apparently, if you ran at just the right speed, forcing the soviet ship to maintain a certain RPM, you could force an engine blow out...

Ha, my old man used to do this with the Royal Navy in the Baltic - he has a wonderful story about deliberately running out a USSR Gunboat that was shadowing his Leander Class Frigate to the point it blew its engine!

Missing the capability 50% of your country's smart, ambitious, young talent seems like a pretty bad idea to me.

Probably more the politicians, but luckily this is at least 3 election cycles away so by the time it becomes worthy of their attention, the final product should be ready!

the A-10 is the Michelle Rodriguez of the flying world. Stunning, packs one hell of a punch and not someone to be fucked with...

Thanks for the piece, insightful as always mate.

"this Turkish Otobar Cobra"

erm... That's Turkey, they have a lot of sand and troublesome neighbours.

The next logical evolution:

A disabled but still repairable ship requires a tow from another ship. Expense, logistics, all taken up.

Fair point, well made.

You may wish to read a little further than one of Britain's more incompetent Defence Ministers... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-…

Well, wonders will never cease, the French are bowing to global political opinion instead of making a buck...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_… Never let the facts get in the way of a good argument eh? 98% Muslim.

Hey Ty, would you mind awfully approving me for comment?

Indonesia? Turkey? Freedom of worship is in their constitution and protected. Yes there are extremists, but the same can be said for any country/religion.

Hehe, how often to you get to blame a fart on Stallone?

Tyler did an excellent feature a while ago on that very subject. In summary: it's a very fast way to lose a very expensive carrier battle group.

Actually we have a amazing ability to detect the thermal trails of missile launches, like stupidly scary ability. Its just something they dont like talking about.

Mine was about 2 years ago. I'd just got out of a marriage and was looking for some nice "dipping the toe in the water" dating - something I'd never done before. Yes at the grand old age of 29 I was headed out on my first dates thanks to the magic of online dating.