There is no way that BAES are quitting the UK defence sector.

As to the press emphasis on Warton, you assume that the press have accurate information. In my experience they frequently do not. They have just looked at all the BAE sites in the UK, the numbers employed at each one and worked out that pro rata Warton could suffer a lot without looking at what each site does.

The emphasis on land sector makes sense given the way things have been going there recently (and the desire to put pressure MoD for a win or two). Plus some aspects of the navy sector could be threatened, again, especially if BAES want to put pressure on MoD for a decision on T26

Sounds more like the result of military industry lobbying, making sure they get a slice of every pie.

Agree with that. Couild backfire though, as it will add yet more delays to each procurement contract.

Be interesting to consider the symmetry of US and European countries bidding into UK with the other way. I have always perceived the UK as more open, but people from other nation’s industries may view it differently.

I certainly don’t see it as F-35 specific though

Remember, A-135 was not designed to protect the soft Moscow urban area. It was designed to protect high value targets to give time enough to unleash a Doomsday retaliation.

I had not appreciated that was its purpose. In that case the altitude and range would seem appropriate

It has a terminal range of 80km’s and a max speed in excess of Mach 10. You cant pretend to gauge speed or range by eyeballing a video.

I’m not pretending to eye-ball speed or range:

If it has a range for 80km and a terminal speed of Mach 10 then it is unlikely that it would have reached more than Mach 8 in the course of that intercept – which as I say gives a range/altitude for the videoed intercept of 5k.

If however it reached terminal speed in that intercept ( shall we say Mach 12?) and we can see burn-out then puts the intercept range/altitude shown as approx 7km, in which case the 80km claimed range is purely nominal as it would have been coasting for 70+km.

Like I said. Acceleration or range.

It’s Queen Elizabeth I, not Queen Elizabeth II (“The Queen”), but it could help I suppose. Maybe they should have named it HMS Coalition Policies and the other HMS Economic Recovery 🙂

Just HMS Queen Elizabeth, not I or II. This recalls the earlier Queen Elizabeth Class battleship which was a good design, and also carefully circumvents the fact that I believe the Scots regard the current incumbent as Queen Elizabeth the first, whilst for the rest of us she is the second. This is because the act of union post-dates Liz I

I haven’t done an accurate timing, but from the video timer the flight time seemed to be around 4s. So to even have an intercept of 5km it would need to average Mach 4 which means a terminal speed of Mach 8 or thereabouts. Which I doubt.

As you say it is a terminal phase intercept and I don’t hold it against the missile, the point is that it is much easier to achieve a high acceleration when your range is so limited.

It is true that it may have a higher altitude/range though (also possible it was only fuellled for this altitude).

looking at the video again i think I agree with you. Which means that website I referenced is talking rubbish.

Unless of course they renumbered the rings part way through or something. Always possible.

So in weight terms LB04 is still only half way and about 2/3 of the way in terms of length