Your suggestion to mount the 76mm and 40mm guns on Type 31

You would have to clear that with the manufacturers of the ship and weapon system, and integrate the associated radars and power etc with the Type 31 internal architecture.

The 40mm mounting just needs deckspace if I'm not mistaken, but the 76mm Oto is a deck-penetrating mount so the builders will have to ensure it can fit the space inside. Shouldn't be a problem I think but just to tell you, it's not a "strap-on" like Phalanx...

It would save money of course. Although both weapon systems need upgrading to make full use of their capabilities.

But I'm done playing fantasy fleets

darth5zaft the nerve

This also depends on what kind of guidance is available on that C-705 installation, what level of integration with the CMS has been achieved.

For example it's relatively easy to mount Sidewinder on many aircraft. Full-spec Meteor is a whole nother story.

Australians found that they had been fucked over by Eurocopter and DCNS enough, plus they settled internal political issues regarding nuclear power, so they decided to join Anglo alliance, simple as that

NZ is functionally irrelevant, it can be considered on a level of microstate, militarily. they are nearly as dependent on Australia as Brunei is on Singapore, so they are a non-factor, as much as Jacinda Arden can bleat and whine about hurr durr nuclear power

AUKUS will have no impact on NATO as they are two totally different theaters of war. Germany will make noise for 3 reasons; to backup the anti-Anglo Fra-Ger alliance, to pretend at neutrality with China and Russia in order to protect their trade relations with them, and because AUKUS just took away a potential customer of German U-boats but NATO as a whole is firstly Anglo-dominated, and secondly already sick of Fra-Ger passivity so it's not entirely their show

EU27 now is very anti-Anglo because of jealousy over the US economy and Brexit, so they will try and do their own thing to at least make a big PR hoohah that "we have our own EU version of 'aukus' too". But here's the thing: they already have a far more integrated alliance. It's called Eurocorps, and supposedly ties in troops from all the Euro countries. It doesn't do jack shit because the Europeans are generally useless.

The reason is that the EU's main enemy remains of course Russia. But the key anti-Russia framework is NATO, which is Anglo-dominated making up nearly 70% of its overall firepower. What's stopping them from making NATO defunct and making EU the key military alliance? The top 4 GDP countries in the EU27 (now that UK has left) are Germany, France, Italy and Spain - all in the far West of Europe. The threat is in the East. These countries are unwilling to spend the time, money and effort to be the new Big Brother, by protecting the eastern borders. As such the Baltics have accused Germany of leaving them to be picked off by Russia; Poland has accused Germany of treating it as a buffer state

TL;DR, unless and until Germany gets off its ass and does something useful, Anglo-led NATO is still the big boss and all the rest is European cock talk

I think lah. Who knows

One big difference between us and Germany is that we are nobody in this region whereas Germany is undisputedly the king shit of the EU

So no, not quite the same thing but you have a point as regards our fake neutrality

Bayraktar drone might be interesting given the huge sales interest, might bring unit costs down. Plus the Turks must be hurting for cash Absolutely no long term deals though, the lira problems may contaminate the programme

We simply can't afford Gripen in any meaningful numbers, unless we combine the LCA and MRCA requirement and spend a HUGE chunk.

This post has been edited by KLthinker91: Nov 9 2021, 01:43 PM

Finns going to buy 64 F-35A

I don't think the SAF are buying just 12 in total, that's just their initial buy.

Combat jet aircraft require a lot of maintenance especially something like the F-35 stuffed with stealth and electronics. With 12 aircraft, you'd have very few aircraft available for operations - basically only 2 or 3 at any moment of the day.

lmao

they buy the trainer version for training only. we buy trainer and LCA version for training and combat.

because jet is jet, heli is heli; both have different advantages and disadvantages

helis are crazy fragile, as both the USSR and USA have found out. in Afghanistan, the mujahideen shot down Hinds and Hips with machine guns. in Iraq, the USA famously lost dozens of Apaches damaged and some destroyed.

the advantage of combat air support using jets is that they are MUCH less vulnerable, can sometimes react faster, and in some cases carry heavier payloads. consider; an attack helicopter can only carry rocket pods and an autocannon, while combat jets can carry that and/or at least a couple of heavy bombs that can hit harder than anything a helicopter can do

case in point:



This post has been edited by KLthinker91: Dec 13 2021, 05:47 PM

you first asked about heli mah

answer is higher operating costs I think. two engines will always be more expensive than one, and multi-role that can do both missions effectively will usually be more expensive than single-role, especially a single-role cheap aircraft like the M346 or Hawk.

it's a ladder of cost vs effectiveness in the "mud-mover" role: Tucano < Hawk < F-16 < F-15E, for example. how far we want to be on the ladder... depends.

The reason is because attack heli can hug trees and terrain, while jet aircraft cannot. Also it may be cheaper to operate one kind of MRCA in 2 roles, air superiority and CAS, rather than 1 jet in each role. So many armies who can afford it, would like to adopt this model.

You can see this in the change in some NATO militaries with the retirement of optimised ground attack aircraft like the Tornado, Jaguar, and Alphajet - the A10 should have followed but Congress decided to be CODBLOPS memers

Again, using LCA is a budget decision. Not "everyone" is abandoning the LCA. South American countries which are quite poor are still going for the LCA concept. Brazil of course stands out in this regard.

As for our purchase plans.... one plausible explanation is that we are downsizing our Air Force. Another is that if TPTB ordered the "wrong" aircraft, then the Air Force would rather have less

You recall this conversation we had regarding (lack of) German influence in NATO?

The latest hoohah is that many NATO countries not least US and UK, the lead Anglos, are pouring in urgent military aid to Ukraine as Russia has increased its forces posturing on the border... while Germany has done nothing so far.

See what I mean? It is things like this which erode European confidence in Germany's ability to be the Continental Big Brother, never mind what the Germans try to pretend

can barely see

but if you're interested in a fun fact... did you know, the current British SAS regiment originated in Malaya?

not to the Anglos, French, Nordics, even Spanish - everyone has sent weapons and combat units to the front

Germans sent a... field hospital

this whole episode is really shining a spotlight on Germany's lack of backbone

No doubt the politics of the situation are far more complex, but to simplify greatly; I see them as having monkey fist problem, or eyes bigger than stomach - they want to be big boy, don't actually have what it takes, and remain in denial

nuke shutdown - kononnya mau super green to layan diehard anti-nuke environmentalists, kantoi lack of power

Russia - kononnya mau reach out hand of friendship, kantoi Putin backstab

NATO/EU - kononnya mau jadi Continental big boss, kantoi backbone 404

to me, it's not that they are headless ie lack leadership

Merkel was an effective leader who catapulted the Germans to the forefront of the EU - at least so I think. At least she seems better than the whole crop of Brits and the French

but they are unwilling to suffer the consequences of hard decisions. even Merkel was no Thatcher - now there was truly an Iron Lady even her enemies these days are unable to say much against her

Lol interesting analogy with the Habsburgs. Unfortunately the Habsburgs were more successful than the Germans currently are at holding off the Eastern Hordes.

It's not about worrying about 4th Reich. Right now people WANT Germany to step up to the plate. They are only wishy washy because they think it's an easier life to be in the middle.

Boris is the only idiot the Tories could find stupid enough to be the punching bag. Macron has the vision but not the drive, and is probably a mega cuck anyway.

(I actually miss Theresa May, she wasn't bad)

Thatcher knew a certain degree of cruelty was necessary. Overall she was truly reasonably centrist.

The French are also trying to stymie Russian and ISIS influence in Africa. That's not a bad thing. But they're too poor to play big brother even there too.