EU as joke (modified)

In article , "tadaa" wrote:

If you expect a ground war, building ships would be kinda stupid.

....with 2/3 of the Earth's surface being under water, expecting *only* a
"ground war' is a good way to get into trouble for most countries...

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

If you expect a ground war, building ships would be kinda stupid.

...with 2/3 of the Earth's surface being under water, expecting *only* a
"ground war' is a good way to get into trouble for most countries...

Well it seems that USA with it's navy is quite capable of getting into
trouble . Quite frankly i don't see a point of maintaining a strong navy
if you are preparing to fight off horde of tanks. How large navy should
Austria have? Or Swiss? Or from those countries that have shoreline Finland
or Sweden? Those large ships would just have been targets in the Baltic.
The point is that USA needs to have a navy to be able to project force, but
the Europeans were preparing for a war in Europe so they didn't need that
strong navy.

In article , "tadaa" wrote:

Well it seems that USA with it's navy is quite capable of getting
into trouble . Quite frankly i don't see a point of maintaining a
strong navy if you are preparing to fight off horde of tanks. How
large navy should Austria have? Or Swiss? Or from those countries
that have shoreline Finland or Sweden? Those large ships would just
have been targets in the Baltic. The point is that USA needs to have
a navy to be able to project force, but the Europeans were preparing
for a war in Europe so they didn't need that strong navy.

Like the "strong navy" they didn't need in 1939?

Too much of the world's resources *have* to be moved by sea, and if you
have no real deepwater navy, you can end up on the short end of the
stick in short order.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

Well it seems that USA with it's navy is quite capable of getting
into trouble . Quite frankly i don't see a point of maintaining a
strong navy if you are preparing to fight off horde of tanks. How
large navy should Austria have? Or Swiss? Or from those countries
that have shoreline Finland or Sweden? Those large ships would just
have been targets in the Baltic. The point is that USA needs to have
a navy to be able to project force, but the Europeans were preparing
for a war in Europe so they didn't need that strong navy.

Like the "strong navy" they didn't need in 1939?

Well it depends who you mean with "they " in this. Germany could have used a
stronger U-boat fleet to harras British shipping, but no I really don't see
what a stronger navy would have done to Belgium, Netherlands, Finland,
Estonia etc.
So would you care to explain to us what the benefit of a stronger navy would
have been in 1939?

Too much of the world's resources *have* to be moved by sea, and if you
have no real deepwater navy, you can end up on the short end of the
stick in short order.

Well now that the focus has sifted from Europe to places further away there
has been increased attention paid to power projection (airlift, naval troop
carriers).

In article , "tadaa" wrote:

Well it seems that USA with it's navy is quite capable of getting
into trouble . Quite frankly i don't see a point of maintaining
a strong navy if you are preparing to fight off horde of tanks.
How large navy should Austria have? Or Swiss? Or from those
countries that have shoreline Finland or Sweden? Those large
ships would just have been targets in the Baltic. The point is
that USA needs to have a navy to be able to project force, but
the Europeans were preparing for a war in Europe so they didn't
need that strong navy.

Like the "strong navy" they didn't need in 1939?

Well it depends who you mean with "they " in this. Germany could have
used a stronger U-boat fleet to harras British shipping, but no I
really don't see what a stronger navy would have done to Belgium,
Netherlands, Finland, Estonia etc.
So would you care to explain to us what the benefit of a stronger
navy would have been in 1939?

The other European countires could have shut down Germany's sea power
quite easily, kept *any* U-boats from going out to harass convoys, and
gotten a lot more support in during the 1940-1942 years. If they had hd
carriers available, they could have had strong fighter support across
all of Europe during the entire war, and D-Day could have happened a
couple of years earlier.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 17:16:12 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article , "tadaa" wrote:

Well it seems that USA with it's navy is quite capable of getting
into trouble . Quite frankly i don't see a point of maintaining a
strong navy if you are preparing to fight off horde of tanks. How
large navy should Austria have? Or Swiss? Or from those countries
that have shoreline Finland or Sweden? Those large ships would just
have been targets in the Baltic. The point is that USA needs to have
a navy to be able to project force, but the Europeans were preparing
for a war in Europe so they didn't need that strong navy.

Like the "strong navy" they didn't need in 1939?

Too much of the world's resources *have* to be moved by sea, and if you
have no real deepwater navy, you can end up on the short end of the
stick in short order.

Europe, other than the Nazis, was not preparing for war, they were
preparing to surrender.

Al Minyard

Europe, other than the Nazis, was not preparing for war, they were
preparing to surrender.

That's just ridiculous trolling.

In message , Alan Minyard
writes
On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 17:16:12 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:
Like the "strong navy" they didn't need in 1939?

Too much of the world's resources *have* to be moved by sea, and if you
have no real deepwater navy, you can end up on the short end of the
stick in short order.

Europe, other than the Nazis, was not preparing for war, they were
preparing to surrender.

Just as a quick look for 1939, the Royal Navy launched two battleships,
three aircraft carriers and ten cruisers; the Royal Air Force was
trading biplanes for Spitfires and building up its bomber force while
completing the world's first radar-directed integrated air defence
system; and the Army was expanding and re-equipping at a furious rate.

A rather strange process of "preparing to surrender", unless one expects
that all this equipment was being produced so it could be handed over to
Germany...

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

"tadaa" wrote in :

If you expect a ground war, building ships would be kinda
stupid.

...with 2/3 of the Earth's surface being under water, expecting
*only* a "ground war' is a good way to get into trouble for
most countries...

Well it seems that USA with it's navy is quite capable of
getting into trouble . Quite frankly i don't see a point of
maintaining a strong navy if you are preparing to fight off
horde of tanks. How large navy should Austria have? Or Swiss? Or
from those countries that have shoreline Finland or Sweden?
Those large ships would just have been targets in the Baltic.
The point is that USA needs to have a navy to be able to project
force, but the Europeans were preparing for a war in Europe so
they didn't need that strong navy.

Norway and Turkey share a natural strategic role that way,
both having a millirary force designed not only for combating
an invation force, but also halting that invation force
from building forward airbases and a foothold for marching
throught to the rest of europe.

In fear of sounding overly patriotic, what makes for
instance Norway interesting is that just about the only way
you are going to get a large enough number of troops to
barricade against Nato mobilisation is to invade by sea.
Even though it's a 20,000km coastline (one of the longest
in the world) that's a very difficult task due to the broken
and rugged nature of the coast. There are only a few places
where such a landing of force is possible.

The Navy is under a heavy restructuring and modernisation
programme, new frigats (about friggin' time), helicopters,
ultramodern fast attack boats and minesweepers and a
new hard-hitting commando force. Up until now we've based
much of our invation defence of these tactical points on
fixed 127/150mm coast artillery with underwater torpedo
and mine batteries. As an example, one medium fort is
expected to stop an invation force of about 30,000 troops.

We used to have 40 or so of these forts of varying sizes
in operation, many of them German relics of WW2 (though
modernised of course). In later years their tactial
value came under heavy attack themselves and only a
handful remain. Not in full operation but maintaned as
part of a reserve. They have been replaced to a great
part with a special commando force with small and agile
attack boats and commando teams with the Hellfire missle.
It's all part of the new, modern (so they say at least)
doctrine of a highly mobile and agile defence force -- one
you won't see until it's too late.

It's also part of Norways will to having a closer
participation in conflicts around the world -- units
which can be sent anywhere.


Regards...

On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 23:52:07 GMT, "Bjørnar Bolsøy" wrote:

"tadaa" wrote in :

If you expect a ground war, building ships would be kinda
stupid.

...with 2/3 of the Earth's surface being under water, expecting
*only* a "ground war' is a good way to get into trouble for
most countries...

Well it seems that USA with it's navy is quite capable of
getting into trouble . Quite frankly i don't see a point of
maintaining a strong navy if you are preparing to fight off
horde of tanks. How large navy should Austria have? Or Swiss? Or
from those countries that have shoreline Finland or Sweden?
Those large ships would just have been targets in the Baltic.
The point is that USA needs to have a navy to be able to project
force, but the Europeans were preparing for a war in Europe so
they didn't need that strong navy.

Norway and Turkey share a natural strategic role that way,
both having a millirary force designed not only for combating
an invation force, but also halting that invation force
from building forward airbases and a foothold for marching
throught to the rest of europe.

In fear of sounding overly patriotic, what makes for
instance Norway interesting is that just about the only way
you are going to get a large enough number of troops to
barricade against Nato mobilisation is to invade by sea.
Even though it's a 20,000km coastline (one of the longest
in the world) that's a very difficult task due to the broken
and rugged nature of the coast. There are only a few places
where such a landing of force is possible.


The Nazis did not have much trouble invading in WWII, I doubt
that the minuscule Norwegian armed forces would be much
more effective today than they were then.

The Navy is under a heavy restructuring and modernisation
programme, new frigats (about friggin' time), helicopters,
ultramodern fast attack boats and minesweepers and a
new hard-hitting commando force. Up until now we've based
much of our invation defence of these tactical points on
fixed 127/150mm coast artillery with underwater torpedo
and mine batteries. As an example, one medium fort is
expected to stop an invation force of about 30,000 troops.

Forts have done sooo well against modern armies. Remember
their inability to stop an invasion in WWII? Remember the
Maginot Line?

We used to have 40 or so of these forts of varying sizes
in operation, many of them German relics of WW2 (though
modernised of course). In later years their tactial
value came under heavy attack themselves and only a
handful remain. Not in full operation but maintaned as
part of a reserve. They have been replaced to a great
part with a special commando force with small and agile
attack boats and commando teams with the Hellfire missle.
It's all part of the new, modern (so they say at least)
doctrine of a highly mobile and agile defence force -- one
you won't see until it's too late.

It's also part of Norways will to having a closer
participation in conflicts around the world -- units
which can be sent anywhere.


Regards...

The successful defense of Oslo would be a major
accomplishment for the current Norwegian
armed forces, the rest of the country would be
taken quite easily. Norway, not unrealistically,
counts on the US for its defense.

Al Minyard