The Lens of History: Episode Seven singer Jiggley Jones

     

Singer Jiggley Jones joins Luke Herbert on the couch for a chat about his music career and his interest in the American Civil War.

The coming Third Battle of the Atlantic

The annexing of Crimea liberated the Sevastopol naval base from Ukrainian restrictions and by 2016 the Black Sea fleet will have received 6 new Grigorovich-class frigates, 6 improved Kilo-class submarines and several missile corvettes. Meanwhile the Northern fleet is starting to receive the new Borei class SSBNs and the Yassen SSGNs. Both classes have had a long and difficult construction history and the Borei’s have had serious problems with their Bulava missiles but the first vessel was declared fully operational in 2014.

 The event put the media spotlight on the dangerous lack of UK Maritime Patrol Aircraft, as it was forced to call on NATO partners for help. 2 US Navy P3 Orions, a French Atlantique and a Canadian Aurora arrived at RAF Lossiemouth to support the a hunt. 

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My aim is to present the reader with part two of my response to the excellent op -ed from the Save The Royal Navy Campaign. Previously I have had the privilege of chatting with Peter Sandeman about many of the issues that the Royal Navy is facing today.


In part one I presented the reader with my argument behind why I believe the Russia's economic strategy has been designed to prepare the country for a war against NATO. The reader will also find the timeline for the coming war in part one of this piece. Part two is my hypothesis on how the Third Battle of the Atlantic will play out from the stand point of the UK.


At the risk of offending the American and Canadian reader I will be omitting both countries naval and air forces. The contributions of the United States and Canadian navies and air forces to the battle do unfortunately fall beyond the scope of this article. Space doesn't permit me to delve into the issues around the UK shipyards,Royal Navy Submarine force and how the convoy system would be implemented at the outbreak of war.



This article will offer a broad look at what factors will be at work during the coming Third Battle of the Atlantic. What the reader will not find is a discussion on the capabilities of each class of Russian and Royal Navy warship and submarines and how they match up. My aim is to reach the general reader and the reader who has an interest in military affairs by presenting fresh analysis and not covering old ground , or should that be previously charted waters.

Russian air and naval forces will conduct Area Access and Area Denial operations against the coastlines of the UK ,East coast of the USA and out in the Atlantic. Essentially the goal of the Russians will be to blockade the UK until food supplies run out . By starving out the UK the Russian's will be able to take the UK out of the war and there conquest of western Europe will go unchallenged. 

Providing that Royal Navy and Air Force planners have created contingency plans for the Third Battle of the Atlantic they will be working on the assumption that the enemies air and naval forces will be operating from their home bases. I believe the notion of Russian forces being confined to operating from Russia will be proven incorrect.


After the Russians have occupied Poland and Germany they will invade France and the low countries. The dividends from the occupation of France will be the ports along the Bay of Biscay. By shifting there submarine fleet to Ports like Brest the Russian Navy will have open access to the Atlantic.


The obvious historical parallels would be how after the fall of France in 1940 German U-boats opened the cork on the first Happy Time after they began operating from ports along the Bay of Biscay. The biggest handicap the Germans faced in the first Happy Time and before the USA entered World War 2 was they lacked the number of U-boats in service, pre-war planning had calculated they would need to win the war. One cannot rely on the Russians making the same mistake.


Russian submarines, land based aircraft and carrier based aircraft will be tasked with attacking convoys of merchant ships. The convoy system is going to be operating under some server if not fatal handicaps that I will deal with below.


The role of sea mines in Russian naval doctrine has perhaps been understated because western observers are not on the eight ball. Russia's Navy and Air Force will use sea mines to bottle up merchant ships in harbors and close down sea lanes/convoy routes.

The budgetary cutbacks that successive governments have made to the Royal Navy and Air Force will see them start the battle short handed. As for the Royal Navy they will start the battle with too few frigates. Frigates are and will be the workhorse of Anti Submarine Warfare. The main duty of the workhorses will be the role escorting convoys. The importance of this role cannot be understated.


The absence of Royal Air Force maritime patrol aircraft will allow Russian Submarine's the freedom to converge on Convoy's unhindered. Consider it in terms of eye sight. The maxim range the workhorses to detect and destroy enemy subs will be the range of the accompanying helicopters making them akin to being legally blind. By the same token the Russians will have 20/20 vision across the whole ocean.


The convoys will be be easily located by enemy forces mainly because of the following reasons. In size the Atlantic Ocean is a duck pond which will confine the convoys to predictable East – West routes. Warfare isn't the game cricket: Russian maritime patrol aircraft/bombers will roam the Atlantic pinpointing the location of the convoys.


Having been located the convoy's will come under a coordinated attack from enemy submarines ,aircraft and at times surface vessels. The convoy's defenses will be overwhelmed leaving the merchant ships to be sunk in less time someone will spend watching there favorite prime time TV show.


The lessons from the last Battle of the Atlantic concerning the loss of shipping in the gap that existed in Allied air coverage (known as the Air Gap) ; starting the war with insufficient Anti Submarine Warfare capabilities and to few workhorses are long forgotten.


At the outset of the war the enemy will enjoy a Happy Time as the price for the forgotten lessons. You can be assured that the price in blood and ships lost will shock the uninformed observer or residents of the UK who spent the years leading up to the battle in a slumber.

The Russian economy is on a war footing

With an iron grip on his domestic media, Putin remains popular at home as the ‘strong man’ and a recent poll found 64% of Russians would like a return of the Soviet Union while only 26% wanted an immediate end to the war with Ukraine. Despite growing economic problems caused by Western sanctions and a dramatic drop in oil prices, Putin is committed to a 33% rise in defence spending in 2015. The plan announced in 2012 for an ambitious rearmament program through 2020 is valued at 20 trillion rubles ($500 billion). $132 billion is allocated for upgrades to the navy and in particular the submarine fleet. The effects of this growing investment which has been happening in earnest since 2008, is already being felt on the frontline.

While the Russians almost certainly have no intention of attacking the UK or US, their increasing strength is a powerful diplomatic lever that is being applied by Putin who seeks out weakness and exploits opportunities. Demonstrations of military power in the face of irresolute Western leadership gives Russia confidence to invade and intimidate its neighbours. 

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My aim is to present the reader with part one of my response to the excellent op -ed from the Save The Royal Navy Campaign. Previously I have had the privilege of chatting with Peter Sandeman about many of the issues that the Royal Navy is facing today.

In part one I will show the reader why I believe the Russia's economic strategy has been designed to prepare the country for a war against NATO. Part two will be my hypothesis on how the Third Battle of the Atlantic will play out.

Russia's economic turmoil can in short be can be put down to Vladimir Putin's regime being a oligarchy, institutional corruption ,population loss and a lack of foreign investment. Space doesn't permit me to do a fuller analysis of the structural issues plaguing the Russian economy.

Putin's regime is not in a position to undertake economic and political reforms even if they desired such a course of action. The industrialists who control the country wealth would not permit any government to threaten their status as the ruling elite.

In the eyes of most western observers Russia is gaining traction towards an economic collapse and the toppling of Putin's government. Such a conclusion in my view defies rational logic because no sound reason exists why Putin would want such an event to occur. If the Russian economy did pancake the likely outcome would be a civil war and Putin ultimate demise.

So if Russia isn't speeding towards a second civil war and they won't cure the terminal patient just what is afoot? Putin has placed the Russian economy on a war footing. Consumer goods and the rest of the domestic economy are being sacrificed so the country's military modernisation programs can be funded. Put simply the only reason for a country to go on a war footing, is well to go to war.

I believe that a historical parallel is to the policy of rearmament undertaken by Nazi Germany in the 1930's . Who some people today might call “bankers” bankrolled the German economy/rearmament . In effect the “bankers” placed a band aid on bleeding that really needed stitches. While equipping the future German war machine the band aid on the German economy that stopped any bleeding until the outbreak of World War 2.

Russia will gobble up the Ukraine and other eastern Europe countries like Estonia. This is and will be very akin to the way Hitler was able incorporate Austria and Czechoslovakia into the Third Reich without firing a shot. In the coming war Russia is set to the fill the role of aggressor in Europe the very role Nazi Germany played in the Second World War.

In five years time the Russians will have completed their program of military modernisation. In my estimation Russian forces will begin there invasion of Poland and Western Europe sometime between 2020 and 2025. The exact timing will depend on how long the band aid holds on the Russian economy;to what degree Russian military commanders wish to conduct training/manoeuvres with the upgraded military hardware and Putin's own personal wishes.

In spite of the fact they lean towards ruling out the notion that Russia intends attacking the UK and the USA , Peter Sandeman and the Save the Royal Navy Campaign will still be in the minority who end up on the right side of history. I do not wish to see the reader devalue the work done by the Save the Royal Navy Campaign because of this article. I would like the reader to consider how important the Royal Navy would be to the very survival of the UK in the event that events do take a nasty turn in the next five to ten years.

The very fact that The Save the Royal Navy Campaign exists is proof that the majority of people have not learned the lessons my grandfather generation paid for in blood during World War 2. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The evolution of Chinese tank design

China has designed a new light tank for operations in the high-altitude rugged terrain in Tibet region which borders India. The new tank has a light weight and a powerful diesel engine suitable for oxygen-deficit environments, according to huanqiu.com, a well-informed website which is a chosen platform to reveal advances in China's military modernization and defence technology.

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Opinion piece by Luke Herbert

The Chinese twin developmental pathway of land based and amphibious tanks is a reflection of their current and future strategic ambitions. China's strategic ambitions can be said on their disputed border with India and territorial ambitions in Asia. China's disputed border region with India is a mountainous region. The geography of China's territorial ambitions in Asia is to varied to document in this article.

I believe that The People's Liberation Army has pursued a twin developmental pathway in the field of tank design. The yet to named light tank does from the limited amount of information available appear to be aimed at the disputed border with India and The People's Liberation Army land warfare doctrines. As for the evolving People's Liberation Army's ,Air Force's and Navy's amphibious doctrine the ZTD-05 Amphibious assault tank armored vehicle (hereafter the ZTD-05) is fore mentioned light tank cousin from another mother manufacturing plant.

Could this newly unveiled tank spawn an amphibious variant? Naturally I can't give the reader answer for certain as the Chinese aren't kind enough to supply me with blueprints. My instinctive feeling is that the answer is no due too the different demands placed on machinery by thin air and cold temperatures mountain regions and sea ward amphibious environments.

One caveat I would add is that if the ZTD-05 is a working project and not a production model the tank hatch is open to my above assertion being incorrect . One might say using a light tank as the design or DNA basis for the sisters the People's Liberation Army is seeking as an additional family member. If the sisters are non identical twins they could give birth to the tanks in the developmental pathway I mentioned above.

The sisters DNA will be that of a gun carrier that will support the infantry in combat operations. The reader may want to consider the possibility that the Chinese have developed a medium tank which have they mislabeled in an effort to fool foreign observers and intelligence agency's. In a future war aside from supporting infantry: a medium tank would make for a good spear head good for the People's Liberation Army as they invade the Philippines and Borneo to name two places.

Chinese nationalistic pride gives credence to the idea that the design of a light tank is complicated in comparison to its predecessor. The Chinese neither desire or have a requirement for a complicated main battle tank which would equal or better the M1 Abrams , the main battle tank in service with the US Army. I believe the People's Liberation Army procurement will have been for a tank with standard thermal imaging equipment; armor to protect the crew from RPG, IED and small arms fire. The tanks gun will be powerful enough to destroy embedded machine gun posts and the occasional enemy armored unit they encounter.

I cannot stress enough how a simpler design allows for mass production of the tank in viable numbers to allow for the replacement of wartime losses and equipping new units. Ease of maintenance is the other essential component of any war time design. The need for the People's Liberation Army to place a “complicated “ tank design in operational service is non existent because a fairy straight forward “simple” design can meet war time and operational demands.

Sydney Hostage situation a sign of things to come

Mr Abbott has described the siege as an "absolutely appalling and ugly" incident and said it has been one of the most difficult periods in Australia's history.

"This is an incident which has echoed around the world," he said.

"Tens if not hundreds of millions of people right around the world have been focused on the city of Sydney which has been touched by terrorism for the first time in more than 35 years."

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Note to the reader: I delayed posting this entry because of the need to rearrange my thoughts and the Christmas/New Year period.

I would like to point out that that I have written up this entry for the sake of historical record as much as giving my brief take on the events that unfolded in Sydney. In this brief article I do not wish to second guess the actions of the NSW Police or as the American reader might say play Monday Morning Quarterback.

What I am prepared to say on record is that I believe the incident is only the tip of the iceberg. In the near future terrorist attacked styled on the 2005 London bombings is likely to occur. A terrorist organisation has only to be successful once to pull off a devastating terrorist attack. Law enforcement and other agency’s need to be successful 100% of the time to prevent the worst from happening.     

People's Liberation Air Force jet engine development

Opinion Piece by Luke Herbert

In this article I have chosen not to cover the influence of Russian engineering and design on the research and development of jet engines for the People's Liberation Air force . Nor will the reader find a complete a list of jet engines in service or under going testing for the People's Liberation Air Force. Both points are well documented elsewhere and as such do not meet my aim of bringing the reader content that you will only find under The Lens of History.

I believe that western commentators are short sighted when they are quick to dismiss the Chinese Aviation industry's capacity to develop and manufacture jet engines for the People’s Liberation Air Force Let us take a step back for a moment and consider that while the Chinese engineers will have used the Russian jet engines as the basis of there design work they will have undertaken research and development to meet there own design targets.

Since the need for common components is a tenement of successful mass production of items that can vary from the TV in your living room to aircraft , I believe that versatile jet engine designs that can be use in multiple aircraft designs is a central goal of the Chinese military aviation industry. Likely they will be working on say two variants of a jet engine design one for transport aircraft like the Y-20 and the replacement for the Xian H-6 strategic bomber and the second variant for smaller more nimble aircraft like the J-31 multi role Stealth combat aircraft.

This approach I believe can be seen in the number of variants Shenyang WS-10 jet engine that has been under development for around a decade.

WS-10 – original design producing a thrust of 126 kilonewtons (28,000 lbf) 
WS-10A – improved variant producing a thrust of 130 kilonewtons (29,000 lbf) 
WS-10B – upgraded variant producing a thrust of 135 kilonewtons (30,000 lbf) 
WS-10G – upgraded variant producing a thrust of 155 kilonewtons (35,000 lbf) with Thrust Vectoring and stealthy nozzles that have jagged edges and tiles 

WS-20 – derived variant with high-bypass ratio and none afterburner to power the Y-20 transport. 138 kilonewtons (31,000 lb)

During World War 2 the Merlin engine powered aircraft from the Spitfire to the Lancaster bomber which proved a single aircraft engine design could be very successfully utilised in aircraft that served very different purposes. The example of the Merlin engine also proves that an aircraft engine that can serve multiple design platforms is not unprecedented.

Both the ease of supply of spare parts from a manufacturing standpoint , common repair and maintenance procedures all come with the multiple aircraft engine design approach. The reader may consider this akin to when a common make of car is taken in by its owner for a service both spare parts and qualified auto mechanics are readily available.

Another down side is that greater engine performance that would come from more specialised designs that are paired with an aircraft is sacrificed , but this is within keeping with the Chinese design philosophy that I have outlined above.

The opposite approach of having specialist jet engine designs tied to separate aircraft would be like taking an obscure model and make of car for a service and finding that no qualified auto mechanics or spare parts available. The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is powered by the F135 engine provides the reader with but one example of combat aircraft that the reader could consider as being being the obscure model and make of car in my comparison.

Time and a future war will be the testing ground of my hypothesis that I have presented to the reader. Should I be proven to be correct in a future war United States and allied countries design and production school of thought will change to providing the common make and model of car , err I mean jet engines and aircraft.

New Zealand government lack of sanctions against Russia

Prime Minister John Key says major companies such as Fonterra have been asked not to exploit the gap left by other countries' trade sanctions on Russia because to do so would be a "terrible look" for New Zealand.

Mr Key also revealed that although New Zealand has not officially imposed trade sanctions on Russia, government officials had called in Fonterra and other companies to ask them not to exploit the gap left in the Russian market. Mr Key said it was made clear that would be a terrible look for New Zealand - and while the Government could not stop them doing so, he believed they were acting responsibly.

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Well does anybody really believe that Fonterra will not exploit the openings in the Russian market created by the sanctions imposed by other nations? Companies like Fonterra really only care about their profit margins and opening up new markets. Russia has been an emerging market for New Zealand dairy export's for a number of years before the downing of flight MH17 and the conflict in the Ukraine.

Under the leadership of Prime Minster John Key the New Zealand government has made the decision that maintaining trade relations with Russia is of far greater importance than imposing sanctions. Heck Key's government only official protest laid has come from delaying the negotiation and signing of the New Zealand Russia Free Trade Agreement until an unspecified time.

The Kiwi and the international reader can rightfully John Key as being New Zealand 's Neville Chamberlain. The lack of moral and political condemnation from Key's government is Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement rearing its ugly head in it's most blatant form.

Like the cold hard depth of a Russian winter the sanctions or the lack of them from a Kiwi stand point have had no impact on Putin's regime incursion into the Ukraine. The policy of appeasement has been given a shabby make up job by the countries (including Australian Prime Minster Tony Abbott who shirt fronted himself at the G20 summit ) that have chosen to impose sanctions against Russia over the events in the Ukraine. The New Zealand government has chosen to throw away the Hollywood make up kit and adopt the policy of appeasement in its most naked form.

John Key's government will go down in history as having appeased the Putin regime along with the international community. History will shame the cowardly Kiwi political leaders who have appeased the Adolf Hitler of our time. I can only leave the reader with the following thought, if our political leaders and the vast majority of people have not heeded the hard learned lessons from two world wars what hope do we have of not repeating history?

The coming European war will be the fruits from the tree of appeasement. While the details of how the war will unfold are for another time it can be summarised that Russia will play the role Germany did in World War 2. Put another way Russia will be the aggressor in western Europe starting with Poland and the former East Germany and where there tanks stop rolling is yet to be treadled.