If there need is more important ? How long can they use the harries for ? Its gonna cost less than developing a new aircraft anyway !

Alright, Italian oil has interests at least in Nigeria, Congo, Angola, all over the African coasts, and you can’t know what will happen to French bases in Djibouti/Chad/Cote d’Ivoire. European basing is only good for hitting the Mediterranean rim-states.

So, yes, part of the point of maintaining the carrier forces for Italy and Spain was always to be able to go on a neo-colonial small war somewhere, or provide the core for generating a larger expeditionary capability if needed. Maybe Spain and Italy see F-35B as vital to the continuation of this. But I’m not so sure LockMart will make it an affordable proposition, if the US govn’t axes the B model from their budget.

BTW, the Cavour, fully fitted out, H_K posted here that it cost 1.5 billion euros. (Same as what various internet sources say.) I’m not sure a Cavour with two 75m cats (to replace the Garibaldi) would be more expensive than paying to finalize the F-35B.

36 units? Where does that number come from?

Italian plans call for 50+ F-35B. The majority will be owned by the air force, but available to reinforce the MM fleet if required. They’ll share logistics & training.

(~Number came from assumed ~1:1 replacement of MM & Arm-Esp. Harriers.)

Sure, but the only reason AMI would buy F-35B would be to help the MM maintain ~18 F-35B (Cavour could maybe surge with 24 units + helo flight?) on both of their carriers. Nice-to-have capability, but strictly as a Tornado replacement, you don’t need VSTOL… but okay, maybe they really wanted two-three squadrons able to deploy on carriers, see above.

HOLY HELL NO.

Shorter range, much higher cost, little-to-none real commonality with the Storm Shadow used by the RAF, and a whole new missile added to the list when the RN is already using the TLAM to great success.

Really, no. It would be the worst decision ever.

Air-launched SCALP is much smaller than the VL SCALP-EG, which is supposed to be in the 1000km-class range.

Edited: CoC Rule 15

Yes, I think when people are calling him a traitor, it’s a defense mechanism on their part; they don’t want to handle the fact that he’s one of “us”. But I don’t want to judge anyone too harshly for using that kind of defense mechanism right now.

On a side note: Aspis, you mentioned earlier that this tragedy might be harder to handle since Breivik was one of our own. On the contrary, it makes it easier because seeing as this disease+symptom originates in our own society, it’s something we can attempt to treat on our own, with self-reflection and somberness, etc.

Had it been an international operation with perpetrators from abroad, it would’ve been much harder for a small country like Norway to understand/process/handle this kind of event.

I’ve got to say that really surprises me; gun legislation in the UK has been considerably tightened following major incidents with legally-held firearms. Handguns (pistols) have been subject to an outright ban for many years.

Those questions will perhaps come later. The political aftermath hasn’t begun yet. For now, the domestic media has very deliberately avoided to blame anything/anyone for this tragedy, except of course Breivik once his identity was revealed. (Side note: not even the domestic tabloids jumped on the AQ angle. I was disappointed in BBC’s initial coverage, in that regard.)

From the PM’s speeches and op-eds in various Norwegian newspapers, I get the impression they (media+political leadership) really want to tackle the sociological roots/reasons of this tragedy, before they move on to questions such as firearms regulations.

On greek tv they said that in his diary, he writes that he was travelling to Prague for buying weapons and he was comfortable there because “it was virtually muslim-free”.

The quotes I’ve seen from his diary says he travelled to Prague to try to buy an AK-47 and smuggle it to Norway, but he failed to procure one.

This has to be Norways policy surly, I don’t think in a thousand years the Firearms Department of any U.K. Police Force would sanction that many, whatever the caliber.
Jim.

Lincoln .7

Oh yes, it is – I should have specified.

Have there been any calls for a ban on legally-held handguns in Norway yet?

No, there hasn’t been any such talk at all.

Police haven’t released any info on weapons in his possession upon his capture.

From what we know, he legally owned a Glock 17 and a semi-auto Mini-14. Latter can be purchased for deer hunting purposes.
(Requires purchaser to file a purchase request with the police – takes a while to process – typically only approved for well-seasoned hunters.)
Magazine size over 5 illegal, but hard to enforce.

Regarding amounts of ammunition – you can legally keep 10-15’000 rounds, depending on calibre.

—

I’m not saying you don’t have a point, and Swedish media have been pretty aggressive in asking the police about their response time.
(While Norwegian media has been caught up in the somber mood of the general populace – even the tabloids refrained from AQ speculation – but I expect them to begin to ask those questions when things have settled down a bit.)