The Royal Navy is gonna be toothless for a while...

Tom Kalbfus said:
. . . You presuppose that the threat would be terrorists. Terrorism is just an annoyance, what the armed forces are for is to get the idea drilled into the enemy' head that a terrorist attack on the continent is a bad idea! The real threat is Russia of course.
Exactly. The people to deal with terrorists are police and spies, not military personnel. If you have soldiers fighting terrorists, you're doing it wrong.

One complication is that present day politicians often call insurgents terrorists when they're really both, even when they're mainly insurgents. That's because terrorists can do their dirty work anywhere, so they're scary to people all over, even places where people aren't worried about insurgents. If the politicians call the insurgents terrorists when they know better, and send military counterinsurgency troops after them, it works. But if incompetent politicians order military forces to deal with actual terrorists, it doesn't work.
 
The issue is less that Russia can invade Europe, because their logistics is going to run out way before they reach the Rhine, it's more that they could succeed in a short, victorious war, and then sit on their gains, leaving us with the option of either accepting a fait accompli, or going nuclear.

As regards to the military (not too sure about finicky jet planes), you divide the total by a third, and that's what you optimistically should have ready for war in personnel and equipment at any point in time.
 
steve98052 said:
Tom Kalbfus said:
. . . You presuppose that the threat would be terrorists. Terrorism is just an annoyance, what the armed forces are for is to get the idea drilled into the enemy' head that a terrorist attack on the continent is a bad idea! The real threat is Russia of course.
Exactly. The people to deal with terrorists are police and spies, not military personnel. If you have soldiers fighting terrorists, you're doing it wrong.

One complication is that present day politicians often call insurgents terrorists when they're really both, even when they're mainly insurgents. That's because terrorists can do their dirty work anywhere, so they're scary to people all over, even places where people aren't worried about insurgents. If the politicians call the insurgents terrorists when they know better, and send military counterinsurgency troops after them, it works. But if incompetent politicians order military forces to deal with actual terrorists, it doesn't work.
Find and insurgent that obeys the rules of war and doesn't commit warcrimes and I'll agree with you. If the insurgent doesn't restrict themselves to military targets, if they deliberately target civilians with no military target in mind, then they are actually terrorists. The fellow who shot the Russian Ambassador to Turkey was a terrorist, the Russian Ambassador was not a legitimate military target, and killing him has no effect on Russia's war effort, they will just get another Ambassador, that's all!
 
Tom Kalbfus said:
Find and insurgent that obeys the rules of war and doesn't commit warcrimes and I'll agree with you. If the insurgent doesn't restrict themselves to military targets, if they deliberately target civilians with no military target in mind, then they are actually terrorists. The fellow who shot the Russian Ambassador to Turkey was a terrorist, the Russian Ambassador was not a legitimate military target, and killing him has no effect on Russia's war effort, they will just get another Ambassador, that's all!
I don't think war crimes are a useful way to distinguish terrorists from others, because others commit war crimes too: regular military forces do them, spies do them, and some police probably would do them if given the opportunity.

I wouldn't call the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey terrorism or a war crime. It's not terrorism because it's not meant to produce widespread fear; the only people likely to be afraid are diplomats, particularly the next Russian ambassador. It's not a war crime (unless it was covertly sponsored by the Turkish government, which doesn't make sense) because was not committed in a state of war and was not sponsored by the Turkish government. It was a politically motivated assassination, and a murder, but it doesn't fit into the other categories.

The distinction I'd make between insurgency and terrorism is that insurgents are seeking military goals (without the customary uniforms and other attributes of a formal military force), and terrorists use acts designed to generate fear out of proportion to the magnitude of the harm that can be accomplished through most attacks. Sometimes they overlap -- say a terrorist attack on people who cooperate with (or are part of) an enemy military force. Sometimes they do not -- such as a terrorist attack meant to push an enemy into political concessions without creating a state of war.
 
It all depends on your position in the fight. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. Rebel insurgents are generally labeled that by those whom they are rebelling against.

The people in Aleppo might not consider the assassination of the ambassador as a war crime. When you have chlorine gas used on your kids from the country who makes it possible for your government to remain in power your views can be far different than those people debating it on Facebook 5,000 miles away.
 
steve98052 said:
Tom Kalbfus said:
Find and insurgent that obeys the rules of war and doesn't commit warcrimes and I'll agree with you. If the insurgent doesn't restrict themselves to military targets, if they deliberately target civilians with no military target in mind, then they are actually terrorists. The fellow who shot the Russian Ambassador to Turkey was a terrorist, the Russian Ambassador was not a legitimate military target, and killing him has no effect on Russia's war effort, they will just get another Ambassador, that's all!
I don't think war crimes are a useful way to distinguish terrorists from others, because others commit war crimes too: regular military forces do them, spies do them, and some police probably would do them if given the opportunity.

I wouldn't call the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey terrorism or a war crime. It's not terrorism because it's not meant to produce widespread fear; the only people likely to be afraid are diplomats, particularly the next Russian ambassador. It's not a war crime (unless it was covertly sponsored by the Turkish government, which doesn't make sense) because was not committed in a state of war and was not sponsored by the Turkish government. It was a politically motivated assassination, and a murder, but it doesn't fit into the other categories.

The distinction I'd make between insurgency and terrorism is that insurgents are seeking military goals (without the customary uniforms and other attributes of a formal military force), and terrorists use acts designed to generate fear out of proportion to the magnitude of the harm that can be accomplished through most attacks. Sometimes they overlap -- say a terrorist attack on people who cooperate with (or are part of) an enemy military force. Sometimes they do not -- such as a terrorist attack meant to push an enemy into political concessions without creating a state of war.
Actually assassination is a form of terrorism, its just that too many people have been desensitized by all the mass killings that have been going on, that the assassination of one individual as been degraded. I would still stay that killing him was not a justifiable military act, the man was not a soldier, and diplomats are supposed to have diplomatic immunity, that is one of the rules of war, you do not assassinate an ambassador, you need these people to negotiate for terms to end the conflict and for negotiating a truce, they are basically messengers. It is legal to shoot a soldier in a war. It is legal to shoot an officer, but diplomats are immune, they are not supposed to be targets! I think the side that did this is going to end up regetting it when they lose and Russia gives them no quarter because they fight like beasts instead of like human beings! Also, why should the West help a side that is so uncivilized as to shoot a ambassador?
 
phavoc said:
It all depends on your position in the fight. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. Rebel insurgents are generally labeled that by those whom they are rebelling against.

The people in Aleppo might not consider the assassination of the ambassador as a war crime. When you have chlorine gas used on your kids from the country who makes it possible for your government to remain in power your views can be far different than those people debating it on Facebook 5,000 miles away.
It repels the West from helping the out if they act as beasts! The West has developed a set of rules for the conduct of war, it would help if they would not violate them and fight with honor. Diplomatic immunity is one of those things that should be honored such as a flag of truce, and the red cross symbol, people who target these things are not civilized and deserve to lose! The Russians should know better than to support Assad, but assassinating their Ambassador is not the way to change their behavior! If the people of Aleppo want help from the United States, they should not act lime criminals, otherwise we tend to think its just bad guys killing bad guys, and we then have no reason to get involved, and Russia has more firepower, and its insensitive to battlefield causalities, there is no moral dimension to Russian politics, anti-war protestors just get sent to labor camps in Siberia! What works on some democracies like Spain, is not going to work on Russia, appeals to their humanity tend to fall on deaf ears when the other side just killed their Ambassador. Russia has been known to kill 20 million of its own citizens, you think they will recoil from the assassination of just one ambassador? I think not! the way to get Russia to stop is for he West to put economic pressure on them, but assassinating an ambassador makes them look evil to our eyes, and it is our eyes that matter and what we consider to be evil and unacceptable behavior, not some Arab in the desert!
 
It just reinforces our decision not to intervene directly.

If the Americans really wanted to, they wouldn't have made half hearted attempts to train and supply Syrian insurrectionist groups they've tagged as moderate, compared to the significant support they've extended to the Kurds, in the teeth of opposition from Ankara and Baghdad.
 
Unfortunately, the "Americans" were Barack Hussein Obama, and he was very reluctant to do anything that would advance America's strategic interests, and helping out the moderates in Syria would do that! What Obama really wants to do is help America's enemies, and he can't decide whether those enemies are Russia, Assad, or ISIS, since they are fighting each other, he is sort of neutral, but he wants one of those three to win, not the moderate rebels who want freedom! Obama tends to favor Iran because they are the most visceral in their hatred for America, so naturally these are the folks Obama wants to help the most! I can't wait for the Obama Administration to be over! Obama did his best to be a bad President and tried his hardest to not serve America's strategic interests! One of the reasons Europe needs to defend itself is that every once in a while, we may elect someone like Barack Obama because of the foolishness of one of the major parties in this country. I hope at least Europe becomes more self-reliant and stronger in spite of these 8 years of Obama and his favoring of our enemies in our foreign policy.
 
Ok, this is getting way off topic for this forum, leave the real world politics out of it, other then a possible mention of how it might apply in Traveller or some such.
 
Tom Kalbfus said:
phavoc said:
It all depends on your position in the fight. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. Rebel insurgents are generally labeled that by those whom they are rebelling against.

The people in Aleppo might not consider the assassination of the ambassador as a war crime. When you have chlorine gas used on your kids from the country who makes it possible for your government to remain in power your views can be far different than those people debating it on Facebook 5,000 miles away.
It repels the West from helping the out if they act as beasts! The West has developed a set of rules for the conduct of war, it would help if they would not violate them and fight with honor. Diplomatic immunity is one of those things that should be honored such as a flag of truce, and the red cross symbol, people who target these things are not civilized and deserve to lose! The Russians should know better than to support Assad, but assassinating their Ambassador is not the way to change their behavior! If the people of Aleppo want help from the United States, they should not act lime criminals, otherwise we tend to think its just bad guys killing bad guys, and we then have no reason to get involved, and Russia has more firepower, and its insensitive to battlefield causalities, there is no moral dimension to Russian politics, anti-war protestors just get sent to labor camps in Siberia! What works on some democracies like Spain, is not going to work on Russia, appeals to their humanity tend to fall on deaf ears when the other side just killed their Ambassador. Russia has been known to kill 20 million of its own citizens, you think they will recoil from the assassination of just one ambassador? I think not! the way to get Russia to stop is for he West to put economic pressure on them, but assassinating an ambassador makes them look evil to our eyes, and it is our eyes that matter and what we consider to be evil and unacceptable behavior, not some Arab in the desert!

Whoa there Tom. I think you've exceeded the accepted usage of "!" for the year! (irony right there, eh?).

Russian foreign policy hasn't changed much in the last 100 years. You are right about the assassination not causing them to change their actions. Terrorist organizations have (except maybe the Chechens) have learned the hard way you can't get anything out of Russia except maybe a visit by the Spetsnatz. Syria is an exception, in my opinion, because it's really the only Russian client state in the region. They have so few outside of their contiguous borders, plus they have a port on the Mediterrean, again something that is important to them.

I'm relatively sure the killing of the Ambassador was not a well thought-out plan. Western Europe is dependent upon Russian gas exports to make it through the winter, and Russia is dependent upon the west for the majority of it's external income. Plus I would not put Putin on the same level as Stalin. I think many Russian's are not eager to return to a Stalinist state, but are ok with Putin - so long as it's not them who are getting squeezed.

But none of this really has much to do with an upcoming potential lack of SSM's for the RN. :)
 
Traveller 2300

British Exospace R90 Pinnace (30 tons)
British Exeter Class SDB (400 tons)
ESA Destroyer Kiev Class (500 tons)
British BC-4 Class Cargo Carrier (400 tons)
German Merkur Class Courier (200 tons)
Azanian Faidi Class Courier (300 tons)
French Cambaceres Class (400 tons)
British Dalton Class Mining Tender (4,000 tons)
Azanaian Nyota Melesi Mining Boat (30 tons)

Anyone familiar with Traveller 2300 care to add any British Military Vessels they know about in this setting?

I know the opening was about where the British Navy have been left as far as operational ships are concerned but if we're going to involve Traveller in this discussion how about what ships we know of that's currently used by the Royal Navy in one of the various settings we have for the Traveller rpg?

Maybe leave the politics for somewhere much more appropriate I mean the hard science fiction used here goes well over my head but there are plenty of other places to discuss real world politics this is supposed to be about Traveller so how about what ships the British have in the Expanse setting for example?
 
Athens, with a Roman hegemon keeping the Persians out of the neighbouring waterways.

The question would be if this is the nadir, and no, it could get worse.

I've argued for three LHDs instead of two what could be described as two medium aircraft carriers; you wouldn't have long arguments if you can install electro magnetic catapults, and you'd know from the start that there's not much hope for a sizable fighter contingent; plus, you'd have a Navy configured for what the British do best, quick littoral interventions.

If you go big, you'll still need a lot of ships, three being the minimum for any particular category of ship to be available at any time, and if you're at war, you'd want to surge the other third.
 
AndrewW said:
Ok, this is getting way off topic for this forum, leave the real world politics out of it, other then a possible mention of how it might apply in Traveller or some such.
I think it started off topic for this forum, but Mongoose doesn't seem to have a section for non-game discussions. If it did, this would be a strong candidate for transfer to such a section.

Actual Traveller thought related to some of this thread:

One could use a world (or country on a balkanized world) with various problems:
  • Guarding a specific individual or group at high risk would be a security mercenary ticket.
  • Stopping an organized terrorism would be a spy adventure.
  • Stopping lone-wolf terrorism would be futile, maybe an adventure where a patron is setting up the player characters for failure for some reason known to the patron.
  • Shutting down an insurgency would be a mercenary security ticket, necessarily including a diplomatic component meant to deny the insurgents the support of the civilian population they hide among.
 
steve98052 said:
I think it started off topic for this forum, but Mongoose doesn't seem to have a section for non-game discussions. If it did, this would be a strong candidate for transfer to such a section.

There's Off-Topic Discussion.
 
steve98052 said:
I think it started off topic for this forum, but Mongoose doesn't seem to have a section for non-game discussions. If it did, this would be a strong candidate for transfer to such a section.

Actual Traveller thought related to some of this thread:

One could use a world (or country on a balkanized world) with various problems:
  • Guarding a specific individual or group at high risk would be a security mercenary ticket.
  • Stopping an organized terrorism would be a spy adventure.
  • Stopping lone-wolf terrorism would be futile, maybe an adventure where a patron is setting up the player characters for failure for some reason known to the patron.
  • Shutting down an insurgency would be a mercenary security ticket, necessarily including a diplomatic component meant to deny the insurgents the support of the civilian population they hide among.

Maybe you aren't looking into real-world things and how you can apply them to a Traveller game. The suggestions above are also off-topic, as they have nothing to do with naval ordnance going bad. But hey, this is the Internet, so pretty much anything and everything happens.

This is easily translatable to Traveller. Here, let me help you:

1) The players are low on cash, but need some missiles. There's a reason they are able to purchase reloads so cheap from an arms broker - the local Navy has sold them off for scrap. An enterprising referee might come up with all kinds of way to provide for interesting problems (failed seekers, intermittent drives, 'quirky' IFF, and what every player dreads, premature detonations).

2) The players are able to buy a lot of expired missiles for scrap and with some enterprising updates to their paperwork they plan on selling them. So now they have some extra cash, but maybe they've also earned theirselves an enemy who will hunt them down for vengeance (use your imagination on how to detail it up).

3) The players realize their own stock of missiles need maintenance, but they need parts, or expertise, to maintain them. Their next mission is taking them into a dangerous area, but they are pressed for time. So rather than do it smart, they rush around trying to get the necessary parts and plan on doing the missile maintenance in the cargo bay during jump. Gee, did we actually trigger the motor? Oops, I think we just armed the warhead...

Using real-world incidents and them translating them to your gaming session is limited only by your imagination, or the activation of your imagination. Even all the discussions of Aleppo and politics behind it can be fruit for an adventure on a balkanized planet, a space station with multiple parties that is just waiting for a spark to ignite station-wide riots, etc, etc.
 
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