Cyprus-Forum.com

[kurupetos]

The Russian Hinds can travel and fire just off the surface of the water! No radar probs!

I would be a lot easier for everybody if you guys just accepted the inevitable instead of wasting all that GC Tax on useless toys. Wake up.

The “inevitable” being what exactly Y-Fronts… succumbing to someone else who “wasted” their tax to buy “toys”?

You’re just too smart…

It has been proven beyond any doubt that the arms race drives both sides to bankruptcy, be stupid and by all means go down that route.

You are not Gharos to Rizokarpazo for nothing.

Cyprus only spends around 3% for military... big deal! I think it should be increased to 15% and then you'll see some serious hardware...

I reckon if the talks fail we should get something real, of the likes of S-400 and some new generation fighter aircrafts & frigates.

[YFred]

BTW, look at this beauty:

Nicknamed... "Y-frontoulla"

So when is the upgrade from propeller to jet-engines due then? We don't want any old rubbish. For us Attila descendents only the best will do you understand old boy.
We could do with some upgrading in warfare machinary and all that.

[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.

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.

I never said the TAF might be used against submarines; more like against the fast attack craft you mentioned , who would use hit and run tactics.

[james_mav]

I never said the TAF might be used against submarines; more like against the fast attack craft you mentioned , who would use hit and run tactics.

Someone else said that. These fast attack craft have little chance of surviving against a high-tech air force without air cover.

[Paphitis]

Lets hope there will be no 'trigger happy' palikarias onboard. With Paphitis AAF what chance has Turkey got?

I'll have you know that Paphitis is fully qualified to sweep the runway...

I would love to take you out on one of my flights. But be warned, I hardly fly higher than 500FT over water. It will be funny to see the paleness of your face as your about to surrender your lunch into a plastic bag...

Oh, but wait. You don't have a Security Clearance... Just close your eyes when we are about to apprehend some illegal immigrants, drug traffickers, or terrorists. We are prone to abusing their Human Rights....

When on land they go through all kinds of interrogation and torture. My favourite is when they pull their finger nails off...Nasty!

Did you hear the one about a Choirokitian rust bucket that was emptying it's bilge on the Great Barrier Reef? The Federal Police met the Captain at Sydney and issued him with a warrant. The Choirokitians did turn up to court. They were fined and the Choirokitian Merchant Marine was banned from entering Aussie waters until the fines were paid. It was the funniest thing I've seen. I was not directly involved in that one.

The Choirokitians were sprung big time...

[Get Real!]

Lets hope there will be no 'trigger happy' palikarias onboard. With Paphitis AAF what chance has Turkey got?

I'll have you know that Paphitis is fully qualified to sweep the runway...

I would love to take you out on one of my flights. But be warned, I hardly fly higher than 500FT over water. It will be funny to see the paleness of your face as your about to surrender your lunch into a plastic bag...

Oh, but wait. You don't have a Security Clearance... Just close your eyes when we are about to apprehend some illegal immigrants, drug traffickers, or terrorists. We are prone to abusing their Human Rights....

When on land they go through all kinds of interrogation and torture. My favourite is when they pull their finger nails off...Nasty!

Did you hear the one about a Choirokitian rust bucket that was emptying it's bilge on the Great Barrier Reef? The Federal Police met the Captain at Sydney and issued him with a warrant. The Choirokitians did turn up to court. They were fined and the Choirokitian Merchant Marine was banned from entering Aussie waters until the fines were paid. It was the funniest thing I've seen. I was not directly involved in that one.

The Choirokitians were sprung big time...

Poor bastard, they made him lick the runway again, all three kilometers of it and he’s hallucinating!

The things migrant wogs do for a living to make ends meet…

[wyoming cowboy]

There is no deterrent for the Turkish navy other then a usa flotilla getting in between the Turkish navy and the exploration ship....I dont think Cyprus needs warships when they can place surface to ship missiles on Troodos such as the Exocet, which can scan the horizon to the shores of Turkey, nevertheless Cyprus could have the starship enterprise flying over the med. if the Turks think we wont use the proton ray then there is no deterrent, much like Greece not shooting down turk f-16 flying 500 meters over Greek islands...

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.

[wyoming cowboy]

No i dont think so the Turks used the easiest terain and were ordered to invade and occuppy by the usa and britain.. and for your information freddy boy it is a well known fact that all units from the area your people choose to land were on the other side of the island as ordered by the junta officers to do, nevertheless even though you landed scot free and no known resistance the Turk army was not doing too well after the first few weeks of fighting, Your glorious mongoli army was trapped at the st. hilarion pass, and resorted to scavanging for food and water after the first few weeks of fighting the glorious mongoli army had less then 5 percent of what thy have today...it took satellite pictures from the usa to convince your mongoli army to stage a second invasion....in famagusta...And its a covered up fact in turkey for its an embarassment to the army generals that there were 38,000 mongoli turk casualties in 74 with 17000 mongoli hashish smoking turks dead...

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?

35 years is a long time. If the mogoloi thought they would've got away with "rescuing" this mythical mogolistani population in western Thrace, they probably would've tried it by now.

As far as prevening a land war between Greece and mongolistan goes, the border is well chosen. The terrain makes it hard for either side to emerge victorious. An attack westward is hard because an attacker has cross mountains and concentrate forces in a narrow coastal strip and be pummeled. An eastward counterattack encounters easy terrain, but it would be tough for the Greek army to resupply an army as it moved further into eastern Thrace.

I wouldn't put that to a test if I was you. Otherwise we'll revert to referring to Greece as Yunanistan.

When they came to Cyprus they deliberately chose the most difficult terrain.

[Paphitis]

Lets hope there will be no 'trigger happy' palikarias onboard. With Paphitis AAF what chance has Turkey got?

I'll have you know that Paphitis is fully qualified to sweep the runway...

I would love to take you out on one of my flights. But be warned, I hardly fly higher than 500FT over water. It will be funny to see the paleness of your face as your about to surrender your lunch into a plastic bag...

Oh, but wait. You don't have a Security Clearance... Just close your eyes when we are about to apprehend some illegal immigrants, drug traffickers, or terrorists. We are prone to abusing their Human Rights....

When on land they go through all kinds of interrogation and torture. My favourite is when they pull their finger nails off...Nasty!

Did you hear the one about a Choirokitian rust bucket that was emptying it's bilge on the Great Barrier Reef? The Federal Police met the Captain at Sydney and issued him with a warrant. The Choirokitians did turn up to court. They were fined and the Choirokitian Merchant Marine was banned from entering Aussie waters until the fines were paid. It was the funniest thing I've seen. I was not directly involved in that one.

The Choirokitians were sprung big time...

Poor bastard, they made him lick the runway again, all three kilometers of it and he’s hallucinating!

The things migrant wogs do for a living to make ends meet…

We do our best, especially when they throw their children overboard (re Tampa).

There was another one about 2 months ago. An illegal Indonesian boat was ablaze so then we had to rescue them otherwise there would be no one to torture and throw into jail...

But shhhh!....Don't tell Amnesty International.

Suffice to say, we are also keeping a close eye on Choirokitian rust buckets....

Bloody Choirokitian criminals and environmental polluters...

I just wish we can torture some Choirokitians in the future... Especially a Choirokitian by the name of Get (Fucked!) Real!

[alexISS]

Sorry for the pessimistic assessment, but as far as maritime defense and air cover go, the only hope for Cyprus is the Hellenic navy and air force, respectively.

Forget those fucking mythological poofters! They’ll be lucky to hang on to their rocks in the Aegean!

We do a fine job keeping "our rocks" intact. I wonder how would "you" fare without the backing of Greece, the only reason Turkey hasn't invaded the rest of the island. You talk and talk and talk, but it's Greece that keeps Turkey away from Cyprus, not your posts.

Also, regardless of how annoying your silly little posts are, I hope you'll continue with the same passion. It looks like you've attracted a few new members who are clearly in disagreement with you, bringing the Cyprus Forum closer to representing the Cypriot public opinion

The little Greek whore surfaced at long last... you can only take so much abuse eh?

No matter how many Greek "representatives" join the forum Alex, they don't stand a chance against someone armed with justice, so ultimately they’ll have the same fate as you… relegated to background observation!

Τελικά σε βάρεσε η μαλακία στο κεφάλι... και πολύ άντεξες!
"Relegated to background observation"? By you?!?
Each and every time I confronted you you ran away and moved over to different threads, the posts are there for everyone to see.

Just because I have a job and do not waste my life in a forum you think you've "defeated" me in some way? I've never been a frequent poster idiot, even before you came along.