I posted a whole bunch of photos of the gun and its ammo, including comparisons with rivals, here: http://quarryhs.co.uk/WLIP.htm

arfah wrote:British eccentricity still working well.
RRS Boaty McBoatface is leading with 27,000 votes.

Yep - whatever name is officially chosen, she seems likely to be affectionately known as "Boaty" for evermore.

Little J wrote: Did you try the new Aussie version, the EF88 / F90?

No, it wasn't available.

I'm not sure that British involvement in the development of the AUG would have made it better..... the design was obviously the result of some very clear and logical thinking.

I had the opportunity to handle and shoot both old and new versions of the Steyr AUG in Austria last week, and was very impressed. It is still an astonishingly advanced design even at 40 years old, and a pleasure to carry and shoot. It was light years ahead of the L85A1, and I do wish that the Briti...

Quality is not why 43Cdo RM have 'ditched' the L85. The shorer barrelled C8 is not as high a velocity as the L85 with it's SS108 round which means it is more suited for boarding operations. Especially where you may have to open fire inside a huge metallic vessel with non absorbent walls. Edit: Will...

The BA's preferences keep shifting. They acquired the short-barrelled Minimi in Iraq as a short-range bullet-sprayer; close in, volume of fire matters. In the much longer ranges typical of Afghanistan, it was of little use and the L86A2 came back into favour as its long barrel squeezed the most out ...

My second nomination is completely different: the Fairey Rotodyne. The emphasis in its development was on its civilian use - wrongly, with the benefit of hindsight - but a military version was planned and the US Army was extremely interested, with a potential order for a couple of hundred being tal...

Regarding SM-3, it would be in addition to Aster, as has been said. It requires adding the 16 MK41 cells that the Type 45 can fit. As a bonus, that would open the door not just to SM-3, but to the addition of other systems over the life of the ship, from Tomahawk (it would require fitting the missi...

Gabriele wrote: The MOD funded a study into adding SM-3 to the Type 45 in late 2014. That seems to be the direction of travel for if / when a BMD development is funded.

OK, thanks. How messy. If they wanted to adopt the US system, they might as well have done it from the start...

The extra cells on T-45 are almost certainly going to be used for BMD with the SM-3 missile. Really? I thought that the Aster system was being developed with BMD in mind. I would think that adopting an entirely new SAM system like the Aegis/SM-3 would certainly need a new fire control system, and p...

shark bait wrote:I think the Canberra's would be the best stating point for a design, but I fully expect we would go native with the design.

Yep, chuck out those old US gas turbines and fit a really advanced new British engine instead on the other hand.....

GibMariner wrote:HMS Monmouth visits #Göteborg this weekend to reinforce good relations w/Sweden and give crew a well earned rest

Isn't there a danger that these two aims might be mutually exclusive?

Or are shore leave groups well behaved these days?

However, I think UK subjects know much about navy than other citizens worldwide, and I think they will not take an OPV as a frigate. The British public knows zilch about warships, or any other military issue for that matter. Those of us who do know and care about such things are a very small band, ...

I think that the 35mm Millennium is the most versatile gun CIWS around at the moment (at a cost, no doubt) but I can't see the RN ever buying it.

Which is part of the reason why I thought about the 40mm CTA currently being developed for a few of our armoured vehicles. Only a small step up size wise but a much larger projectile and a much greater choice of ammunitions with the benefit of commonality amongst the forces. Although a beefier and ...

One of them should certainly be saved, if at all possible. I really must get on with transferring my old holiday video tapes to DVDs via the computer. Somewhere on one I have a short clip of an SRN4 (not 6!) taken from the deck of a conventional ferry. The sea was rough and the hovercraft was wallow...

About time, its hardly the worlds most credible AAW platform if it has the reliability of a Fiat. It would be great if it did. I've just sold a Fiat which I ran for over seven years and it never needed anything other than its routine annual service. Somewhat better than the Mercedes and BMWs I have...

I was startled and appalled to read that there are more than 140 people employed by the government in a unit set up to investigate supposed "war crimes" by British troops in recent conflicts. Now if you put people in jobs like that, they are going to want to stay employed, which means show...

Tony, what do you think could be the driver for the change? Standardisation, away from KCB? The above (going up on the threats scale)? Claimed superior accuracy of the Mk.44? Variety of rounds available for different effect? Standardisation with the ASCG installed on the Type 23s over the past few ...

Gabriele wrote: Rest probably small mods to light guns and MK8. Maybe got the new SLX Hawk-S thermal cameras for the light guns...? Dunno.

That's the bit that interests me - have they swapped the Oerlikon KCB for the MK44?

Anyone know what Dragon's weapons upgrades are?

As late as in June 1939 there was a competitive shootout between anti-tank rifles using the round TW mentioned and the 20 mm round. The L-39 anti-tank rifle that emerged as the winner did a good job with the heavier round against T-26-, T-38- and T-28 models of the Red Army (Pz1 would have been min...

Yes just double checked that and does look like the Germany HMG never saw much use, the article I recalled from memory talked about losses under 'heavy machine gun fire' and I now wonder if they meant something closer to 'sustained/numerous machine gun fire'. Although given the thin armour and the ...

Thanks for this. A couple of points: None of the "heavier machine guns" saw action during WW1: the first of them, the German 13mm TuF, was in mass production but only in the process of being sent to combat units. The same ammunition was, however, used in the Mauser M1918 anti-tank rifle as...

[ 4: cut the mission bay much smaller - to make your hull smaller = fuel efficiency better If all you are doing is shortening the hull, then you will increase hydrodynamic drag and fuel consumption. When the later version of the Type 42 was introduced, with a much longer hull, it reportedly went fa...