Corvette Z06, Viper SRT10, F40GT and the golden oldie Shelby Cobra. All world beater sports cars.

I was being slightly tongue in cheek but I’d suggest watching Top Gear for a full run down on American Vehicular deficiencies!

Why bother taking money away from the nuclear program when the SSNs can perform all of the SSKs missions but not vice versa.

Thirty fathoms is 180 feet. It won’t make any difference whether you have a boat that is 55 feet from keel to mast or 40 feet.

To be honest I agree with you on this, restarting an SSK program probably isn’t financially viable as you’d be taking money away from other programs to build up a niche capability.
Basically the only thing I can remember SSKs being better at than SSNs is sitting on the bottom, which can be very useful in a littoral context. SSNs have a lot of intakes etc. on their keel which get clogged up, SSKs don’t and obviously sitting on the bottom is a quieter and a better way of hiding than hovering just above it.
Obviously I last studied submarine design in about 1997 so things may have changed.

They need to have a land attack capability. None of these things come in an SSK.

Well you can fire TLAM through a standard torpedo tube so an SSK could do land attack if required. Might have snags clearing the datum afterwards though.

I don’t think the CAA have a blanket ban on carrying stores, but it’s quite hard to do. I remember reading that the Sea Vixen was looking to operate with it’s drop tanks but that the clearance was going to take a while to satisfy the CAA.
Obviously most external stores are designed to fall off the aircraft at some point! I’m guessing the CAA require that to be virtually impossible, as well as ensuring that the aircraft is still operating in accordance with it’s airworthiness cetificate etc.

As I understand it, hydraulic catapults were called accelerators rather than catapults, although I don’t know if this only came about after the introduction of the steam type. Prior to the refit around ’43 it was in a slightly raised section of deck, under where the port side Fulmar is in that shot. The steam coming out of the deck was afaik used for a relative wind indication only and is just to starboard of the accelerator’s platform.

No, it was a delibrate sacrifice of a Mk.1 for a flight safety video. Certainly indicates they had a larger budget for that sort of thing than they do these days!

Out of interest, does anyone have any decent pics of an S1 cockpit? I’m modelling one for MS Flight Sim and the more images I can get the better, I’m particularly interested in the engine instruments, especially the inlet guide vane indicator but anything and everything is good!

Err.. no, it just get’s tedious arguing with a brick wall and I have a life to be getting on with.

That is only a very small part of the Chinook programme, the entire fleet is now being recaptalised and brought to a common standard. The extra Merlins were ordered aster the 2006 report and the Lynx re-engining will dramatically increase lift by increasing type availability and increasing lift capacity in hot and high evrionments like Afghanistan. All three remedial actions having been announced AFTER the one report that you so cling to.

Right so since the 2006 report we’ve gained how many helicopters exactly? 6 Merlins from the Danish. And the Chinook are being bought to a common standard, doesn’t actually increase the amount of lift though does it? Meanwhile the replacement programme for the Puma and Sea King HC.4 has been pushed further right while the airframes suffer reduced availabilty due to their age. I’m not saying things aren’t beeing done to address the problem, but it’s not enough especially if you’re engaged in two land wars.

Defend yourself against what? Who is the RN going to be engaging with who poses a serious threat? This is the question you keep refusing to answer!

Presumably the same people we’ve got the LPDs etc. to power project against. If you ask anyone in the RN if they have enough FF/DD for the current level of task the answer will be no.

Funny the RN has coped well enough with the existing fleet as it is, has it not?

Would that be the fleet large parts of which are reaching their OSD without replacement and are therefore being flogged on for even longer? Or the substitution of an LPD for APT(N) and APT(S) the first of which it’s barely suitable for and the second of which it’s particularly unsuited for. Has the RN coped, yes, just, but the fleet isn’t being replaced at the rate needed to maintain the capability. I’ll reitierate the MARS pioint, the tankers which are required to sustain the power projection capability aren’t being replaced for at least 7 years, their planned OSD is this year and next. Consequently a number of vessels will soldier on well past their prime with a knock on effect on availability and power projection.

Actually you are very confused.

A fairly juvenile ad hominem attack, where’s your justification for that statement?

The fact is that you have no idea what you are talking about, you dont know what programmes are ongoing, you keep trying to find mythical enemys (and failing) and seem confused by every subject you touch upon.

I’d wager I have a better idea than you, with your everything’s fine approach, and a more thorough knowledge of the day to day realities of the current ongoing programmes. And I’m not alone in my thinking as the recent report by the UKNDA, the Secretry of State for Defence and Chief of Defence Staff have all stated that the current Defence Budget is inadequate to meet present commitments and to provide for future contingencies. But then they’re probably confused as well. If you’re waiting to find out who the enemy is before arming to fight them then it’s probably too late.