The what ifs of history... Too bad their fears were never realized!
Arevordi
December, 2008
Britain feared that it would have been overwhelmed in the event of a Soviet attack because of the depleted state of its armed forces, according to secret files made public on Tuesday. Papers released by the National Archives, under the 30-year rule, reveal that Royal Air Force fighter jets only had sufficient ammunition for two days of combat and the Royal Navy would fail to defend the country from Russian submarines. The army would have been too over-stretched to cope with a widescale campaign of sabotage and subversion by Soviet special forces, the papers show. Prime Minister James Callaghan called the situation a "scandal" when he discovered the scale of the problem and demanded resignations among the military. "Heaven help us if there is a war!" he scrawled on one note. But ministers could do little until the Tornado fighter plane became available in the mid-1980s along with other military hardware. The problem became clear when senior intelligence officers warned in late 1977 that, in the event of a conventional war, the Russians could unleash up to 200 bombers and 18 submarines against the UK. The assessment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was that British forces would be unable to cope. "UK forces cannot match the threat postulated by the JIC assessment," the chiefs noted in January 1978 in a document marked Top Secret UK Eyes Alpha. "Air defenses would be outweighed because aircraft would be outnumbered and stocks of air defense munitions would sustain operations for only two or three days. "Maritime forces need better anti-submarine weapons, and face a massive threat from submarine and air-launched missiles and also from mines; the most serious deficiency is in numbers. "The army in the UK would, until mobilization is complete, have insufficient forces to meet its commitments; after mobilization of the reserves, a process taking between 15-20 days, the Army would be able to counter the currently assessed Soviet land threat during the initial stages of the war but, lacking supporting arms and logistic support, it would be inadequate to deal with any more significant threat, including sabotage or subversion on a wide scale."
Arevordi
***
Britain Feared Annihilation by Soviets
December, 2008
Britain feared that it would have been overwhelmed in the event of a Soviet attack because of the depleted state of its armed forces, according to secret files made public on Tuesday. Papers released by the National Archives, under the 30-year rule, reveal that Royal Air Force fighter jets only had sufficient ammunition for two days of combat and the Royal Navy would fail to defend the country from Russian submarines. The army would have been too over-stretched to cope with a widescale campaign of sabotage and subversion by Soviet special forces, the papers show. Prime Minister James Callaghan called the situation a "scandal" when he discovered the scale of the problem and demanded resignations among the military. "Heaven help us if there is a war!" he scrawled on one note. But ministers could do little until the Tornado fighter plane became available in the mid-1980s along with other military hardware. The problem became clear when senior intelligence officers warned in late 1977 that, in the event of a conventional war, the Russians could unleash up to 200 bombers and 18 submarines against the UK. The assessment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was that British forces would be unable to cope. "UK forces cannot match the threat postulated by the JIC assessment," the chiefs noted in January 1978 in a document marked Top Secret UK Eyes Alpha. "Air defenses would be outweighed because aircraft would be outnumbered and stocks of air defense munitions would sustain operations for only two or three days. "Maritime forces need better anti-submarine weapons, and face a massive threat from submarine and air-launched missiles and also from mines; the most serious deficiency is in numbers. "The army in the UK would, until mobilization is complete, have insufficient forces to meet its commitments; after mobilization of the reserves, a process taking between 15-20 days, the Army would be able to counter the currently assessed Soviet land threat during the initial stages of the war but, lacking supporting arms and logistic support, it would be inadequate to deal with any more significant threat, including sabotage or subversion on a wide scale."
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/eu...ars/index.html
No comments:
Post a Comment
Dear reader,
New blog commentaries will henceforth be posted on an irregular basis. The comment board however will continue to be moderated on a regular basis. You are therefore welcome to post your comments and ideas.
I have come to see the Russian nation as the last front on earth against the scourges of Westernization, Americanization, Globalism, Zionism, Islamic extremism and pan-Turkism. I have also come to see Russia as the last hope humanity has for the preservation of classical western/European civilization, ethnic cultures, Apostolic Christianity and the concept of traditional nation-state. Needless to say, an alliance with Russia is Armenia's only hope for survival in a dangerous place like the south Caucasus. These sobering realizations compelled me to create this blog in 2010. This blog quickly became one of the very few voices in the vastness of Cyberia that dared to preach about the dangers of Globalism and the Anglo-American-Jewish alliance, and the only voice emphasizing the crucial importance of Armenia's close ties to the Russian nation. Today, no man and no political party is capable of driving a wedge between Armenia and Russia. Anglo-American-Jewish and Turkish agenda in Armenia will not succeed. I feel satisfied knowing that at least on a subatomic level I have had a hand in this outcome.
To limit clutter in the comments section, I kindly ask all participants of this blog to please keep comments coherent and strictly relevant to the featured topic of discussion. Moreover, please realize that when there are several "anonymous" visitors posting comments simultaneously, it becomes very confusing (not to mention annoying) trying to figure out who is who and who said what. Therefore, if you are here to engage in conversation, make an observation, express an idea or simply insult me, I ask you to at least use a moniker to identify yourself. Moreover, please appreciate the fact that I have put an enormous amount of information into this blog. In my opinion, most of my blog commentaries and articles, some going back ten-plus years, are in varying degrees relevant to this day and will remain so for a long time to come. Commentaries and articles found in this blog can therefore be revisited by longtime readers and new comers alike. I therefore ask the reader to treat this blog as a historical record and a depository of important information relating to Eurasian geopolitics, Russian-Armenian relations and humanity's historic fight against the evils of Globalism and Westernization.
Thank you as always for reading.