Poland's upgraded MiG-29s (and those of a few other countries) are an obvious short-term solution and indeed remain the topic of a very long running saga dating back pretty much a year. F-16s or Gripens would be the obvious long term solution but politics and practicality heavily count against anyth...

I do think it would be worth considering a Hi-Lo mix consisting of 2 x large, gold plated and extremely expensive cruisers (and may as well term them as such) for dedicated carrier group AAW and cruise missile barrages with 4 x much smaller / more basic AAW destroyers to fill out the fleet. I cannot...

Even if a decision to deliver fast jets is made soon it would still be a long, long time before they are in the air over Ukraine. This talk of long range weapons implies something much sooner that can be used in weeks or a couple of months. I would go with this in order of probability: 1. Helping Uk...

If that is the case then that basically rules out Astute for the RAN. It’s my understanding that RR will not be building PWR2 concentrating on PWR3 unless they redesign for S9G which the US boats havea smaller beam than Astute boats. If RR still have the production capacity to make further PWR2 rea...

Not sure 'long range weapons' means Storm Shadow. Maybe but would need to either rapidly develop a means of ground launching it or else integrate it on Ukraine's existing MiG-29, SU-27 and SU-24. The latter has been done with HARM (only on MiG-29s I think) but cruise missiles may be a harder technic...

Cost of standard PrSM ~ $1.8 million, expect Spiral 1 would be more expensive with its seeker. As USN has no plans to fit PrSM in Mk41 VLS cells would require development/qualification funding if ever procured for the T26 which think unlikely as RN seems set on the FC/ASW which looks more expensive...

I think the chancellor was in one of the papers saying (pretty much) we get the MoD needs more money, but there's no spare money right now. I'd say there'd need to be reform across the MoD from postings to pay to get to grips but there's no real push to do so. We'll probably just bumble on. The Tre...

This is a crazy and sobering figure, casualties on a par with the World Wars so far in February: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64616099 I'd be surprised if the KIA figure is accurate but would not be overly surprised if total Russian casualties (i.e also included wounded, captured and miss...

I still think that providing armed Hawks would be a decent interim step while working on F-16s / Gripens for the future. Ideally, we could get hold of some of the Hawk 200 series that have an F-16 radar and are already cleared for Amraam, Asraam and Paveway 2. If we could quickly add Brimstone then ...

I wonder whether there could be some mileage in talking to countries (e.g Malaysia / Indonesia / Oman) about buying the armed Hawk derivatives we have sold them. The easiest way to give Ukraine some useful fixed wing aircraft would be to train them on our own Hawks and then provide armed versions fo...

After all is said and done in Ukraine it will likely take Russia at least a decade to rebuild their military such that it would again constitute a serious conventional threat. For sure we shouldn't take our eyes from them for even a moment due to their ability / desire to engage in destabilising 'hy...

RIP to all those who have died. The bigger problem still will be in Idlib province, Syria where 4.5 million live with many in refugee camps. A lot of the buildings there would already be structurally unsound due to over a decade of shelling and bombing (much less in the last few years following Turk...

So far as I know we don't have any Challenger 1s in storage. Those we did have were all shipped to Jordan. As a general point, while I accept that storing stuff that has been replaced is not cost free, I do think we should do a little more of it (although nowhere near the Russian extreme). Never kno...

It is heavily rumoured that the US are about to announce providing Ground launched SDBs. Apparently some have been manufactured already so those could be a quick transfer but no idea as to how many. It isn't ATACMS or Storm Shadow but it would be precision strike, albeit with a modest warhead, out t...

Right next door to Cornwall one of the most deprived Counties with a high proprotion of poorly paid tourist based jobs. Might be easier than you think to recruit staff Yes and furthermore people in Cornwall where I currently live (and to a slightly lesser extent Devon where I used to live) have a t...

Just this once I would not say it is a given that it actually was Israel behind this. The target seems to have been a factory for producing ballistic missiles and so this could have been a warning to Iran not to supply them to Russia. https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1619647615016251392?cxt=HHw...

Turkey may be more inclined to drop its objection to Sweden joining NATO due to revelations that the person who recently burned the Quran (something Erdogan himself cited re; the accession to NATO) was funded by a Kremlin linked journalist to do so. I'm sure Erdogan will continue to milk it for dome...

Agreed that F-16s would make the most sense given that their age means there is not much the Russians could learn from wreckage or from a traitor in the Ukrainian AF (a concern I would have with regards Rafales or Typhoons). Also, as you say a huge number of different variants are in service with a ...

even possibility of fighter aircraft That will be the big debate at the next Ramstein conference and there are growing signs it will be seriously considered. The Dutch Foreign Secretary has stated they are open to providing F-16s if that is what Kyiv requests (and the US agrees): https://www.thedri...

I have read a suggestion that we are talking with Jordan about acquiring their Challenger 1 variant as they are in the process of retiring it. If that could be done it would amount to potentially several hundred fairly decent MBTs being transferred to Ukraine with presumably large quantities of spar...

In fairness Turkey generally (and Erdogan personally) would have pretty good grounds for saying that it is the rest of NATO who have been a poor ally to them in recent years rather than they having been a poor NATO ally. 1. We enlisted the YPG as an ally to fight ISIS despite knowing full well they ...

I will easily believe that they will only carry 12 CAAM when they enter service but that will be because half of the 24 cells are empty.

Almost a year into their three day cakewalk and the Russians are busy installing air defence on top of their MoD's Moscow HQ: https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1616081111351980032?cxt=HHwWgMDTpavNvO0sAAAA https://twitter.com/auto_glam/status/1616104008925708288 I'm guessing they didn't want...

I have read suggestions that we should help Ukraine's war effort by giving Ajax to the Russians....

Hopefully these can be brought into Ukrainian service pretty quickly (Ukraine already using Poland's Krabs should help ease the introduction?) and will be sent with plentiful spares and ammunition. While I do understand that the British Army cannot send all the equipment they have the simple reality...