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Hamas invaded Israel 2023

  • Thread starter Thread starter McG
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Would RCN have the ability to replenish any warshots it fired at this point?

The old PRO Class AORs had a large multi floor magazine the with intent to keep the fighting ships fed with munitions while underway.

My understanding of Asterix is it does not have the same capability and is more of a traditional oiler. I'm not sure is the incoming JSS will have it or not.

Having said that our ability to replenish missiles is a very real logistical issue that will smack us in the face. And so long as a conflict is low intensity I can expect our allies to assist, but should it heat up I expect they will be more wary to give up their expensive and limited stocks.

Again large warehouses full of stuff just in case is the best practice for a military. Is that us ? No.
 
Not to mention cost. An SM-2 starts at ~0.5mil. How expensive are the drones that they are shooting down?
I was wrong by a long shot.

SM2s are just over $2mil a piece and even the ESSM is $1.8mil. JFC.
 
I was wrong by a long shot.

SM2s are just over $2mil a piece and even the ESSM is $1.8mil. JFC.
Buy more you can get them cheaper. ;)

But I agree with the prognosis above that DE systems and other methods will see testing in that AO soon simply as launching missiles at a bunch of cheap drones isn’t very cost effective.
 
The old PRO Class AORs had a large multi floor magazine the with intent to keep the fighting ships fed with munitions while underway.

My understanding of Asterix is it does not have the same capability and is more of a traditional oiler. I'm not sure is the incoming JSS will have it or not.

Having said that our ability to replenish missiles is a very real logistical issue that will smack us in the face. And so long as a conflict is low intensity I can expect our allies to assist, but should it heat up I expect they will be more wary to give up their expensive and limited stocks.

Again large warehouses full of stuff just in case is the best practice for a military. Is that us ? No.


I went looking to see if I could find something I thought I remembered from a while back. What I thought I remembered was that the deck house on the forecastle of the Asterix was intended for container storage, to be used in conjunction with the deck cranes, and that that is where munitions were to be stored using the standard TEUs designed for transporting munitions. Was I mis-remembering all that? I couldn't find the reference.

What I did find was this:


The Deployability of Motor Vessel ASTERIX​

RUSI(NS) StaffFebruary 25, 20180 CommentsAOR,RCN

In February 2018 media started reporting about whether MV Asterix, a containership converted and contracted to serve as an interim auxiliary replenishment oiler (AOR) for the Royal Canadian Navy, would be able to deploy into ‘war zones.’ An early example of the reporting is Navy’s new resupply vessel won’t be able to deploy into war zones.”

In response a position was distributed amongst RUSI(NS) analysts that the matter of merchant ships, especially ones under naval control as is Asterix, entering a war or exclusion or any other declared zone, is a huge area of maritime law. A merchant ship will enter a zone depending on a risk analysis of the requirement and benefits versus (usually insurance) costs. Individual mariners onboard the ship will make the same assessment – what is the risk versus what will they be paid.

The following comments are from an experienced mariner in response to the above statements.

These statements captured the salient points for a merchant ship entering a war zone. It is about the risk and who is willing to accept it. Look south at the US Military Sealift Command. The Americans have subsidized the building of US flag merchant ships for US companies with the contract requirements that they can be called up in the service of the country in times of war/conflict.

If I were a ship owner and my ships are sailing under a flag of convenience (FOC) with no obligation to any nation state to provide my ships for service in a war zone, I am going to maximize my profit no matter what I do. Imagine a Chinese owned shipping company, with Chinese government representatives on the board of directors, operating ships under FOC. The company is not likely going to offer to carry war supplies and materiel that is not in their interest.

This has always been one of the touch stone arguments for the Jones Act which protects US shipping and encourages flagging merchant ships in the USA.

As for the merchant ship crews, they have to be compensated in accordance with the risk they assume. This is no different than a Canadian Navy member or Canadian soldier who goes to a war zone. Those military members have received preferential tax considerations while deploying overseas in the past and since May 2017 they no longer pay any income tax whilst deployed. This in addition to the hardship and risk allowances they receive. The civilian mariners in Asterix wouldn’t mind a bit of that!

The tone of the article in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald is negative. The impression is that senior naval staff are trying to shine a negative light on the whole Asterix project being managed by Fleet Federal Services (FFS). We hear the same old stories about how the vessel cannot go into a war zone and that she has civilian crews with an unwritten connotation that they are not reliable or capable, they are cowardly and they will fail to respond or turn into greedy opportunists if given the opportunity.

There is an easy fix. Use the same system the British Royal Navy uses for their Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) officers and crew. Since 2003 RFA officers and crews have been appointed special members of the Naval Reserve deemed sponsored reserves. If they are called up, they are contractually required to serve a minimum of nine months at a specified rate.

It would likely be easier to send the Canadian Joint Support Ships (JSS) into a war or hot zone because they are owned by the government and like all government resources are self-funded for insurance. If the government is willing to risk losing an asset it can be sent. The ships’ companies will be Canadian Armed Forces and can be compensated by decreasing or eliminating their tax burden.

But one has to ask: Why would any competent commander send a lightly armed, highly valuable asset that provides the supply line for the more heavily armed combatants into “harm’s way?” Even a JSS?

Senior naval staff should be singing the high praises for the Asterix program. It is possibly the first procurement program in the history of the Canadian Navy that came in on time and on budget and solves the Navy’s biggest problem. They should be asking for the Obelix, sister ship to Asterix!

The government should scrap the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS) project now and buy or lease four ice breakers that FFS have to offer and give them to Canadian Coast Guard (CCG). Arm them if they must be armed. They would not be the first armed civilian vessels. I commanded two CCG ships at various times – both armed with heavy machine guns and civilian armed boarding teams. Take the money AOPS was going to cost and use that to fund a true blue water (globally deployable) navy. This would not be the first time a ship program was cancelled – the CCG Alert-class was supposed to be six ships. The project was cancelled after the first ship. The government had to pay for Expo 67.

The British are procuring four new AOR. The hulls are being built in Korea; they will eventually be finished in the United Kingdom. See reporting about the Tide-class tanker and check out the procurement costs! The Australians are doing the same. The major navies of the world, certainly the USA and UK for certain, run their supply ships using civilians. Canada will do well doing the same.
 

Netanyahu’s tactics are weakening Israel​

Hamas’s jihadist ideology must be defeated – but Israel’s methods will only boost that hate-filled creed
BEN WALLACE17 December 2023 • 9:12pm
Ben Wallace



CREDIT: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP
There isn’t a single soldier who served in Northern Ireland who didn’t curse, at one time, the events of Bloody Sunday under his breath. The hours spent in the bogs of South Armagh, or the back streets of West Belfast were testament to a conflict that had been ignited by the events on that day in 1972.
It took more than two decades for the Troubles to come to an end and it did so when Nationalists recognised that the IRA didn’t have its wellbeing and economic interests at heart and when British governments accepted that while you could deliver security you couldn’t arrest your way out of the problems and political schisms. As sure as night follows day, history shows us that radicalisation follows oppression.
Northern Ireland internment taught us that a disproportionate response by the state can serve as a terrorist organisation’s best recruiting sergeant. For many, watching the events in Gaza unfold each day makes us more and more uncomfortable.
Let me start by saying I am unequivocal in my condemnation of Hamas, not only for what it did on October 7, but also for what came before. Its charter reads like the constitution of a jihadist Salafi organisation. It is anti-Semitic and anti-democratic. It isn’t interested in peaceful co-existence with Israel, or Egypt, for that matter.
Hamas is not interested in a two-state solution either. No – it is interested in a religious war with Jews, using Palestinians as cannon fodder. So, I absolutely defend Israel’s right to defend itself.
But I also believe strongly in our obligations under the Geneva Conventions and expect all signatories to uphold them. Going after Hamas is legitimate; obliterating vast swathes of Gaza is not. Using proportionate force is legal, but collective punishment and forced movement of civilians is not.
We are entering a dangerous period now where Israel’s original legal authority of self-defence is being undermined by its own actions. It is making the mistake of losing its moral authority alongside its legal one.
I am sure that the shame Benjamin Netanyahu feels for not foreseeing the October 7 attacks is deep, especially for someone who presented himself as a security hawk and tough guy. But perhaps that shame is driving him to lose sight of the long term.
Netanyahu’s mistake was to miss the attack in the first place. But if he thinks a killing rage will rectify matters, then he is very wrong. His methods will not solve this problem. In fact, I believe his tactics will fuel the conflict for another 50 years. His actions are radicalising Muslim youth across the globe.
When all this is over, and the IDF withdraws from what is left of Gaza, there will still be Hamas. All the action will have achieved is the extinction, not of the extremists, but the voice of the moderate Palestinians who do want a two-state solution.
International sympathy will have expired and Israel will be forced to exist in an even greater state of siege.
Before anyone says I am calling for a ceasefire with Hamas – I am not. You can’t have a ceasefire with Hamas unless they are prepared to declare one; even then they would have to pledge to modify their charter to do so.
What I am saying is Israel needs to stop this crude and indiscriminate method of attack. And it needs to combat Hamas differently.
Israel needs to recognise it has time on its side. It holds all the cards – from control of the air to control of the border. It is easy to wonder what has happened to the wise Israeli politicians of old. They would have never missed the signs of the attack nor would they have surrendered to political blackmail from militant illegal settlers. They would have never played footsie with Putin, while Russian money fuelled the Iranian rocket and drone industry. They understood balance in the region and practically wrote the book on “divide and rule”.
But lack of wisdom in a new generation of Israel politicians has led them to a place where they act like a bull in a China shop – crashing from one crisis to another.
The Israeli ambassador defiantly states there can be no two-state solution. She is wrong. There must be. It has been the answer ever since the creation of modern-day Israel.
The path to peace, just like in Northern Ireland, means we have to keep trying and do all we can to marginalise the extremes. With the Oslo accords we came close to realising a two-state solution. Now is the time to re-energise that process.

Rt Hon Ben Wallace is Conservative MP for Wyre and Preston North and served as Secretary of State for Defence from 2019 to 2023

 
Alternative viewpoint. Maybe Netanyahu is intentionally killing the two state solution because him and his extremists do not want it. They want the full annexation of Palestine, the holy land, not a side by side solution.

If they were interested in a two state solution they wouldn’t have been fanning the flames before this with the settlers and other crimes.
 
Alternative viewpoint. Maybe Netanyahu is intentionally killing the two state solution because him and his extremists do not want it. They want the full annexation of Palestine, the holy land, not a side by side solution.

If they were interested in a two state solution they wouldn’t have been fanning the flames before this with the settlers and other crimes.

Alternative vievpoint.

The Arabs rejected the two state solution on November 30,1947. Nothing has changed.
 
Egypt isn’t stupid.


Manitoba NDP however…
doesn't know his history though. 'Refugees' from Palestine have been waiting to go home since 1947, hasn't happened yet and those countries that have taken them in have lived to regret it
 
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