said Sweden and other European countries were too quick after the Cold War to dismiss potential threats in the region. “Politicians at the time maybe thought that the future would be more sunny than the reality is today,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Hultqvist said: “From my point of view, many mistakes have been made over the years. The security situation and what could come in the future was underestimated.”
Now the country is moving quickly to make up ground. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Baltics seemingly became a region of stability. Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which line the Baltic Sea, joined NATO, and later the European Union. In Sweden, military spending fell to 1.1 percent of G.D.P. in 2015 from 2.6 percent in 1991.
All that changed with Russia’s annexation of Crimea three years ago and the Russian support for the insurgency in Ukraine. As of last year, Swedish military spending was up 11 percent. Even so, Sweden’s military is simply not that big, particularly when stacked up against a threat from Russia. So everyone gets involved, including the civilian authorities and civilians themselves. Announcing the return to conscription on Thursday, Mr. Hultqvist pointed to a “deteriorating security environment.” “The all-volunteer recruitment hasn’t provided the armed forces with enough personnel,” he said. “The reactivating of conscription is needed for military readiness.” Gotland, which serves as something of a forward defense for the Swedish mainland, 55 miles to the west, was already remilitarized last September.
Strategically located in the Baltic Sea, the island is not far from the heavily militarized Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. “We see a lot of activity in the Baltics and a lot of training, provocative flights and military exercise going on in our neighborhood,” said Marinette Radebo, a spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry.
The change has been sudden.
Pfc. Emil Kling, a member of the Wartofta tank company who is now on Gotland, said he had thought he was signing on for something completely different when he joined the armed forces. “If anyone had said three years ago that I’d be in Gotland now, I wouldn’t have believed them,” he said. “Things have changed fast politically.” A member of a logistics platoon, Private Kling had hoped to serve abroad. February found him practicing maneuvers on a shooting field on the frosty shores of the Baltic Sea as fellow soldiers gathered around a bonfire to keep warm. The regiment is temporarily defending Gotland while a new, permanent battle group is training on the mainland. This summer it is expected to move to a base still under construction.
Visby, Gotland’s main town, is no stranger to hostile foreigners. The city walls and towers, dating back 850 years, were erected to protect it from the threat of the Danes on the Western edge of the Baltic Sea. Just inside the walls’ South Gate, Birgitta Stenstrom runs a quiet book cafe. She is not convinced that the tanks south of town are the right answer to the threats against Gotland, and to Sweden. “Attacks from cyberspace is the real danger,” she said. “I’m worried about all the infiltration like the supposed Russian manipulation of the U.S. elections. Even if I don’t know if that’s true.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/world/europe/sweden-draft-conscription.html
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
- Messages
- 26,794
- Reaction score
- 56,115
- Points
- 151
A CV version of the F-22 was drawn up, but no prototype. However, given the lessons learned with the F-22, it would probably be faster to modify the existing blueprints with Naval engineers than to draw up a completely new plane.
One of the primary reasons the F-22 was chosen over the F-23 is because it was supposed to be amenable to CV conversion whereas the XF-23 had no capability to do so.
AlohaCav
Situational Stopper
- Joined
- May 27, 2013
- Messages
- 430
- Reaction score
- 358
- Points
- 63
A few things here though. 1) you can't tell someone for months leading up to a deployment not to have unprotected sex. 2) not all deployments are known about with a long notice. (Though those on ships are less likely to be sent out quickly and without much notice, I think)
BUT, I'm sure there are some that just absolutely want out of a deployment and are using the card to get back.
But just don't want this to be about women not wanting deployments. My wife volunteered twice for deployments and got tasked twice only to have them canceled. But she will be going soon, and she wants one and knows she needs one too.
Sent from my SM-G928V using Tapatalk
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 34,090
- Reaction score
- 64,368
- Points
- 148
These stats are from people being sent home from deployment. So it is either happening shortly before they leave, or actually on deployment. These are ships, so the deployment schedules generally are known at least a few month in advance. And I personally see nothing wrong with telling people "hey, it is your responsibility to make sure you can deploy, so take whatever steps are necessary." But of course, that's unenforceable, so that's a problem.
I'm sure most women aren't trying to get out of deployments -- most complete their ship tours. But their is still a significant percentage that is unable to complete their ship tours because of pregnancy. So the shit is going to be shorthanded.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 34,090
- Reaction score
- 64,368
- Points
- 148
I wouldn't doubt it, but given how long it takes to develop a new plane start to finish, that's not really encouraging.
Bottom line is that we've kind painted ourselves into a corner with the F-35.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 34,090
- Reaction score
- 64,368
- Points
- 148
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
- Messages
- 26,794
- Reaction score
- 56,115
- Points
- 151
Makes one long for the days when a nation didn't need a defense minister because they had great warrior kings.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 34,090
- Reaction score
- 64,368
- Points
- 148
Charles XII rocked.
The other picture would be more funny if it wasn't true. I looked up all four of those ladies, and the biography of the German Minister of Defense is representative:
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (
listen (help·info)) (née Albrecht; born 8 October 1958) is a German politician who has been the Minister of Defence since 2013, and is the first woman in German history to hold that office. A doctor by profession, she previously also served as the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs from 2009 to 2013 and as the Minister of Senior Citizens, Women and Youth from 2005 to 2009.
It's simply a bad joke -- they don't take national defense seriously.
The other picture would be more funny if it wasn't true. I looked up all four of those ladies, and the biography of the German Minister of Defense is representative:
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (
listen (help·info)) (née Albrecht; born 8 October 1958) is a German politician who has been the Minister of Defence since 2013, and is the first woman in German history to hold that office. A doctor by profession, she previously also served as the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs from 2009 to 2013 and as the Minister of Senior Citizens, Women and Youth from 2005 to 2009.It's simply a bad joke -- they don't take national defense seriously.
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
- Messages
- 26,794
- Reaction score
- 56,115
- Points
- 151
Charles XII rocked.
The other picture would be more funny if it wasn't true. I looked up all four of those ladies, and the biography of the German Minister of Defense is representative:
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (
It's simply a bad joke -- they don't take national defense seriously.
Sweden is starting to, but not funding it as much as they should despite the 25% increase this year and other big hikes in the next ten years.
They just put out a large purchase of advanced SAAB anti-ship missiles for their fleet of excellent JAS-39Es. Undoubtedly they know Gothland is coveted by Putin.
Norway is also ramping up spending; particularly on their Navy and Air Force.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2017/02/norway-teams-germany-new-submarines
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
- Messages
- 26,794
- Reaction score
- 56,115
- Points
- 151
Charles XII rocked.
The other picture would be more funny if it wasn't true. I looked up all four of those ladies, and the biography of the German Minister of Defense is representative:
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (
It's simply a bad joke -- they don't take national defense seriously.
More on Karl XII. Do you believe he was the greatest Swedish king? Greater than Gustav II Adolf? Also, @BimboColesHair
Interestingly enough, it appears he was killed by his own war-weary troops. Even more interesting is that at the time many believed Karl was bulletproof because he had survived so many close calls so in order to assassinate him a magic bullet would be needed. In this case, two of the King's own coat buttons soldered and jacketed in a sinister round. It did its job well considering the gaping hole in Karl's head:
And his uniform. Still mud on his boots.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...terious-death-of-the-swedish-meteor-39695356/
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 34,090
- Reaction score
- 64,368
- Points
- 148
More on Karl XII. Do you believe he was the greatest Swedish king? Greater than Gustav II Adolf? Also, @BimboColesHair
Interestingly enough, it appears he was killed by his own war-weary troops. Even more interesting is that at the time many believed Karl was bulletproof because he had survived so many close calls so in order to assassinate him a magic bullet would be needed. In this case, two of the King's own coat buttons soldered and jacketed in a sinister round. It did its job well considering the gaping hole in Karl's head:
And his uniform. Still mud on his boots.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...terious-death-of-the-swedish-meteor-39695356/
That's a sweet uniform. Isn't there a dispute as to whether or not he was killed by friendly or enemy fire?
Anyway, to answer your question about being the greatest Swedish King, I'd say no. Arguably the best general, but his Russian campaign essentially destroyed Sweden's status as an ascendant great power. He had a chance for a very good peace, with a lot of territorial gain, and refused. Too big of an ego. Based on the results on his rule, you could even argue that he was a bad King. Didn't even attempt to produce an heir, either.
Gustav Adolf did a lot more good than just winning on the battlefield, and left his country in a strong enough position that it continued to thrive even after his death. So I'd put him on top.
And as odd as it may sound, if I had a choice as a Swede between electing Charles XII and Bernadotte, I'd take Bernadotte. Not as good a general, but a better King.
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
- Messages
- 26,794
- Reaction score
- 56,115
- Points
- 151
The linked article posits that he was likely killed by a Swede with that magic bullet made from odd materials.
I tend to agree with your assessment. As brilliant as he was, he lost the overseas territories. He didn't know when to quit when he was ahead. Not unlike another brilliant tactical commander who was never satisfied...
Leading us to Karl XIV Johan. It can be argued he is Sweden's second greatest King. He checks all the boxes. Thrashed the Danes? Check. Won military glory in Europe? Check. Acquired new territory? Check. Left the Kingdom far stronger than he found it? Check. He outmaneuvered all the great powers and was a statesman par excellence.