To give some context you need to know what happened at the bus stop. This is early October in London, 2014, near Victoria Station. I’m waiting for a night bus to my friends place as it’s past 1am. It’s pretty chilly and empty so I just huddle in my coat waiting for the bus when this woman staggers to the stop with her…
I’m sorry this is a great comment, but ‘haul balls’ had me chuckling for 5 minutes straight. What a great expression
what a time to be alive. a home made rail gun
Probably also strongly smelling of garlic and cigarettes. I think there’s value to building around a coherent doctrine. Saves the constant meddling when you’re dilly-dallying so to speak. Best example would be all the changes in requirements for something like I dunno, the LCS.
Still pity the poor ground crew who would potentially have to make F-16’s, Rafale’s, Sukhoi’s and MiG’s talk to each other when flying above Indian skies.
I can understand the urge from LM to keep pushing for it. Seeing as the jet it’s meant to replace is already a single engine one, I don’t see the reluctance to take it on, other than the previously discussed aversion regarding usage restrictions and the fact that the auld enemy uses it. But then again the model…
Hahaha, funny. Jokes aside though the French are pretty competent. Reports of their intervention in Africa have been relatively positive IIRC correctly. Loved watching a short news investigation highlighting their preference for units to arrive via choppers travelling at speed and particularly close to the ground (I’m…
how the govt must want one of these
I still think European forces are capable when taken as the collective, which I’m sure it will amount to should mainland Europe be subjected to any sort of attack. It reminds me of a Robert Ludlum book, where a crazed French General has this plan for a pan-European army that would essentially be the equal to the US.…
Are there any written or unwritten rules of engagement regarding ships such as these? I know it’s oft mentioned in the context of aerial tankers how taking them out essentially handicaps any offensive force operating at any significant distance beyond home shores, similarly wouldn’t taking out oilers cripple any true…
Agreed. BTW, I did like your article. I remember being conflicted after seeing Spectre, especially when people asked me how I felt compared to Skyfall. I definitely feel I need to see the former again. I still stand by Goldfinger being my gold standard for Bond films (yes I know, cheap pun, couldn’t help myself).
I was going to say, that air group is pretty capable. I’m not totally clued in to the financial situation in France but going by the general trends in Europe it’s unlikely that the funds would be there for a new carrier. I guess the Mistral’s will end up being essentially the true force projection ships of the MN,…
Agreed, after the cost overruns and the general problems that faced the whole conversion operation for the Vikramaditya, the Indian Navy will definitely not go down that route again and I doubt any other customers will be brave enough to go down a similar route. Again, if it was on time and on budget I agree, the…
Same here. I remember I saw the trailer and was super hyped to see Shakespearean action. About an hour in I had to throw in the towel and get my mom to help out (she actually enjoyed it having studied literature). Subtitles were no help for me during that movie.
I will say this, I loved how big a role M and Q play in this. It would have felt so strange to relegate friggin’ Coriolanus Ranulph Fiennes to a desk job.
It’s interesting that the SpecOps community have taken up these aircraft, as soon as I saw the video, the first thought in my head was ‘Gosh, wouldn’t those Bane buddies like one of these at the start of the Dark Knight Rises’.
Oh I see. So it’s redundancy for the intake units that feed the engines of the ship so to speak. I always thought separating them would just add cost and complexity. Not to mention when I read about the relatively small island on the new Ford class super carriers being specifically designed that way to minimise the…
Really? I know so little about the CDG. It feels like something curious to me, the hatchback version of the full fat sedan that is a nuclear Nimitz class. I’ll admit I first truly got to know about the CDG through fiction. If you ever read Scarecrow by Matthew Reilly, the CDG has a big role to play.
Oh sweet thanks, this was an excellent image! It really is quite interesting to see them all to scale. The QE class truly is gonna be mammoth by RN standards. What also interests me is to see that the Liaoning and Kuznetsov are actually pretty sizable ships. But then again as with all of the ships there, I’m sure side…
I didn’t know about this amendment. Seems reasonable to protect American jobs. I wonder then if part of the skill base in the home country of the product being sold would have to work as expats in the US to oversee the construction.
