Posts by EvilDrSmith

UK pumps £708 million into its future fighter jet

Re: What is this for?

The UK's possession of nuclear weapons did not stop the Argentinian junta launching a war to seize the Falklands in 1982; Britain's plans for reduction in conventional weapons defense suggested an unwillingness to defend it's territory. Nuclear weapons were not a credible deterrent, because they were disproportionate, and because the reasonable assumption was that the British leadership would not have the will to use them.

There are many scenarios between 'peace' and 'all out nuclear war' whereby it might be useful to have high end military capability, including assisting allies or upholding international law (if and when one chooses to do so).

Also, if one needs to go to war, one should never plan on going to war in a fair fight - you always want to overmatch your opponent in any and every way possible - that ends the war quickest, and minimises your losses.

Re: What is this for?

NATO also have geographic limits on where a military act can be sufficient to invoke Article 5.

For example, the UK could not invoke Article 5 during the Falklands War even if it had wanted to, since it was outside of those limits, these being (from memory) home territory in Europe (including all of Turkey) and North America, and the North Atlantic, north of whichever tropic it is.

Also, NATO is a defensive alliance - Article 5 is invoked in response to an attack (An attack on one is an attack on all).

So Iran fails the geographical test for invoking Article 5, plus the US action was offensive, not defensive, in addition to your point that even if Article 5 could have been invoked, it's up to each member state to determine their own response.

Some good points.

I think we should be careful about reading too much into the 'this is "not buy American"' though, and similar for this as being presented as 'British'. The established team for Tempest is UK+Italy+Japan, and UK and Italy have a proven track record of working well together (Tornado and Typhoon being specifically relevant). Keeping a high-end aviation industry requires that it actually produces a high end product, so for the three partner nations, broadly, I think this is just about maintaining that high-end industrial capability while meeting their own defence needs.

The British emphasis in the recent reports is perhaps due to the 'loyal-wingman' programmes which seem at the moment to be more of a national programme, coupled with politics (politicians saying how wonderful they are).

However, I think the project is evolving into and benefitting from a degree of 'not-US'.

My sense is that greater emphasis is being placed on a non-US supply chain than was the case with Typhoon (even if there is no actual difference between the two projects' attitudes in reality). The presence of Japan in the core team has led to some speculation that this reflects Japanese concern at the reliability of the US as a supplier, though more likely reflects Japanese concern at retaining industrial capability coupled with delivery timescales.

The strongest 'not-US' element so far seems to be the recent announcement of Canada as a project observer. Tempest in fact looks well suited to their requirements, but for Canada to 'not buy American' is notable.

I suspect that the Tempest marketing team will be emphasising it's independence from US supply chains/political restrictions.

Also, you are perhaps overly sympathetic to the French in relation to Typhoon/Rafale; the bickering was mostly caused by the French, or more fairly, by the fact that French requirements from the common fighter were not well matched to the requirements of the other three partners (all of whom did have requirements consistent with one another). Splitting the project into two gave all parties the aircraft that they wanted.

Actually, an easy one to answer - (mostly) no.

If we had bought a load of drones 3 years ago, most would now be obsolescent, and militarily all but useless.

Even drones from last year are now dated and less capable than the current technology being developed by Ukraine.

We as a country need to be keeping up to date with the ever-changing technology/capability of drone warfare, while producing enough drones to provide for our own forces training and doctrinal development, plus providing whatever military support to Ukraine / export sales more generally that we as a nation feel is sensible. We also need the industrial capability that can be cranked up to produce huge numbers of drones (of whatever type is then current) if and when we need them next month/next year/next decade.

We need to learn lessons from Russia's war on Ukraine, but history suggests that it would be a mistake to assume that all future wars will be carbon-copies.

US Marines' latest anti-drone toy is an AI turret that uses regular machine guns

Re: So its back to WW II technology

The recent rather spectacular explosion of an oil tank in Russia that propelled the tank roof into the air was actually caused by a Russian missile that missed its target; more generally, there is lots of social media footage from Russia showing air defence (guns) blazing away, missing their target, and hitting various buildings beyond.

So yes, exactly this - every bullet has its billet.

Amsterdam activists throw acid at Microsoft datacenter project

Re: Pointless

If the concrete had already hardened, that would work.

If the concrete was in the middle of a pour, and still wet - well, wet concrete is strongly alkaline*. The effect of a small quantity of acid in engineering terms would likely be undetectable.

Washing it off would not be feasible - water:cement ratio is a critical factor in the properties of concrete, so hosing water over concrete before it hardens would be a Bad Thing.

However, in practice, everyone might well worry about their PI insurance, and, not immediately knowing what was in the substance dropped into the concrete, agree that the concrete had to be dug out (and dumped), and that new concrete brought and placed.

Thus increasing the usage of materials, production of waste and the emissions of carbon.

So the achievement of the activists was likely to have deliberately caused harm to the environmental.

*Wet concrete is also strongly hydrophilic. Also, it doesn't 'dry', it hydrates - the water is used up chemically. If you ever get wet concrete on your skin, wash it off immediately - it will cause a chemical burn very rapidly.

As another UK prime minister bites the dust, a contradictory tech legacy remains

Re: "Burnham has already spoken out against digital ID cards"

Keir today, gone tomorrow.

France and Germany agree to disagree, ditch joint next-gen Euro fighter

Re: Nervous pilots.

"The Eurofighter was an expensive knockoff of the Rafale - certainly no-one in the eurofighter consortium had build a fighter with canards before.

...

Dassault correctly spotted the trend by making a plane to do everything and do it well. Today Eurofighter cos-plays at being multirole."

Erm, politely, that's rubbish.

One of the feed-in projects to Typhoon was the BAe EAP, which itself sprung from the Agile Combat Aircraft programme which started in the 1970's. If I recall, MBB of Germany had a similar experimental programme which was also canard based, so there was knowledge of how to design a canard design, and canard designs were hardly a new thing - the Swedish Viggen had been in service since the 1970's, so there was a reference type that showed the concept worked.

Eurofighter Typhoon and Rafale both came out of the same research project - to claim that one is a knock-off of the other is ridiculous.

Prior to the French splitting off, there were fundamental disagreements about project lead and workshare (with the French on one side of the argument, and the UK, Germany and Italy on the other) plus an equally fundamental disagreement over the size/weight of the aircraft: France needed a carrier capable aircraft, which required a relatively small and light aircraft, equipped for carrier operations, the other partner nations needed a larger, heavier and overall more capable aircraft.

The concept of the multi-role aircraft is not remotely new - people were trying to achieve that in WWII if not earlier. The US were perhaps the first to achieve something more-or-less true multirole with the F16, if not the earlier F4.

One of the things that makes Rafale and Typhoon stand out is that they are not multi-role, they are 'swing role'. F16 in the 1980's could do multiple roles, but pretty much had to be set up / armed to do one role in particular prior to take off. Swing role represents aircraft that can switch role after take off. And Rafale was not the first - Gripen was demonstrating 'net-centric' communication whereby it was integrated with multiple other sensors and systems (on land. sea and air) and swing role ability before the Rafale or Typhoon.

Re: Nervous pilots.

Tornado (UK/Italy/Germany) did work very well, as does Typhoon (UK/Italy/Germany/Spain), though Typhoon suffered some delays due to the Germans trying first to down-scope its capabilities and then reduce the number of aircraft bought with no loss of industrial work-share to save money. As such, they may not be considered that reliable a partner by the Italians, though they (the Italians) are possibly having doubts over the UK at the moment, given the failure of the UK government to set out a proper defence funding plan (as was mentioned in the article).

There are two other European future combat aircraft programmes ongoing, which might draw some of the former FCAS members, if those programmes continue.

Turkey (or Turkiye as I guess I should say) has their own indigenous fight programme which seems to be progressing, with assistance from a number of non-Turkish companies. This looks like it might deliver an actual aircraft at the end of the programme, but I don't think the Turks want partner nations as such, just customers.

Also Sweden has a proposed scheme for a Gripen replacement. The Swedes have a long history of producing good quality military jets (Tunnan / Draken / Viggan / Gripen) as part of their non-aligned and self reliant post WWII policy, and this seems consistent with that. However, the costs of developing a 6th-generation aircraft alone may stretch Sweden's resources, and they are, of course, now a NATO member, so they may be amenable to a former FCAS member or two joining / part funding their plan; Germany, perhaps.

I suspect that the French will go their own way - it was their requirement for a carrier-capability that was one of the issues that led them to leave the Eurofighter/Typhoon programme, and which has apparently being partly responsible for killing FCAS (along with industrial work share disagreements).

California passes bill declaring death-by-algorithm to 3D-printed ghost guns

OMG! a 1,000 percent increase....

"According to an Everytown for Gun Safety research report, police departments across the US saw a 1,000 percent increase in the number of 3D printed ghost guns appearing in crime scenes between 2020 and 2024."

I'm suitable shocked and scared.

And then I remembered that I'm cynical*.

So if there was 1 gun previously used, 2 guns would be a 100% increase, and 11 guns would be a 1000% increase.

Checking the report shows that the data is from just 20 cities, and is actually 32 rising to 325.

Which compares to e.g. assault weapons (data from 17 cities) : 3,776 to 4,797, so roughly +1000 increase, (but not +1000%, so obviously not as scary*)

And from the executive summary:

"Updated analyses now include 349,322 crime guns recovered in US cities representing nearly 30 million people".

So if it weren't for those 325 'Ghost guns', then it would only have been 348,997 crime guns recovered, which obviously would be fine*.

Something must be done, so we must be seen to do something, no matter how ineffectual it actually is...

*also sarcastic.

Jammin' on UK defence secretary's jet as Russia blamed for GPS interference

Re: Did not read the Times artice due to paywall, but ...

Flight time for Tallinn to London (Commercial flights) does seem to be about 3 hours, direct.

I suspect that this is just a matter of wording in the article, and that the jamming only occurred local to Estonia or Kaliningrad - unless the GPS system actually got proper broken somehow?

Experts pour cold borscht on Farage's Russian hack claim

Not necessarily.

The Code of conduct is actually available for all to review:

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/commons/hoc-code-of-conduct/

"Category 5: Gifts and benefits from sources outside the UK

38. Members must register, subject to the paragraphs below, any gifts or benefits with a value of over £300 which they receive from a source outside the UK.

41. Members should not register under this category:

Benefits which could not reasonably be thought by others to be related to membership of the House or to the Member’s parliamentary or political activities, ...

...If there is any doubt, the benefit should be registered"

It does not need to be from a member of the family to be a personal gift and thus to be exempt from being declared.

As I understand it, Farage is stating that it was to pay for his security. The need for security clearly arises from his political activities, yet if he withdrew from politics, it is not credible to suggest that the threat to his security would vanish. His argument that it is for personal reasons and therefore didn't amount to a breach of the code is sufficiently plausible that I suspect he'll be found to have inadvertently broken the code and get a relatively minor slap on the wrist.

Burnham backlash: UK Digital ID plans in peril if Manchester mayor succeeds Starmer

Where's the Popcorn?

The Makerfield by-election is mistimed, it should have been during panto season, though maybe it’s just good old British Farce.

In the Gorton and Denton byelection, Reform campaigned on the message of ‘Get Starmer out'.

In Makerfield, if Burnham wins, he’ll likely replace Starmer as Prime Minster, so effectively Reform are now campaigning to ‘keep Starmer in’.

Normally, at a by-election like this, all the party big-guns are deployed. However, at the local elections, Labour party candidates were desperate for Starmer to stay away from their areas because he is so utterly hated by the general public as to be utterly toxic.

So now at Makerfield we have Starmer promising to turn up to support Burnham get elected, even though Starmer doesn’t want Burnham elected, while Burham is publicly welcoming Starmer’s support, even though he no doubt desperately wants Starmer to stay well clear, because he is so toxic with the electorate.

Burnham was previously pro-EU, but recognising he’s trying to get elected in a Brexit-supporting area, is desperately trying to row back on that.

Wes Streeting, who also wants to be Prime Minister instead of Starmer, and is much more pro-EU, is talking about rejoining, presumably in an attempt to gain support from the parliamentary Labour party, so as to increase his chances of winning the subsequent Labour leadership election. However, the general consensus of opinion is that he has no hope if Burnham is standing for the Labour leadership. Streeting therefore should want Burnham to lose the by-election, but in the process of campaigning within the Parliamentary Labour Party, is making it more likely that Burnham will be elected in the by-election, since Burnham as PM is less unattractive than Streeting as PM to a Brexit supporting electorate.

Meanwhile, the Greens definitely aren’t going to do a deal with Labour to give Burnham an easier ride, but have said that they are actually putting all the resources into the vote for the new Mayor of Manchester so aren’t actually going to make much effort in Makerfield.

And then their candidate at Makerfield withdrew within hours of being announced.

Yup definitely Farce.

UK Typhoon jets fitted with bargain-bin drone busters for Middle East sorties

Re: Cannon?

The Ukrainians appear to have lost a couple of F-16's while drone hunting, because they ingested debris from the drone they just shot down - cannons means getting close to the target.

With APKWS II, there is more stand-off range, plus once launched, the 'plane can veer away from the target while still keeping the laser on target, further increasing safety distance between the aircraft and the soon-to-be ex-drone.

Also, and perhaps slightly contradicting the above benefit, even with just a two-pod payload of rockets, Typhoon has 14 rockets and can reliably knock down 12 to 14 drones. If it still has targets, it can then switch to engaging with guns. If I recall, it carries 150 rounds, and the rate of fire of the cannon is 1700 round /min, giving it about 5 seconds worth of shooting (RoF seems to be variable, but I suspect the higher rate is used for air-to-air engagements), so that's probably between 5 and 10 drones that could be destroyed before the ammo is exhausted.

With APKWS II, 1 Typhoon can stay on station and knock down many more drones before it has to return to base than it could achieve with just gun alone.

Re: I have a better idea

"The biggest risk to any regime is the guys with the guns"

Isn't the saying about revolts in dictatorships something like "Rebellion happens when the mother of the Palace Guard Commander is suffering"?

F-35 software delays leave UK buying time with US glide bombs

Re: STONE Age

Have an upvote for an Asterix reference, but actually, not quite as silly as you may think - laser guided concrete bombs are a thing.

A 1000lbs laser guided bomb (containing circa 400 - 500lbs of high explosive) doesn't just destroy the target, but also demolishes the immediate neighbourhood, which is problematic if your target is hiding in a residential area.

250lb of laser guided concrete dropped from 20,000 feet is quite effective at destroying some targets through kinetic energy, while leaving the surrounding environment largely unaffected, apart from a light coating of dust.

UK reloads artillery plans with £1B remote-control howitzer order

Re: Nice

On a previous unrelated post, I noted that if you don't have a report about contamination in your water, it doesn't mean that you don't have contamination, it just means no one is measuring it.

We all know that Ukraine has a problem with corruption. What this latest case proves is that no matter how high up or important someone is, that corruption will be routed out.

An organisation called Transparency International publishes every year a Corruption Perception Index for every country (2026 data doesn't seem to be out yet), scored 1-100 where the higher the number, the lower the level of corruption.

In 2014, Ukraine was tied at place 142, with a score of 26. By way of comparison, Russia was placed 136 (tied) on 27, with Denmark in first place on 92.

In 2022, Denmark are still in 1st on 90, Russia was tied at 137 on 28, and Ukraine had improved to 116 (tied) on 33

In 2025, Denmark are still in 1st place on 89, Russia was tied at 157 on 22, Ukraine had continued to improve, at 104 (tied) on 36.

So thank you for helping to show how Ukraine is providing a demonstration to the world how serious they are in destroying corruption and bringing the corrupt to justice.

Re: Nice

There is a general opinion that in the age of drones, traditional towed artillery systems are obsolete - anything that takes (double figure) minutes to set up then (double figure) minutes to displace won't be survivable.

Whether that is true will depend on what develops in the way of anti-drone systems. However, towed systems were known to be more vulnerable to counter-battery fire than self propelled systems even before the drone threat emerged.

Older more traditional (tracked) armoured self propelled systems still tend to be fairly static when firing, so take several minutes after completion of a fire mission before they move off.

Modern highly automated systems like Boxer and Archer (and others) can fire off 3-4 rounds, such that all the rounds land within a few seconds of each other, and with the time from stopping to the time when the vehicle moves off around 90-120 seconds. This means that the vehicle is moving off just seconds after the first round lands on the target.

Boxer adds what I think is currently a unique capability, in that it doesn't even have to stop, but can fire accurately on the move - slow speed on level ground, I assume.

These modern systems are a lot less vulnerable to drones (or traditional counter-battery fire) than older self propelled systems, and the assumption seems to be that they will work in collaboration with friendly drones - recon drone spots a target, and then you put shells onto the target within seconds (quicker than a swarm of attack drones can get there).

Re: Nice

Archer is basically what you get when you stick a 155mm howitzer on the back of a Volvo articulated 30 tonne dump truck

Britain says Skyhammer drone interceptor passed Jordan tests with flying colors

Re: "A rare case of rapid procurement"

Yup (in fact for all you said really) - Skyhammer and Starstreak have different targets.

Skyhammer appears to be designed for small, fast-subsonic targets that fly relatively straight and level, and have no significant defense systems. Also, the target is relatively flimsily, so a small blast/fragmentation warhead should be adequate. If people start sticking jamming systems on drones, the drones will start getting more expensive, so lose the cheapness advantage they have over conventional cruise missiles - the boundary between the two is already getting pretty blurred.

Starstreak is designed to kill (potentially) supersonic fixed wing manned aircraft, equipped with warning systems, jammers and decoys - in practice, at low level they are also likely to only be fast-subsonic.

However, they are likely to be manoeuvring vigorously, and the airframe is much tougher. Hence three separate ~1kg darts travelling at Mach 4 with laser homing.

Also anti-attack helicopter role, which targets tend to be a fair bit slower, but can include armour and other survivability aids, and which can lurk behind terrain and pop up to attack, where the high speed of Starstreak is designed to get to the target before it drops back into cover.

Higher spec target, so higher spec (and more expensive) missile.

Britain's £6B armoured sickener Ajax cleared for duty despite injuring troops

Re: Not just one cause

Norway was a founding member of NATO.

Norway and Russia share a land border.

Thus, there has never been a moment in NATO's existence when NATO was not right on Russia's border.

Re: Not just one cause

If so, they may actually be going the wrong way about it by continuing the 'there is nothing wrong' line.

Nimrod MRA4 was actually a good idea - in theory.

Upgrade the existing airframes, so get an improved aircraft for less cost than buying an all new type.

However, then it went a bit wrong.

The big problem was that the existing fleet of Nimrods were not identical airframes - being based on a 1950's airline, they were all subtly individual, so the sausage machine turning out and fitting new wings to each 'plane needed individual attention (adding time and cost to each conversion).

The second problem was fleet size.

I think at peak, the RAF had about 3 dozen Nimrods, and the original plan was to keep and upgraded 21 airframes (working from memory, I may be a bit out).

By the time that the decision to cancel the programme was taken, we were down to having a fleet of just 9.

So all your development costs are now hung on just 9 'planes, plus all the maintenance costs you need to keep a unique airplane type in service for a decade or more are for just 9 aeroplanes. It just was not sensible value for money.

Canceling Nimrod MRA4 was the right decision, taken at least 5 years too late.

Hopefully, Ajax isn't a repeat of that.

I suspect (and hope), though, that Ajax will turn out more like the L85: a dreadful reputation full deserved from early performance, that resulted not from fundamental design failures, but shoddy manufacture. However, once the politicians stopped lying, claiming it was perfect and world beating, and allowed for the defects to be fixed properly, it turned into a good, reliable weapon, that still gets uninformed criticism because people remember those first impression stories that get oh so many national news headlines, and not the article on page 7 explaining that everything has been fixed (see also Type 45 destroyer and the persistent reference to the design flaw that was identified and addressed long ago).

None of the above should be taken as approval of the way that the Ajax programme has been (mis-)managed.

Swarm welcome: Britain lines up 120,000 drones for Ukraine

Re: Open Standards?

There was a report about a week ago (treat with caution, because, well, unverified claim) that a Malloy drone was used to ferry in quantities of explosives and drop them under a bridge behind Russian lines, making multiple flights. After however many journeys, the combined charge was ignited. The drone-filmed video of the (pockmarked but up until then serviceable) bridge being explosively disassembled was quite impressive, and confirms the Ukrainians got a large lump of explosives under the bridge somehow.

UK defense startup to supply drone interceptors for Britain and allies

Re: Drones....and Drones!

Strange how it's always Anonymous Cowards that spin the lie about propellers falling off the carriers

RAF eyes cheap drone-killer as Typhoon jet tests laser-guided rockets

The Ukrainians lost an F16 engaged in shooting down drones, with the speculation (last time I checked) being that it ingested debris from the drone / was otherwise damaged by the debris after the drone was destroyed.

Shooting down a drone with a cannon generally means getting in close.

'People's Panel' to check if UK wants controversial Digital ID will cost £630K

You can actually do this without a smart 'phone and App (though it's no easier).

Also, the companies house requirement is also for anyone that is a member of an LLP, which makes this a much wider net than just people with significant control of a limited company.

You still need to have/create a GOV.UK One Login, then go around in circles as you follow a link for 'I don't have an app' that then immediately then tells you to use the app, and eventually you end up with an appointment to turn up at a Post Office* with your passport, where they can verify your identity by looking at your passport and taking a photo which they presumably upload.

And then you have to go back to GOV.UK One Login to confirm that the verification is really you.

And THEN you can log in to companies house and confirm that you are the name that they have on their list.

*At which point you'll likely find that the list of Post Offices that you can do this at includes all the Post-office-in-small-shops in the area, but none of the few actual Post Offices that still exist.

The drone swarm is coming, and NATO air defenses are too expensive to cope

Re: Cost

The UAE have been claiming success against Iranian drones using the AH-64 Apache, obtaining gun kills.

'Be scared' sells newspapers

While most certainly not trying to be-little the threat, it does seem that a lot more effort is put into the 'we're all going to die!!!' stories, with less coverage of the 'actually, we have a solution'.

Partly, I suspect, because the solution involves things the military aren't overly keen to divulge, so don't necessarily talk about.

There are numerous technologies being developed to provide defence against drone attack, including a variety of direct-energy weapons (laser and radio frequency), some of which have been discussed in these very pixels (e.g. the UK's RF DEW trials that zapped multiple drones a shot for what was it? £1 a shot?; UK's Dragonfire laser system, etc).

A capability that only seems to have become public last week was the UK's Rapid Sentry system - ground launcher Starstreak/Martlet missiles, integrated into a detection system and a EW/Jamming system, so providing the hard-kill back-up if the soft-kill jamming fails, which apparently has performed very well defending Erbil in Iraq from Iranian drone attack (just a pity that the UK government doesn't seem to have deployed the system to Cyprus). This system appears to have been procured in 2022 - so after the 3 day SMO started - and that procurement date suggests that integrating the soft-kill technology must have been an add on, once drone usage became widespread.

So the statement that NATO countries "urgently needs layered, affordable air defense systems" seems true, but we're not starting from nothing.

Openreach: Fiber can sniff out leaky water pipes – if anyone bothers fixing them

So how would you then deal with Scottish Water and Northern Ireland water, when they fail to deal with water leaks as a priority?

Openreach is a private company, Affinity Water is a private company, and together they have come up with a technical solution to the problem of leak detection that looks like it may be effective. This should be something that we all should be applauding (and not just because we're supposed to be techies), yet somehow this is used as an attack on the privatised water industry.

Even though Openreach has "nationwide reach of its fiber infrastructure network," and "the system piloted here could scaled across the UK", it appears that that somehow does not include Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The adoption of this system nationwide depends on the non-privatised water companies in Scotland and Northern Ireland to view detecting leaks as a priority just as much as the privatised water companies in England and Wales.

White House activates Yu-Gi-Oh's trap card by using anime clip for war comms

"It really must be seen to be believed."

I've now seen it

I don't believe it...

(Should be read with an appropriate Victor Meldrew tone of voice)

Britain turns up the heat on homegrown ceramics for hypersonic missiles

Re: Homegrown ceramics

Black tea with sugar - I think it's a Russian / central Asian thing? Certainly not that unusual, though perhaps not so common in the UK.

I have been known to resort to it, when the office milk supply runs out.

Dutch cops warn 100 alleged scammers: Turn yourselves in or we tell Grandma

"The English are too polite to be honest,

The Dutch are too honest to be polite"

Royal Navy races to arm ships against drone threat

Re: too slow

The person that isn't Spartacus has already largely said was I was going to say (I shouldn't have waited until after lunch to post).

While I largely agree with you, it is worth remembering that 4 years ago, at the start of the 3 day special military operation, and for most of the first year, drone use meant Bayraktar and other, similar to Predator, large drones, for which adequate defenses existed.

Loitering Munitions such as Shahed and Harop existed, but had not been widely used. I'm not sure anyone envisaged these types of munition being manufactured on the scale that they have been, and used as little more that a round of ammunition, rather than being reserved for particular targets.

FPV drones and fibre-optic controlled FPVs were simply not a thing.

And there were systems being developed - as not-Spartacus points out, Dragonfire, due to be installed and in service next year, didn't spring from nowhere and the US have been field trialling vehicle mounted laser systems. Moreover, before drones there was the threat of attack by boat-swarms in coastal waters: manned vessels, not drones, but still the idea being to swamp the target. In response, there was a move to increase the number of rapid fire low/mid-calibre guns, and this seems also to have pushed the development of Wildcat with Martlet missile, which is why the UK can now deploy that system to Cyprus this weekend.

There have been developments since - April last year, our gracious hosts carried an story about UK testing a radio frequency DEW; the UK is producing Octopus anti-drones for Ukraine and seemingly anyone else that wants them; APKWS was developed over a decade ago, and as APKWS II is an effective (and cheap) anti-drone weapon system.

35 years of defense cuts (combined with 25 years of counter -insurgency warfare) have certainty damaged the UK's (and indeed nearly every NATO country's) broader defence capability, and meant that decisions had to be made to prioritise certain capabilities at the expense of others. I agree, 2014 should have been the point that underfunding ended and we started taking defence seriously, but outside of the Eastern European states, we didn't. However, since 2022, most of NATO is now taking this seriously, and if the UK isn't (in respect to the timescale to ramp up defense spending) we at least started with a number of programmes that are coming to fruition just(about) in time.

Euro allies aiming to rapidly build low-cost air defense weapons

Re: Which Part Of "low cost" Don't I Understand??

The six Type 45 destroyers are not in dry dock until 2030. They remain in service. There was a design flaw that caused significant problems, and caused a catastrophic loss of power when it was first discovered, but it was identified, a work-around implemented, and then a proper fix implemented. It shouldn't have happened, but it did, and the response was appropriate, and the vessels are in service doing their job.

The two QE / PoW aircraft carriers have not had a propeller fall off, They have both experienced a problem with the propeller shaft (always the starboard one, I think). You don't build half a dozen porotypes of an aircraft carrier before you put it into production - the first of the class is also the prototype, and you expect there to be significant defects that will need fixing. The QE class seem to be remarkably reliable for what they are / how complex they are.

A lot of military users seem to consider the F35 fit for use. The F35B's that broke were both subsequently fixed and returned to service. Military aircraft - in fact all aircraft - go unserviceable. How many F/A18s or MiG29's or Rafales went unserviceable during the same period? Who knows? the media didn't report it because it was not 'newsworthy'.

UK purchase of F35A - we discussed that here at the time it was announced, and it is a perplexing decision, that might owe more to UK-USA relations than military utility. However, not every aircraft that the RAF operate can do so from an aircraft carrier, nor is there any reason why they should.

Octopus and APKWS II

The UK is already producing the Octopus anti-drone drone, which is supposedly about 1/10th the cost of the target drones it's used against, and which the Ukrainians appear to consider they need two of per drone intercepted.

The APKWS II system is now in use in Ukraine - this is a laser guidance kit to attach to cheap unguided 70mm rockets. The claim is the kit costs about the same as a Shahed drone, so you still need the base rocket, but they are very cheap. Current use is fired from multiple rocket pods strung under an F16, so you have the additional cost of the flight hours, but rocket pods can be hung under low-performance fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, attached to ground-vehicle mounts, and presumably in due course, other drones - anything that can carry the rocket pod and the laser designator/targeting system.

MoD ticks shopping list as PM considers weapons budget boost

Re: "...Time and again, leaders have looked the other way....."

The Archer purchase seems to me to be a minimum acquisition designed to retain skill capability rather than effective war-fighting capability, with the intent to then equip fully with the Boxer based system.

Other than the fact that the boxer SPG looks horrible, it is probably a sensible decision to standardise on a vehicle chassis that the British Army will be procuring in large numbers.

Current opinion (broadly, not just in the UK) generally seems to be that high-mobility (6*6 and 8*8) wheeled systems are good enough for SPG; there are exceptions (Korea's K9 system, for example), but European systems in particular have tended to go for wheeled solutions (Archer, Boxer-based RCH155, Caesar, the Czech system who's name escapes me).

For all the promises of adequate defence funding in the UK, I cannot see the UK acquiring two different artillery systems (Excluding Archer because that is a stop-gap), so a tracked system seems unlikely until we get around to replacing the Boxer-based systems.

What might come out of producing M777 in the UK is a replacement for the L118 Light Gun. The L118 is reputed to be an excellent system, but it is now getting on a bit, and is only 105mm, which seems to be considered to be a bit light for modern requirements. M777 is about twice the weight of L118, but only about half the weight of the old FH-70 system which was the British Army's last towed artillery system for general use (i.e. excluding the L118's used by the airborne and marine artillery).

Switching the light gun for a not-as light gun has some negatives, but means a more modern and capable system, and commonality of ammunition with the Boxer-based system (and other allies)

Re: "...Time and again, leaders have looked the other way....."

The 'restarted artillery barrels' news that came out back in (2024?) in fact seems to be a funny way of saying that we have restarted artillery system production - this is BAe building complete M777 artillery systems in the UK (remembering that despite being viewed as a US weapon, the M777 is UK designed and was previously built in the UK)

Re: Beep...

What's old is new...

It doesn't seem so all that very different to WWI style sound-ranging.

Tech support chap invented fake fix for non-problem and watched it spread across the office

Re: Wont someone think of the...

Unless it refers to a cupboard monitor who is not moving

BBC bumps telly tax to £180 as Netflix lurks with cheaper tiers

"But there is no incentive to provide a universal service. What happens to our six orchestras (and with that the Proms), the Russian & Persian World services - the music competitions - local news, reporters all over the world."

Good questions that deserve proper thought, but which also reveal some of the core issues.

Do we need the BBC to have SIX orchestras? Why not just one or two?

Is there truly a threat to the Proms, given how popular it seems to be?

If the world service is valuable to the UK as soft power, should that not be directly funded by the Foreign Office?

Local news reports from the BBC are often claimed to be stifling competition from local news papers etc, and killing off true local journalism.

Global events (news / sports) often seem to be attended by the BBC in much greater numbers than other organisations - is that necessary for good journalism, or wasteful extravagance?

There seem to be a lot of people that want to scrap the licence fee and defund the BBC, and as many that insist that the BBC is a bastion of civilisation, and needs to be protected as is.

Perhaps a better idea would be a comprehensive review of what the BBC does, and what we, as a society (and ultimately the people that pay for it) want it to do?

Supermarket sorry after facial recognition alert flags right criminal, wrong customer

Re: Ban it

While sympathetic to your sentiment, your idea is perhaps less than ideal.

For example, would this then make it illegal to have doorbell cameras or dash-cams? No one actively operates those.

Would this make it illegal to have home security cameras which might be left running while the owner is away?

Moreover, some many years ago, I did Jury service, and in one case, the prosecution claimed that they had a police witness plus audio and video...except the video hadn't worked and the audio was so bad it could have been anybody. So it was 1 person's word against the other, and an easy unanimous Not Guilty, since there was no way that guilt was proven beyond reasonable doubt. (And none of us on the Jury could work out while the case was even brought to court, but that's a different matter).

So your shop security guard catches the guy, but in court the thief said the guard has it in for him and is lying - a lot of thieves will get away with it; but if you have the footage from camera #3 actually showing the crime in progress, you get the thief. (And remember, ultimately shoplifting is paid for by all the honest customers that pay for their goods). 1 (human) operator monitoring a bank of monitors and a dozen cameras should be no more unacceptable than 1 (human) operator monitoring a single camera.

US Army looks for robots that can clean up chemical and bioweapons messes

Well, there is a 'heavy Hmmwv' M1114 that was developed in the 1990's (?) that is armoured (though being a left-pondian vehicle, I should probably say 'armored'), but we're talking bullet proof/resistant and protected against IED's rather than anything heavier - so comparable to the Humber Pig, not an M1A2

Sword of Damocles hangs over UK military’s Ajax as minister says back it or scrap it

Re: Send it to Ukraine

The Mustang was designed by a private US company to meet a British specification, and the 'D' model only came about because the British stuck a Merlin engine in it to find out what would happen, it wasn't given to the UK by the US.

The Spitfires that went to the Soviet Union as British aid were not the latest models (we needed them for ourselves), and the Germans were already familiar with them (courtesy of the RAF).

German rocket / jet plans went to Japan when both those nations were already well on their way to defeat, and they provided no material benefit to the Japanese.

In reality, allies tend to argue amongst themselves; the alliances that win are the ones that argue least.

Uncle Sam dangles nuclear campuses for states while watering down safety rules

Re: Groundwater contamination

An important element of that article is it's reference to "detectable concentrations".

If you look at the UK Specification for Ground investigation, 3rd Edition, 2022, you'll find that there is allowance for testing for PFAS (Test Suite G). If you look in the 2nd edition (2012) you won't find that test suite or any default option for detecting PFAS contaminants.

The technology to detect PFAS has only developed and become widespread in the last decade or so.

PFAS containing substances have been in use for at least 80 years (widely used in fire fighting foam, is the example that I always remember).

This article proves that someone in the US is actually now testing and monitoring.

If you live in a 'developed world' country that does not have a similar report, do not be reassured, be worried - it doesn't mean that you do not have PFAS contamination, it means no one is monitoring it.

Cops get more facial recognition vans as UK bets big on AI policing

Re: Broken Brit-AI-n

Or the Public Control Department ('1990' shown on BBC2 in the late 1970's)

Crossrail? More like Borkrail...

Re: What's wrong with 'The Circle Line'?

It's no longer a circle (or, more accurately, a closed loop).

It used to be that you could take a train clockwise or anti-clockwise to get to you destination, and you could do loops of London by staying on one train (I know a couple of people that claim to have done so, or think that they did so, after one too many).

Now, the clockwise trains stop and reverse at Edgeware Road, while anticlockwise the trains coming from the east follow the Hammersmith & City tracks round to Hammersmith and reverse there (Hence DJV's 'whorl line' comment)

Future of UK's multibillion Ajax armored vehicle program looks shaky

Re: old boy network rides again

I'm not sure that Lynx can be described as 'proven' - so far, it's only been in service in limited numbers, and for just a few years. More a case of 'so far - so good', but I agree, it does seem to be a good vehicle. CV90 of course has been around long enough and in sufficient numbers to be 'proven'.

So, actually, yup, I agree, both would seem to be suitable options, and mean that there is no reason to continue to throw good money after bad, and waste billions of pounds/years trying to make Ajax work, if we reasonably expect that it will never be fit for purpose.

Given that Starmer's still desperately trying to ram through the disgraceful Chagos deal, which denies agency to the Chagossians to determine their own fate and ownership of their own islands (so, so much for human rights and self-determination), breaks international law (breaks a condition within an existing treaty) and breaks a Labour party election manifestos pledge, all because 13 of 14 foreign judges (including a number from countries actively hostile to the UK / Western democracies) came to a legally non-binding judgement, and all at significant financial cost to the UK, the chances of Starmer doing anything to strengthen the UK's sovereign security and prosperity look about equal to Donald Trump being elected Pope.

Re: re: Codenamed Tempest, this is expected to be in service by 2035,

Apart from the fact that Typhoon is not carrier-capable.