sol wrote: ↑20 Mar 2023, 15:00

• FOC between October 2028 and September 2029.

By which point all the super duper revolutionary digital kit will be obsolete so they will all need an MLU.

No provision for the carrying of lockout chambers for deployments of u.a.v,s and crews with submersible vessels as per the Astute class , should such a capability be included on the SSN -AUKUS I’d assume that if the diameter of the hull is equal to dreadnought that the VLS modules would be arranged...

The thrust block cracked on QE

Bongodog wrote: ↑17 Mar 2023, 17:33 All ministerial budgets always get increased by inflation .

Eh please post evidence of that because I and many others are unware of any such convention.

Yes I think there's been a lot of British submarine tech found its way over to the US through the years which they have adopted ,think the Americans were impressed with British sensor tech a few years back , when the reports they were blown away buy how far astute could keep Virginia class at bay o...

Mercator wrote: ↑16 Mar 2023, 10:34 maybe parts of the reactor is too specific. Somewhere in the propulsion plant more generally might be a better way to put it.

The design of the reactor maybe based on a US design but the use of that technology is different to it incorporating actual US made parts.

Personally don’t think civil and military aircraft sit naturally in the same corporation, it’s like the Ferrari F1 team owning an HGV manufacturer. Exor, the investment company of the Agnelli family, that controls Ferrari also control CNH who make tractors and construction equipment and IVECO who m...

The direction of travel with the newly refreshed IR and AUKUS appear to validate this view and any rationale for launching a class of below average Frigates is now dead. So your answer to the lack of rationale for a class of below average frigates is instead to purchase a class of OPVs impersonatin...

R686 wrote: ↑13 Mar 2023, 23:48
so far sems promising, so much for Astute production in Australia

Actual Astute was never going to happen as there are no more PWR2 reactors.

Side question does a lot of American tech go into the Astute's? No AFAIK most of the systems on Astute are UK tech, accepting that the Rolls Royce reactors are derived from earlier US designs. A lot of US (Electric Boat) know how was taken onboard at Barrow to aid the construction of the boats as t...

From today's Franco-British summit: In the field of armament cooperation, France and the United Kingdom will advance key projects to develop their future complex weapons systems. They commit to concrete steps forward regarding the further advancement of the Future Cruise and Anti-Ship Weapon (FCAS/W...

Frankly, with the way the Government is cutting spending on everything, I'm starting to get the whiff of death about the whole programme. Yea, I wouldn't be surprised if they canned it and held on to Puma for a few more years with the "suggestion" that they'll go straight to Valor (built ...

Excellent rant. Dickheads that didn't order Brimstone for Apache need firing or pensions reduced. Probably sitting in the Treasury as we speak. You could add in the people at the AAC who are looking at APKWS... Nothing against APKWS, I've said before its one of the most elegant weapon engineering s...

jonas wrote: ↑09 Mar 2023, 08:52 2022 Update to Parliament :-
https://qna.files.parliament.uk/ws-atta ... iament.pdf

The CEO of SDA now reports directly to Director General Nuclear, as does a new position
of Managing Director, Warhead

What an odd set of titles.

San Diego is homeport to 5 Los Angeles Class boats that were pencilled in for withdrawal from 2026.

SW1 wrote: ↑09 Mar 2023, 08:00 Airbus is a much larger “national” Aerospace entity in U.K. than leonardo.

Fine order some more aircraft with Broughton built wings then.

My point is that if your issue is that the current national supplier has problems, the solution is to address those problems not order from a new shiny sixpence foreign supplier with a totally fresh new set of problems (that you don't know about yet). And in so doing, destroy your national supplier...

My bet is.....Astute with S9G S9G shipped to UK for back half of submarine build front half built in SA. now would they ship the back half to AU or the front to UK for a total of 3 boats then SSN(R) built in AU from boat 4. UK doesn't need reactors and exporting them from the states is one of the m...

Rumors are that Italy will be the latest customer for CV90 Mk IV. So yet another missed opportunity for Ajax. To be fair, there was no official competition and this is intended as interim solution. Seems like Italy might decide to buy some 70-100 (depending on source) Leo 2A7 or 2A7+ and some 100 C...

That maybe the case and you would think the crew of a survey vessel would have the sort of skills required to do underwater surveying just maybe not the need for a 20mm and grey funnel in home waters. In terms of overall manpower levels the split between RN and RFA is not fixed and the Navy could mo...

Paint flaking off doesn't exude build quality. That's the old mast the new one has the bulb near the top. So all the pictures show the old mast? Odd. The second picture is the new mast. You can just see the bulb towards the top behind the disc separator before the narrow topmast. Here is Diamond an...

Yes all a bit confusing ATM till we find out for sure , kind of makes more sense Australia choosing a American design tbh Apart from the Virginias larger land attack capability I don't think it does, American boats are more manpower intensive than the UK ones so a SSN(R) with a VLS would be a bette...

Just read an article in BREAKING DEFENCE about upcoming AUKUS announcement and SPECULATION that the submarine choice COULD be American sub with British reactor technology,,that could work I guess ,a PR3 reactor that is very closely designed of American tech I believe already in a Virginia class ,so...

The article says, 7 (5 T23 and 2 T45) of the 18 (soon to be 17) escorts are in deep refit. In other words, only 11 escorts are manned. Today, we read the news of HMS Enterprise decommissioning in a month. T31 and T26, being new, will provide good active fraction. This is already good enough. Simple...

Ron5 wrote: ↑06 Mar 2023, 13:30 Paint flaking off doesn't exude build quality.

That's the old mast the new one has the bulb near the top.