Peter Cairns

I know people are eager to gaet more informantion, well actually people mostly want to "SEE MORE", however given that it's been pointed out by Steve repeatedly that there's nothing to see yet, whats the point in howling for a web site. The man must feel like a Cop at a RTA, waving all the cars along with people hanging out the windows. Peter.

One general difficulty with Mac's is that the most popular (iBook, iMac, Powerbook, Mini), don't really have a choice when it comes to graphics cards, so you take what you get. My current iMac is a year old, and has a 1.8GHz G5, 1GB of RAM, and a GeForce FX 5200 card. I don't really have the option to upgrade, so if this isn't enough I am looking at a whole new system by this time next year. It looks like by then there may be an Intel iMac with a spec that will do it, but the new iMAC has a built in camera which I thought was a great idea, till it occurred to me that I could end up looking at you lot, which kind of put me off. Peter.

Steve, What about a button in part five of the UI that let you, check the original squad size, so you could compare. Although that wouldn't tell you if a man was dead or just lost. Peter.

Steve, And the issue of women, I don't think you actually ever did give an answer.... Peter.

Isn't a way to achieve this perhaps to make the "Game Scenarios" editable just like a "Home made" scenario. That way instead of playing with the AI, you could go in and alter victory conditions or start positions or even the units. Peter.

I think the debate so far shows BF's problem, people seem to want to things, the full details of a game that's not complete, and every bit of information available on whats been done so far as soon as it happens. You can't have both, as what they boil down too is "I want to play the finished game now", which given that it's not even half finished just isn't going to happen. For my part i am quite happy with the info so far , an especially discussions like the one on the "UI", where it is clear suggestions on both function and look are being listened too. Not ever suggestion ( or anything like it) will be taken on board, and no doubt those who's suggestions aren't fill fill this forum with rants, but some will and as far as I can see thats far more input than most games companies give their customers. Peter.

Meanwhile back on topic, Given the backflash from a RR is a dead give away, but they can take out a Stryker and are cheap, what about using them remotely. Now I don't see the syrians doing this but there is a growing amount of off the shelf stuff that might do the trick. 1) A digital video camera, a "Firewire" lead and a lap top. Replace the basic sight with the VC and line it up from cover down a road, I don't know the practical lengt of a FW cable as i've never needed to be more than 6' from my Mac doing IMovie. 2) Similiar to the above, but with a webcam and a USB, again I don't know how long a USB lead can be either. Can you get Bluetooth Webcams yet, if so whats their range, and can stryker units jam bluetooth. 3) Like both the above but using a pair of video capable mobile phones, although you'd have to rig it so that you could fire the RR by sending a text. Accuracy wouldn't be great but if it was a level shot down a road or along a wall, it could work. The whole issue is about the use of Highsteet Tech, as opposed to High Tech. You could probably rig up a decent antitank mine using a Kids metal detector from ToyRus. Peter.

kipanderson, If I am interpreting Steves comments and the provisional design for the interface correctly, when you click on a squad you'll get a detail of the current weapons and fitness of each man. Part of the debate is whether if you move the cursor over a man you'll get more info. I am not sure if dead will show as dead or just disappear, thats one for Steve. Anyway if you loose track of which squad had what and can't tell if it's taken casualties, you shouldn't be a company Co, try restricting yourself to a platoon, or a squad, or a sniper... Peter.

Not really, Iran was about the only nation that got the F-14, and i am pretty sure others wanted it. I've no doubt that since the end of the cold war things have loosened up a fair bit. In the East they are desperate for money, and in the West the fall in defence spending for most countries has made it harder for private companies as competition has become tougher. Peter.

Like I say it was a buyers market, the russians were skint so countries like Iran were able to do deals to get access to design and tech transfer at bargin prices. I think good examples of it continuing are the deals to co produce transport aircraft, one with Iran with Tupolev in the Casa CN, class and one with india and illuysian to produce a twin jet in the class of the C-130 but with bettter performance for half the price. Peter.

AKd, I wasn't talking about individuals as such, but more the way the likes of mig ave been doing or selling design work on light fighters to India, China, and Iran. I don't put much faith in the stories of individuals selling their skills, but compared to the Soviet union, the economic collapse has made russian and the other ex soviet states far less reluctant to sell their best stuff. I also think that there is a lot more Unofficial exporting, although whether on a scale that would show up to any extent in a country like Syria is a different matter. Peter.

AKD, From what I have seen about Russian arms exports and defence industries over the last decade, they are so desperate for cash ( Aeronautics engineers living off the food from their allotments), that they'd sell anything to anybody for whatever they can get. And thats not even taking in to account the Mafia. Having said that a big factor may well be more their ability to actually make it and support it, I know the former east eurpean states had real trouble with parts for the likes of Fulcrums and Hinds for a while. Peter.

We would offer the same terms as the Uk army to anyone who wants to join, and the UK would agree that anyone who wanted to go could. Why, Because Scots in the UK armed forces who didn't want to be their would be militarily useless. If you say no to them when they ask to leave, and next day they just lie in bed, what are you going to do, lock them up. what 1o,000 of them. How do you stop any Scots pilot in the RAF just turning North, ground them all, make sure that the other plane in the flight is armed and ready to shoot him down if he does. Any Scot in the British army could any time he choose walk in to an embassy and claim asylum, and if they were abroad they could walk in to any police station and do it. Regardless of the numbers or whether you want them to go, trying to force them to stay is just daft. You have two choices, let them go and loose them as effective servicemen, and have us pay their wages, or force them to stay loose them as effective personell because they don't want to be in your army and you pay their wages, which seems pretty dumb to me. GSX 90 out of 200 , well if it's not a Scottish unit ( and 200 rules that out) thats 45% which is a very high percentage for Scots, Just exactly which unit is this and of the 90 how many did this straw poll involve, if it was all ninety, which is impressive it was only 3%, but if you only asked 10 then it's 30%. You have me at a disadvantage because you use an alias and I don't. If you want to know about me check the press for reports of this years SNP conferemce in Aviemore and you'll see I spoke five times. John, Dealing with them in turn, after the daft notion of trying to prevent people who want to go leaving that is. We would not have dedicated ASW in terms of Frigates, but then both the Danes and new Zealand do it by utiliesing demountable modules, as to Air defence I have already said we would have acombat capable airforce with intermediate aircraft, in the class of the F-16, actually I quite like the look of the S. Korean T/F-50. And of course you have to look at the level of threat, just who's subs are you suggecting will be preying on scottish Trawlers, Brazils... besides more than 80% of our trade comes through England anyway, so even in the fanciful scenario of Submarines picking on Scotland and the rest of Western Europe looking the other way. ( Mind you there were thoses dark days in the sixties when Kruschevs Submarines were torpedoing Irish coasters and the world just stood and watched while the people of Dublin were forced to eat leaves... NOT). Your example of the Icelanders or Lithuainians just show how daft your arguements are becoming, when you have to resort to quite laudicrious scenarios to justify weapons or equipment you should really just give up and stop embarrising yourself. Britain isn't goiing to invest £50 bn over ten years on a laser ABM system to defend us against surprise US attack, because no one with an IQ over 50, thinks there is the slightest chance of their being one. If you want me to divert more resources to the Navy or Airforce do us both a favour and come up with a scenario that wouldn't be far fetched for an Austin Powers Movie. Better Still, start a post suggesting and Iceland attacks Ireland module for CMx2, and see the response you get. What about the air threat you think we should be preparing for , right now I doubt the Russains could scrap up enough fuel to get a Flanker as far as Scotland let alone. I didn't say they would be kept just for spares but they would be there in an emergency. The UK's Challengers in Germmany weren't their just for spares, but over a hundred of them were stripped and their engines send out to the Gulf in GW1. Spares was never a principle reason. I am in Favour of mechanising all six regiments, but if we don't I'd rather by a 100 extra than find half way through a fight that we didn't have enough. I don't see us doing an Entebbe at least not on our own, we don't have an airline for a start. The Special forces would be based at the training regiment but I never said it was the training regiment. In the falklands the Marine Artic warfare people deployed as a unit ( about 20 of them) but even if they had all died, I doubt the Royal Marines would have fallen apart. Besides Entebbe was almost Unique, and if you look at Mogadishu which was far more typical you'll see that the SAS did it, For The Germans, which kind of proves my point about people cooperating in a crisis. I don't have a problem and indeed would be delighted to lend you a ful company of SF, whenever you needed them, as long as it was a on a mission we both supported and agreed on. Would I like more than 200 or so yes, but If we are talking about SAS standard, 3% of the size of your army is about right, Like I said calling them SF doesn't mean they are. Total SAS/SBS is probably well less than 2% of the British army. If ant any one time we could deploy a troop of 40-70 and they were of SAS standard ( which they would be) they would be enough to cover all but the most dire situations, over the last 50 years apart from the obvious example of Northern Ireland, it is only in GW1 and now that a full regiment of SAS has ever been deployed. Saying it's looney and can't be done, really shows you should get out more or perhaps try reading. On numerous occasions I've mentioned countries of Scotlands size who have their own armed forces. Now if No nation in europe less than 10 million population had an army, or they all bought in defence from a big neighbour you might have a point, but you don't. Though I shouldn't labour the point because you are looking daft enough, heres a short far from comprehensive list. Ireland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Portugal, Bosnia, Estonia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, , do you want me to leave Europe and go on our are you fed up of looking like a monkey..... Of all the daft objections you've raised " A nation of Scotlands size can't do it", when more than a dozen, many smaller and worse off, do takes the biscuit. Mr Picky the act of union would not be revoked it would be disolved by mutual agreement. If Scotlands people voted for independence the UK would accept it. Given that there are suprising fw people south of the border so dense as not to see that they would have no other option, given that every democracy in the world would immediately recognise us as an independant country. As I made plain we would be struggling to find all £7.5 bn in Kit and I also made it clear that because of different requiremeents we wouldn't be asking for most if any of the big new high tech stuff anyway ( thats what generates a potential cash surplus). As to training there is a bombing range at tain and Cape Wrath, and a scaled down missile range on benbeccula. I said we had plenty of space for training not that we had plenty of big training ranges. As to kit and personnel when it comes to us we strt paying the wages and support costs, so the burden shifts to us. There is an annual £300-£400m hit as thats the difference between the cost of what transfers to us and the amount of Scottish tax payers money the Uk currently gets. And again this AWOL nonsesnse, any partition would be by mutual agreement, so the idea that the UK would forbid people to leave is just nonsense as keeping them against there will would be worse than letting them go. The extent to which the UK could keep going would depend on it's commitments and how we managed them, I said we had some ideas heres three. Displacement. We don't want Scots in Iraq, but don't have a problem with Bosnia, Kosovo or Afghanistan. Therefore when say the Black Watch finish a tour in Basra, we send a regiment to Kabul which in turn frees up the Afghhan contingent for deployment elsewhere. Thus the total number depolyed remains the same, but we gradually disengage from the ones we don't support. Secondment. Personel who want to transfer do, but are then for an appropriate period allowed to remain in their current position in the UK armed forces, for a limited period ( although by limited we could be talking two to three years if needed). In this case the best thing would be for us to jointly pay them as they are our troops but working for you. Delayed. In certain circumstances (and this might include people who had access to highly classified material, particularly anti terrorist operations) people wishing to join the scottish armed forces would be told they could not transfer for a set time, rarely more than a years delay, although it could be longer for the likes of a pilot newly trained at a cost of £5m plus. I think these three alone show two clear differences , firstly I tjought about this a lot longer than you, and secondly that when faced with a problem, I look for a solution where as you throw your hands up in horror, and say " NO NO It Can't Be Done", GSX I know you don't like the idea of Scottish independence but if you are going to stray from the Military in to politics especially Scottish politics, at least try to have some facts will you, because I really don't think you'd like it if was to put you right in no uncertain terms. I have never said we would form the Government, but we could well be part of it, and even if we don't, a post independence Scottish govermnet of whatever shape would still have to come up with some form of defence strategy and armed forces. No likeing the idea doesn't mean it won't happen, hell for someone in the army you seem to have the bizarre notion that if you don't want something to happen you shouldn't plan for the event. Whats your units badge,"An Ostrich with it's Head in the Sand". As to the Scottish parliament, well so far it's been pretty awful, but then as it looks like Britain might not have enough gas to get us through this winter, three cheers for Westminster. As to breaking up Briatin, well by definition it will only happen, if a majority want it, ( like the Scottish parliament that got more votes for than Tony Blair did in Scotland). So the few Highlanders line hardly has any merit given that the total highlands and Islands accounts for less than 6% of the population. SNP support is currently running between 20-25%, actually just under 20% for Westminster, but over 28% for Holyrood (the Scottish Parliament), It has been higher indeed as high as 35%, so we are still well omn target to be the second largest party in 2007. Despite my own parties claims we can win I think we will get less seats than labour, but we could make 40. That figure is enough to form a coalition with others, as the majority ids only 65. If we can themn an independence referendum within 4 years is a 405 chance. Now as a soldier if you want to dismiss and not plan for an unwelcome scenario that has a 40% likelyhood of happening your the worst soldier I've ever come across.like it. Current and constistant polls put support for independence at 35-45%, and as anyone who stiudies politics will tell you, an option that consistantly commands 40%+, can get a majority. Do I honestly think we "Will" be independant within five years No, do I think we could be, Oh Yes. Peter.

Lars first, As far as I am aware no country other than Iceland is currently doing a "here you look after us deal", and it's got a smaller population than Edinburgh. The difficulty with the we pay you deal is that if at any point they say "The games up we don't want to any more", you are in deep trouble, so people generally don't do it. In certain circumstances such as the Baltic States, who are skint small a temporary deal with basing can work for a while, but generally people don't want to be that dependant on someone else for their ultimate security. John, If you want us to take Blair back you'll have to pay us, but I don't think it's an issue as I see him far more likely to retire to Texas. The kind of thing that happened with support for the Gulf war was pretty unprecidented since at least Korea and probably WW2. Comparing moving a Medium weight regiment to an invasion that evolved half a million people isn't really credible as an arguement, there will be issues and hickus but nothing that can't be overcome, especially as we'd all essentially be on one boat. Tasks and the like are broadly similiar to the UK's though thebit about overseas colonies and territories is out ,as we don't have any. Actually if you look about most nations sections on aims and tasks they are broadly similar. The option to have both Light role and Medium role is something I thought about, and you could argue that we needn't equip all six with Stryker because, if we are planning to have one out long term and one for emergency use, then all we really need is one more for training. That would half the purchase number from six regiments to only three. However I tend to favour just one class of Infantry and a standard vehicle because as I said, I feel that with modern weapons soft skinned vehicles are just too vulnerable for day to day use. Also in the highly unlikely event of a "big war" either at home or that we really needed to go to then we have a residual capacity. Even if they are under utiliesed most of the time full mechanisation lets you have a stock of additional vehicles for replacement and spares, or just to rotate out of service for refurb. still money is tight and its probaly £300-£400m I don't actaully think we will have a Scottish Commando regiment or Special regiment as such. So far the option I favour is that over and above the Six line regiments there would be a national training establishment come regiment. It would provide basic training and then later specialist training. Over time experienced personnel would be seconded and train as trainers and then either return to regiment or undergo further specialist training. Therefore with the "Training Regiment" , you would have your basic training, Artillery School , Engineers School, Armour training school and "An Advanced Infantry School"( AIS). It is within the Advanced Infantry School part where by selection and secondment you have a speciallised Combat Infantry unit, and that is in effect your "special forces", in this respect it is more like the system for the SAS than the Paras or Marines. If you look at the size of the forces we have available I wouldn't think we could justify or sustain a full "Commando Regiment", so I would suspect it would be more like one or more WW2 sized commandos of about Company strength. A second option that could go along side this is to take some of the best and most experience infantry in each regiment and put them ( after AIS training) in with the armoured recon element or as a tenth Infantry platoon doing LR Recon and other "difficult" tasks. I know it sounds small but what I think we should be wary of and try to avoid is creating a Special forces regiment because we ( or others) think we should have one and then having to pad it out with average personnel to make it work. So start with the best and select and start small and if we have enough good people expand it over time, the world is full of "special" forces that turn out to be nothing special when the shooting starts, and I don't want that. I am not sure if the Gurkhas would want to join up, but if they did we'd probably let them, but it would be like the Fijians, they would join a Scottish regiment as individuals not a regiment of their own. GSX, your next. I can tell people are if not warming to thi, at least being far less dismissive, I suppose the British could claim copy right or something and they may decide to keep a "Scottish regiment" that Scots as commonwealth citizeans would be free to join. If they did and given their recruitment problems, I would if I was them, I've no doubt they could and would fill it. Obviously I'd prefer Scots to choose their own regiments first, but if the UK did it I don't think we would object. Apart from anything else we have an open border that people could just walk across and join the British army anyway. (Could you imagine the joint excercises when they met ours). It wouldn't be Iraq, but Afghanistan is a possible and then their are the likes of Timor, SL, Congo ( sooner or later everybody ends up doing a stint in the Congo), Cyprus and possibly the Lebanon if it's still on going. Like I've said before the problem won't be finding missions it will be fending off the constant requests. High quality Infantry are in almost constant demand. Initally we would inherit our share of the UK's approximately £80-£90 bn, worth of Kit, roughly the £7.5bn we've paid to buy with Scottish taxes. Much of the UK kit particularly the heavy stuff we don't need or want so if anything we will struggle to find £ 5bn that we need let alone over £7 bn. As long as it can do a job and will last 5 years or more it will be OK. Given that Scotland has four year fixed term Parliaments I can't see us starting any major procurement until in to the second one as the transistion and adaption will take at least 3 or 4. Apparently the Czechs and Slovaks done it in under a year, (although to be honest much of it was junk anyway). I wouldn't see us fully up and running as a totally different force till between years seven to ten, but as the level of domestic conventional threat is so low, thats an acceptable risk. We would also be keen to minimise distruption to the UK and we have a few ideas as how we can best do that. Regardless of the acrimony amoung politicain independence generates, the last thing we want is to damage or undermine an on going UK or UN mission. Initial terms of Service will be as the UK but as I said with the shift towards 50% personel budget, we'd like to better them and might well have too just to fill the ranks. Bases is a good one and here I expect as you rightly suggest I'll have as many if not more problems from my own side as opponents. I am keen on using development potential as a starting point. Take the three RAF bases, The two in Moray are close together so could act in tandem as a main and feeder/emergency. If we were to close them it would be a local disaster because not only are they big employers but also there is no real viable alternative use that could replace them. That leaves Leuchers in Fife. Now it just so happens that the distance from it to the centre of Dundee ( which has 250,000 population plus the same again within 25miles or so) is the same as Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports are from their town centres (about 1O miles). Currently Dundee doesn't have a decent airport, so the potential is there to covert Leauchers in to a proper airport for Dundee that can handle both low cost European and trans atlantic flights ( As its less than five miles from the old course I'd market it internationally as "Dundee, St Andrews"). The intention would be that it would, in time with investment, creat more jobs than a military base, or anyway thats the theory. As you say many of these places face threats in the future ( we had a set of defence support redundancies just this week), so I'd rather offer a credible alternative and a well worked out transition that will be better in the long term for the community, that give a bland Guarentte that "Every Job is Safe". Apart from anything else I doubt there is a service man or women or a defence contractor or MOD civilian employee who believes any job guarentee a politicain gives them, and to be honest I don't blame them. We would initially offer service to any Scot in the armed forces who wanted to transfer on the same pay and conditions as they were on, which if all 18-20,000 came across would be a short term problem as we only plan on 15,000. ( another reason why there wouldn't be much procurement in the first few years). However with Voluantary packages and by raisng the recruitment standards we could work that down over five years or so. As to the UK not letting them leave, whats it going to do, stop them leaving England or going home on leave, lock them in their barracks in Edinburgh and not let them out, arrest and imprison all 18,000 of them, Hell Shoot them. If they don't want to stay and you won't let them leave, just how operationally effective do you think they'd be. Scotland has 9% of the UK population and over 33% of the land area, with 50% of that mountain, forest and moorland, plus lochs and island galore, believe me space for training isn't a problem. As to firing ranges etc, one of the advantages of Medium weight forces, with 40mm turrets, Javelin and 120mm mortars is that you don't need the kind of space or range size you do for live firing with Challenger, Braveheart or MLRS. As I said above we would need to establish a national training centre, possibly around RM Condor near Abroath, but to be honest given the amount of cheap land we have, it could be anywhere ( Though I like the idea of ex-mining Ayrshire, because it's currently an economic black hole). Peter.

Lars, Like most of western europe we' don't need an army of any real size at the moment. In fact just as we don't need a large army as we are not going to invade England, Britain doesn't need one for the same reason, we're not a threat and in conventional terms neither is anyone else at the moment, not to the UK mainland anyway. Put the same way, the US doesn't need aircraft carriers for domestic defence either. As to needing C-5's, Australia has been in Iraq since the start and they don't have anything bigger than a C-130, nor do they have plans for anything larger. Nor for that matter has Canada, with a bigger population and economy than Scotland yet they have been contributing to UN and other operations for years. As I said earlier if you look at peacekeeping and making around the world over the last quarter century or so you see that the vast majority of those involved have not depolyed by solely national means. You seem to hold to the arguement that unless you can do it all by yourself you can't do anything, which is patently nonsense, as post war history shows it to be totally untrue. On one of the topics on this site I saw photos of Chinese peacekeepers in either Haiti or Puerto Rico, China doesn't have any real long range air transport capacity, and I doubt they sent an assault ship across the Pacific and through the Panama Canal. Does that mean China should disband it's armed forces. The principle difference between what I am suggesting and the likes of Denmark, Holland, or Belguim is that although they don't have anything bigger than a C-130 either, their armies are made up of heavy armour they can't lift and conscript infantry that are too light and not up to the job. What we are suggesting are quality medium weight forces that can be transported by air rapidly to where they are needed. That could be by charter or by allies. I don't see this as a problem because whether we pay for it or the UN does( and believe me the likes of the Japanese would rather contribute by paying to transport us than sending their own), there will never be a shortage of people asking us to help and willing to help us. If Scotland was to offer to send an Infantry regiment to Basra, do you really think Blair would turn it down, if it meant the RAF providing the air lift. Nonsense, hell he'd probably offer to pay the bill for the transport and the bloody deployment. People will help us deploy because they will want us too, which makes putting the money in to the core deployable capability that will do the long hard bit in theatre at the expense of the high cost transport capability that you will only use intermitantly the smart thing to do. When there is already sufficent Naval capacity in Western Europe to see off any credible threat for decades ( Britain and France along have two of the worlds top five Navies), why should Scotland waste money augmenting it. What Europe lacks ( and needs) are quality medium wait forces and people willing to send them, not the assault ships to take them. Britain, France, Italy, and Spain all have the capacity to lift a medium weight Battalion for someone else, and at no time in the last twenty years, has their been a day that at least one of them didn't have a capable ship sitting doing nothing that could do it. The alternative is to do waht Denmark does at build two 6,300, Patrol frigates with a RoRO deck that are big and expensive for patrol and fishery protection, and can only just transport a full medium weight battalion between them. I say it again why replicate or add to an existing provision when you are well placed to contribute something that is short supply. Scotland has a proud military tradition, based particularly round the army. We are good at it and it's in need and will be for the forseeable future so for me it makes sense to focus on enhancing what we are good at, rather than trying to do at little bit of everything because, that will somehow prove we are doing it properly. Final point, (for now). In terms of the debate on Scottish Independence, Defence doesn't even show on the radar. Virtually no one in Scotland will make a decision on the basis of the defence debate. Indeed if you check the net you'll be hard pressed to even find there is one. Because I mentioned it here people might have picked it up as if having our own army was the reason for Scottish independence. It's not, for most Scots for or against, it's probably just in the top ten and for ninety percent plus, not in the top five. What I am talking about and working on is the kind of defence budget an incoming Scottish government could expect to have, and the type armed force we could and shouldcreate with it. Other than the SNP (and believe me, not even many of them) no one is considering any of these questions, not even thinking about them.. It's a bit like saying " Should we have a plan to get the kids out if the kitchen goes on fire". and answering " No theres no point, the kitchens not going to go on fire". Lets turn this about Lars, Flame and GSX, (you can play too Steve). Lets assume that whether you support it or not, or want it, the SNP form part of the next Scottish execuitive in May 2007 and get an Independence referendum in 2008. No likely but certainly possible, (The part of government in 2007 is areal possibility). If we were to win and you had to put together a meaningful armed force for £2bn in todays money, that could defend the country against current threats and make a contribution abroad, what you you do, how would you organise it. Oh and just in case you try to dodge round it I'll put it like this " Your Boss says, " Things are tight Lads so i want a plan to improve your departments performance next year but with a 20% budget cut", If you say " It can't be done Boss", the first part of next years 20% saving will be your wages, if you get my drift. The issue isn't "Do I want an independant Scotland with it's own army", it's " if there was one how would you do it". Peter.

GSX No it's not written down as such it's a combination of things we have discussed and my own thoughts, the things I am arguing for, the whole thing is pretty fluid and I am not sure how much of my views will make it to a review by 2007 , or whether the party will even endorse it. I'd suspect a total force to be all volunteer in the region of 15,000 possibly 16,000, roughly equivelent to our population share of the UK's target of 180,000 by 2008. I'd roughly put the army at about 10,000, which is 66%, I think the Uk target of 105,000 for the Army works out about 60% of total all service uniformed personnel. I think the Navy would be slightly larger than the Irish, but not in the sense of larger ships, but in having probably more ISV's of the NZ type. Again this is very small by RN standard but sufficent for the size of Scotlands waters and the level of threat for the next decade or so. We would have a combat capable airforce ( in part it would have a maritime strike role, to compensate for the lack of any large naval vessels), probably based around a single type of fighter, more in the F-16 class than Tornado, but the type is open. Size of the combat arm would be lower than Norway and Denmark and more akin to the type of orders the Poles Hungarians and Czechs are looking at. As to Nato, Ireland, Finland , Austria, ( the closest in size to Scotland) plus Sweden and Switzerland get by fine out of Nato, and economically they have all raced ahead of Scotland. Looking at the Nations clamouring to get in most are choosing the best option for them given there economic situation and recent history. But because it makes sense for them doesn't mean it makes sense for us, that in a sense ids what independence is about, the freedom to choose. If you look at the arc of countries around us you have Ireland, neutral low spending, Iceland Nato, no army, Norway Nato just under 2% GDP ( and a policy of no Nuclear weapons on it's soil), Finland, neutral about 1.5%, Denmark Nato about 1,6%, UK Nato 2.4%. We are surrounded by a range of options each different, no two the same. The UK has the NHS, most of Europe has private health insurance, does that mean the UK is wrong and should abandon the NHS , or just different. Most of the Nato members of Europe have conscription, are you in favour of that for the UK, or should we be free to make our own choices about our own armed forces. As too disbanded Regiments, for me the most effective and sensible way to organise for deployment is around a core regiment with the ability to deploy it whole or part of it. If you assume a profile of 6 months deployed and two years home, then to sustain a long term deployment you need five Regiments. However this leaves no slack to deal with an emergency or crisis. Therefore in order to give minimum cover without over stretch you need a minimum of six, one out in say in Bosnia, four home on rotation, and one spare to cover an emergency like, Dafur , Sierra Leon, or East Timor. The ability to contribute to one long term Un mission and the capacity to offer short term support to meet a rapidly emerging new problem seems a reasonable contribution for a nation of only 5 million. it's probably more than denmark or Norway do. I know if you check the press or Hansard you'll only find SNP MP's talking about HIstoric this or that and a betrayal of our brave boys and tradition, but thats jsut politicians points scoring or playing politics for votes. The arguement for six medium weight and reinforced combined arms regiments similair to British battle groups or use BCT Stryker Battalions, is about how best to organise an army of 10,00o men to meet our objectives. Pensions is an issue but not insurmountable. it's true that because the proportion of Scots in the British armed forces being proportionally higher, means that we will have to foot a larger proportion for a long time, whether they live in Scotland or not. But well we'll have to live with that, it's not ideal but nor is in major. If you renage or short change on things like that it's false economy as it just ends up undermining recruitment and retention. We'll also probably have to pick up the tab at some point for GW syndrome as well. I big problem is that by committing only 2% of GDP compared to the UK's 2.4% while having roughly the same proportional size of armed forces, is that to match or better Uk terms and conditions, ( a necessity in a competitive labour market), then the proportion of spending on personell will probably have to rise from the currennt UK 40% to around 50%. This necessitates cutting procurement back from the UK 35-40% to probably 20-25% ( with the difference increase spending on general support). That looks bad, but it's one of the reasons for the samll navy reduce airforce, and medium weight forces like stryker instead of Challenger and Warrior. To an extent it's the balance every nation makes between an army with great pay and conditions but crap equipment and a well Superbly equiped army that no one will join becasue of the crap money. As I tend to feel that the UK for too long has spend to much on Big high tech war fighting stuff, particularly for the RN and RAF,, to the detriment of the man on the ground who has been doing the real ahrd work for the last five decades in the army, it's not surprising that the model I support redresses the balance. Even if you use 8% of UK GDP for Scotland ( which excludes oil), If you look at the current and up coming programmes, Astute, New Carrier, JSF, Typhoon, Type 45, and ultimately trident replacement, then 8% of that is more than double what it would cost to put in place the level of Kit I have described, so the lower procurement figure is adequate, (tight but we can do it). I'd rather have quality, medium, well maintained kit for everyday tasks, manned by well trained and paid personell, than heavy high tech, poorly supported, kit we rarely use, manned by people who were overstretch, over burdened and poorly paid and who increasing feel that there best efforts wil only get them another kick in the teeth from their own government. Peter.

Lars Well as the Royal Navy is reorganising itself towards expeditionary and Littoral warfare, a policy we generally don't support, why should we mind about taking money from the Royal Navy. If you look at my points on similiarity to Nez Zealand, and to an extent Denmark, you see a clear choice. Either Scottish tax payers money goes to the UK to fund a blue water navyii'll suited and not even deployed to defend Scotlands waters or interests, or it can go to build a Scottish Navy specifically designed to defend Scotlands particular interests. As to defeding an island Nation, neither Scotland, England or Wales are island nations, they are nations on an island, which is a different thing. I am not keen to hare off on peacekeeping but i do think it's important and where we can make a meaningful contribution for our size. The alternative suggest is to invest in a Blue Water navy when there is no credible threat, Russian isn't a danger for the forseeable future, England is an ally and Norway and Denmark Friends. What would a big navy be for, to intimidate Ireland and Iceland. You see ireland as a free loader, well from their point of view spending your tax payers money replicating or enhancing existing the already abundant naval capacity of a region with a historically low level of threat doesn't make much sense. As a Scot I'll remind you of Adam Smith and the analogy of the Light House. Everyone using the port wants it for saftey but no one wants to pay for it, so it's a game of trying to get everyone to pay while evryone tries to wriggle out of paying. You can be all moral about it or you can do what most people do, try to get your allies to fork out as much as possible so that you can spend as little as possible. At the core of the Nato debate about Europe not paying it's way, is essentially attempts by every single Nato member to get away with paying as little as possible by getting allies to fork out more. At the end of the Day the arguement that by spending 0.6% GDP on defence that Ireland is a freeloader compared to Norway that spend three times that, can be countered by the arguement that for spending three times as much Norway is no more secure or safe than Ireland. Without reinforcing the sterotype of mean Scots..... "If Your Dumb Enough to Pay for It, We're Smart Enough to Let You"..... If that seems cynical it is, but then it's what everyone else does, and if you don't see that, you are looking at international relations, even between allies, athrough reinforced rose tinted glasses. Peter.

GSX, doubt it was a Mig 21 lancer, I know the late Mig 21's had a similar buldge behind the cockpit, but as far as I recall no Mig variant ever had a mid wing fence stake, so I am pretty sure it wasn't a Mig. Peter.

Bigduke6 Iam pretty much with you on this, just because you have a capacity or weapon doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it. Over the last decade or so we have seen a series of short conflicts where damage done has taken years to repair. We now have the capcity to do in ten days damage to infrastructure that can take ten years to repair. But if in that ten years you force an entire people to suffer for the crimes of a regeme that they probably hated, then you run the real risk of alienating a generation. I think there is a strong arguement for at least the reassment of the utility of strategic targeting in the short term in light of the potential long term effects. It's a possible case of the law of unintended consequences, where in an attempt to achieve a desired outcome you also create a different unexpected negitive outcome, that may out weigh the short term benefit you wanted. Peter.

John, We'll we have BAe in Govan, but thats not Scottish, amd we have Ferranti in Edinburgh, which i think is now part of Finnamechanica (?), and we also have Raytheon in Edinburgh too. What we actually have is some good R&D technical people and manufacturing, but it's all divisons of foreign companies. Having said that thats becoming pretty much the European norm, with a few big trans european players with facilities scattered across countries. In addition when you look at the big projects you see that they now tend to be one or two big players leading an alliance of a whole series of smaller companies, below which is a host of subcontractors some of whom are doing work for more than one consortium bidding for the same contract. In general I think a lot of politicains who talk about "Our Defence Industries", don't seem to understand just how global the buisness now is and how blurred national demarkation has become. So I don't see us Having a sort of "Scottish Aerospace", to match Bae, but I think divisons of defence companies with Scottish facilities will continue. The order for a BVR missile would be an example. The current to contenders are Meteor and AAMRAM, both of which arebuilt by consortium who have facilities in Edinburgh, so what ever one we went for we would in theory have a winner and a loser. Ultimately the extent to which a nation of Scotlands size can have successful defence industries depends on the ability of the businesses in Scotland, to get orders based on quality and price, whether they be Scottish companies or part of an International one. What a nation of Scotlands size can't really do, is keep them alive by feeding them orders or even off set, because we just won't be buying enough to keep them going. Thats not to say that we won't try to get as much Scottish content in as we can, but the break off point must be when in order to get a share of the buisness, you start to compromise on the kit. Peter.

The issue for me isn't what exactly the weapon used might have been, but whether a decision was made that the city would be treated as a kind of "Free Fire Zone" and that having be told, and warned to leave, any civilians who hadn't left were effectively beyond protection or consideration. I've seen estimates of anything from 10 to 30 thousand of the quarter million population having decided to stick it out. I've know idea how many of these might have ended up as casualties. One of the Things that got me about the whole WMD debate was they way in which Chemical and Biological weapons were raised to being on a par with nukes. From what I've read about the use of chemical weapons from WW1, and Biological by the likes of the Japanese, they may be pretty nasty weapons, but in terms of magnatude, not much worse than Napalm, or Cluster Bombs or Carpet bombing. I remember reading about the attack by Saddam on Hallabja(?), and in seems to have up to 48hrs of bombing and artillery with a mix of chemicals. The air attack was repeated strikes lasting about 45 minutes or so with 15 minute intervals in groups of six to eight aircraft for up to eight hours a day. Now if we take that as accurate and say an SU-22 could carry about 3ton or 3,000ltrs, then a flight would deploy about about 20,000ltrs, and each day they would deliver say 150,00ltrs. Now that means that a quarter of a million litres over two days killed 5,000 people ( another 20,000 injured and still suffering). Now thats a terrible crime and I am not trying to minimise the horror of it, but it works out at 500 ltrs per death... Now that for me raises two questions, We were told the Stuff Saddam had, could kill hundreds with a single spoonfull so either someone was vastly over stating it's lethality in real world situations, or the stuff dropped wasn't that potent. Secondly, if the same number of aircraft had been used for the same length of time, using conventional iron bombs, Napalm or cluster bombs, wouldn't the death toll have been if anything higher. Peter.

Does that mean that CM:SF will come in a Packet.... Peter.

flamingknives, You might have missed it but a while back I said one difference was that I tended to see the likes of Stryker as a backup to traditional British style infantry as opposed to the full US BCT concept. In this respect I am very much for patrols on foot with the LAV or the likes in Support, I read somewhere that is how the Australian used theirs in East Timor. Given the danger of ambush and mines,etc, it is better to have your people have protection when they need to move by vehicle, but that isn't the same as having them tied to them or fight from them. It full combat they can, but in counter insurgency the more you mix with the people you need to win over the better. The LAV or Stryker has an advantage that unlike Tracked armour it doesn't rip up soft roads, alienating the local population like Bradleys would. I am in too minds about going for an amphibious version, as in lots of places infrastructure is almost none existant ( or dissappears in the rainy season), so it gives you flexibility without needing to have a lot of bridging equipment. In addition, domestically Scotland has a huge amount of mountainous terrain, lochs , rivers and bog land, not to mention forestry roads and single track roads with narrow bridges, so a relatively narrow wheeled option makes far more sense than something wide with tracks. Peter.

Steve, How will RT work in a scenario where one player has a far larger force to move than the other, say an ambush on a convoy where one palyer has a small largely hidden, dormant force that needs little ordering, and the other has multiple units to move and coordinate. Peter.

Precious Space........ For gods sake M1 what do you think this is The Louvre.... Peter