The UK had to help the French out with C-17 as well, as well as Sentinel support. But that’s what allies do. They returned the favour with the loan of some Atlantiques. But it has to be said that the French were in the process of rectifying their lack of large tactical/strategic transport by their purchase of a large…

Paveway are also manufactured in the UK. The Paveway IV is manufactured in a Raytheon plant in Scotland, this is as a result of the UK being the main customer for Paveway IV. Most UK ordnance is manufactured in the UK. Hellfire is an exception. The UK has been buying them from the US for their Reaper and Apache…

I do wonder how much intel is coming from inside Mosul. I’d bet there is an awful lot of people in side texting in regular updates. Can’t be too many people who aren’t sick of ISIS by now.

Pure deep fried gold....

The key decision was that France wanted the Snecma M88 used. The British wanted the Rolls-Royce XG-40 (which became the EJ-200).

There won’t be a gap. The recent changes will replace like for like. The helicopters will in fact be more capable. It should be noted that the rescues are not due to a UK capability gap. None of the 2 I know about were anywhere near the UK’s SAR area. Or In Ireland’s. Or in fact in anyones SAR area. They were almost…

Spray from water or dust from desert ops.

The UK bought a licence from Sikorsky and improved the design. The UK Sea Kings dated from the late 70's and 80's, they’ve been re-worked a couple of times. In normal military service they’ve all been replaced by Merlin apart from the Asac’s.

A QE getting gutted? They built those capabilities into the vessels. And the Junglies may have gone...only to be replaced by way more capable Merlins....

The only reason the US has helped out with SAR in the past is for outside of the UK’s SAR area where the MH-53's with AAR have been needed. Few and far between to be honest.

It doesn’t really remain to be seen at all. They’ve been running SAR for the Maritime and Coastguard agency for years running S-61's both in the UK and the Falklands. They’re a known quantity.

And that’s it? Where are Russia’s great arms purchasers in the future? Not in the middle east, not in South America, China is gone, India is sourcing more from the west. Where are these ready money buyers??

What orders did they get again??

It’s not a problem just an endless source of amusement that Russian’s seem utterly incapable of getting a half decent government. For such an allegedly civilized nation they seem utterly incapable of being well managed. If you don’t think that an elected politician accumulating billions of dollars whilst in office is…

But we can have a good laugh at it though...

Only the ‘agreement’ is utter bullshit. Even Gorbachev says so.

Apart from all of the arms and stuff that they provided to countries that fought the US and killed large numbers of their troops. Like the 47,000 in Vietnam and 33,000 in Korea.

Lets put it one way. He styles himself as a defence analyst....not entirely sure who’s paying as he’s persona non grata with the Aussie military. Basically he’s seen as a crank, bit like that guy who calls M-113's Gavins....

Err thats not how jobs work...or democracy.

Have a look at the cost of the road in Sochi..28 miles for $9.8 billion....most of it in Putin’s pocket..and here is Putin’s house.