Most military projects are over budget and overdue, due in large part to political interference, that is just the way life works. The problem with joint European projects being that you have multiple governments all moving in different directions, thus you get delays outside of anyones direct control.

As for the C-17 being an ‘uneconomical beast’, I strongly disagree, it is expensive, but it is very capable, and the RAF have had a great experience with it. It can fly into combat zones, carry relevant loads such as the Chinook, Apache and other helicopters, which is very useful. As for Russian/Ukrainian airlifters, the only one to consider is the An-124, for which there are a number of issues, most notably spares support, and availability, since it has not been in production for a while. It is not as cheap as people love to make out – the prices quoted are ’90s values for used airframes, or completion of part built airframes. A new build An-124 with western avionics, as has been proposed a number of times, would cost more like $120-180m, depending on who you ask. Not everyone actually wants to buy Russian/Ukrainian aircraft, and it is not just because of memories of the cold war, it is more due to risks of supply and support.

As for Britain’s membership of the EU, that is not really the debate, but it is one that Europe should want to go down, since a majority of the UK’s population would prefer not to be in the EU. The UK population were actually not given a choice, and if they had been given a choice, Britain would most likely have been in EFTA not the EU. As for a ‘strong European foreign policy’, that is not something that is likely, since different European countries have different opinions, and rightly so. Any attempt to impose a foreign policy on the member states would rightly be seen as stealing their sovereignty. What many in Europe forget is that America is a grouping of people, who have (basically) the same culture and aims, whereas the EU is a grouping of nations, each of which has a different culture and aim. It took a couple of hundred years for America to genuinely become a single entity (for many years, the different states maintained their own currency, and only once they became a single entity did they all start to use the same currency), and Europe is trying to skip this stage, trying to adopt a single currency and policy, without unifying the actual people.

In some ways, it makes sense – the missiles are cheap, training is cheap, and you can simply sit there, and fire as soon as you see the tank. Also, given the Iranian backing, and the relative simplicity of the missile system, they could easily have trained up dozens of people to use the systems, and given them dozens of the systems. Also, given the nature of the Hezbollah terrorists, they probably do not worry too much about getting killed by the other tanks in the column, as long as they hit one. Another classic case of using old technology to try and get around advanced defense systems.

Another alternative option would be to use the Omega Air KDC-10s (boom equipped), which would be a tiny fraction of the cost of the A-330-MRTTs. Using the money left over by using the leased KDC-10s, you buy 5 more C-17s straight off the shelf, and 15 extra A-400Ms, to carry out tactical refuelling. The KDC-10s would stay outside the actual combat zone, refuelling larger aircraft, and A-400Ms which would go into harms way to refuel tactical jets. That way, the UK gets a much healthier fleet, with 10 C-17s, 20 leased KDC-10s (and when they get too old, you just renew the contract, using used A-330s/767s/777s), and 40 A-400Ms, plus the 25 C-130Js!

The problem is that the C-130J is too small to carry a lot of the pieces of equipment the A-400M is intended to carry, i.e. helicopters and engineering equipment. The C-17 can carry these, but is very expensive – the UK could not have a fleet of 25 C-17s (not without increasing the defence budget to a more sensible level), so would have to accept a drop in outsize (bigger than C-130) load carrying capacity. The future fleet is heading for 5 C-17s, 10 A-330-MRTTs, 25 A-400Ms and 25 C-130Js, which seems a little less than ideal. As for Flex’s comments, I do not think that Dubya’s comments warrant anti-americanism.

Nimrod is right, private industry seeks profit, but through efficiency, whereas the public sector is filled with massive inefficiencies. Personally, I think there needs to be a half-way point – none of the restrictions of civil-owned kit, that cannot be maintained in the ordinary military way (a hammer can do wonderful things…), but with the cost efficiency of the private sector.

One possibility may be to form Royal Auxiliary Air Force (or RAF Reserve) PLC, which would use uniformed ‘reservists’ (i.e. employees of the company, but subject to call-up if needed), with the management handled by private companies. The equipment would be government owned, commercially bought, privately operated, on behalf of the military, and available in much the same way as National Guard units in the US. The actual running of the ‘company’ would be left to contractors, and could be competed on an annual basis (and with the aircraft actually owned by RAuxAF PLC, they can be modified or used for other purposes freely). The main advantage being that these would be uniformed personnel when and where necessary, but on private contracts. This would work for training units, some transport units, and general service personnel who do not need to be deployed routinely (though being reservists, they could be called up for service if actually needed).

If you start putting weapons in space, you make ASAT weapons an acceptable weapon for all nations, and small countries will start deploying EMP weapons – and you really do not want people doing that. In addition, the ‘rods from god’ method would not actually do anything more than airpower does, and as shown consistently, a war cannot genuinely be won from the air, it requires boots on the ground.

The problem is the attitude of certain posters, who seem to think that the US both could and should do all it can to destroy relations with its allies, with no consequences – my post simply serves to illustrate that there are consequences for all actions. The US gets a lot out of its international relations – the US economy would go into freefall without international trade, so writing everyone else off as not being relevant is very short sighted.

All the reports from the actual pilots, they like their new aircraft – as Phantom says, the Tomcat was great, but it is gone. The Super Hornet may not be a super-fighter like the F-22, but with good systems, it can more than hold its own. If the Navy can retrofit thrust vectoring (they were given a choice between fitting them with JHMCS or thrust vectoring, and they chose JHMCS, to enable AIM-9X capability), they will make excellent air-to-air performers as well.

The Super Hornet represents good value for money, and room for growth (something that was lacking in the older Hornet design) – with -E/F models, the Navy gets an excellent fighter and strike aircraft, and with the -G model, the Navy gets to continue the massive success of the Prowler. I would not take the USAF idea of SEAD as being automatically the best option – they routinely have to borrow Navy Prowlers, and lack the ability to carry out escort jamming, and have to use F-16CJs for SEAD.