Our future OPV fleet. image.jpg It makes you wonder what could have been possible had the RB2 design incorporated a Wildcat hanger. Could this be an acknowledgment that the T31 build schedule is slipping further? Or that the B2 delivery schedule is slipping due to the well publicised quality contro...

Caribbean wrote:

donald_of_tokyo wrote:“bolster the UK’s ability to protect our fishing fleet as well as our shores”.

Just the start of the post-Brexit relationship negotiations

There won't be any meaningful "negitiations" if the PM manages to get the current withdrawal agreement through

The bonus is its offensive/defensive capabilities could still be fully upgraded down the line if required. image.jpg The other plus is they could never be categorised as Frigates. With a 76mm, 2x 30mm's, Aritsan and the ability to embark a Wildcat and 3x RHIBs or 2x RHIBs and an ISO they would be i...

Think the poor caliber of the PM and her team is the fundamental reason

Lord Jim wrote:I would be surprised if the routine air wing for the QE was 12 F-35B and 12 Merlin HM2 with four sets of CROWSNEST for the latter

Would or wouldn't be surprised? Does the 12 F35 tally include or exclude allied (USMC) jets?

The pace of these trails far exceeds my expectations, it's more akin to testing in the old days, but I'm sure there's lots more planning these days. Clearly there has been a lot of hard work going on in the background to jump in at this speed. For the next rounds of testing and training (or parts t...

We are only going to need one escort group for the Carriers and we are not going to see both operational at the same time regardless of what has been put out by the MoD. I think there will be 2+2 escorts for the available carrier on operational deployments for the T-45 and T-26 respectively with ot...

Why does everyone keep saying that the CBG will have 2 T45 routinely? Surely we don't have enough? Given that the T31 looks like it will bring little value to NATO ops, isn't it more likely that the T45s will be used for NATO ops and contributions to allied CBGs? I think that routinely we are more l...

Well I like the idea of a son of T23 out of the T31 program just for ASW carrier duties freeing up the T26 for global roles ( might be a good export ship if it is done right ) I just think it would be better to cut the number ( unless an increase in budget is forthcoming ) of T31 to 3 so it is equi...

Yes, we voted to leave. And leave we must. But, I'd hoped we would be in better shape than this, but May and her team have made a right dogs breakfast of it. Her deal is the worst of both worlds, in my opinion More like the only real deal we'd get... so it was bad deal or no deal for Leave or remai...

Yes, we voted to leave. And leave we must. But, I'd hoped we would be in better shape than this, but May and her team have made a right dogs breakfast of it. Her deal is the worst of both worlds, in my opinion

We are where we are

We could have just said, instead of the 500 pages, that "we will stay in the EEA during the transition" while putting all our energies towards the more permanent solution... which, as of now, has a grand total of 5 pages covering that aspect I don't think it's really possible at this stag...

Does anyone think that May's deal will be politically sustainable, even if she somehow gets it through Parliament (which seems unlikely at thispoint)?

SDL wrote:Then we have no deal....

If needs must, we have to honour the referendum result and the subsequent general election result. They both mandated this. Democracy is too important not to

Brexiteers to the left of her, Remainers to the right, the DUP in front of her. In to the valley of Brexit rode Prime Minister May. Up until a couple of weeks ago I would have said that May would win a confidence vote in her leadership of the party pretty convincingly simply because the majority of...

You can't bring money from 2030 to 2020. Why not? £3bn for 6 hull is £500m average cost. If so, T26's average cost is £1bn. I think "using the same hull" is totally out of scope. Whats your estimate for a T26 lite? But, £375m unit-cost light frigate will be interesting, I agree. Around £3...

Good news! #German parliament paved way for purchasing new @Eurofighter_1 to replace 33 older tranche 1 #Eurofighter today. €2.5 billion earmarked. Will keep German production line open & make entire #EF #Luftwaffe fleet of 140 planes swing-role capable. https://t.co/mXQu2TgyZU https://t.co/XbDn...

Is there any evidence that the OTO76 outperforms phalanx?

I was flicking through the xhannels last week and i stumbled across the film Under Siege - it's so bad it's actually good (to me as a kid at least, I loved the fact that it was based on the USS Missouri) and I noticed that in the film the hijackers used a Harpoon missile to destroy a land based rada...

The costs for the T23 come in at about £2million per missile I don't think that's a valid calculation. There isn't a permanent fit of one 1 missile to 1 silo, it's a pool of missile that rotate between on a ship, on the shelf, and back at the manufacturer. Thanks, I get that. It was a crude calcula...

The costs for the T23 come in at about £2million per missile (32 per T23 and 13 T23) whereas the costs for the T 26 (48 per T26 and 3 T26 on order) is about £1 million per missile. Obviously there are other costs that comprise these sums beyond the missile stocks, but what would be the reason for th...

Non-platform expense is usually things like upgrades to infrastructure like docks. Not design & development which is platform specific. In other words, the cost of the design, develop, build & support contract will be 1.25billion. Someone else will get the 250m. By the way, it's very clearl...

If it's for such shared kit, or even of its partly that and partly design costs, we are then effectively looking at £300 million per hull in practice. Add to this the fact that RN furnished equipment could possibly be competitively valued (I.e. less than new build/purchase costs) are we possibly loo...

Any chance those funds are allocated to T31 to acquire common kit which can be shared around platforms when they are active, I.e. taking advantage of some of the FTR aspects of the T31 (e.g. phalanx, rhibs, mission bay kit, etc)?