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If the wider state, not just a dozen lackies sat round a table, are outward looking and invested in the idea that a successful state is the product of ain interconnected network of mutually...

Flexibility is the absolute key here - but it also applies to 'the standard'. If a reserve Inf Coy has 100 members, but only 30 of them are usable because of the ebbs and flows of job, home life,...

I don't believe this is true - culture in a military exists because either someone encourages it, or because someone ignores it.

The culture of an organisation is set by its leaders, what they...

The activation of the reserves - the equivalent here of the FlR - in the UK has a very mixed report card: we've had people who've happily slotted straight back in, as well as 'Operation Fat Boy',...

I've just been for a walk - 2 hours or so, dog +kids - in my Arktis Stowaway shirt: sunshine and showers, 8c or so, bit of a breeze, over a t-shirt.

Comfortable/silky next to the skin, kept the...

Arktis Large in a smock is about 180/104 - so thats (roughly) a 42/45 inch chest, with a baselayer, buffalo and then smock.

I've got a stowaway shirt in large that is a bit smaller than that -...

Without wishing to be seen as taking the DOD side here, thats not what it says.

I'm afraid my recollection of the thread rather chimes with that specific charge - people here were obsessing about...

They're only little boats, they'd probably fit in a C-17...

Yup, soon enough you might be looking at the stuff that every other state thinks of as being the baseline of what a military is for...

Can't see the attachment...

What did you use as your concept of operations?

I'm assuming that what would be required is to meet it north east of Donegal somewhere, and trail it all the way down...

The internal figures I've seen for the 295 are normal fuel only, no extra tank in the cargo hold. I don't doubt you could put more fuel in the cargo hold, but then you're buying a tanker, rather than...

I think we can safely consign the C-295 tanker to the 'mouse-rape-elephant bucket of effectiveness...

I'm actually really surprised at how little fuel it carries (might be worth someone checking...

I think the big reason the USN fell out of love with it is that F/A-18's doing tanking for other F/A-18's was burning through the fleet hours like it was going out of fashion - I think I saw a stat...

I would wonder how useful/applicable/useable a tanking capability on the C-295 - akin to that on the A400M - would be...

Lets say you have the two MPA C-295's, and have an additional two cargo...

The UN will happily take what they can get. The nature of the formation has been under 'concerned discussion' within defence for some time, though there are quite legitimate arguments (within UK...

Yeah, the single engine thing isn't really a thing any more - you only need two if one goes bang, and if one goes bang the other one will be destroyed by all the flying bits from the first.

The...

It certainly makes sense to have options in terms of dispersal/diversions, but I think the idea that you'd need/want several with extensive facilities for a pretty limited (numerically) force that...

So, can we just happily put this stuff on the 'crack fuelled deranged lunacy' pile?

It also goes back to the first principles argument whenever we have one of these 'X capability is too much for us, we don't need that...': does Ireland not have transport aircraft because it doesn't...

I don't see that being overly problematic - the Sqn seems to be about sharing the tail, the training, the maintenance, not about sharing the operations. There would doubtless be elements of the...

Don't the French and Germans have joint C-130J unit?

Buy two and join in the pooled maint and training contracts/pipelines...

Indeed, the various arrangements for buy-in to a heavy lift pool are things I - and pretty much everyone else here who's interested - have trumpeted for a decade or more. Sadly I've never seen any...

The answer is, of course, a C-17 or A400M - but if that's not within your credit card limit you have to choose something that fits within the cost-range-payload-capability matrix - the problem with...

This obsession with range from Ireland is a red herring - you're not flying to the Falklands with no splash-and -dash options, you're flying to places that are either on Europe's periphery or have...

It's cheap.

Doesn't matter if it's of any use, what matters is that it's cheap.

It's a perfectly good MPA, a perfectly good ISTAR platform, and a perfectly good way of moving people and their...