Gautam said: > 1. I think you're underestimating the qualitative superiority of > American forces. Partly this is because of systemic effects.
This is, of course, much harder to judge, especially when comparing systems that are mature against ones that are just entering service or will do soon. > That is, the M1A2 is probably only slightly better than the Leopard or > Challenger viewed in isolation. But, when viewed as part of a system, > with the IVIS networks activated, and working with Apache Longbows and > so on, it's abilities become vastly multiplied. This may well be so, but bear in mind that the British Army has already started receiving its Apache Longbows and the French and German armies will start getting their Tigers in December (I must admit to knowing little about helicopters, but it seems to me that the Tigers will be not much less capable than the Apaches, and for all I know their missile and rocket systems may be superior). As for IVIS, Britain at least is procuring an integrated package of battlefield digital networking systems, that extend right down to the individual solder (as part of the FIST future infantry package). Again, these systems will arrive over the next decade. The UK will have its new Skynet 5 communications satellite network in 2005 too. (Britain's current battlefield communications systems are embarrassingly antiquated, I must admit.) One field in which Europe appears to be weak is UAVs. European variants of both the Predator and the Global Hawk are on their way though, and there are a host of entirely European UAVs in development. > The second thing is training I don't know anything about training so I won't comment here. > 2. The second is that Europe is aiming at a moving target. I agree > that, by 2010-2015, Europe will have qualitative forces similar to > (although not, in my opinion, equal to) those _currently possessed_ by > the United States. What it won't have are forces similar to those that > US will possess in 2010-2015. This is true. On the other hand, there are European projects that are ahead of anything that the US is currently planning. One example is the innovative trimaran technology demonstrator, Triton, which may well form the basis of the next Royal Navy frigates: http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/trimaran/ (The new Type 45 destroyers entering service this decade are a huge step forward too, apparently being several orders of magnitude more effective at fleet air defence. I don't know how they compare to US vessels though.) Another is Sweden's Visby-class stealth corvette: http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/ In any case, the thing that matters most to me isn't where Europe is relative to the US, but where it is relative to everywhere else. As far as I can tell, Europe's ability to project force globally is going to increse drastically by 2010-2015, and the quality of those forces relative to any realistic adversary is going to be substantially higher than it is now. > The only way to catch up with the US on those grounds is to spend > _more_ money than we do, not less, because we already have fixed > assets whose cost we don't have to pay, and the sheer size of our > forces makes for significant economies of scale. This is a very valid point. Also, the economies of scale apply more than we might otherwise expect because the European military research, development, procurement, manufacturing, training, maintenance and logistics operations are still very fragmented. There is a ridiculous amount of duplicated effort in Europe, especially outside aerospace. > One other note - as I recall, the Charles de Gaulle has become > something of a joke in military circles because of the sequence of > disasters and incompetencies that surrounded its construction. Not for nothing did Britain and not France rule the waves... Rich _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
