Spain's $680 Million submarine can only dive, not resurface

[The Larch]

I and my team, once had a beautiful front row view of a Spanish Marine Battalion and a Greek Armor company attempt a landing on a beach in Sardinia. It took them half a day to get a beachhead establish and start moving inland. Like watching a bunch of monkeys fucking a football. 

Any guess as to how long it took the US Marine MEU a couple days later?

Sounds like the Spaniards and the Greeks know what they were doing.  If you're on a beach in Sardinia, why would you rush to move inland?  Certainly not until at least 2 rounds of cocktails.

Maybe it was warm and after lunch too.

[Warspite]

Much of the discussion here misses the point. The problem is not that Europe is unable to defend itself; despite waves of reform, most European militaries are still really only capable of operating on home turf in territorial defence.

The problem is the lack of out-of-area capabilities which even the British and French are reducing. Expeditionary capabilities are more expensive because of all the extra enablers you need, from fleet supply ships to deployable headquarters to transport wings.

If Europe faces a security crisis, it will not be on the Eastern frontier, but in the near-abroad in a case where the US has decided it is not in its interests to act.

[Duque de Bragança]

Wasn't there a hit book published around 1912 which argued that traditional big wars were the thing of the past?

Normal Angell's The Great Illusion.
Often mischaracterized.  He did not argue that war would not occur.  He argued that it was futile and counterproductive, which was probably true.

So only Renoir understood it for La Grande (=Great) Illusion?
The meaning of this title is still debated nowadays.

[mongers]

So now that we've observed the ritual of proclaiming all some Europeans as are cheese-eating surrender monkeys, what next ?

I and my team, once had a beautiful front row view of a Spanish Marine Battalion and a Greek Armor company attempt a landing on a beach in Sardinia. It took them half a day to get a beachhead establish and start moving inland. Like watching a bunch of monkeys fucking a football. 

Any guess as to how long it took the US Marine MEU a couple days later?

A bit quicker than these guys ?

[11B4V]

So now that we've observed the ritual of proclaiming all some Europeans as are cheese-eating surrender monkeys, what next ?

I and my team, once had a beautiful front row view of a Spanish Marine Battalion and a Greek Armor company attempt a landing on a beach in Sardinia. It took them half a day to get a beachhead establish and start moving inland. Like watching a bunch of monkeys fucking a football. 

Any guess as to how long it took the US Marine MEU a couple days later?

A bit quicker than these guys ?

Typical jarheads.

Get a fucking helo and lift that thing out of there. A ch-46 and some ADS slings should do the trick. Bunch of knobs.

[Ed Anger]

Air Force tried to send it as an attachment to [email protected]

[11B4V]

 

God knows those wouldnt be wingnuts trying to get that thing out. That would be a straight up violation of their union contract.

*Change in Working Conditions* 

[Admiral Yi]

Air Force tried to send it as an attachment to [email protected]

[mongers]

Typical jarheads.

Get a fucking helo and lift that thing out of there. A ch-46 and some ADS slings should do the trick. Bunch of knobs.

Well I admire their commitment, that thing must weight 5-7 tons ?

No too sure using the barrel as a lever would be a good idea ?

edit:
cool, the thing apparently only weights 3.5 tons assuming it's a M777; pretty impressive engineering to get it that light.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Typical jarheads.

Get a fucking helo and lift that thing out of there. A ch-46 and some ADS slings should do the trick. Bunch of knobs.

Flying a 46 to the beach (while all the other airops are probably going on) to get some arty that got stuck as it was being pulled off an LCAC seems counterproductive vs. just digging it out and continuing to move it to where it needs to go like they appear to be doing. 

[Sheilbh]

You are now putting Germany in the role of France. We don't need a military, war is an anachronism.

I've not finished reading the rest of this thread but this is a gross, gross mischaracterisation of France and particularly egregious from somone from the interwar's greatest shirker

[Sheilbh]

An aggressive authoritarian state without regard for the rule of law invades its democratic neighbor (and perhaps instigates a war with the US), and all you do is shrug? Maybe that's your problem right there.

And moving on, I don't think anyone but the US (and Australia) would do much more than send a supportive note to DC and an angry one to Beijing. There's no European country with any pretension of protecting Pacific countries. The most we'd do is support the US, possibly financially and certainly morally.

There's a reason you never really hear about what Europe thinks when, say, North Korea goes mental - that's your bag. As Obama's said, many times, the US is a Pacific power.

[11B4V]

Typical jarheads.

Get a fucking helo and lift that thing out of there. A ch-46 and some ADS slings should do the trick. Bunch of knobs.

Flying a 46 to the beach (while all the other airops are probably going on) to get some arty that got stuck as it was being pulled off an LCAC seems counterproductive vs. just digging it out and continuing to move it to where it needs to go like they appear to be doing.

Get it out lickty split. Done plenty of slingloads. Work smarter not harder.

[Neil]

If sacrificing Taiwan is the price we have to pay to get Japan to rearm and ready themselves to blanket the PRC with hydrogen bombs, it's worth it.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Get it out lickty split. Done plenty of slingloads. Work smarter not harder.

That's exactly what they're doing, instead of prepping and flying a helo from a ship who knows how many miles off the beach and taking up deck space that could be useful for other purposes.  Like flying more Marines to the area on 53s.