Pretty much the same as Germany.

Excellent firearms?

FN for Belgium and 27mm Mauser from Germany

Less flippantly, both have excellent electronics, steel (and metallurgy in general), chemical, machine tooling and automotive industries. Both have skilled and trained workforces, multilingual and used to collaborative projects. Both have money to invest. Both have a reasonable track record in defence procurement.

I can think of worse partner nations.

For a grand spectacular total of 4.5M$ per aircraft…. Tell Canadians about “Ballooning”.

There’s an argument that the US is the only possible supplier to Taiwan (certainly other potential suppliers have not seemed at all keen to sell recently), and it is the only nation which is even remotely likely to intervene if the PRC moves to a military policy towards reintegrating Taiwan with the mainland.

The enhanced price the US wants to charge its neighbour for F18s is rather higher risk. Does it persuade the Canadians that the F35 isn’t all that expensive anyway and stick with Plan A? Or does it worry them that the F35’s price might be subject to similar inflation? Or does it just plain pee them off and they look elsewhere? Other manufacturers would be more than willing to trade with Canada.

BAE joins race for new US frigate with its Type 26 vessel

If BAe have even a sniff of the USN contract; one can understand why they haven’t been that interested in T31e.

Interesting comments on that page about the small cost difference between Arleigh Burke’s and T26.

IMMOO: a) that illustrates the fantastic economies of scale the USN has got building so many ABs and b) they miss the point (somewhat) a European style Frigate (of whichever flavour they plump for) is going to save money on fuel, maintenance and (most crucially) personnel. Whichever Frigate the USN plumps for could potentially be built in such significant numbers that the unit price comes right down giving a double saving. Bidders just need to ensure that they are not too greedy in selling to a well-funded service.

Post #121

Some interesting links in that page.

I have to say that as (paper) designs go that Babcock Arrowhead 120 design is my new favourite candidate for T31.

10 please
Then sell to the Canadians (in a rare fit of realism, I still think they’d be better with T26)
And sell 5 to the USAians and get them to licence build a load more

I think that one has already been posted. But even if it was it is nonetheless welcome in that larger size.

It does make me wonder how many LGB*s we could have fitted in one of the V-Bombers if we had kept them!

*stop it

i always liked the ADV version, but wondered why not more countries ordered the type.

It looked ‘right’ in a way that the GR versions never have. And the endurance on station was ideal for the GIUK gap. I also think that the in-house SEAD version was superb and offered a capability which (oh what a surprise) we in the UK binned without a replacement

would’ve fit well with say, Japan or South Korea in the 80s or other places taht needed a lot of interceptors

Because we put it into service with a lump of concrete in the nose which made it a laughing stock

It was grossly underpowered (especially at altitude which is where its role dictated it should live)

We did not upgrade the avionics anywhere near as frequently as we should

Customers just could not have faith that as a type it was going to be supported

It was fitted with a refuelling probe for probe-and-drogue refuelling and the potential customers with a need for such a long range, long endurance interceptor were wedded to the boom-and-receptacle

I do agree that it looked the business though

A US version of the QE with a catapult on the angled flight deck (just like the old Soviet planned super carrier) would make a lot of sense