My point was only that modern LOS ship radar will pinpoint an MPA as soon as the MPA can see it. MPAs aren’t small and ship radars typically have huge power and huge aperture. As soon as an MPA sees an aircraft carrier it will already have fighters on the way out to greet it. It’s not really a great move using MPAs against aircraft carriers. Submarines on the other hand, fair enough.

If the ship is radiating the MPA will have localised it before it has been detected itself. It may not then require to enter detection range. If the MPA searches at high altitude (as per the bears) it may well be far enough away to escape once it dives jinks turns and vanishes below the Horizon. The fighter may never find it, of course shipborne AEW helps counter this.

It’s a nice to have definitely but the only reason I don’t see it as essential is that you can buy more, larger, longer-ranged land-based AEW and use them to fill the gap with the money saved. And/or run more fighter flights – the APG-81 is obviously very capable. There is also a huge question over the effectiveness of AEW against stealth fighters, when compared to the larger longer wavelength ship-bourne radars.

AEW aircraft also have longer wave length radar than the various fighters, so may not be so disadvantaged.

Maybe but the Comet design did actually have some advantages in the sub-hunting roll. The wing-housed engines were extremely quiet relative to a 737 and less likely to be detected by a submarine. I’m not sure why making it longer would help. If they took the intended fuselage design and built the aircraft from scratch based on that one design, I don’t foresee any issues. The only thing I would probably change is the IFR probe setup – that was a bad job. A VC-10 could also be a candidate.

Never heard a claim for the engines regarding another jet, It was claimed / believed / postulated that the jet engines were less likely to alert a sub at low level than a prop.

Re the length, when they stuck in the larger power plants the caused a few handling issues, eg CofL asymmetric thrust increasing the fin / rudder area to compensate was not (allegedly) entirely successful and handling remained marginal at best. A fuselage plug aft of the wing would have helped alleviate / eliminate some of these.

I am aware of the use of OTH, which is why I pointed out it wont pinpoint anything.
Perhaps it wasn’t your intention to imply that the ship would pinpoint the MPA using OTH. It is however how I read it.

Carrier AEW may be smaller and may be less capable, however it is still a valued asset don’t forget it is expected to operate in a different environment (I don’t just mean at sea) to land based AEW.

MRA4 would have been fantastic if it was based on a different airframe (say perhaps a B737). New build Nimrods would have still required massive redesign to bring them up to modern airworthiness standards, one hopes somebody would have had the foresight to lengthen it as well.
The biggest scandal regarding MRA4 is that it wasn’t chopped circa 2005 (or earlier)

Major General Thompson (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24877081) could be said to be trying to play easy on his former unit by pleading for ‘just’ a ten year sentence. Justice must be seen to be done without favour, due to the nature of the murder; giving mercy of a sorts will be akin to the police finding it difficult to admit that one of their number knocked down and killed Ian Tomlinson, without eventual punishment to the officer concerned. Or the gunning down of the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes after screwing up surveillance into the bombings in London the previous day, with the police and secret services defending themselves by claiming evidence when there was none. The world has seen, up until now, that the authorities have defended their own; but this can not carry on.
On this occasion the judge needs to come to a decision that makes the world know that it is understood that there will be heavy consequences waiting for those who carry out such atrocities if they take place again.

1st I must eat humble pie and retract my previous opinion, my knowledge of the Geneva convention is a tad out of date, shooting out of hand is no longer allowed, Non uniformed combatants must be given a fair trial before their shot.

Clearly he broke the law.

Regarding a plea for leniency ie reduced sentence I have no problem with this, sentences are frequently reduced where there are mitigating circumstances.
Examination of the facts may warrant such a reduction in this case.

I agree Justice must be seen to be done but it would also not be right to absolutely crucify the man in order to appear unscrupulous. To those people currently placed in difficult positions they must also have faith in the justice system.

regards

System wont let me edit Afghanistan isn’t actually a war is it should have been bolded in the previous.

I don’t have an answer to any of this.

I could sit on a moralistic fence ready to jump down on the side of any legal definition of right or wrong and pass judgment. But personally, I don’t believe I have the right to do so. Neither do I have the inclination. War (Afghanistan isn’t actually a war is it?) is by it’s very nature a desperate, dirty and destructive venture. I’ve had the good fortune to have witnessed it only through film, photographs and books and the people we have to thank for that are the very people who put their lives at risk every day on our behalf. Soldiers operate in extremis and I have no doubt that things are done that shouldn’t be. But most of us have no real clue of the pressures (operational, psychological, physical, emotional) under which our soldiers serve. Yes, it’s their choice to be there, no one can deny that. But until I have walked a mile in their shoes I feel that anything I might say to condemn their actions would be crass and insensitive in the extreme.

Regards,

kev35

I think here you have the crux of the problem as far as the enemy are concerned it is a war, as far as the (our) politicians are concerned they are treating it as a more violent Northern Ireland, hence the poor ******s on the ground are finding themselves hamstrung by political constraints.

Worse still Political constraints limiting troop numbers and aggressive prosecution of contacts* and avoidance of casualties has resulted in a failure on the ground, Failure on the ground is regarded as a failure by the armed forces which requires more political oversight que comparisons to Vietnam and a situation where we could flap around in smaller circles till we disappear up our own collective arses.

*ie withdraw when taken under fire so as not to endanger any bystanders Heroic restraint we call it cowardice and reluctance to fight in the eyes of our allies and enemies.

So when did you hear about this? Seriously? Me – only when I saw it in the papers the other day. Might have heard something a while ago, when there were arrests, but only vaguely remember it.

Heard about it a while ago then it all went quiet (obviously preparing for trial)

And I feel that most of the media might agree with your sentiments; in the main they are not interested in slagging off our troops.
Yet those marines did what they did and were caught by the red caps. If the military wanted to bury this then they had ample opportunity right there… But they didn’t. Maybe someone high up the food chain is ashamed and wants the military to be seen to be doing the right thing rather than let standards slip.

Personally I can’t see our politicians getting involved with this one at this stage; I imagine that if they could they might have kept this very quiet and swept away down the back of a filing cabinet – it brings no glory for anyone.

No? So what are they doing at the courts martial? Oh yes, bu@@er me it must be the little matter of murder!

That’s it see there being tried for murder but if you refer to my points then there is no case to answer, by the rules of war, the fact they are being tried means somebody has applied a set of rules over and above these.
What im trying to say (badly) is that there action broke no rule s of war, so what rules have we applied.

‘We’? These marines didn’t. Does this mean that they do not conform with our ethics?

An interesting point. Ask our former soldiers why IRA members were not immediately shot when apprehended sans uniform.

That’s simple Norn Iron was not a war zone the IRA were terrorists not combatants it was a civil order issue,
Many people recall how they demanded POW status in Long Kesh, but many of us also recall how they expected to be arrested if identified and how the cowardly *******s cried about their rights and a shoot to kill policy if the rounds went there way. ( 2 Family friends (Forces) and our very friendly coal man (Part time UDR) were murdered whilst off duty, John whilst delivering coal just before Christmas.

And, purely as an interesting question, what clothing do Taliban members wear? Surely the clothing is so similar that each man must be in Taliban uniform. [/sarcasm]

I see you point but by that token there’s no such thing as civilian casualties as everyone in Afghanistan is wearing a uniform.

But…the US military were infamous for driving along in convoy, shooting any suspicious Iraqis (ie most, if not all) out of the way. Do a search and you’ll find many video’s showing the routine, hopefully including the one where the soldiers panic that a car has pulled out behind them – so they blast it to pieces, with no proof whatsoever that the car was either a suicide bomber or just someone who’d made the fatal mistake of pulling out behind an American convoy.

Now the above point is bad that is poor training and frightened men, I must say though im not sure in those circumstances if those firing should be charged because the fault lies higher up the chain. If however they deliberately target non combatants for kicks that’s different.

Pedantic point: according to the reports from court, the dead man had been shooting at a base and was apparently brought down by an Apache attack helo. He did not shoot at these marines.

I was generalising but also didn’t recall the specifics so to avoid pedantry he had been engaged in a hostile act carried out against coalition forces. 🙂

Well, the trial is because some marines did something which they were not supposed to do: they shot a man (who may or may not have been fatally injured, no one knows) dead after making an explicit move to hide their actions. They lied when they claimed that they attempted first aid, in the report they made about their patrol, and I suppose they wasted a bullet instead of dirtying a bayonet…

this bits just to get it through the filter

I feel they are only being tried because of media sensitivities and politicians wishing to be purer than the driven snow.

The reality is they have committed no crime (note tried for murder not war crimes).

1) The Taliban are not signatories to the Geneva convention so the convention does not need to be adhered to, however we do adhere to it as this conforms with our ethics any way. which brings us neatly to 2

2) In a war zone an enemy combatant not in uniform or a civilian aiding the enemy can be shot out of hand. As the man was neither in uniform and had been shooting at the marines he was clearly one of the above and therefore under the rules of war shooting him is allowed.

So why the trial clearly somebody somewhere has made a decision to apply “Police” rules to a war.

[QUOTE=Andraxxus;2083851]All air-air missiles are “boost-coast”, including Meteor. A ram-jet will certainly have longer boost+sustain times, but not all the way to target, not by a longshot. QUOTE]

The following is from MBDA’s own product spec, now I don’t normally do brochure porn because every missile/plane/EW system is the worlds best (and fanboys especially seem to think advertisement = Fact for their favourite. However in bold is a very clear statement not speel of most advanced but a clear statement of fact.

Meteor�s stunning performance is achieved from its unique propulsion system provided by a solid
fuel, variable flow ducted rocket. This �Ramjet� motor provides the missile with power all the way
to target intercept, providing the largest No-Escape Zone of any air-to-air missile system. To
ensure total target destruction, the missile is equipped with both proximity and impact fuzes and
a fragmentation warhead that detonates at the optimum point to maximise lethality.

In other words Meteor is not boost and coast, this was its selling point about 20 years ago and why the RAF only bought AMRAAM as an interim type (yes subsequent delays saw AMRAAM more widely integrated and used*).

*boring Factoid the interim record has got to go to landrover bought by the army in 1952 for Korea as the Champ wasn’t ready yet, 60 years later and the landrovers still here.