In article , Paul J. Adam
writes
In message , Dave Eadsforth
writes
In article , Paul J. Adam
writes
It costs money, which is in seriously short supply. What will you give
up instead?

Is it necessary to think of giving up something instead?

Funding is finite and the list of desirable items is larger than the
money available.

Cannot disagree with that - but because of this it is vital to maintain
a grasp on which items must retain 100 percent effectiveness

If cannon are
'the cost of doing business' for a fighter - a necessary contingency -
then the money should be allocated.

Is the cannon more or less important than the towed decoys for the DASS?

Is the cannon more or less important than ASRAAM integration?

Do you fund the cannon before or after fitting ALARM capability?

...and so it goes.

Specifically concerning cannon: cannon provide a very fundamental
capability - and cheaply. They are there when all else is:

used up;
failed;
inappropriate.

Air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles are vulnerable to countermeasures
- and you don't know what the enemy might have up his sleeve until he
unveils it; so you might experience disappointment at a vital moment.
Missiles are also somewhat poor for delivering warnings - the shot tends
to go into the target instead of across the bows. And if you want to
bring any vehicle (boat/truck) to a halt instead of annihilating it
cannon are the only option.


Over the last few decades, British defence funding has been dogged by
the motto 'there isn't going to be another real war, old chap' but of
course wars have a habit of turning up - and then we are stuffed.

Add also that the politicians declare that "the UK will only face
conflicts in these particular areas" and make cuts accordingly: usually
followed by an out-of-area problem which of course HM Forces are
expected to deal with anyway.

Indeed - and flexibility is key in such situations.

During the Falklands we had ships that were wired up with cable that
gave off toxic fumes when it burned, and the men had overalls of man-
made fibre that shrunk nicely onto the body when close to a fire. And
as for the prospect of ships being attacked by more than one aircraft at
a time - couldn't possibly happen. Close defence? Lord 'what's a
Vulcan cannon' Chalfont didn't have much to offer when questioned on the
subject.

I can offer quite a few modern examples: the problem keeps coming down
to funding. Better some capability than no capability: other shortfalls
can hopefully be closed by UOR.

Agreed some capability better than none, but it is no good having a
weapon system that is 80 percent as good as the enemy's - if it is to be
deployed it must be 100 percent as good if not better, and the savings
can come from elsewhere. The forces should not have to blunt their
teeth - that is a terrible and dangerous option.

Until "screwing up defence" becomes an election issue, it's not a
problem for our lords and masters: and until then it's easy to keep
squeezing defence in the sacred name of Schoolsandhospitals.

Yes, and the mishandling of the Iraq situation does not help the case
for 100 percent forces that are ready for anything if such forces are
perceived to be vulnerable to 'misuse' (Personal view: Never mind the
WMD - I'd have invaded Iraq if the Iraqi consul had double parked in
Kensington...)

All such defects can be guaranteed to have been foreseen - and the
warnings filtered out by a staffing system under pressure from the
Treasury. We have the competence to avoid these traps, we just lack a
coherent vision at the top.

Not even that; we just have a political class accustomed to a "can do"
attitude from the Forces, and too much experience of getting results
despite repeated cuts.

I can only agree with that too - they are better than the politicians
deserve. I spent years working alongside the military and I know their
private thoughts on such matters - but regrettably cannot reproduce them
here.

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth