IIRC, it was originally £11.4 billion, then Cameron took £1b out of the budget and the whole plan fell apart, leaving us with £8.4b for eight T26 and £2b for the five T31

To put it in terms that we are familair with, the NHS consumes 12% of GDP.

For the avoidance of doubt, I have no problems with the NHS, I have been a frequent customer over the lastr few years, but I know I live in one of the rare, well-run, NHS regions (and it still has organisational problems)

Is T31 really as noisy as it's critics make out? In the run up to T31 and Constellation when an IH based design was possibly in the frame for both, the Danes suggested that IH wasn't a complete bag of spanners. The Absalons are now being turned into ASW frigates with new tails. Babcock have already...

I thought the problem was that they couldn't be built long enough in that location due to some historically valuable buildings behind. Apologies - I'm not explaining very well. I'm not suggesting extending the original sheds (red outline), but covering the area (yellow outline) currently used for o...

Well, as soon as the "frigate factory" is complete & build moved into that, BAE could build a simple "warehouse" style shed to cover the area where the frigates are currently being assembled & the adjacent disused slipway - that should provide capacity for at least one, a...

Repulse wrote: ↑15 Apr 2024, 08:03 But no one can explain what priorities you are trying to address?

So you can't define the priorities, but you want to build extremely expensive, dedicated platforms to handle them? Is that what you are saying?

It’s a world away from what people get excited about for a cheap T31 pointless class. I think it's more a case that many of us realised the potential and believed that there was more to be got from the platform. If the current plans come to fruition, then the T31 will be an extremely potent surface...

We do have air defence assets and a fully integrated network. There is anti drone stuf, starstreak, camm, and aster. The real question is how much of it are you prepared to say is to be kept to be deployed around the uk or sent overseas or do we need more of it. We have 6 type 45s are we to say 3 w...

IIRC We ordered a new air-defence radar & computer system for around £800m c. 2 years ago. Seems pointless to know what's coming when you have no method of stopping it. I know that we are joining the European ABM system, but that project appears to be moving with glacial slowness. Perhaps the su...

New Aster 15 EC in 2030, with twice range of the current Aster 15 at 60+km. https://meta-defense.fr/en/2024/04/11/missile-aster-15-ec-mbda-pour-2030/ In-service date 2030 or after Probably a similar time-frame to CAMM-MR (100km+), with CAMM-ER (45km+) in service with Italy in the relatively near fu...

A range of 25km means that CAAMM is capable of defending any ship inside a 2000km2 area around the ship. What is the effective range of a missile is a moving feast as it depends on the target, one extreme short range scenario is the kinetic energy needed to pull 40 Gs (which falls off quickly after...

Odd that you take an article that basically says that ESSM is a self-defence missile that is finding little use in the Red Sea, as it can't intercept missiles aimed at other ships (so the USN has to use SM2 for that purpose) and use that to criticise CAMM, which IS capable of intercepting crossing ...

Navy News 8th April talking to RTX (Raytheon) at SAS '24 on minimal reported use of ESSM by USN ships in Red Sea (only know of Dutch Iver Huitfeldt using ESSM, none by USN). ESSM Block 2’s versatility and role have slated it to be deployed on virtually any Navy vessel. Amid recent events in the Red...

Until they are no longer supported, we should think about retaining Phalanx for use on RFAs & STUFT vessels, alondside the DS30Bs

How to say language teaching in the UK is crap without blaming the teachers and the Dept for Education

Oh dear - resources are resources, whether they are currently being exploited or not. Russia wishes to take control of Ukrainian resources, largely for the personal enrichment of the kleptocracy currently running Russia. The late John McCain who said about Russia "Russia is a gas station masque...

But they are still in the ground they aren't preventing access to any one. The shocks to the economy due to Ukraine have been due to a lack of Russian Gas and Oil not Ukrainian. I suggest you read up on the subject a bit more. Putin and the oligarchs are obsessed with acquiring wealth. The oil, gas...

tomuk wrote: ↑03 Apr 2024, 22:02 lots of potential resources

Still resources. Also resources that they are denying others access to.

Remember - Britain denying Germany access to the Middle Eastern oilfields was one of the most significant actions of WW2. Lack of fuel crippled the German war effort

Ukraine sits on large oil & gas fields. Its Black Sea EEZ also contains large undeveloped oil & gas deposits (which is why Russia is desperate to capture the entire Black Sea coast). Sufficient that, if exploited, Ukraine could seriously compete with Russia as a major supplier to Europe. It ...

Not going to happen. Too expensive. The US has set aside $60b to restart chip manufacturing in the USA. Even the Tories have started taking stakes in strategic industries - hopefully Labour will continue How much of that industry would survive a lengthy conflict. It's one of the primary strategic t...

I'm not so sure that the US will just roll over & let China take 60% of the worlds chip-making industry

As an Easter thought exercise, given five years, no increase in budget, but an opportunity to tweak a few things (changing priorities/selling things to add realistic / modest additions), what’s the view on how to respond and deploy the limited UK maritime forces? 1. Build ammunition stocks (startin...

It's the Lightweight Multirole Missile. The RN calls it Martlet.
So far demonstrated in surface-to-air, air-to-surface, surface-to-surface and air-to-air modes.
All the same missile, using the same laser-beam riding guidance tech as Starstreak. Other guidance methods have been proposed

Pushing the light gun's range out to 22-25km would outrange all current Russian 122mm (based on publicly available specs) and even some 152mm systems (using standard ammunition). Perhaps 40km range could be acheived with specialist (rocket-assisted etc) rounds. For longer ranges, I think we should b...

AFAIK there are Boxer, Man and Jackal flatbeds available. Pretty sure there was a prototype flatbed Foxhound variant. Stormer had one as well. Maybe something will come out of the FV432 replacement program next year. I would love to see a wheeled/ tracked pair of vehicles using the same modules/ com...