When was the last time RN ship fired 127/114 mm gun in anger? 2011. For more than 30 years, RN ships managed not to do that. The forces haven't fired an A2A missile in the same amount of time. Should they retire ASRAAM, AMRAAM and Meteor to only a fraction of the fleet? They haven't ever fired Trid...

What are the capabilities of the Crotale on the French ships? There's a lot of variance, versions that the French Navy do or don't have (sources differ). I've seen "24x" for the La-Fayette around, but the launcher only has 8 on it. I'm guessing it's an automated reload similar to the Type ...

Lockheed Martin's Sniper® Advanced Targeting Pod Continues Platform Expansion with Eurofighter Typhoon http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lockheed-martins-sniper-advanced-targeting-pod-continues-platform-expansion-with-eurofighter-typhoon-300335623.html Lockheed Martin has received a direct co...

To say that those the UK must measure itself against don't know how to use their weapons is a terrible assumption to make. You're talking as though money to acquire 52 cal guns will remove all training from the forces and reduce them to weekend basics or something. It's not a black and white one or ...

If anyone wishes to see it in motion and operation:



Beware the comments section.

The point Gabe is making is that even the extended range munition available to the current gun is shorter ranged than opposition systems. Even our MLRS are outranged by equivilents, so they aren't a counter either. And to think that they are untrained and lack fire direction technology that at least...

Have to say, I've always had a little soft spot for the M777 Portee. It's just a wonderfully unique little system that takes standard field guns + trailers and improves them in a simple, but resourceful way. If you're going to buy M777 field guns, then the Portee transporter is a no-brainer. Course ...

You know, depending on the way you read that article, there is a certain inclination of a supplement to the L118, and then an additional purchase of a wheeled or towed 155. 105mm and 155mm Howitzers with 120mm mortars perhaps? I can hardly see this budget not doing "instead of" in the end ...

F-35B cannot do vertical takeoffs when armed or fully fuelled, it's too heavy. Only a short-range (partially fuelled) unarmed ferry hop is possible. Exactly the same as any other STOVL combat jet in history. It'll still do a longer range hop from vertical takeoff than any other ship of that type th...

Well, we've yet to see a concept for the program that has all four of those elements. So we can only hope.

The concept of larger scale discussions is something we've been looking into. The new Escorts thread was the initial step in permitting this by dividing them into more focused threads for very specific things, and more general topics for wider talks. It's currently still being seen how we want to fu...

Bit of an update. I'm hearing chatter from friends who attended the Tank 100 event at Bovington Tank Museum that the Ajax there had some officials offering comment on it. The biggest thing of note? The crew was repeatedly, and firmly, stated as "Six men" for the Ajax with turret. Standard ...

They held one before, they don't HAVE to now, but going against it would be political danger, and thus unlikely.

Their population voted against Gripen fighters for being "too expensive."

Gripens.

I am very intrigued to see what on earth they think is affordable to get past the population's displeasure at this point. Second hand F-16's from countries switching to F-35? M-365?

Edging toward escort discussion on that one. Over to the discussion thread for that, please.

Note that report mentions (with a picture from BMT themselves) that 24x CAMM plus 8x Mk41 cells is now possible on it.

That is very interesting in changing the game of that ship. (Endless discussions to the escorts thread on that one, please!)

It would explain why no-one on the ship knew! The Army had chiefed it from the warehouse!

Thermal reducing camo. A handy thing these days, Barracuda has done well with it in the past for the Leopard 2. Odd though, that Ajax has been shown with Barracuda, but the Chally has something entirely different. Testing varied things? Or is the Army recoiling from the dreaded "C" word ag...

Supacat Extenda might be the last British AFV AFV? The top is open; does the lower half stop assault rifle bullets? It's better protected than often given credit, but yes, it's hardly the definition of "AFV" either. It's hard to believe I'm being generous with my definition of AFV for the...

Could well be... but it all goes into the costing. - could be a worthwhile exercise; then again, slotting into a 50.000 unit production run will give massive savings At the cost of killing off one of only two remaining British vehicle projects left. This decision pretty much kills Foxhound to be a ...

Of course, you know why they're doing it. It's so they can reel off "We have modern Foxhound vehicles, Protected Recon Jackals and Coyotes, Husky support vehicles, Panther command vehicles, JLTV transports being acquired now and new vehicles on the horizon." It's so they can just "say...

What a great purchase, the UK has never had a nicely armoured, mine protected 4x4 jeep vehicle in service in large numbers that could be simply expanded using UK manufactur-

Oh wait.

The "emergency" is that the British Army's plan is pitifully underequipped for even light intervention work. There is no known environment we could be called to in a moment's notice that wouldn't be an issue. Look what happened to the French, and what they were forced to do after men were ...

So, we're going from almost 500 turreted Warriors, to only 245. Is the emergency solution to just keep those other~250 with the RARDEN? Keep funding Scimitars simply to bring more firepower? Do we start requipming Spartans with Javelin RWS as has been tested on a wider basis? There's a number of che...

I'm not sure if I'm reading your post right, but are you legitimately saying we should stick with the FV432s, in this day and age, just to make up numbers? They don't bring anything to the table either, remember. Maybe if you strapped more RARDENs to them to help make up firepower numbers, but it's ...