You have to understand I think that although the Royal Navy was once the biggest in the world the Army and the RAF have never been that big. The only time we have had a ‘million strong’ army is in time of ‘General War’ or in other words, when the UK is under direct threat as in 1914-18 and 1939-45. It has always been a professional or at least a ‘volunteer’ army in peace time.

National service was abolished in the mid 50s after the withdrawal from empire and the army went back to its traditional professional footing which goes back maybe 350 years. Nobody can see a direct threat to the British Isles these days and I hope they are right but as it stands we can take on most comers and can even hurt some of the ‘big boys’ hard enough to make them think twice about attacking us. This trend seems to be on the decline now and if the forces are reduced much further I might have to admit that we are going to be out of the game.

I don’t think things are ever as bad as they seem sometimes so I wouldn’t worry too much. With an airforce equipped with 300+ combat aircraft and systems from heavy lift Globemasters to AWACS and the forthcoming ASTOR platforms we are no push over and can quite easily go it alone if neccesary. We did in 1982 when we were geared almost purely towards a war in central Europe. Today I think we are better prepared for power projection than we were back then even if our forces are half the size.

As for the rather churlish quip about having the USA as a sugar daddy, I don’t see anybody else passing up oportunities posed by the Americans. Its just an easy insult for narrow minded idiots to use when they don’t have the brain cells to think of something constructive to say. Apart from 2 incidents that happened over 200 years ago, Britain and the USA have always been close in culture and demography if not in politics. We don’t do everything the USA asks us to do. If you want an example……..the UK was not involved in Vietnam apart from acting as a go between to end the damn war.

Hope this helps:

http://www.eubusiness.com/imported/2003/05/109539

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/fla/

🙂 🙂

I wish Northrop would restart the F-20 Tigershark program as a LIFT

Oh yes we are on the same wavelength here:)

Mixtech what you are saying is just ridiculous. If you go by that yardstick there isn’t a single arcraft on the planet that can be classed as a recent order, not the Raptor, not the Typhoon, not the Rafale, Mig 29, Su 27 nothing. Just how recent does it have to be for you to accept it? 1 year old? 2? 3? Or do you just decide on the spur of the moment how old an order has to be to constitute a ‘recent order’? You’re not making sense. Yes the RAF is a long term customer of the Hawk but the Mk128 LIFT is a “NEW” aircraft and a “NEW” order. Also there are always issues with the Indian order there always will be until they are fed up with loosing 1.4 aircraft per month and plug the training gap. As for the SAAF example well its so old they are only just delivering them.

:rolleyes:

Alot of time is spent on this forum talking about how great the latest jet trainers are, but the fact is noone is buying them. Not the Mig-AT, T-50, Hawk, nothing.

???????????????? Not a true statement:

http://www.mod.uk/dpa/hawk_128_right_choice_for_jet_trainers.htm

http://uktop100.reuters.com/latest/BAE_Systems/top10/20030903-ARMS-INDIA-UPDATE-4.ASP

http://users.chariot.net.au/~theburfs/hawkMAIN.html

http://www.saairforce.co.za/news03.htm

Nobody? Nothing? Nacht? Zilch?

Do you give in yet? 😀

Because they do an awful lot of UN peacekeeping. What are they supposed to use? Bows and arrows? 🙂

http://www.irishmilitaryonline.com/army/peacekeeping.shtml

you make it sound like it’s free now… The answer may go either way and even if i have an issue with the Typhoon, so what? The question is merely what if the M346 be made more capable then will some Italians feel that it’s better to have something majority Italian or not. If the Italians feel that in the 80s their F104 is still adequate, then who to say that some will feel that the Typhoon, although almost fully developed, is still not “home made”. Now, the economy of things, let’s say the Italians pay 50% of the price of their Typhoons (due to home production offsets and exports), at $60mil a piece (low end), they still need to pay some $30mil for say 80 aircraft. That’s still 2.4 Billion dollars money flowing out of Italy. Now if you’re a country that have no capability to build your own modern fighter sufficient for domestic use, say Spain, you got no choice. But, if you’re Italy, you add another billion dollar investment on the M346 (remember, by now it ain’t exactly a paper project), that leaves say $1.4Billion for procurement, which at say again a convenient $20mil a piece leaves you with…wow, 70 aircraft and the money stays home. Of course it’s not going to be as advanced as the Typhoon and the numbers used above is only to show a certain perspective…so don’t need to go all crazy over it But, in my opinion it isn’t all out of the question since just in the last few weeks you have the Germans whinning again…how much of that can you put up with? Of course this isn’t very likely, but i don’t see it as being an impossible alternative….and then it’s a replacement fighter in the light weight fighter market. Notice that the US only product is out of this market now….the F16, F35, and F18 aren’t anywhere close to “light” and the T-50 is not “US” , so this may be a great opportunity for M346 derivatives to work with Boeing as their counter to LM for the light weight fighter market.

Wow I have to say your fiscal projections are clear concise and workable, highly detailed and very flexible. However back in the real world where the work on the Typhoon has already been done the M346 still needs millions of £s or $s or Euros to acheive what you want it to acheive in your world and is still years away from service. Come back to the real world its not that bad here and maybe if you ignore the bad Mr Foster he might go away. I don’t make it sound like its free you do, you make it sound like it is easy to kick start a project like this and you give the impression it takes no time at all and the investment would be minimal. Wake up, smell the coffee. This is a forum for the real world not some fantasy air force game. On the other hand………..that gives me an idea.:)

re-read this if you want to know why hypocrite….

Please explain tw@t?…………..;)