And if you saw the strike footage from that yiou’d have seen them miss....physics hasn’t changed since WW2 when it come to unguided bombs.

The graphs are out there. Google is your friend. The UK dropped from 4.5% to 2%. All in all perfectly straightforward, we weren’t maintaining a 60,000 armoured force in Northern Germany in preparation for WW3 for one. We didn’t need 16 SSN’s and 4 SSK’s either.

We’ve got thousands of Hellfires in stock. It’s the AGM-114P for the Reapers we’re after. I’m guessing that the US is struggling to get them in the quantities necessary as well. I suspect the increase in production of Hellfire is pretty much all P variants as the US and UK Reapers are using them up fast at present.

I should say though that the UK had to go down that route as the JDAM kit would not fit UK iron bombs, and JDAM is a brilliant piece of kit, on price alone it’s hard to see much else better out there.

Longer ranged as it’s finned and doesn’t follow the old bag-bag method of steering, dual mode with laser guidance and GPS as opposed to either GPS only or Laser only on JDAM. It is a LOT more expensive though. Both are being developed, there are some interesting developments on the JDAM front, but PIV will be getting…

I should mention (I did on another post), that the Hellfire we’re purchasing at present are the AGM-114P. Which are specifically for the Reaper fleet, they’re burning through a lot at present. If I was a betting man that would be the version that the manufacturers are increasing production for, I suspect they’re…

You’ll struggle getting accurate figures on stockpiles from anyone. The usual rule of thumb is to look at the original buy, add in any additional then remove any expended in combat and a reasonable sum for training. But....it’s not exact. It usually gives you a maximum, but not a minimum. For the UK for example we…

All in all the airlift and tanking fleet situation for Europe and NATO as a whole has probably never looked better (a few years to go yet though). There’s some genuine Strategic Lift and increased Tactical lift there, particularly with the A400, C-17's and the retention of the C-130J by the UK and France. There’s a…

Oh don’t worry, no offense taken at all. It’s good to have a mate you can borrow things from. It’s a 2 way street, but if we’re honest the UK has borrowed a hell of a lot from the US over the years. Lend-Lease was just one of the many, much appreciated ‘loans’. In fact we’ve got a good number of US Coastguard…

Lots of those munitions around. Viper Strike, Textron Fury (a modified Thales product), ATK Hatchet and Raytheon Pyros. Most are aimed at UAV’s.

To add to your post..

FMS is actually a fairly quick way of supplying arms internationally. It has to be said they could order from elsewhere if it was an issue. A lot of the weaponry they could get is actually, whisper it, better.

It’s not the UK who are borrowing bombs, we use the Paveway IV that the US doesn’t use, we make them in the UK, we’ve got massive stocks of Paveway 2 and Enhanced Paveway 2 as well. Brimstone is made in the UK and not used by the US. We don’t use JDAM either, Paveway IV is way better....more expensive though.

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.