Erik said: > You made an excellent case for the UK developing capabilities to > project power, but you didn't give any evidence that the rest of > Europe was doing so, which makes this last statement look like a big > leap to me. Since you said it takes a long time to develop such > capabilities, then the rest of Europe should have already started > preparations similar to UK's. Have they?
I'm not as familiar with the military developments of the rest of Europe, but they seem to have started. I may well have missed some developments, but here are a few recent or near future developments: France has ordered a second large aircraft carrier (it already has the carrier Charles de Gaulle) so that it can deploy naval air power all the time rather than 60% of the time. This new carrier may well be the same design as the new British carriers. It's due to enter service in around 2015. The British and French carriers and support ships may be grouped into four European carrier battle groups. Italy is building a new 20,000 ton cruiser-carrier, the Luigi Einaudi, that's pretty comparable to the UK's current Harrier/helicopter carriers. That one is due to enter service in 2007. Thus in about a decade or fifteen years, Europe will have four full-size aircraft carriers and half a dozen or so helicopter/VTOL carriers available rather than the current one large and five VTOL ones. There are two new French amphibious command ships, the Mistral and Tonnerre, entering service in 2005 and 2006, which can deploy armoured forces of 1400 troops, including sixty armoured vehicles, a squadron of tanks and a number of helicopters. A new Spanish amphibious assault ship, the Galicia, has just entered service and a second is due soon. Five new Greek Jason-class Medium Tank Landing Ships have entered service in the last six years. They can carry 310 troops and fifty vehicles including twenty tanks each. Belgium is working on a helicopter landing and command ship comaparable to HMS Ocean, as is Portugal. The Rotterdam, a Dutch Landing Platform Dock that can put assore 1770 APCs or 33 tanks together with 600 marines, entered service in 1997 and a second is due in 2007. (Some of these ships replace ships dating back 30 to 60 years, others give European countries entirely new capabilities.) There are a number of new European air-superiority and strike fighters, including the Rafale, Typhoon and Gripen entering service now or in the near future. Britain is also involved in the Joint Strike Fighter programme, which will equip its new carriers and maybe the French ones too. By the end of the decade, the fighters of the major European airforces will be in the best position relative to the US state of the art that they've been in for about thirty years. The European strategic airlift capability is currently in the weak to non-existent range. This gap is due to be partly filled by the Airbus A400M, of which the UK will buy 25, Germany 60, France 50, Spain 27, Turkey 10 and Belgium 8. This will give Europe a reasonable light airlift capability but still nothing comparable to the US's heavy airlift aircraft (the aircraft won't be able to carry tanks, for example). It's a substantial step beyond the Hercules though. The A400M is due to enter service in 2010. Europe doesn't have any strategic bombers or stealth strike aircraft nor any plans for any as far as I know. I think these aircraft will continue to be a low priority for the European airforces until the other holes have been filled. In conclusion, I think that around 2010-2015 the European Union will be about to deploy globally forces generally comparable in quality to US forces and around a third as large in number. There will be some weaknesses - heavy strategic airlift, strategic bombing - but the situation will be very different to how it looks today. European forces outside Europe will be roughly one third British, one third French with the balance made up by the other states. Germany will remain under-represented. In the nearer term, European forces overseas will be dominated by the UK, even if they include substantial French contributions. Rich, who will update his weblog article with this information as soon as he gets time. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
