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Well all the RAF’s Hercules are now in Marshall’s Cambridge with for sale stickers on them
I had forgotten how brain dead the British Ministry of Defence was. Only morons would get rid of Hercules well before their use by date. IIRC their remaining Herc's have only about 13000 airframe hours which means at least another 20 years of useful work for the old girls.
Of course it is all about saving tiny sums of money in the scheme of things that has consistently destroyed their capability over time.
I had forgotten how brain dead the British Ministry of Defence was. Only morons would get rid of Hercules well before their use by date. IIRC their remaining Herc's have only about 13000 airframe hours which means at least another 20 years of useful work for the old girls.
Of course it is all about saving tiny sums of money in the scheme of things that has consistently destroyed their capability over time.
I had forgotten how brain dead the British Ministry of Defence was. Only morons would get rid of Hercules well before their use by date. IIRC their remaining Herc's have only about 13000 airframe hours which means at least another 20 years of useful work for the old girls.
Of course it is all about saving tiny sums of money in the scheme of things that has consistently destroyed their capability over time.
The French and Germans have ordered C-130 especially to support SF operations and even have a joint base.
Indeed they did and have.
Putting on my Nostradamus hat the Poms will sell the remaining Hercs for $500 million as a job lot with spares and the squadron kitchen sink thrown in (going on what the USN paid for the new Fat Albert) and then 18 months after all of that have to put out an RFI to find half a dozen brand new Herc's for UKSF, whilst simultaneously the UK MoD looks for another vital capability cut to cost save on, FUBAR that all up, rinse and repeat, end up paying more for less.
The problem is that nobody ever seems to get held accountable for these stupid decisions (either politically or Civil Service), everyone involved has moved on by the time the chickens come home to roost.
'He died who loved to live,' they'll say,
'Unselfishly so we might have today!'
Like hell! He fought because he had to fight;
He died that's all. It was his unlucky night. http://www.salamanderoasis.org/poems...nnis/luck.html
The problem is that nobody ever seems to get held accountable for these stupid decisions (either politically or Civil Service), everyone involved has moved on by the time the chickens come home to roost.
Very true, but by the sounds of it, the Mod is once more facing a "Blackhole" in their budget even with the money Wallace has managed to get, so it seems that "something" is going to have to give again,and it seems that the Hercs have been picked for it.
Very true, but by the sounds of it, the Mod is once more facing a "Blackhole" in their budget even with the money Wallace has managed to get, so it seems that "something" is going to have to give again,and it seems that the Hercs have been picked for it.
The blackhole is there because the MoD budget is still unbalanced. Most NATO defence budgets now follow the 2014 NATO Wales meeting accord in which guidelines that CapEx should be in the 20% - 25% of GDP band and OpEx the remaining 75%-80%. In many ways this is more important to get right than the nominal 2% benchmark. At present the Poms are something like 33% CapEx - 66% OpEx which means they never have enough money to properly sustain whatever they buy.
The blackhole is there because the MoD budget is still unbalanced. Most NATO defence budgets now follow the 2014 NATO Wales meeting accord in which guidelines that CapEx should be in the 20% - 25% of GDP band and OpEx the remaining 75%-80%. In many ways this is more important to get right than the nominal 2% benchmark. At present the Poms are something like 33% CapEx - 66% OpEx which means they never have enough money to properly sustain whatever they buy.
Francis Tusa is saying that there is talk of cut in the British Army numbers of another 20-30%
Fairly brutal for the BA if that's even close to true, and I wonder how the rest of NATO would take it with the current state of things, I mean with that level of force what would be the max the BA could deploy and with what? And you have to wonder how the PR would spin it? Suppose "something something Global"...
Of course it is that time when everyone is briefing everything to everyone so lets wait and see.
Fairly brutal for the BA if that's even close to true, and I wonder how the rest of NATO would take it with the current state of things, I mean with that level of force what would be the max the BA could deploy and with what? And you have to wonder how the PR would spin it? Suppose "something something Global"...
Of course it is that time when everyone is briefing everything to everyone so lets wait and see.
An independent nuclear force is expensive, so are nuclear powered attack subs. The Brits want to play as if they are still the Empire force they were in 1945 but that is not something they can afford. But rather accept their real status in the world based upon the size of their economy they pretend they are still a world power, they are not. So their budget will never cut it unless it is massively increased to 3% or above and we all now that is not likely to happen.
Australia should really think long and hard is nuclear powered subs are the way to go especially with no local nuclear industry to support them!
An independent nuclear force is expensive, so are nuclear powered attack subs. The Brits want to play as if they are still the Empire force they were in 1945 but that is not something they can afford. But rather accept their real status in the world based upon the size of their economy they pretend they are still a world power, they are not. So their budget will never cut it unless it is massively increased to 3% or above and we all now that is not likely to happen.
Australia should really think long and hard is nuclear powered subs are the way to go especially with no local nuclear industry to support them!
France manages both a fully independent nuclear force and nuclear submarines and from memory is planning a rather large budget increase for their next defence plan. The U.K. has issues that are fairly unique to them.
As for Australia and SSNs… I expect plenty of speed bumps along the way, I mean the Collins didn’t exactly come together easy and they aren’t even in the same league as SSNs.
As for Australia and SSNs… I expect plenty of speed bumps along the way, I mean the Collins didn’t exactly come together easy and they aren’t even in the same league as SSNs.
Collins had issues in that the Australians had no choice when the project started in the 1990's but to upscale an existing conventional design from Kockums to get the required range that is required to patrol around and beyond a continent as big as Australia. It would have been an issue to do so no matter who was involved.
However in the end the Collins Class have ended up being very formidable boats. But like any conventional sub they don't have the kind of endurance required for a continent that straddles the Pacific and Indian oceans. To properly defend Australia and the south western Pacific and south eastern Indian oceans in my view nuclear is the only uncompromising option.
It is highly likely that with pillar 2 of AUKUS the Japanese will be invited to join, though not in the nuclear aspect but in the technology transfer part of it, particularly with respect to the advanced metallurgy technology that they can bring to the three others.
The way it is going the ADF will be bigger and probably more powerful than the UK Defence Forces in 20 years. The Poms would probably had already hocked off the PoW to them by then.
“VMR-1 will use these aircraft to support the Marine Corps and joint services with assault support in the form of air logistics, providing time-, place- or mission-sensitive, long-range, multipurpose air transport and critical logistical support of key personnel and cargo between and within combatant commands and theaters of war,” the release said.
The aircraft will be certified in accordance with the 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 25 (airworthiness standards) in three aircraft configurations, all-passenger, all-cargo and a combined-passenger-cargo configuration. The contract for both aircraft was for $118.6 million (Or Eur55.5 per airframe).
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