Nice to see the Caroline getting a mention, she's a great old lady :D I've a few pics of her somewhere if anyones interested?

Sadly Caroline is due to be retired in the near future as she is in need of a more intensive overhaul than the RNR can manage on site. Hopefully she'll be turned into a museum and stay in Belfast, but sadly there are no guarantees on that :(

I also have some issues with PIRA being able to sink those minesweepers; firstly, mounting weapons that big on a motorboat is a lot more difficult than it sounds (British merchant vessels were only able to be armed during WW2 because they were legally required to have the mountings, and under-deck bracing, as part of British registry)- even a recoilless rifle is going to be difficult. Actually hitting the target would be very difficult- the lower Clyde and Firth of Clyde are rarely entirely calm, so keeping small motorboats stable enough for multiple shots would be very difficult. Probably the only practical weapons for the job would be the RPG7- and that means getting close, and being exposed to defending fire.
Secondly, as others have posted, the Clyde Naval base is defended by troops who are trained and prepared for Spetsnatz type attacks; small boats are one of the threats they expect.
Thirdly, the Clyde Boom would have been closed; sure, the boats could go through the Kyles of Bute and bypass the boom, but in wartime the Kyles would be unlit at night.
Finally, in wartime the Clyde's usual busy traffic of yachts and small craft is going to be greatly reduced, making the attackers much more visible.
In peacetime, the attack is barely feasible; in wartime, a suicide mission, with little prospect of success.

Thanks for the info. Sanjuro. Maybe underwater swimmer with homemade explosive, or something else? Any suggestions!

My own take on it would be swimmers with explosive charges....there was footage floating around of a Iranian speed boat trying to attack a tanker with a recoilless rifle....the backblast set fire to the boat and blew two crewmembers overboard. And that was with a SPG-9; firing a 106mm......ouch!

Without a proper warship of some kind, they're probably only going to be successful (and live) with divers and limpet mines.
I wouldn't want to try it in winter though!

I still think if Irish terrorists had the resources (be that recoilless rifles, limpet mines or whatever) they'd be better employed using them against British Army targets in Northern Ireland.

Also, you've listed the IRA, but there were a number of other active terrorist groups in NI including the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and various different IRA factions.

Probably worth noting that there was often in fighting between the various different groups (both Republican and Loyalist) so there could well be a number of frictions within the Combined Loyalist Military Command.

saw this thread (and a very interesting one indeed)

has anyone on the board ever tried to do an Ireland Sourcebook - the way the UK Sourcebook was written it makes it sound like an Irish one was going to be done but it was never started

Maybe as part of a UK sourcebook, but on its own there really isn't enough material for a sourcebook on Ireland.

Wonder if the original author was possibly thinking of setting a module in Ireland then using that to expand on the situation in Ireland - much as Kings Ransom did with the situation in the Esfahan area in Iran (i.e. it corrected a couple of oversights and added some nice details lacking in the RDF Sourcebook)

I intended to do one as a companion piece to my UK Survivor's Guide, but I never got beyond the preliminary stages and at the moment I have neither the time nor the inclination to pick it up again.

If you want to see how far I got check out this thread from MSG #81 onwards.

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=2947&page=3

This is really good work - do you know if James is working on a sourcebook as per his request to you to borrow some of what you wrote? This is truly good and really adds to the earlier UK work you did

Thanks.

No idea what James is up to I'm afraid.