For me if we can take the Falklands as a case I would like to see a CAMM battery on MP airfield and a land based Type 45 system with Aster 30 on Mount Adam West Falklands Why though? CAMM, with CAMM-ER in the near future and (hopefully) CAMM-MR in the early 2030's is more than capable of dealing wi...

A demonstration of Asraam's manoeuverability ...

We are supposed to be part of the European Sky Sheild initiative, based on Medium range: primarily IRIS-T SLM Long range: MIM-104 Patriot Very long range (exoatmospheric): Arrow 3 Though presumably, we might opt for SAMP-T (Aster 30) or CAMM-MR in place of Patriot and CAMM/CAMM-ER in place of IRIS-...

I would have a mixture of land and sea based radar sites, though when tensions are high also assume a level of AEW aircraft in the air also. Would assume mobile launcher sites would be the most effective setup. Here's your first site... The MISC, a landbased T45 with all the systems located on Port...

It wouldn't be the first time that a naming convention goes awry... MBDA Spear being called Spear 3 is the most obvious example... It's just a yet to be named missile system that currently rests on the programme name. Just like FC/ASW will probably get a catchy name when it enters service, but was ...

Martlet refers to the Wildcat/LMM capability according the Navy...i.e. the system as a whole. A Wildcat armed with LMM becomes Martlet...obviously the names hark back to the Grumman F4F fighter names in RN service in WW2... First time I've seen that claim anywhere. The manufacturer seems to think t...

Martlet is a Navy name for a Navy air to ground missile in Navy service. LMM is the name the Army uses for its surface to air missile. Please keep up. It's the same missile. If you're going to be that petty you should also have picked up that Starstreak is not the name that the Army uses either. Ju...

So by late September this year we could be in the rather odd position of having 1160 odd F-35 built in total....but c170 being parked up and undelivered. 15% of the total built...And all 990 delivered to date are in need of that same TR-3 upgrade so that they can start down the upgrade path to Block...

Hopefully this is relevant to Timmy's last comment. From Aviation Week. PS Bronk is a prize twit, totally in the pocket of US manufacturers. Drummond is ex-infantry. It's quite incredible really. The JPO needs to deliver a real shock to LM, otherwise they are not going to change. We're in 2024 and ...

Anyone thinking, as Justin Bronk or Nicholas Drummond seem to, that we should abandon GCAP and go all in on F-35 needs their head examining....and their bank account for any funds from LM.... I'm normally quite supportive of F-35 (but not at the expense of Typhoon or GCAP), but christ its hard.... Y...

Airbus are selling quite a significant number of airliners to India at present with considerable high level contact. It can all be part of the same conversation Not Government to Government sales of airliners though.... I'm not sure if the sales teams from Airbus' civilian side would want Airbus Mi...

If it's Airbus (ie Germany) leading, it's a lost cause. Hopefully these mistakes are never to be repeated Unfortunately the Typhoon agreement included dedicated sales areas for each of the consortium members. UK naturally got Saudi and Oman and most of the Gulf hence the sales to RSAF, Oman and Qat...

Looks like an order from the Spanish Air Force for Spear is on the way...

I know it will reduced numbers for a while but would it be beneficial to send our F-35's to the states (soon or within the next few years) to get them upgrade to the TR3, this way all aircraft will be block 4 capable when it arrives. Like people have said even when block 4 arrives in 2028, all our ...

I would imagine that upgrades to the Tranche 1 airframes to bring them up to the latest spec will take a long while, so three squadrons max plus ocu. As I mentioned in an earlier post we won't see all 71 a/c at Block IV Lot 19 standard until 2031/32 at the earliest. But....if we're sensible we'll f...

mrclark303 wrote: ↑04 Apr 2024, 02:59 I believe 8 is the stated number for the OCU, it's a mix of synthetic and flight training.

As the fleet is growing I expect the demands on the OCU will be greater, so more a/c needed, what they end up with, say in 2030 is another matter.

sol wrote: ↑02 Apr 2024, 15:12

Timmymagic wrote: ↑02 Apr 2024, 11:47 Obviously then there are 7 delivered in 2025, probably split into 2 deliveries.

Last 7 are all from the same lot, Lot 17.

They are, but its likely some will be ready for transfer earlier in the year and given the need for a/c for 809 NAS they'll probably be trailed over earlier in the year.

Update on delivery schedule plus serials... https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1772213965914812589?s=20 Just to note UK based F-35 fleet is 30 aircraft, not 31 as per the tweet, as 1 aircraft has been added to the Test Fleet at Edwards AFB (ZM165/BK-31). Not sure how long that would be for, it ...

TMF was a massive missed opportunity. It would have enabled us to really standardise across the Armed Forces. Now we've got the Navy going in all directions with 127, 114, 57mm, 40mm, 30mm....and the Army with 155, 105 and perhaps 127, plus 40CT, 30mm and whatever daft calibre they use for AA in th...

A bit of reversal of fortune as back in the day it was the thing to replace the RN 4.5 with the 155mm from AS90 as that was where all the exciting developments were meant to happen. TMF was a massive missed opportunity. It would have enabled us to really standardise across the Armed Forces. Now we'...

And that's been successful? Sending unreliable, ill-equipped hardware into battle? Perhaps when you want to measure your survivability in hours then it's an irrelevance if you manage 48 hours between maintenance. Why would we want to aim for that? The Maxims were actually Ukrainian...and incredibly...

Russia has neither taken AFV out of fields or taken 10,000 maxims out of a forgotten warehouse. In the very early days following the retreats from Kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv they were pulling tanks from open storage with little to no refurbishment. 2 years in they tend to go to a tank repair facility...

Well, hopefully someone will remember the scramble for any useable weapons for Ukraine & decides to put the replaced L118s into storage, rather than scrap them. You never know when they might be needed again The issue there would be the ammo stocks...which is simulteneously L118's big advantage...