The Artisan is actually a mid level capability system. The best radar fielded by the RN is the Sampson on the Type 45 (with S1850 as volume search). The really interesting thing about Artisan (and the US/UK ARTIST programme) was the work on radar performance in very difficult environments, particularly cluttered, high…

Have a read of the Guardian comments whenever there is an article on Russia, Syria or the Ukraine.

In Realpolitik terms Syria is win-win for the West. At the moment we have two groups fighting it out. On one side Assad’s Syria, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, on the other we have Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and a large number of the worlds Jihadi nutters. Neither side are very friendly to the West, and they’re…

Have a look at the footage of the launch, they’re at sea, at night so a cold background. The missile flare (the booster seems to burn for quite a while) and succession of launches will get picked up, particularly with the contrast. It’s also a region of the world where you can guarantee the US has a lot of coverage.

The BRICS were a made up name by an investment bank touting for business. Of the countries included Brazil and Russia are up the creek without a paddle due to the low oil price amongst many other things, South Africa was always a joke entry, India has massive economic problems at present. China, granted is massive,…

The Russians are only 25 years late to the party....

They’re not going to engage any air targets. The Russians definitely aren’t up for that. They’re just trying to cause the US a headache.

Do you seriously think that a Russian war ship in the Caspian sea, at night, launching 26 cruise missiles isn’t picked up by a DSP or SBIRS satellite you need to get off the drugs.....the US will have known within a matter of seconds.

The QE class has 2 radars. The more impressive one is the S1850 on the forward island. The Artisan is a good piece of kit, nothing that special about the antenna but the guts of the system are border line brilliant. They come out of a joint US-UK project called ARTIST.

I’ve always wanted to see video of the T250 cannon on the T249 Vigilante..

Of the current ‘Western’ auto-cannons on aircraft the best for multi purpose use are the Mauser BK-27 27mm revolver cannon (from the Tornado and Eurofighter) and the US GAu 12/22 25mm gatling type. The reason for this is that there has been a tremendous amount of research over the years in order to find the ‘perfect’…

The greatest one was ‘The World at War’. People often think it was a BBC production, it was in fact made for ITV the British commercial TV company.

10% of the Wehrmachts road transport fleet was in North Africa to support Rommel, and given the incredible wear and tear that the desert has on vehicles a greater percentage of their spares were expended there.

It should be noted that D-Day was fundamentally a British operation not a US one. An overwhelming preponderance of the shipping, aircraft and forces involved were British & Commonwealth. Most of the planning was British too. It’s only in Hollywood that the US is given the leading role....

Rommel commanded a division during the invasion of France, so he certainly wasn’t a ‘pissant colonel’ . But he was probably one of the most over-rated generals of all time, good at divisional command, poor at Corps command and a disaster as an army commander. Guderian couldn’t have reduced Dunkirk anymore than any…

Rommel was the most over rated general in history. The fool regularly outran his supply lines, in the early part of the war he got away with it. Later on he got beaten time and time again. The idea that the Germans could have rolled over the Dunkirk perimeter isn’t that credible either, the Allies had managed to…

It was 50 Wickes and Clemson class destroyers. They weren’t reconditioned either, they were in a not very good state. They needed a lot of work before they went to sea, particularly regarding stability and range. But they were needed at the time.

The RAF were stronger at the end of the battle than they were at the start. The Luftwaffe was certainly not. The Luftwaffe was being ground into the dust. They couldn’t have won at any point in the battle.

Yes. They bombed the radar stations early on. What they didn’t realise was how hard targets they were and the British speed at repairing them. Consequently they tended to take the attitude of ‘we bombed that last week so it no longer exists’. The Luftwaffe also fundamentally didn’t understand that the Radar stations…

You’ve got some bits right, but our point on the aero industry not keeping up with attrition is totally incorrect. Go and have a look at the production statistics and the actual loss rate. Also see the Fighter command daily strength reports. At the end of the Battle of Britain Fighter Command had more planes and…