Quote:
Originally Posted by Scruff  I take this offensively. If you didn't know, Britain has the longest and most intensively trained marine troops in the world. With our Commandos basic infantry training peaking at over 32 weeks, and our Army at 23 weeks. I think you'll find our military quite impressive. Infact, I find it so much so that I'm joining the Royal navy. |
I am sorry if that offended your national sentiments, but it is best we remain realistic. And as a military aspirant, it is wise to be real, if you ever plan to get into intelligence. It is great that you're joining the Royal Navy, as a naval force it is one of the best in the world.
However, a nation's military is much more than a few hundreds of marine commandos. Ground forces are as good as hi-tech mecenaries at the present age without strategic assets and military infrastructure. The UK military is entirely dependent on US technological assets, without the US they would be lost. Imagine a small case where the US and UK have a fallout and become enemies. Let us take one single loss of US support asset, GPS.
Without GPS -
1) The submarine forces and naval ships will be left to manual navigation using compass and visual aids - much like pre-World War U-boats
2) Nuclear missiles, with no GPS guidance in the boost and targeting phases, are as good as nuclear warheaded space-launch vehicles.
3) The marines and other special forces will lose much of navigational capabilities without GPS data.
4) The military aircrafts, without GPS navigation would no longer have instrumental navigation and limited BVR capabilities, they will be more of World War 2 planes. This are just four points I can think of at the moment, just a miniscule military setback Britian will face if it loses US partnership. That can hardly be called a full fledged military at the present age. Without any military sovereignty, it can be called a military wing or a paramilitary force however.
During the Iraq War od 2003, Tony Blair didn't have much choice - stuck between the necessity of US military alliance and British nationalism, he
had to make a strategic choice. There is nothing he could have done otherwise; unlike France, Britian is more of a 51st US state than a sovereign nation.
As for commandos, every modern military has commando and special force units. UK has Royal Marines; Russia has Spetsnatz; US has SEAL; China has PLASF; India has NSG; Israel's PALSAR, etc. These are just a cover asymmetric force in case of a full fledged war, much like knights in a game of chess. Quote:
Originally Posted by Scruff And an entire new Submarine and Sub Division, all of which are nuclear. Your statement is massively incorrect. |
I know what you are talking about. Two new SSBNs will be deployed for the
Trident D5 SLBMs, to replace the ageing
HMS Vanguard submarines. Every military does that, new equipments are inevitable with the passage of time, otherwise we would still be fighting wars using swordsmen. UK's nuclear force is primarily a second strike (defensive) force. With 200 low yield (100 KT each) warheads, all on SLBMs it is far from countries which have nuclear triads like US, Russia and China. And with a tiny area and hardly any territorial depth it wouldn't be able to sustain even a
limited nuclear strike from a military superpower.