Def Sec Speech Con Conf
 

Having watched and listened carefully to Mr Fallon's speech, I was left with senses of disbelief, incredulity, and foreboding. Reading the transcript, you could be misled into thinking that the state of our armed forces was improving, and that in the near future would be extremely robust. To quote him, 'Putin should be in no doubt that our collective defence is as strong as ever'. This comment was made as a punch line: is he from Mars? He is also delivering 'new fleets of fighters'. His delivery was akin to childlike puppetry. For God's sake, if he truly believes the words that were prepared for him, this man is not fit for his role. But I guess that he'll meet Cameron's needs.


Read the rest. Yes, there is some welcome stuff. But it was all about bandaging a mortal patient and playing, disgracefully, to a largely unsuspecting electorate. For now. IMHO that is.


And now, Cameron, proudly announces he'll send TWO more aircraft to Cyprus. The mouse is roaring.

But if you say something often enough and loud enough it makes it true. Anyway, back to Narnia for a good night's sleep for Mr Fallon.

Thing just responded to a similar point raised by me on the "Bare Bones" thread, If correct, Fallon's pants would be ablaze mid-speech.

FB:)

But every fighter crew knows they can win any war on their own ;)

Is the other an airborne spare?

According to the Togagraph No. 2 Squadron will not disband to reform on Typhoons next year in March because the Tornados are too badly needed to fight ISIL. However, the Typhoon Squadron is not going to be re-numbered, not a chance, it won't now form, apparently for another year when 2 Squadron will eventually disband. So there you go, robust defence on a shoe string! Or should that be on the hoof?!?!?:confused:

FB:)

Cuefaye, I like the point you have raised. I saw it too and was horrified. My take on it was that the Armed Forces are screwed and the polies are convinced that they can get away with talking bollocks and that the public will believe what they say. A tragic state of affairs. I think they actually believe their own crap.

Well said mate! But how do they get away with it? More to the point, how do we let them?

I read about these latest developments on Auntie Beeb's site.

2 more Tornados to deploy to Cyprus. Hooray, I thought.

II(AC) now won't disband next year but will carry on as the third Tonka squadron for another year. Hooray, I thought.

Then I thought I'd come over here and find out the truth of the matter.

What are they going to do with the "spare" Typhoons that now aren't going to form up as II(AC) at Lossiemouth? (Flog them off to Oman, I guess...)

[Be gentle with me, I am old and feeble, and cannot find my slippers]

No, it's worse than that. They think that the public will believe what they say. That's the sadness of it. Every man jack in the country knows that when a pollie opens his trap a lie comes out but they are too dumb/isolated to understand that. We know that they constantly lie, but they don't know/ignore that we know. I'm sure a lot of pollies are insane, and I don't say that in jest.

Unfortunately it is a true statement that Defence no longer wins votes in any parties minds, obviously not a view held by this forum. The reality of the last Government was a funding situation everyone in the system knew - project budgets were pushed out so far that there was a £26Bn "bulge" in future years that was never going to happen. My company was asked to delay contracts because the cash was in future years! We were then later criticised for being slow to deliver!

Sadly this had to be dealt with by someone.

Let's now hope the Politicians only commit the Military to ops that they are resourced for...:ugh:

"Putin should be in no doubt that our collective defence is as strong as ever."

He is an idiot and in my view, that's a stupid thing to say. It's provocative. You can't really blame Putin for wanting to keep the West at arms length. To everybody else, we've just come across like a bunch of war mongers.

Russia's assistance may be needed in tackling the Islamic State and alienating them is not a good idea.

So claiming that "I can take warsaw any time I like" is not a threat but "our defence is as strong as ever" is provocative?

Wow.

one is true and the other is not

Putin is a good guy, far better than our so called leaders.
Under his rule the Russian forces seem to be doing rather well.

T4,

That wasn't a threat, it was a fact. If he wanted to, he could put troops on the ground, anywhere in the world. It doesn't, however, mean he will succeed. If he wanted to. He clearly doesn't. He just doesn't want to deal with the West's corrupt ways, and I'm inclined to agree with him.

So what you're saying is he prefers his own system of open honest Government, for the people, by the people!?:confused:

FB:)

Typhoon, you are Ronald Reagan's long lost love child, and I claim my £5!

S-D

Being a fully paid-up cynic, I reckon the 2 Tornados are being sent to Akrotiri to be 'christmas tree'd' to keep the others going. But I hope I'm wrong (it has been known!).

May have been covered already, is the Ground Attack version of the Typhoon mot CR?

I think it's more than that though isn't it?

• Can Typhoon carry Brimstone
• Is the two crew team in the Tornado with Litening better for this role - combination of ISTAR and weapons delivery - than the single seat Typhoon.

Bit of a problem for the future if the latter of those points is correct.

S-D