Combat radius (flies there, does what its going to do, flies back), no tankers ect, is 1100nm, and thats probably from a land base!

Maybe they are downsizing in preparation for an integrated European military…

Not in the slightest. I suspect the writing was on the wall when the closure of Cottesmore was announced.

Maybe the retirement is a little premature, but cuts had to be made without affecting capabilities on current operations. A legacy fast jet fleet (other than the F3) had to go, and the Harrier it had to be. Yes it may be a CAS bird, but the GR4 is probably a better bet as an “all rounder” in the long term.

Find the treasury £1bn or so, and they may reconsider…;)

I’d like to hear you say that to a salty helicopter mate!:)

I could find them £6 billion from the aid budget, and it looks like 90% of voters on BBC agree that budget need to be flushed down the sh1tter. If anyone needs aid, its us!

The WE.177 free fall bomb was retired years ago. Unlike the us and French militaries, the UK no longer has an airborne tactical nuclear capability, only strategic capability aboard trident subs.

Yes, I’m fully aware of that and the entire history of our nuclear capabilities, but I, unlike you it seems, am capable of giving an answer to a question that was asked, not to the question you think should have been asked. His question, was most likely based on the fact that, in the even Britain and France were to jointly operate the carrier as has been speculated in the literature and in government, then would there be a place for the nuclear weapons onboard. My answer to this was that it should be possible physically in that it would require only a separate area for the weapons, but would be contrary to British policy 😎

Since you felt it appropriate to nit-pic at my post, I shall do the same with yours. You state that Britain’s Vanguard class submarines only provide a strategic capability, which is actually incorrect, as the the force will also use single warhead missiles with the option of a lower explosive yield, as a tactical capability.

Out of interest, what are people here expecting to be the future LPH of the RN? Illustrious or Ocean? My gut instinct would be Ocean, given it was built to be an LPH and is able to carry an embarked force of 800 RMs and their kit, although I’d need to see a full list of pros and cons for each to actually make an educated decision. I do know Lusty is quite a bit faster, although not sure on her hangar size.

Ocean is built to commercial standards though, so she has a much shorter design life.

If the Harpoons from the decommissioned Type 22s are moved to Daring and Dauntless and so along, along with Phalanxs from Ark Royal and others, this statement will look a lot less false than it does now.

Cameron also claimed Typhoon to be currently serving in A’stan, this is a minor error for him!

It uses 0.5in subcaliber tungsten bullets.

Goalkeeper is like Phalanx on steroids, gives you 500m additional engagement distance. But heavy, almost 10 metric tonnes, which is more than twice a Millennium turret. (Even discounting the difference in the amount of ammo).
What I see as the big benefit of the Millennium is the AHEAD ammo that enables you to set a wall of tungsten pellets into the flightpath with a wider kill radius than a MPDS subcalibre bullet like the Goalkeeper fires.
(Well, I must say I’m pretty impressed by AHEAD – have seen what it does to tanks …)

I also like NSM, nice sneaky weapon – in the Penguin class. A 125kg warhead isn’t really what I’d be looking for as a big ship missile (Compare: Klub up to 400kg!). Wonder if NSM fits into Sylver VLS. Exocet III does.

How do the Millenium gun and Goalkeeper compare on cost grounds?

Different engine.

as far as france goes, sharing one mayprove impractical (potential differences in policies, different plances operating – need for specific equipments installed), etc…

as about selling it to france, the french already delayed their second carrier, I doubt they’ll buy one “off the shelf”

Irrelevant anyway, the French have massive budget problems themselves, and its looking ever more likely that Rafale will never go beyond the 180 aircraft budgeted for so far. PA2 was cancelled because there was no money for it, and therefore there is no money to buy a CVF either. If there were money for a CVF then PA2 would never have been given the axe! 😉