Cyprus-Forum.com

[Icarus]

Who said anything about fighting a war?

Of course Cyprus is not capable enough to tackle the Turkish Navy on its own.

But FAC offer an excellent deterrent because it does make Turkish destroyers much more vulnerable.

This is the only realistic option available to us. The key is to effectively patrol the EEZ so that oil and gas exploration can go ahead unhindered.

There is very minimal possibility that the Hellenic Navy is going to offer substantial assets to effectively fight Turkey in Cyprus, so obviously the aim is to offer a substantial deterrence, and not to fight WW111.

For these naval assets to be useful as a deterrent, you need to be prepared to use them. If they're heavily outgunned, which the boats you suggest will be, then very soon after firing your first deterrent shot, you will lose the entire fleet. Hence they are not much of a deterrent. Hence you may as well not have spent the money in the first place.

How are they going to be heavily outgunned, when their job is not to take on the whole Turkish Navy, but to patrol the EEZ, and at the same time to be able to strike using Exocet or Penguin SSM from over 150kms away? The Mi-35Ps can also serve a similar function, if within range.

This is not the type of vessel that will go in and attack a Turkish destroyer. They are designed to out speed larger destroyers and frigates, firing their missiles, if needed, and then make an about face and get the hell out of there. They could be used to keep Turkish vessels at bay, whilst Oil Exploration is in progress, and in this scenario they can get up close to much more capable Turkish Naval vessels, with not a single shot being fired, because even if the FAC is sunk, the Turkish Destroyer will still get hit from either an EXOCET or PENGUIN.

But there primary role would be to patrol Oil and Gas fields and escort any exploration vessels. This is what this thread is about.

As long as we are prepared to do this, other nations will also offer their assistance. And I'm not referring to Greece specifically. The US will, in all likelihood, park the Saratoga and a few destroyer escorts in the area, keeping a very close eye on the situation and to protect their interests. So it is extremely unlikely that things will escalate because the Americans will never allow it.

It is not about fighting WW111, because quite clearly we are unable to destroy the Turkish Navy, and a confrontation between Greece and Turkey is also unlikely.

I think that the mission you propose for these hypothetical boats is confused.

Start from the premise that bluster aside, the mogoloi would never attack an civilian vessel flagged under another nation. If they are not willing to attack unarmed research vessels, there is no need for any kind of deterrent. To buy warships is a criminal waste in response to their bluff.

Now consider that the mogoloi are willing to attack an unarmed foreign-flagged vessel involved in hydrocarbon extraction. If they are willing to attack unarmed foreign-flagged vessels, then they are certainly willing to attack and destroy an RoC flotilla.

The nature of your deterrent will be that the RoC flotilla will respond to an armed attack on research vessels rather than take the fight to the tourkomogoloi preemptively. This means that the mogoloi get to choose when and where an armed conflict takes place. So if the mogoloi decide to attack hydrocarbon research vessels and they anticipate a response from your lightly defended fast attack boats, they will first attack and neutralise your fast attack boats, and then carry on against the unarmed research vessels at their leisure. Even if your deterrent flotilla was capable of destroying some mogolo capital ships in response to an attack on research vessels, they'd never get the chance as they would be eliminated in the first salvo.

I'm sorry, but I just don't think your idea will work, as much as I would like it to. Building a naval force of any measure of effectiveness under the circumstances is a serious and expensive undertaking.

The Turks were actually very successful in disrupting a Norwegian exploration vessel contracted to the Cyprus Government.

This vessel was drilling, and all of a sudden a Turkish destroyer arrived and ordered them to move away from the area. This Norwegian vessel had no protection and had little choice but to do what it was ordered to do because they did not want to jeopardise their safety. The Turkish Navy does not need to fire any shots to convince the vessel to leave. Since there was no escort, all the Turkish navy would need to do is send an armed boarding party to board the vessel.

The RoC needs to offer an effective escort. The Turkish Destroyers will still come and harass, but they will not be able to disrupt any oil and gas activities. They will not be able to board, and it is unlikely they would fire.

Any country that has substantial Oil and Gas reserves also needs an effective means of patrolling those interests.

The deterrent is very necessary and anyone will tell you this. And you can not rely on other countries providing this deterrent because you will be very disappointed. At most, maybe the US might offer some assistance, only because they now have interests in the area.

[james_mav]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

[denizaksulu]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

Then they will rely on the TAF instead.

[Icarus]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

But the seabed within the Cypriot EEZ has a depth up to 2,000m in parts but probably averages around 500m.

Also, it is very unlikely that Turkey will send any submarines in the EEZ, because their primary objective would be to disrupt Oil and Gas exploration and drilling. As things stand right now, all they need to do is threaten to send in an armed boarding party.

[Icarus]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

Then they will rely on the TAF instead.

And what is tha TAF going to achieve?

[YFred]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

Then they will rely on the TAF instead.

And what is tha TAF going to do?

TAF has lots of expertise in knocking out ships around Cyprus both Turkish and Greek!

[Icarus]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

Then they will rely on the TAF instead.

And what is tha TAF going to do?

TAF has lots of expertise in knocking out ships around Cyprus both Turkish and Greek!

Plenty of expertise in sinking Turkish vessels.

That is the understatement of the year...

[james_mav]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

Then they will rely on the TAF instead.

I'm not sure I follow you - use the air force for what? An air force is not useful against submarine threats...

Again, in this regard the multiple islands are a great equaliser. The Hellenic air defense network is two pronged: it consists of high quality long range air defense system, with the assets behind a potential front line, and also of lower cost, shorter range anti-aircraft weapons dispersed all over the islands across the frontier. Even if Greece were to lose 10 AA sites for every aircraft shot down, the war will be concluded quickly. The third equaliser is the terrain in western Tharce. If you look at the terrain on google maps (click the 'terrain' button) you will notice a minor mountain range curving north east from Alexandroupolis, and then a major mountain range running east-west from Kavala, to Xanthi, and to Kommotini. These two features are a force multiplier for Greek defenses - an invader is forced to cross mountains or concentrate his forces in the narrow coastal strip. On the other side, west of the border it is flat - this is an attackers dream, because attacking eastward an attacker can concentrate his forces where ever he wants, rather than where terrain dictates. The risk of an eastward Greek counterattack after an unsuccessful westward invasion attempt is too great.

Of course the equation is balanced out with the mogoloi having a much larger army, and much more ground based military hardware. Air forces are not likely to play a large combat role in a ground or naval conflict because both sides posses air defenses (ground based for the Greeks, air based for the mogoloi) that will cause the attacking air force to suffer heavy losses.

[james_mav]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

But the seabed within the Cypriot EEZ has a depth up to 2,000m in parts but probably averages around 500m.

Also, it is very unlikely that Turkey will send any submarines in the EEZ, because their primary objective would be to disrupt Oil and Gas exploration and drilling. As things stand right now, all they need to do is threaten to send in an armed boarding party.

They will certainly have submarines in the area. If their surface ships are in the area, there will be at least one Greek submarine on patrol, and the mogoloi know and expect this. They will deploy their own submarines to keep tabs on the Greek submarine!

As for the depth of the water, I agree - at a distance from Cyprus submarines are not as significant a threat. But in the case of a larger conflict, Greek submarines operating in Cyprus' littoral waters will make resupplying and reinforcing mogolistani forces currently on Cyprus fraught with danger.

[YFred]

As has been said, we ain't going to fight WW3 with a small surface "fleet" of the sort some suggest. As ever CY will box way beyond its weight by using a little bit of intelligence so the important things are to guarantee a stand-off which buys time for an international condemnation of any Turkish Interference in CY EEZ.

At present all CY can do is to protest after the event. Protests which fall on deaf ears. I want a situation where bigger powers will have no choice but to tell Turkey to back down.

Just like the frequent war games that go on between Hellenic Air Force and mogolistan jets over the eastern Aegean, you can be certain that any mogolistani naval activity around Cyprus is closely shadowed by a Greek submarine, both for intelligence gathering purposes (i.e. learn as much as possible about enemy equipment and operating doctrine), and also as a deterrent. In the littoral waters around islands and near coastlines, there is very little a surface ship can do to protect itself against a submarine.

...and Turkey has no anti-submarine vessels I suppose? Damn NATO.

They do have an ASW capability, but this capability is limited in littoral combat zones. As you're probably aware, ASW relies on sonar, and sonar works notoriously badly in shallow water near coastlines due to the reflections from the seabed. This makes it tough to detect a quiet electric submarine in shallow water near a coastline.

This is the great equaliser in the Aegean - due to the large amount of coastline near the many islands, islets, and rocks, a defending submarine can lurk in the shallows close to an island or islet and wait for enemy surface combatant to blindly sail past. This danger would be present for a surface warship operating near the coast of Cyprus if it were being tracked by a submarine.

But the seabed within the Cypriot EEZ has a depth up to 2,000m in parts but probably averages around 500m.

Also, it is very unlikely that Turkey will send any submarines in the EEZ, because their primary objective would be to disrupt Oil and Gas exploration and drilling. As things stand right now, all they need to do is threaten to send in an armed boarding party.

They will certainly have submarines in the area. If their surface ships are in the area, there will be at least one Greek submarine on patrol, and the mogoloi know and expect this. They will deploy their own submarines to keep tabs on the Greek submarine!

As for the depth of the water, I agree - at a distance from Cyprus submarines are not as significant a threat. But in the case of a larger conflict, Greek submarines operating in Cyprus' littoral waters will make resupplying and reinforcing mogolistani forces currently on Cyprus fraught with danger.

Now you've lost all your senses. Don't you think that if Greece joins Cyprus in a conflict, the Turks will invade from the north and rescue the Turkish community in Northern Greece? In the mean time the Greeks will run for cover and leave the GCs to their own demise. Like last time?