Ron5 wrote:And neither did it leave Horizon to build a UK missile system.

We left Horizon to build Type 45. We retained PAAMS, but personally, I think we got a bit of a raw deal there on industrial involvement..

The French walking away from the future replacement for storm shadow, sea scalp etc would he moronic when the UK is the only European partner willing to order in sufficient quantities to offset costs and there will be so much legal red tape I'm not even sure the French could develop a sovereign rep...

So the only good ones left that stuck to programs and teams are us ? The UK has definitely had its share of abandoning programmes. But, certainly in recent years, has a habit of bouncing out of them for very good reasons (TRIGAT, Horizon), at a very early stage or when the programme can continue wi...

Tantalizing hint on radar for the army Wildcats .. With Link 16 also on the way (should be easy as SK have already had it fitted) you have to wonder if AAC Wildcats might also see the Weapons Wing arrive as well...adding Martlet would be good...mind you we really need to up the quantity bought, 1,0...

Ron5 wrote:Airfix needs to pull its bloody finger out and release a 1/350 QE carrier.

I'm not into modelling, but its weird that they made a one-off 6 years ago, have been inundated with demands for years for a kit..but have yet to produce one.

RN is currently planing to operate 7.62, .50cal, 20mm, 30mm, 40mm, 114mm and 127mm. Time for a spot of rationalisation to ease logistics IMO. Rationalisation always sounds like a great idea. For example the search for the inevitable 'perfect' calibre for small arms has been underway for a century.....

I was thinking that the Bushmaster IV 40mm used the same 3P round as the Bofors L/70 is that wrong It does. But I don't think the MSI Mount will take a Bushmaster IV firing Bofors. It's the Bushmaster II Super 40mm that will fit the mount. It does have an AB round but I don't believe its the 3P whi...

Is MSI system capable of 3P rounds? Integration into Bushmaster 40mm cannon?? Not sure. Doubt it. Super 40mm Bushmaster is an impressive round but it isn't 40mm Bofors. Ultimately, if there was a need to go to airburst then I'd hope we'd go to Super 40mm Bushmaster as even though 30mm airburst has ...

Interesting. I can understand the constrained arcs, and whilst I know that MSTAR is significantly smaller, the remote cable control greatly improves survivability. To be honest its a concept that I'm surprised no-one has adopted to date. We've got elevating mast mounted radars (Giraffe), elevating ...

Bollox. Actually I think its right, this is not the first big integration contract the UK has anounced funding for and appears to be aimed mainly at Spear, F-35A integration for Meteor (which can't be a large amount at all) and a small amount for the remainder of the Meteor work that was already fu...

Was there ever an ability for the user to remote control (by cable) from the launcher? No. That sort of thing went out with Swingfire and Vigilant. For a SAM you'd really need a vertical launch missile for that as you need to point the missile at the target otherwise. If you were setting up a power...

No expert, but is that Starstreak or LMM being shoulder mounted? To my knowledge, Starstreak was always a 3 missile launcher (LML) for dismounted firing. The canisters look exactly the same so you can't really tell, they use the same CLU. Starstreak was always capable of shoulder launch, just the s...

Whats interesting here is the shoulder mounted Starstreak...for a long, long time, although it was capable of being used on the shoulder, we only saw Starstreak deployed on the tripod mount or Striker. Recently we've seen shoulder mount come back into fashion with the RM using LMM and 7 AD Gp using ...

That Sea Hawk should be a must for the T-26, T-31 and T-32 as well as replacing the existing mounts on the T-45s. Any idea of the cost? That as ever is the big question, can't imagine that it would be spectacular though. The capability leap is really significant, particularly for the smaller vessel...

I don't recognise the small MSI LLM only launcher on the right in the photo. Tasty. Totally new one on me, not seen a standalone mount for it before (apart from a very large Aselsan mount for 8 missiles a long while ago). It's not even on their website. Basically any ship with an E/O turret with la...

It's an RAF Luton tweet...but there is something interesting there...a production version of the MSI Seahawk Sigma with 4 LMM/Starstreak tubes.... and a seperate, standalone, 4 missile mount ... https://mobile.twitter.com/RAF_Luton/status/1438265652981248000 https://i.imgur.com/HkpY2uj.jpg And somet...

Interesting....wonder which one...

For what it is worth, I believe the Lockheed definition is just the cost of maintenance per flying hour and doesn't include such niceties as fuel etc. I'd also guess that with flying hours diminishing due to the increase in synthetic training, maintenance cost per hour will increase. Numerators and...

2. Less than Typhoon. That may have been true in the past, but Project TyTAN has been underway in the UK for a few years now and is meeting its targets on cost per hour. One of the goals is to get the cost per hour equivalent to a late model F-16 which is c$20k per flight hour. If they meet it (and...

2. Less than Typhoon. That may have been true in the past, but Project TyTAN has been underway in the UK for a few years now and is meeting its targets on cost per hour. One of the goals is to get the cost per hour equivalent to a late model F-16 which is c$20k per flight hour. If they meet it (and...

How much an hour is it now? Between $33k and $38k depending on what time this year you asked...some confusion gets dropped in when people try and extrapolate from 2012 dollars which was when predictions were made for this stage of the programme (suspect they do that because it generates a lower pri...

Ron5 wrote:Lockheed Martin contractually commits to reduce F-35A running costs to $30k an hour in two years. Good news.

And presumably that will mean they're still on track for $25k in 2025 as well, which many thought they'd never reach.

Doesn’t really make a huge amount of sense to be honest, a aircraft develop program would need considerately larger numbers than 14 to have a business case for a production contract. It doesn't really stack up at all...their business model could make sense but they need substantial investment, whic...

HMS Glasgow mast craned on...

Maybe they are playing them down as both are not fully cleared for ops Thats possible, but they did make a point of them being available and deployed on CSG21...which wasn't playing it down. Going from that position to total silence is a little odd... Sea Venom, is a new system and may not yet been...