Before I was born the RAF base near my house was an active Vulcan QRA base. They used to occasionally have 12+ Vulcans scrambling...

The answer is pretty simple. The UK is developing te Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing mode (SRVL) with a Bedford Array. It will be rare on a QE class that an F-35 does a vertical landing. It will never do a vertical takeoff on a British ship. The USMC will follow their lead.

I raise you Vulcan...I win...

Just fused for airburst and everything in a 100 metre radius just had a very bad day.

I like this one...

Exactly. Keep saying it to all of the idiots saying we all need to spend loads more on defence.

And whose design is not far off 40 years old....

In reality by freaking NATO out they made the chances of survival of the rest of the Soviet fleet even smaller. Even more investment in weapons and Sonar were made.

And Spearfish.

I’ve been saying for ages that if we left well alone we were in a win-win situation for the West.

If you look at Soviet air losses in Afghanistan they were already pretty significant before the deployment of Stinger. The number of lost aircraft didn’t climb significantly. But Stinger did allow Soviet aircraft to be reached at higher altitudes and with less resistance to countermeasures. Which as you rightly point…

Some FN-6 from Sudan turned up in rebel hands in the early days. If anything turns up it won’t be Stingers but there is enough Russian and Chinese MANPADS in the regions military to be deniable.

One thing the Russians dont have is quality optronics. Their targetting pods appear to have the resolution and stability of 1980's PAVE TACK pods.

Assad can’t control Syria anymore. It’s that straightforward. At best he may be able to hold onto a rump state in the West of Syria. The remainder is lost for good. Even if he won the conventional war he hasn’t got the manpower, money or equipment to hang onto the country in the face of an endless insurgency.

How about instead something even better..

Al Qaeda didn’t exist until the mid 1990's. Long after the Soviets had pulled out. Osama Bin Laden’s mujahideen had little impact on the Afghan-Soviet war as they stayed near the Pakistan border for safety. The lions share of the fighting was done by what became the Northern Alliance. They were driven from power by…

Thermal batteries are a bitch to get hold of. The CIA bought a lot back as well, but they also have a prestige value in Afghanistan. Warlords have them as a sort of symbol of their strength. If they fire it though...they no longer have it. As a result most have gone inert or unusable in warlords store rooms.

Couple of things. The Norden was not especially successful in real life. It cost a huge amount for not a great deal of success. The Germans and British both fielded similar devices....but Norden’s biigest problem was simple. Cloud cover. It worked great in testing in Arizona on clear days with no wind when the…

Not the F110. It’s about 1.5-2x the size in weight. Different class of engine. You may be thinking of the F-404 which would make sense, either that or the RB.199, F-414 or best of all the EJ-200.

It still wouldn’t get very far due to it’s lack of fuel....