UK Defence Forum

Cockerill also claim that the turret will take a 120mm smoothbore, but I haven't seen any pictures of one yet

I know this may be somewhat simplistic, but could there not be an intermediate way? Retain the heavy RAS rigs, but move two 2-tonne loads at a time, with the exceptional weight items being held in storage at deck level close to the loading point (by the sound of it, it's not likely to be many items ...

Lord Jim wrote:Will the crew be medicated to reduce their Libido?

Does Naafi tea still have the bromide in it?

Ron5 wrote:Very impressive. Hope they gave the poor chap a decent burial.

Yup - they buried him at sea

Ron5 wrote:In its entire life, the RAF has just the one real battle honor, the Battle of Britain

There was Pink's War. The only war won entirely by air power

That's a measure of length, not weight!

A bag of sugar is a sub-weight of a standard Elephant (as in there are 1000 bags of sugar to an elephant)

Curious to see the Pumas there - do you think we are trying to sell them the Puma fleet?

Armoured Infantry Brigade - with no clear land-based ISTAR platforms -- all AJAXs vehicles shifted to Strike Brigades. Is that actually true, though. I know that the integral recce element will (probably) be removed, but the Armoured Brigades will still include a recce regiment, which will presumab...

Has the ex-TCI (disappeared) Premier been found ... or did he get cemento-shoes from the Russian Mafia? Do you mean Michael Misick? The UK extradited him from Brazil back to TCI last time I heard anything about him. His trial has been dragging on since 2015-16. He lost a motion to chuck the case ou...

A local newspaper report on the Governor overriding the Premier
https://bvinews.com/governor-overrides-premier-invites-british-navy-to-patrol-bvi-waters/

Lord Jim wrote:Isn't there a newer version of the 6x6 Pandur that has these enhancements built in but without the height restrictions of legacy vehicles that have been modernised?

Didn't US SF spec their own version?

If the money is there, I agree, but I suspect that any upgrade to the B2s will be financed out of the rounding errors on other projects.

in one word ; IFVs - more words, to improve their self-defence... but they are "not an island" whereas a patrol vessel needs to factor in being on its own altogether I think the USA has specified the larger Supershot 50 for it's new generation of IFVs, I'm not sure there is an existing re...

Would that have range implications? Undoubtedly, but I've seen no estimates of the practical impact on range. Presumably that is balanced against the much larger payload. I suspect that it is really intended for light platforms that couldn't take a larger recoil, but would like to "improve the...

If that’s the case the doesn’t the whole forward basing of vessel get rid of that need as they will be much closer ? Oh, agreed that that is a possibility, but I think we should reserve judgement until stuff actually gets built. I suspect, however, that we may stilll hold an escort (plus, as @ACC n...

Or ditch them both and go with the Bushmaster 50mm That's an interesting one - there appears to be two forms of the SuperShot 50mm - one is a much more powerful weapon (which would likely need a new mount), but there seems to be a second, which is based on the Bushmaster III 35mm round (50mm, necke...

I thought the primary task of the FRE was to dash off to potential trouble spots around the world at the drop of a hat. Escorting foreign warships is something to do whilst waiting for that to happen (with an OPV picking up the task when the Frigate/ destroyer is off doing precisely that)

fitting a 40mm gun on the same mount and using 3P that will come into service There is a 40mm upgrade kit for the Bushmaster II that can be mounted on the same same mount, but it uses Supershot 40mm ammunition, which I doubt is compatible with the Bofors P3. There is, however a Supershot 40mm progr...

ArmChairCivvy wrote:the utility of airburst rounds - even against the softest of targets, like opposing troops in defilade - declines rapidly with the smaller 'pay load'

Indeed - I've read that the 40mm Bushmaster round has approximately four times the "area of effect", when compared to the 30mm.

Interesting that he uses the phrase 'enhanced lethality '. This could of course mean larger calibre guns and missiles (at the higher end creating a de facto corvette). It could also mean something along the lines of improved 30mm ammunition, improved fire control, improved mount with better target ...

That sounds more like a ship requirement. Yes - that was based on (IIRC) five days operations without resupply. From a little bit of digging on the interwebz, I've seen figures of 5.5 sorties per day in initial surge, followed by 4 sorties per day, for a couple of days, before dropping to 2 to 3 so...

I'm pretty sure the way back when requirement from the Marines was 3 a day. But of course, the type of sortie makes a difference. Three sorties a day per aircraft for the first two? days, followed by 2 sorties per aircraft per day was the target, but I do remember a statement from early testing, wh...

Argus and Medway getting on with their day job, I see
https://caymannewsservice.com/2020/09/royal-navy-nets-1000kgs-of-cocaine-in-caribbean/

So there's a link to an RN or MOD press release on up-gunning B2s? Speaking at DSEI in September 2019, RN Commander Operations, Rear Admiral Paul Halton said: “We are thinking about how we might enhance the lethality of the Batch II OPVs”. Quoted from the STRN site. That's the only public statement...