UK vs EU members 2016.

So this is going to be the European version of Tomahawk, very nice. It could still be shot down by UK aircraft, but it does change things a bit. The UK submarines would still be vulnerable, but they can be at sea much longer and have much greater armament, they will also have greater performance. I don't think the UK would lose any submarines unless the EU members got control of the air and could start hunting for them. As I said befor the UK would have a carrier with harriers, not ideal having 1 65,000 carrier with old aircraft, but it would still be the different in a naval battle in the north sea, the Type 45 would out class any Danish, German, French, Italian or Spanish air defence destroyer or frigate, having 72 silos, to their 48 and having a quad-pack missile which the French and Italians wouldn't have, as it's being built by the British arm of MBDA, with that the Type 23's air defence capability would be greatly improved. Say the UK has in the north sea 5 submarines, 15 destroyers and frigates, 1 aircraft carrier, 1 helicopter carrier and 10 minesweeper, this is a force the EU members couldn't match.

 

You are once again thinking WWII, and need to stop doing that. This would be a 21st century war, with late 20th-early 21st century tactics.

Do not expect either side to get "Aie Dominance", and neither side would need it for such an action. The "Air Umbrella" of the UK will not be extending hundreds of miles into the North Sea. All that would be needed would be a few flights of fighters from say Norway or Iceland to pull this off. Streak in, fire off some air to ground missiles, and streak off and be having a cold one before fighters from the UK could respond.

You are thinking in terms of WWII, and Air Dominance. In this, you would have to look for other examples, say the expected battle space of a WWIII NATO-Warsaw Pact Battle, or the Iran-Iraq War, where neither side was expected to have or have actual air superiority.

Most wars are not like the 2 Gulf Wars or Afghanistan, where one side had such air dominance that the other could do nothing but see their planes destroyed shortly after lifting off. A UK-EU war would be more like Israel. Fighters used for defense of the homeland, then sent out in sharp-fast raids on lightly defended targets, then rushing home before a response can be raised. In this, think of Israel against the Egyptian Air Force, or against the Iraqi Nuclear facility, or most recently over Syria.

That is what the EU would be doing, not trying to repeat Hitler's Folly in a Battle of Brittan II.

They import food from Ireland, but not enough food. And remember, we are not talking countries as much as the ships themselves. It does not matter that Canada might want to send all it can if the ships to take it there will not enter a war zone. The Canadian Merchant Marine only has 66 bulk carriers, and 12 general cargo ships. Any others called up would be voluntary. And I doubt many would respond for various reasons.

And any ships pulled off for escort duty would not be available for general defense. And if only 10% of the ships are sunk on each trip, it would only be 1-2 trips before this would be totally uneffective as a way to get food and raw materials to the UK.

 

Why do you think the EU would use Norway and Iceland to attack the UK? They aren't in the EU. Danmark, Germany, Holland, Beligum and France, they would most likely use bases in Denmark which is about 400 miles away from the main oil fields.

Of course I don't think the EU members would start bombing British cities for no military reason, didn't Germany in the early part of the Battle of Britain, attack RAF bases and aircraft on the ground, attacking ports, shipyards and vital infrastructure? They had a lot of success the RAF was on it's knees, then Churchill started bombing German cities and Hitlar started bombing British cities taking the pressure of the RAF. Israel destroyed the Egyptian air force because they had surprise it was all over in a matter of hours, the 6 day war? I this war the EU wouldn't have surprise.

The UK imports more food from the EU than anywhere else, so they could easily just wait for the UK to starve because of lack of imports from Europe. Unless Canada or the US started shipping more food to the UK to make up for it. If they did and Canada currently I think would under it's Harper government do anything short of war to help the UK. The Uk has 648 ships in it's merchant fleet, add that to the 78 ships in the Canadian fleet, you have 726 ships, plus the RFA.

If the EU members lose 10% of their submarines they couldn't do that for very long, the UK would need to stop food waste and start rastoning again, this would greatly cut the amount needed by 10%, plus the added food from Ireland going just to the UK. Then if the shipyards get up and running, to replace the lost shipping, that's the main problem the UK doesn't have enough skilled workers to build enough shipping. UK could afford to put 3 frigates, 3 minesweepers and 1 helicopter carrier into defending the convoys.

 

It's quite hard for RAF to intercept Scalp in flight against oil rigs, such a sea skimming target with very little radar signature it's a miracle if they are spotted 10 km from the radar, so i think it's unrealistic to destroy them in flight, that's why it's a nonsense counting missiles carried (in a campaign it's a great advantage) in a sudden attack, you can have 10000 missiles on your ship, but there is no difference when you have the time to fire 2 or 3 before the enemy antiship missile impact, and wether the ship is not destroyed i doubt on the operativity of the sensors after the impact of a bomb or a anti ship missile. Imagine this scenario, 6 antiship missile approaching, first couple spotted 15 km away and you have few second to neutralize them, 2 spotted 12 km away and making evasive programs with a diving attack, last couple spotted 7 km from the target, sea skimming and programmed to reattack coming from different directions, i think it's higher the probability to being hit instead one of firing 96 missiles, it's simply a matter of time.

 

The SCALP is a good missile, but it is not all that undefendable as you seem to believe.

"Stealthy" simply means it is harder to detect, and that is more a feature of it's flight altitude then anything else. On it's approach to target, it is flying at "low altitude", meaning at 100 feet or so above the surface. Then about 10 miles before it reaches where it's target is expected to be, it climbs to between 2-5 km above the surface and then visually scans for it's target before entering it's terminal phase to impact.

During that climb it is a perfect target for any missile that wants to take it out, especially since it does not really "know" where it's target is, it is just flying towards it's preprogrammed location, and it may spend several minutes looking and scanning before even getting a lock.

So trust me when I say they will know it is coming, even land based RADAR can track geese by RADAR, it will not have a problem tracking this at MACH .8. And it will have time to launch multiple missiles at it, especially the short range MACH 3 Aster 15 while it is climbing and acquiring it's target. And if that all misses, there is still the CIWS.

Against oil rigs, you are very correct, there is not much the Royal Navy or Royal Air Force can do about this, short of catching the aircraft before they launch them. But remember, this is not an "anti-ship missile" (although it can be used in this role). The SCALP is a stand-off missile designed to be fired at any surface target. This can be a bunker, a command complex, an airport communications center, an oil platform, or a ship.

But this is not an anti-ship missile, like the EXOCET. That missile uses on-board RADAR to acquire it's target, so never has to move above surface level. This weapon is "stealthy" mostly because it does not use RADAR (which can be detected by the enemy long before it can get a picture of that enemy), but instead visually with a high-resolution IR camera. This is a great system for a ground target (which generally does not move), but it is pretty useless against a ship which is constantly moving and has the most powerfull mobile RADAR systems in the world.

 

Yeah I know, my mistake, in the scenario against the ship i forgot to mention that i was referring no more to the SCALP but to conventional anti ship missiles as later versions of Exocet, Teseo mk-2 and the swedish one that i don't remember, i know that SCALP is like a sitting duck for an Aster or a Sea Ceptor. Later versions of antiship missiles turn on radars only few miles from the target. So at range they are passive, they need no more Data-Link , can be programmed using GPS and then they switch on the radar near the target.

 

To which I would add "theoretically". The biggest problem of trying to strike a ship with a missile is the simple fact that they move. You can have the most accurate missile GPS in the world, down to the micrometer. But if between the time you programmed the missile and the missile actually getting there the ship has moved 15 miles, oops!

In missiles like these, the GPS coordinate is not where the actual ship is, but the pre-programmed location (normally 5-10 miles from the estimated location of the ship) where the missile flips over into acquisition mode. It maybe like the SCALP where it climbs and looks visually, it may be like the Block 3 EXOCET, where it then turns on it's RADAR. Either way, the missile still needs to look for, locate, then orient itself and actually attack the target.

But do not feel bad, at least you are not proposing to try and sink the ships with an anti-ship ballistic missile.

 

and that one was a their own Idea, they didn't copy

The matter of talking about this stuff that luckly most of times is "theoretically" because this kind of stuffs never or rarely are battletested, if you look for infos there are only tests made by MDBA, Lockheed Martin, US Navy, various EU Navies etc. and everyone has the most magnificent plasma shielded system in the world. I think that in last years western antiship missiles never faced a full operative target situation in real war and so anti-aircraft missiles. By the way there are already magnificent plasma anti-anti-shipballisticmissile missile

 

The UK would win hands down against the EU. The French are the only other country in the EU with proper offensive militaries. All the rest are second-rate defensive militaries.

Not only that, but if the EU declared war on the UK just because the UK is leaving the EU it would make a complete and utter mockery of the EU's bizarre claims that it brings peace to EU and it would make a complete mockery of its undeserved Nobel Peace Prize.

 

The Royal Navy Type 45s are the most powerful air defence warships in the world, not just Europe. They have also been called the most advanced warships in the world.

The Type 45 destroyer is equipped with the sophisticated Sea Viper air-defence system utilizing the SAMPSON active electronically scanned array multi-function air tracking radar, and the S1850M long-range air surveillance radar. The Sea Viper system is able to control and coordinate several missiles in the air at once, allowing several tracks to be intercepted at any given time. It has been suggested that the SAMPSON radar of the Type 45s is capable of tracking an object the size of a cricket ball travelling at three times the speed of sound.

According to the ships' builders BAE Systems: "able to detect and track hundreds of targets simultaneously, the Type 45 Destroyer is recognised as the most advanced anti-air warfare vessel in the world."

It was reported during March 2013 by the United States Naval Institute that the Royal Navy along with the United States Missile Defense Agency will explore the potential of the Type 45s providing ballistic missile defence in Europe.

The RAF is to have 146 Typhoons. It currently has 100. I'm not sure how many it will have by 2016.

The Luftwaffe has ordered 143 of them; the Italians 96; the Spanish 73; and the Austrians 15.

 

You forgot to mention that the British Army has 67 Apache helicopters, which are supposedly superior to those that the Americans use.

 

The UK is too much like the EU for them to ever actually go to war. Besides, in a few decades the younger generation will be majority muslim. It would hardly make any sense for a muslim army to fight a muslim army. There will not be much point of fighting at that point.

 

There is nodoubt that the British Apaches are better than the US ones, bigger engine and greater range with the same armament, systems and training, we can also use it from helicopter carriers, with the naval variant.

 

I think we will cut our order of Typhoons, we can't afford many more.

The PAAMS air defence system on the Type 45 destroyer is the best in the world, but the Type 45 itself doesn't have enough missiles and no long range anti-air missiles. The Type 45 could have 72 cell A-50 VLS for air defence, which is the least number of cells needed for air defence. You need atleast 60 missiles with a range of 200 KM plus, with a few dozen short and medium range missiles to defend against a sustained enemy attack. So the UK needs to get a missile with a range of 200 KM plus and increase the number of cells to make the Type 45 what it was promised to be. Still it's huge cost of £1.1 billion and small numbers mean it's a failure, we should have 12 of them full equipped with Aster 45 long-range anti ballistic missile, Aster 30 medium-range missile, Sea Ceptor and another long-range missile. This would give us the allround air defence capability needed to defend the carriers and other assets. Personally I would build a class of 6 cruisers for ballistic missile defence and land attack with 120 A-70 launchers.

 

Oh really? And where are they going to fight?

Europe is a land power. There is no really large or impressive Navy in Europe because largely they do not need one. And of all the European powers, the UK probably does have the most impressive navy.

But a navy in and of itself would not and can not win a war in Europe. That takes an Army, and while the armies of the individual nations are not all that big, combined they have the power to crush England.

England does not have the power to invade Europe. Europe does not have the power to invade England. All they would do is fight a few air and sea skirmishes, and then look ugly at each other.

However, if push came to shove I do not doubt much that the rest of Europe is unable to cut off ships going to and from England. They would just sit back and watch them starve.