The News, Trump vs Putin...

darthed1981

The news today is frankly terrifying, anyone following it...?

Basically...

It is being implied that the US is putting together a large military operation, with British and French support, to launch a retaliatory strike against Assad for the chemical attack.

A Russian source has said that if such an attack is launched they will shoot down the missiles and target the "launch sites".

Trump has replied "Get Ready"

F**k me that escalated fast.

Hopefully they will all calm down a little bit.

If not, the British resources would be Typhoon aircraft, with pilots, going up against the world's best SAM systems.

Someone slip Trump some sedatives until he calms down please?

Fretwired

It would be Tornados and they have shoot and forget capability so no planes would be at risk.

More likely to be an attack by subs with cruise missiles.

joeyowen

Surely they will wait until WHO have been in there and clarified everything?

Fretwired

joeyowen said:

Surely they will wait until WHO have been in there and clarified everything?

We are talking about Trump. May has said she'll wait for proof so the US and France could go it alone.

darthed1981

Fretwired said:

It would be Tornados and they have shoot and forget capability so no planes would be at risk.

More likely to be an attack by subs with cruise missiles.

Well yes more likely Storm Shadow from Tornado for initial launches than Paveway from Typhoon, but depends what they mean by "launch sites" to strike back at, RAF Akrotiri would be a launch site.

Storm Shadow has a range of about 300 miles, so the launch aircraft could easily be within the range of Russian SAMs at the point of launch assuming they have put a reasonable number of S-300 launchers in country and depending on the targets, likely things like suspected storage sites and airbases.

I'd sure as heck rather be in a Typhoon if Russian fighters get involved.

The US probably have a couple of subs in the area, not sure if we do or the French at this point.  There is a Type 23 out there at the minute I believe and they can carry Tomahawks.

The US have lots of launch platforms but may expect British and French involvement to show solidarity.

impmann

Fretwired said:

joeyowen said:

Surely they will wait until WHO have been in there and clarified everything?

We are talking about Trump. May has said she'll wait for proof so the US and France could go it alone.

Don't count on it...  I wouldn't put anything past her or that bumble-cunt Boris when it comes to diplomacy, sense, and waiting for evidence.

Why attack Syria for this? What will that do? There are plenty of other oppressive regimes using violence, weapons and death against their own subjects - some have been for far longer than Syria. It seems a little extreme to bring things close to a war footing... I'm not saying it wasn't repugnant what was done in Syria, its just I fail to see what good will come of launching missiles to ensure the violence doesn't escalate. After all, that *is* the reason for doing so... isn't it?  Stopping an escalation of violence and making sure such a thing never happens again shoud be the only reason to 'take action'. If the only reason is punishment, it won't help...

Fretwired

impmann said:

Fretwired said:

joeyowen said:

Surely they will wait until WHO have been in there and clarified everything?

We are talking about Trump. May has said she'll wait for proof so the US and France could go it alone.

Don't count on it...  I wouldn't put anything past her or that bumble-cunt Boris when it comes to diplomacy, sense, and waiting for evidence.

Why attack Syria for this? What will that do? There are plenty of other oppressive regimes using violence, weapons and death against their own subjects - some have been for far longer than Syria. It seems a little extreme to bring things close to a war footing... I'm not saying it wasn't repugnant what was done in Syria, its just I fail to see what good will come of launching missiles to ensure the violence doesn't escalate. After all, that *is* the reason for doing so... isn't it?  Stopping an escalation of violence and making sure such a thing never happens again shoud be the only reason to 'take action'. If the only reason is punishment, it won't help...

In fairness May's made a statement that says she's waiting for proof. I can't stand the woman. BlowJob has headed off to find a bunker.

blobb

May will need commons approval before she commits to anything. Or maybe not....

darthed1981

blobb said:

May will need commons approval before she commits to anything. Or maybe not....

No she doesn't, she has the "royal prerogative" so she can order anything she likes, in theory at least.

However if she were to participate in an attack that the Russians are certainly implying could lead to an actual military engagmement between the West and Russia without consulting parliament, she would be in a very precarious place.

Fretwired

darthed1981 said:

Storm Shadow has a range of about 300 miles, so the launch aircraft could easily be within the range of Russian SAMs at the point of launch assuming they have put a reasonable number of S-300 launchers in country and depending on the targets, likely things like suspected storage sites and airbases.


The US have lots of launch platforms but may expect British and French involvement to show solidarity.

The SAMs could shoot the Storm Shadow missiles down.

I'd suspect a joint UK/US strike from subs with the RAF running a counter measures op to jam/fool the Russian radar rather than aircraft. Getting a plane shot down and a pilot captured wouldn't do May's popularity much good.

Isn't there normally an Astute class sub stationed at Gibraltar?

Fretwired

From today's Times:

Theresa May has made Britain’s participation in US-led strikes on the Assad regime conditional on more evidence that the Syrian regime was responsible for a gas attack. Yesterday she resisted pressure to join immediate military retaliation repeating that it was necessary to confirm what had happened at Douma before any action to “hold to account” those responsible.

The prime minster signalled that she would be prepared to take joint action with the US and France once responsibility had been established, however.

darthed1981

Fretwired said:

darthed1981 said:

Storm Shadow has a range of about 300 miles, so the launch aircraft could easily be within the range of Russian SAMs at the point of launch assuming they have put a reasonable number of S-300 launchers in country and depending on the targets, likely things like suspected storage sites and airbases.


The US have lots of launch platforms but may expect British and French involvement to show solidarity.

The SAMs could shoot the Storm Shadow missiles down.

I'd suspect a joint UK/US strike from subs with the RAF running a counter measures op to jam/fool the Russian radar rather than aircraft. Getting a plane shot down and a pilot captured wouldn't do May's popularity much good.

Isn't there normally an Astute class sub stationed at Gibraltar?

Yes hopefully the Russians would consider it sufficient to down a quantity of the missiles, which would be fairly innocuous, rather than attack the "launch sites" - which would be horrific, could mean almost everything from engaging aircraft, a cruise missile strike on a base or a sub attack on a warship.  I mean, holy crap!

There is usually an RN sub in the Med is my understanding, could be an Astute or a Trafalgar.  Would probably be carrying a small quantity of Tomahawk, however if I were the RN I'd have it submerged and silent near something floating and valuable, or tracking a Russian sub, just in case.

The question is as you say about counter-measures to Russian air defenses.  The US have a carrier (maybe two) in the Med so have a squadron of EA-18G Growlers they could test against the S-300 systems.

That is part of what worries me, all the theory and testing in the world only give probabilities, this could give both sides a chance to see how good their toys really are.

darthed1981

Fretwired said:

From today's Times:

Theresa May has made Britain’s participation in US-led strikes on the Assad regime conditional on more evidence that the Syrian regime was responsible for a gas attack. Yesterday she resisted pressure to join immediate military retaliation repeating that it was necessary to confirm what had happened at Douma before any action to “hold to account” those responsible.

The prime minster signalled that she would be prepared to take joint action with the US and France once responsibility had been established, however.

Reassuring.

Winny_Pooh

Proxy war. Syria is a crucial channel that oil flows through to Europe. This has fk all to do with chemical weapons attacks. 

VimFuego

so, the saudis finally got their western intervention. FFS, if we were gonna do this all along, we should've just done it at the start and saved all them lives.

p90fool

Fretwired said:
 May has said she'll wait for proof so the US and France could go it alone. 

How WILL they manage lol

darthed1981

VimFuego said:

so, the saudis finally got their western intervention. FFS, if we were gonna do this all along, we should've just done it at the start and saved all them lives.

Have a Wis.

Fretwired

VimFuego said:

so, the saudis finally got their western intervention. FFS, if we were gonna do this all along, we should've just done it at the start and saved all them lives.

Ed said no and everyone agreed. I think its time we stopped trying to be a global power. The Empire has gone. Shit happens. What will we do when China moves to take Taiwan back?

Had we intervened we'd have needed boots on the ground and things could have been worse - war with Russia.

We should have done the counter-intuitive thing and backed Putin and Assad with conditions (no chemical weapons etc). The war would have been over quickly, Assad would have gone to be replaced by another pro-Putin leader but there may have been peace with fewer deaths and casualties.

JezWynd

One's mad the other bad.

It says a lot about Trump when he automatically pays a woman who sleeps with him. It's like he can't believe that anyone would put up with him if they weren't getting paid (He does have a point).

Putin, on the other hand, probably has a minder to cattle prod them until they submit to his advances.

We're f**ked.

ICBM

Fretwired said:

Ed said no and everyone agreed. I think its time we stopped trying to be a global power. The Empire has gone. Shit happens. What will we do when China moves to take Taiwan back?

Had we intervened we'd have needed boots on the ground and things could have been worse - war with Russia.

We should have done the counter-intuitive thing and backed Putin and Assad with conditions (no chemical weapons etc). The war would have been over quickly, Assad would have gone to be replaced by another pro-Putin leader but there may have been peace with fewer deaths and casualties.

Uncomfortable but absolutely true.

Better still, if the West had never encouraged, supported and armed the rebellion in the first place, Assad wouldn't have even needed outside help to put it down. It wouldn't have been nice for the small number of rebels involved, but it wouldn't have been the hundreds of thousands dead and millions of refugees we have now.

But we just have to go on interfering in other countries to 'promote democracy'/'get rid of regimes who abuse human rights' - otherwise known as cover for protecting our oil and gas supplies or strategic interests, and which are usually very much not to the benefit of the people of those countries.

... while conveniently ignoring other nasty dictatorships which abuse human rights but who are lucky enough not to be sitting on top of the West's energy supplies or allied to our perceived enemies, and thus have nothing to fear.

But geopolitics is more important than humanity to our leaders.

impmann

ICBM said:

But we just have to go on interfering in other countries to 'promote democracy'/'get rid of regimes who abuse human rights' - otherwise known as cover for protecting our oil and gas supplies or strategic interests, and which are usually very much not to the benefit of the people of those countries.

... while conveniently ignoring other nasty dictatorships which abuse human rights but who are lucky enough not to be sitting on top of the West's energy supplies or allied to our perceived enemies, and thus have nothing to fear.

But geopolitics is more important than humanity to our leaders.

Hmmm, or if intervention means that those who don't understand the term start using terms like anti-semitic when its suggested...