How would you upgrade the Irish Air Corps?
Don't they have a fucking spitfire in their ranks?
They can have our Mig 21 for free :3
Saab makes fairly affordable planes as far as modern fighter jets go.
Unnecessary for such a small nation with so little credible military threats to buy expensive modern fighter planes. If I was in charge of the Irish military I'd focus on counter terrorism units and the coast guard
It's better to have at least one fully working squadron than not have them at all.
Pilots don't grow on trees and it takes thousands of flight hours for them to be competent enough to handle real world scenarios.
Honestly, what does an Irish Air Corps need? The most I can think of is some civil air patrol, recon planes, and maybe a torpedo bird or two for coast guard missions. At least from a fixed-wing standpoint, anyway. Most their missions aren't going far afield to my knowledge.
Ireland doesn't need jet fighters.
If I was them I'd buy Black Hawk or NH90 helicopters for light transport, anti-terror and medevac duties, some armored cars for the case of huge terror attacks, maybe a few turboprop planes like the Super Tucano for light CAS, that's it
Rest should be spent on coast guard boats
Nobody is going to invade Ireland and if the UK or the US would wanna do it Ireland couldn't resist anyway
Honestly I think that dude has a point. Sure, Ireland doesn't really need a strong air service NOW, but you never know what long term needs the country will have. Hell, consider the fact that air forces are typically where the pilots for commercial airlines get their training. Not only is it important from a military standpoint but also a domestic one to have personnel trained in avionics.
I worked with a lot of Irish peacekeepers ages ago, they do a lot of the UN jobs in places where the locals have 'issues' with the devil white man from other countries and tend to be better accepted.
He's talking about keeping the skillset of flying alive in a military, sure you can sit in simulators but at some point the chairforce needs to pack some brown pants and pull some G's. NZ has the the same fucking issue when they sold off all their combat jets and then spent too long figuring out 'oh fuck, we don't actually know what we're doing'... then some time later after that the useless fucks still haven't got any and their pilots can't log jet-hours in anything worth a damn
For Ireland that's not worth it to spend hundreds of millions, probably billions on. Modern air forces are expensive as fuck
>Ireland doesn't need jet fighters.
They do, just not a lot and just enough to cover the entire country for interdiction and intercept duties.
They'd do well with a dozen Gripens or F-16s, no need for Rafales/EF/F-35 shit. Both planes are cheap to operate and parts won't be a problem.
Just because Ireland doesn't throw its weight around like the UK or other continental Yuropean cunts does not mean that Ireland should abandon fighter jets.
Wow Mexico tier
>they do
why? they are not in nato, and are friendly with every single country in their neighbourhood and are right next to a nuclear power that they are on excellent terms with
Military expenditure is a meme. Better to spend that money on healthcare and education since nobody is going to invade us
Bet that's what Belgium thought both times.
This 2bqhwy
They don't buy anything because we protect their airspace for them.
Who's going to invade them? The anglos?
They can't even go about Brexit so what makes you think they'll get invaded
They got unlucky with their location whereas we're relatively isolated. You could argue we could be used as a base to attack Britain but that didn't happen in WWII
Neither the location nor the era are comparable.
Oh you naïve fool. Invading them is the one thing that's guaranteed to save Brexit at this juncture. Think about it, what's the main obstacle right now? The Irish backstop issue yeah? How do you negate that problem wholesale?
By making sure the Republic of Ireland is no longer part of the EU but Britain itself. Suddenly the matter of hard borders between Ireland and Northern Ireland become entirely moot.
Not gonna happen you dumb gook
British population itself would revolt against such a military invasion, Britain would be embargoed and starved, the US and France would probably defend Ireland
Time of wars in western Europe is over for now
>How do you negate Irish-Border problem
Just sell North Ireland to fucking Ireland like what the Irish should have agreed on during WW2
It's just useless proddy retards that think they are the last bastion of Anglo culture in Ireland even though they've fucked up so bad during the troubles that the IRA didn't consider them a threat and the British didn't view them as help either
You know nothing. The EU is crippled and getting weaker by the minute, German armed forces are only biding their time before the union collapses so they can quickly move in to restore order under a newly established 4th Reich.
>this is how the media reacts to Bundeswehr soldiers having a few WW2 memorablia
you don't know wtf you're talking about, shut up
Oh you're part of it. Makes sense then that you wouldn't want others talking about it.
Alright sure, no war over the horizon, everything's good in the hood. Got it.
*WINK WINK WINK*
Why not BAE hawks or whatever cheap advanced trainer that can mount weapons?
You can't LARP as WW2 pilot in a jet like you can in a turboprop aircraft
too bad our media goes apeshit when we try and sell those the normal way (bribes)
The point of keeping a military is not because you need it today, but if you need one in 20+ years it's too late since you can't just buy trained armed units ready for any battle in one turn like civilization.