Lol. What are the bets press releases will be issued that bang on about rising defence budget and meeting our 2% nato commitment. This govt comes out with so much spin and outright bullshit they actually sound like they believe they've been brilliant for our armed forces rather than dismembering th...

If anything replaces harpoon I before the far future one, it'll be Harpoon II, otherwise they'll have to do hundreds of millions on integration costs.

The DSCA announcement of the approval of the possible purchase. Not all is lost, but saying "at least 20" and then ask for 16 plus 10 options" is a bit suspect. We'll see, i guess... https://t.co/nDtv1kkiNn It's basically so they can put "more than 20" in the SDSR to look g...

US approves Certifiable Predator B sale to UK http://www.janes.com/article/65567/us-approves-certifiable-predator-b-sale-to-uk The US State Department has approved the sale of the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) Certifiable Predator B (CPB) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to the Uni...

I'm legitimately unsure if that's intended as written or a very subtle jab in the side. :p

The current defence procurement strategy seems to be based on what the "Experts" think we can do without and then gambling they and the government do not get burned. The P-8 contract was more the result of a case minor burns due to the bad press for not being able to stop the Russian navy...

Surely an enemy submarine would have used its anti-shipping missiles or long-range torpedoes long before it got in range of a Stingray launched from a frigate? I would have thought a Merlin or Wildcat armed with a Stingray would be far more effective. If that were the case then every single serious...

Generally all agreed, other than feeling that your Type 31 is horrifically under-equipped. 32 CAMM and 8 Harpoon with a gun is very limited. No ASW, no deep strike. Ideally I would be happy to see CAMM go to 24 to instead include 8x Mk41 to get VL-ASROC and FCASW. Add in a Captas-4 Compact and it sh...

it is the owner of Selex, yes, but the actual jobs are near Edinburgh in Scotland, where they build elements of the EOTS, etcetera. Italian ownership, but british jobs and expertise, in the end. Not so much "near" as "in" these days. I used to drive past their building once a we...

One has to wonder if the San Giorgio-class from the Italians is perhaps the way that concept would be realised. Mini landing platform docks with a flat top deck, a well deck, enough air defence to survive and weighs in at 8,000 tons. It makes me sad that Italy isn't continuing with them in the same ...

Sea Venom has over the horizon range from a helo and is fire & forget. Now remind me again, how many navies and how many warships have OTH anti-air systems?. Sea Venom is 20km. That is not OTH. 25km is the general sight range from normal warships. Elevated masts are much higher. Let alone what ...

That one definitely dates from this side of the millennium. I thought you said there were rounds dating back to the same time as the L30 choice was made (1990-ish) But development and intent had existed since long before. As there is very little to go on regarding armour capability, I wasn't going ...

"You also have to consider the knock-on effects on the tank design from larger suspension travel. Merkava is OK as its hull is really tall anyway. Leo2? I don't know." And yet the Abrams has much greater resistance to larger object traverse and it isn't much higher. Neither is the Leopard....

Vertical ride height as in "maximum permitted Y-axis movement before the suspension MUCH move the tank upwards". Suspensions aren't infinite. The Challengers is very low, it's great on "light rough", but it couldn't do half of what a Leopard or especially a Merkava could, which h...

The older 2A46 used multipiece ammo as well, hence their similar performance, alongside weaker materials. The latest ones have outpaced the L30 by a significant distance, using much the same materials now, but with substabtially larger penetrators firing at higher velocities. CR2 armour really isn't...

There isn't a single issue I have brought up that I have not invested a lot of time in investigating. Factually lacking a capability (Nighttime hunterkiller) cannot be "exaggerated", either you have it or you don't. The CR2 does not have a thermal sight outside of the TOGS.

While there is little laudable in UK tank development in the latter third of the 20th century, I wonder what is so wrong with the idea of incremental improvements? In any case, the Challenger 2 is more of a change to the Challenger 1 than the various marques of Leopard 2 are to each other. There is...

APFSDS rounds are designed to fly purely under their own spin, hence the fins. That spin will drop off precisely at the effective range they are designed for maximum penetration, ie - when the sabot itself drops off the KEP. A rifled gun's inherant spin screws with this calculation, throwing off the...

As I said in my post, the slip-ring is not 100% effective, but you don't want an APFSDS round to spin on exiting the barrel.

It's inherantly worse than a smoothbore which doesn't spin them at all, as spinning from anything other than the fins is a bad impact.

Rifles produce inherent spin (slip rings are not 100% effective) and will retain this through flight. Thus for a given muzzle velocity, the rifle will retain velocity over range. Though the smoothbore will convert more propellant energy to muzzle velocity than a rifle, which has to generate the spi...

Advertise to people who normally bathe in the North Sea. It'll be a spa to them.

jimthelad wrote:That looks like a lot of fun!

They should charge a few quid for a go on whichever carrier's at home. We'd pay those carriers off in no time!

Waiting for the AngloFranco missile is not a "gap". A gap is a few months, a couple years at most.

A 12+ year wait with nothing is a complete loss of capability for an entire generation.

All the more I look at NSM and LRASM being demoed with canisters and want to just keep making facial expressions and motions of vicious pointing to them while staring intently at any government owned building.

Yeah, neither the RhML55 or L30 would engage outside 5km, but the point being that if an L30 can perforate something effectively from the front at Xkm, the RhmL55 will always be able to do that at X+Ykm. Hence, the RhML55 has the longer effective range. I am hoping that such trials will yield someth...