Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Thanks Oryx, a list of recent equipment purchased by Poland
It's a lot to ask but I really hope the people of Russia see this kind of thing and engage their brains. Poland was one of the poor men of the Warsaw pact countries, then became a poor man of free Eastern Europe, and is now one of the poor countries of the EU. Yet their integration with the West has meant their economy has grown, their country has become stronger and now they're on the fast track to become the dominant non-nuclear military power in Eastern Europe (if not in Europe). They are a shining example to Russia of how working with other countries and not repeatedly re-electing a **** is what makes you strong, not parading around singing of glory your grandparents achieved.


I very much hope the U.K. will embark on a similar upgrade/expansion program across all our armed forces as I suspect in the coming decades the world will become a much more hostile place....
It's a nice hope, however the past 75 years of British military policy have shown us incapable of forming proper long term military planning, our governments are just too focused on what's happening now and quick results/wins than on the long term. And when a long term plan is put in place the next change of government sees it scrapped anyway just so they can shout about saving money and cutting waste.

Prime examples (of hundreds):

  • If the UK hadn't downgraded our existing/planned carriers/navy to save money in the 70s then we would still have been using CATOBAR carriers in the 1980s and there would have been F-14s sitting on them, Argentina wouldn't have dared come near the Falklands and zero lives would have been lost in a non-existent conflict.
  • If the ConDem coalition hadn't scrapped the Nimrod MRA4 program to save money in the early 2010s, then the following Tory government wouldn't have had to spend over twice that saving on buying US made Boeing P8 aircraft to fill their role (which as a kicker, while on paper better aircraft are actually inferior for the UK's needs to the purpose built Nimrod's).
  • If the ConDem coalition had had the balls in the early 2010s they would have paid the extra to have our two new carriers built as CATOBAR instead of STOVL, making them and the aircraft on them significantly more powerful, saving us money in the long term (as the planes are cheaper, and better) and allowing us to perform proper joint operations with the USA/France/etc.


Maybe that's why its taken so long, now that Russian air defence has been getting smashed by Ukrainian drones and storm shadow ATACMS might be practical now.
Another potential (but hopefully unlikely) reason may be the claims that Russian Pantsirs have gotten significantly better at intercepting regular HIMARS rockets after they managed to analyse an unexploded one. So it doesn't matter anymore :(


More fake elections from Russia, and they're not even trying to hide it anymore.
I don't think it's a case of them being brazen and not trying to hide it. These regions aren't Crimea, they can't expect a landslide victory, hell they can't even expect victory, if they want to win they have to rig it and rig it hard. I would expect successful rigging is more important to them right now than hiding the rigging.
 
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The Nimrod programme was cancelled for being £1 billion over budget and nearly 10 years late. The programme wasted nearly £4 Billion , with only 1 flying aircraft to show for it. The replacement, the MRA1 Poseidon was ordered in 2015 and all deliveries complete 6 years later.

Liam Fox at the time said it was the worse performance for an MOD contract he had seen and steps would be talen to never be repeated . Which brings us to:

AJAX!
 
Tbf they are increasing defense spending to 3% of GDP. Not sure how it will be spent yet but I would like to see the army grow back to pre 2010 levels with the rest going towards the Royal Navy.

They say, but then said only if economic conditions allow.....so never

Also the fact they lump pensions and have thrown the entire nuke deterrent into the budget means they get far less out of the ~2% they get.
 
What about to say, AJAX is nothing short of a disaster. Honestly the MOD is so hopelessly terrible value for money it's no wonder the budget was raided, it's feels like it's institutionally impossible to ever change when it comes to procurement, budgeting, roi.
 
My fears with ATACMS is the parabolic arc the weapons takes might make it easier to intercept (it is a ballistic missile). To go its maximum distance its going to need to go to its maximum height and its going to appear on everyone radar.

Maybe that's why its taken so long, now that Russian air defence has been getting smashed by Ukrainian drones and storm shadow ATACMS might be practical now.

What would you hit with ATACMS that you couldn't hit with storm shadow?

The ATACMS missile offers more capabilities to the M270 systems. It’s a slightly harder hitting and lower cost alternative to Storm Shadow. Plus it’s ground launched and rapidly available. Storm Shadow is better suited to complex strategic missions.

ATACMS could be used to fill the F16 ground attack gap.
 
It's a lot to ask but I really hope the people of Russia see this kind of thing and engage their brains. Poland was one of the poor men of the Warsaw pact countries, then became a poor man of free Eastern Europe, and is now one of the poor countries of the EU. Yet their integration with the West has meant their economy has grown, their country has become stronger and now they're on the fast track to become the dominant non-nuclear military power in Eastern Europe (if not in Europe). They are a shining example to Russia of how working with other countries and not repeatedly re-electing a **** is what makes you strong, not parading around singing of glory your grandparents achieved.
That nice period doesn't last forever though. Eventually late stage capitalism shows it's ugly head.

Everything becomes overpriced leading to everyone being overpaid, property market spirals out of control, generation rent, fuel poverty, degradation of essential services, immigration becomes necessary for cheap labour and a thousand other problems.
 
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The Nimrod programme was cancelled for being £1 billion over budget and nearly 10 years late. The programme wasted nearly £4 Billion , with only 1 flying aircraft to show for it. The replacement, the MRA1 Poseidon was ordered in 2015 and all deliveries complete 6 years later.

Liam Fox at the time said it was the worse performance for an MOD contract he had seen and steps would be talen to never be repeated . Which brings us to:

AJAX!

Nimrod was a ****** disaster I remember trying to design kit for it and every airframe was different. Top hight level corruption that one.
 
The source is Musk himself. He has posted that it wasn't activated in that area and he was asked to turn it on and refused, which somewhat contradicts what CNN reported. Whichever is true, he's a complete ****
Yea and you trust Musk to tell the truth, the evidence says otherwise.
 
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