“There is nothing wrong with having a nitch military for a country who is well entrenched in a cooperative defense environment. In fact, that is the cost effective way of having enough deterrent capability but being able to fight collectively. If UK is attacked, the US and all of NATO will fight along side. What’s the point of sustaining a massive military that only duplicates your allies’ capability?”

yeah, but unfortunately, sometimes there are conflicts of interests, especially in such large organisations with so many members. NATO’s decision not to participate in iraq can be seen as such an example, but a better one would be the flaklands. US and NATO didnt want to get involved, and the UK had to go it alone.

dont get me wrong, the US and NATO will look out for britian, and they will also make sacraficies in order to do so. however there is what happens if Spain suddenly decided that they wanted always a limit on such ‘generosity’, and there will always be a chance that u will be left out in the cold if u dont have the capacity to independently protect ur national interests.

Ja brouta (spelling 😮 ) back and decides to take matters into their own hands? US and NATO would be unlikely to get involved, so the RAF and RN would have to go it alone, and i dont fancy britian’s chances to winning without WWII kind of casaulties.

the british gov need to weight the risk of such events happening and the cost it would take to support a modern military. it clear which one they have chosen, and so ppl should be under not illusions as to what the UK’s military should be expected to do.

“You do realise that while the bullets were flying there were troops on duty elsewhere who didn’t have any ammo because it was sent to Iraq? This was probably sent back ASAP when GWB declared the war over – but the barracks at Aldershot would still have had a hard time defending themselves from a determined pack of Girl Guides… “

would probably cost less to just buy more ammo then to ship them halfway (abt 😀 ) around the world and then back again.

“Ammo costs money. The bean counters probably didn’t want to spend more than necessary on it anyway. Wasn’t there some TA guys who went out on patrol hoping to scrounge some ammo from the regulars because the QM didn’t have any?”

so much for the claim that the british units in iraq was better equiped then any british fighting force ever.:rolleyes: even in the days of napolian the grunts had enough ammo!

guess next time the troop would have to find their own guns on the battlefield as well.:rolleyes: 🙁

how much extra fuel does this carry? any pics?

u seem a little conflicted.

would ‘bully’ be an approapriate term? :confused:

well spotted google! that does fit in with the current events, what with the WS-10A testing on J11s are all.

however, the question still remains as to what exactly this new capacity will mean. if china does acquire the ability to produce 100% domective su27s, would the russians allow china to independently produce them? would they allow china to make modifications on them? (shouldnt be that hard converting singel seat su27s into twin seaters, maybe thats why china is not that keen on acquiring an MKK licence?)

well i think the days of the british empire were long gone, its only now that the general public is starting to realise it.

even back at 1939, the RAF was outnumbered, and only won because of geographical advanatges. had the UK been linked to the rest of europe, the british war machine would have been crushed by the germans like the french were, and the RN’s finnest ships would probably have been sunk by the americans or defected to the americans.:rolleyes:

its just common sence really, without all its overseas territory to send in men and material, the british iles by itself could never be able to support a war machine the size of america, russia, china or india. its just a matter of numbers.