I wonder how much time and money would’ve been saved ironically by not trying to save £3.86 by re-using the old Nimrod airframes and opting for new builds? (as was offered to USN) Nimrod, next to cargo aircraft and tankers are [were] the most important aircraft in the fleet, keeping Tornados at their expense is ill thought out and illogical but it’s the decision that’s been made, MPA obviously is a minor issue now :rolleyes:

Poseidon in place of Nimrod is nonsensical, the costs saved by pulling the plug this late in the day would be dwarfed many times over by the cost of a fleet of Poseidon aircraft and will not represent equal capabilities

Nobody has a handful of MC-12W? Shame on you.

There are some pics on Tango’s Navies News thread which illustrate some of the problems facing an SSN in the littorals. Here’s one of them:

If the RN’s going to be operating subs that close to the shore, they’d be better off buying a few SSKs from the Germans or the Swedes. Even if it’s just to save money on training, (and the embarassment :dev2:).

If the RAF can’t afford Nimrod the RN don’t need SSKs, full stop. Even if the money was there for 4(for example) patrol subs it’d be spent on 1 more Astute(and quite rightly, assuming every other issue has been dealt with). For what the RN need submarines for the value of an SSK is a false economy.

Hypothetically if a cold war scenario returns tomorrow and for whatever reason there becomes a requirement for patrol submarines then it’s certain that DC would be on the phone to BAE discussing it whilst writing them blank cheques and littoral capability wouldn’t even be a secondary consideration in the design

Summary: the MoD have opened the windows in their local branch of Barclays and shovelled enough money out before, no need to repeat

Concorde. 😀

Always liked the idea of Concorde as RAF VIP transport because of the publicity surrounding the aircraft makes any formal visit more high profile but the long and short of it is the time has passed and there isn’t the cash for it (and if it ever becomes available there are more pressing matters) so from now until the end of time Concorde is just a museum piece.

It is likely that F-35C can operate as a STOBAR aircraft however could it get a higher payload into the sky that the STOVL variant can? and how much more can it bring back than F-35B can in SRVL?

I’m not sure that there would be anyone seriously tempted by STOBAR operation of F-35C, it’s unlikely that the benefits are anything more than marginal and it’s even more likely that they would compensate for the increased drawbacks over a STOVL alternative

If you put them into a slideshow it’ll look like a hazy recollection of a drunken walk home!

I maybe wrong but on names QUeen Elizabeth etc have historicaaly been allocated to Battleships and Heavy Cruisers and we all know what the navy is like on maintaining traditions+. Though small the Invincible class were carriers and there last incumbants of those names were also. By the way whay was Ark Royal’s original name before it was changed, I think it was either Indomitable or Indefatigable.

Indomitable

Hmmm… the RN was only really planning on 3, to replace Victorious, Eagle, & Ark Royal. Maybe you could get a 4th to replace Hermes, but I can’t see any way to 5 (they were not planning a replacement for Centaur).

Definitely, it was never less than 3 but the original plans were for 5 so the over ambitious fantasy fleets use this figure