Does it come down to the question: Tanks+crews ... or Replacement crews? Anyone thinking in terms of replacement crews, to a depleted unit, having their knocked-out tanks coming back from the work shop and re-crewed is not thinking "properly" for the type of speed that warfare of this day...

Luke jones wrote:Does anyone know when MDP is released or is it all still up in the air?

End of the year.

Caribbean wrote:At $1.30 to the £ , that's approx. £237,000 each - so within the £250k target price.

Might get them even cheaper if we wait until they start full rate production next year.

"U.S. Army has placed a $484 million order for 1,574 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles" "To date, Oshkosh has produced more than 2,000 JLTVs and has delivered more than 1,600 JLTVs to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. A Full Rate Production (FRP) decision is expected in FY19." https://...

So rather than ask for the £20bn, why not "can we have our £8bn back, please" From today. "Defence minister calls for an extra £8billion a year for the armed forces as he says that defence spending by UK must rise to 2.5% (from about 2.14%) at the moment. "The world is changing ...

Remember there is the need for between £2.5Bn and £4Bn a year to cover the already underfunded Equipment programme. Not sure where you got that number from. It is between £4.9bn and £20.8bn. That means there needs to be roughly an increase of between £500m and £2bn a year. “The Department’s Equipme...

abc123 wrote:I agree, if the RN has no enough sailors allready and has no realistic hope to solve that in future- then reduction to six Type 26 actually makes sense.

If we are going down the manpower route. 8/9 Type 26s, cut the Type 31. Give up on the Gulf fantasy deployment.

Tempest414 wrote:but the wine is better and cheaper and for most part so is the weather

I forgot you have good weather. Canada it is.

shark bait wrote:Its not that bad is it?

Not the end of the world. Just fed up with defence been a joke in the UK. France seems to take it seriously.

If we cut the Type 26 order to 6, I am moving to France.

Lord Jim wrote:M113 variant

Maybe the M548

jimthelad wrote:There are virgins left in the States

Everyone in the States got fucked when Trump won the election. So definitely no virgins.

Given that the NHS increase is going to be funded by taxes, there are now three options for MDP.

1. Nothing
2. 0.1/0.2 Increase
3. One time payment to ease the budget gap.

whitelancer wrote:Do you really think it needs it?

Most likely not, but it seems incredibly laxed. Also nice to see they are still allowing drones to fly close to it.

The Armchair Soldier wrote:Some nice aerial footage of Queen Elizabeth in Penzance here:

No force protection in the air or on deck. Potentially a single police boat far behind it.

It seems that their plans to pay for the £20bn are already wobbly. Hopefully they can spare some for defence, a mere £2bn a year extra would stop alot of potential cuts.

Ron5 wrote:I think Protector is only part of the Ajax peace keeping configuration. For war it is replaced with an EO sight. If so you need to look elsewhere for your ATGM mount.

Fair enough. The supporting variants will be equipped with it though, so there is a possibility.

Entire capabilities cannot be done reactively. "Okay everyone, rotate the entire army's main armoured vehicle back to the UK for a few months, we need to add a new weapon to it, and retrain the armoured units in its operation, maintenance and tactics. Wait, what do you mean the war's already o...

What the British Army has is excellent platforms. They have the potential to be the best in the world. They have the space, the means, the options and the fitting I agree. Ajax remains only a gun vehicle, for example. And having lost the direct fire and overwatch variants, Ajax routes absolutely re...

Lord Jim wrote:send troops into harms way without the best equipment available is just not acceptable.

If the Army gets what is in the equipment plan, they are going to be very well equipped.

She's spending a surprisingly long time at anchor... :problem: They were originally delayed by a power issue, and they were replacing a diesel head on a main engine yesterday. Engine might be playing up. Or they might just be doing some post refit trials. Seems to have moved out of Penzance at abou...

Looks like Athena.

Marine Traffic has Diamond near Invergordon in Scotland now. Can't be either Daring or Diamond then. Diamond: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/ho ... 30/zoom:10 Must be another ship then. Diamond is apparently FRE up in Scotland and Diamond left Portsmouth this morning. Dragon was last around t...

SKB wrote:However, her escort "Daring" (not!) has dropped anchor in Penzance Bay

I think that is normally HMS Diamond.