If it were to be brought back, it would be a major burden on the sysops guys, who are already having to deal with quite a few incidents as it is – they are posters as well, and it can hardly be fun having to police the actions of the few bad apples as it is.

The problem was that the Army forum tended to become a flame-war, in fact, a huge percentage of the threads descended to that point. It was sad, because some of the threads were very interesting, but it was too much of a flame-magnet.

The problem with the JSF is really timing – at the moment, nobody has actually put it into service, so everyone is sceptical. If it proves itself to be a good fighter, then order numbers may go back upwards, and as production gets underway, unit costs may come down. Once everyone knows what they would be buying, then it will probably be popular, but there are a few years to go before that happens, so it is difficult to know what will happen – RAM coatings, UCAVs, a lot can happen in ten years!

As for US support, it is generally very good, though certain aspects can be a bit more difficult – for instance integration of new weapons can be an issue. The Dutch carry out testing now for their F-16A/Bs, since the US has switched to later models. It is not a big issue, and most product support is excellent, with F-5s, F-4s, A-4s and so on still being supported.

One problem with European stealth projects is that the UK were tied to agreements with the US (the UK were involved in projects like Have Blue etc, and had almost full access to US stealth tech, but could not share it with European partners). This meant that a British stealth project would have to be joint with the US (since the UK could not support its own stealth fighter project), or not at all. Since the UK always wanted to do joint projects with Europe, it basically ruled out any stealth projects. Also, when the Eurofighter project started, stealth had not made its combat debut, and still relied heavily on facetting.

Europe needs to drop the phobia about buying American equipment, and America needs to accept that cooperation is necessary, and good for business!

It is a great pity they did not go for an LCAC – as proved during the opening stages of OIF/Telic, the UK could not move any light tanks ashore due to the mining, yet an LCAC would have avoided this. If they had fitted the LSDs to carry LCACs, then they could have remained a greater distance offshore, and thus a lot safer. Also, an amphibious task force with 2 LPDs and 4 LSDs (each with 2 LCACs, each with 60 ton payload) would enable 720 tons of supplies to be brought ashore in each movement, with the ships up to 100 miles offshore!

Nowadays though, they just remove the wings, and fly them down in a C-17 apparently, and have found it much easier. Even though you need to do some reassembly, it is less hassle to reassemble the aircraft than to fly it all the way down there.

As for abandoning the islands, I doubt it, as already mentioned, there is a huge oil field round the islands, which will become economically viable in a few years time. The oil drilling technology just a few years back meant that drilling at any major depth was not economically viable, but with increased oil prices and improved drilling technology, deep drilling is now possible. Unless of course the government ‘negotiates’ away the islands, as they seem to like doing.

Or stealthy chickens…

I doubt Thailand would buy JSFs, not for many years – they have few no real air threats, and little need for top of the line fighters. They will probably rely on F-16s and Chickenjets (Gripens or more Vipers), hopefully supplemented by Erieye AEW planes. Probably the best bet is to save up some extra chickens, and buy both the Gripens (perhaps some of the -A models that Sweden is retiring early) with AEW planes, and some more F-16s.