Air Support Budget Priorities to 2026 Air Support - £4.25 billion in Uncommitted Equipment Procurement Included in this are: • the £2.25 billion contract for nine P-8 Poseidon aircraft – U$3 billion excluding the cost of US weapons; £/U$ 1.34 average exchange rate • £1.75 billion to replace the E-3...

Combat Air Budget Priorities to 2026 This assessment is based on the MoD’s defence equipment plan 2017 which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-defence-equipment-plan-2017 It examines the ‘Equipment Procurement (Uncommitted)’ figure for Combat Air at March 31st 2017 an...

Just updated the main article to take into account the early retirement of sixteen two-seat tranche 1 Typhoons http://www.janes.com/article/77413/raf-to-scrap-twin-seat-typhoons plus the contract to integrate the Meteor on the F-35B http://defense-update.com/20170421_f35_meteor.html , a new order fo...

Funding Naval Command Priorities to 2025 This assessment is based on the MoD’s defence equipment plan 2016 which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-defence-equipment-plan-2016 The MoD report provides plenty of detail that can be used to assess the state of the procurem...

It was the Times back in the summer that referred to £2 billion but the article also said that was for a build of six ships.

I have not seen any follow up of that story or corroboration in any other media source.

The number of actual Typhoon aircraft available for operations will be dependent on the success of the TyTAN programme. If we look at the number of tranche 2 and 3 aircraft and take off those based in the Falklands we have a total of 103. Under the old maintenance regime each aircraft would undergo ...

Some are arguing you can't have two aircraft types at Marham but at the same time accept three at Lossiemouth (Typhoon, Poseidon and Sea Protector) or are proposing two at Leeming (Typhoon and Hawk). As current announced plans up to 2025 stand there are due to be six Squadrons at Lossiemouth (3 Typh...

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Sea Ceptor, on the latest designs of the Type 26, will be launched from triple cells of Lockheed Martin's ExLS VLS which is, perhaps not coincidentally, also the launcher of choice for the Venator-110. This is apparently the preferred option because it take...

I would have agreed about Lossiemouth if it hadn't also been chosen as the base for Poseidon and therefore also likely to be the base for Sea Protector. If Marham were chosen as the base for IX(B) and 31 they would effectively carry on using the part of the base that they currently inhabit but move ...

Defence Minister Harriett Baldwin expanded on that agreement at a State of Qatar National Day reception in London today. She revealed that a new UK-based Typhoon joint squadron will be called No. 12 squadron, and that it will temporarily integrate Qatari personnel, including pilots and ground-crew ...

Can you provide a source for that?

The General Purpose Frigate Competition After starting with five designs from four companies the competition has evolved to be between four designs from two alliances and one design team. The leading consortium is that between Babcock and BMT announced on November 7th https://www.bmt.org/news/2017/...

The creation of an effective Sea Protector UCAV has moved a major step forward with the proven ability to track submerged submarines over long distances https://navaltoday.com/2017/11/16/ga-asis-mq-9-predator-tested-in-us-navy-anti-submarine-warfare-exercise/ The final major step forward is the capa...

That's right, three LHD carriers should be affordable on the 2033-37 time horizon. The only reason to raise this at all in the near future is RFA Argus' retirement in 2024. It's the golden opportunity to start the process with a single new LHD costing no more than £500 million, crewed by the RFA and...

But why should it be a fantasy?

The French can build a Mistral for about £500 million so it's not that expensive even to buy four and the total size of the crew is reduced by a third so easing shortages and saving money!

An Amphibious Future Hopefully, the National Security Capability Review will reject any plans to cut our amphibious forces. If that happens the Royal Navy needs to start considering the way forward for its amphibious fleet as changes could begin as early as 2024 with the retirement of RFA Argus. If...

Personnel Numbers One of the biggest challenges facing Naval Command is having enough personnel to crew all of its submarines, ships, helicopters and aircraft as well as the Royal Marines. This was partly recognised in the 2015 SDSR which allowed for an additional 400 staff by 2020 in large part to...

Red Herrings While there is a genuine need to, at the very least, protect the defence budget at 2% of GDP and a growth rate of inflation +0.5% there has been a lot of dis-information and even 'fake news' surrounding the budget debate in recent weeks. I've noticed that the reports in The Times in pa...

It’s almost exactly two years since the 2015 SDSR and things have moved ahead, but at a slower pace than is really required by Naval Command. I have updated the main article to include what we've learned from the national shipbuilding strategy and the attachment to reflect the changes that have been...

Funding Helicopter Priorities to 2025 This assessment is based on the MoD’s defence equipment plan 2016 which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-defence-equipment-plan-2016 The MoD report provides plenty of detail that can be used to assess the state of the procurement...

I've also amended the attachment to reflect the information provided by RetroSicotte.

JHC reports to Army HQ, it is a 2* Formation, not a 4* Command. Are the 'Grey' RN platforms even in JHC? I thought the Merlin Mk2s and the Wildcat HMA2s stayed with the RN while the CHF were part of JHC? You are quite right but as the budgeting, planning, maintenance and basing of all the helicopte...

There are quite a few references on the internet stating that the original Brimstone missile had a range of 7.5 miles. There are also several references to Brimstone 2 having a "more than 200% increase in range" which is where I've got the 22 mile range from. Sea Venom's range is harder to...

The UK’s helicopter fleet has seen the harshest level of cuts since SDSR10 with frontline helicopter numbers nearly halved from 515 in 2010 to under 300 by 2020. However, investment in the remaining fleet has been high with most helicopters either just recently, or about to be, modernised such as th...

What I mean is that due to the short range of the F-35B the carrier would have to get dangerously close to the shore, especially as we don't have that many escorts.