Winco
It would seem that "nepotism" and "mawkishness" are your middle name, then? Still, I THINK and I FEEL that enough was enough with MRA4 and I do give a to$$ where my tax from my frozen military salary goes!
Ivan Rogov
Thank you for the more constructive reply. I am well aware of "some investment from some people who know what they want", but "they" now have something else much better to that job - I guess this was another reason for the demise?
Betty Swallox
I'm sorry if I came over niaive; I was, and am, well aware of what was recently reported in The Sun and what has been going on. But there are RN SSNs (exlcuding Astute!), type 22/23s and helo pingers (plus some other stuff) that will do a fair proportion of the "cat and mouse" for us. Let's face it, even if MRA4 was coming into service it wouldn't be ready for at least 18-24 months to contribute to the sub-surface piece - so what is happening right now is irrelevant to the current argument.
DFM
Your military tasks are out of date, here are the new ones from SDSR 2010:
The seven Military Tasks are:
- defending the UK and its Overseas Territories
- providing strategic intelligence
- providing nuclear deterrence
- supporting civil emergency organisations in times of crisis
- defending our interests by projecting power strategically and through expeditionary interventions
- providing a defence contribution to UK influence
- providing security for stabilisation
Chug2
"I understand that RTS has been withheld on safety grounds. Am I wrong?" - you are correct, Sir.
All
If it's any consolation, I hope that we run options to buy P-8s in the future - maybe a joint manning program before that like we are doing for RJ. Then all the development of the back-end kit on MRA4 will not have been wasted and we will get aircraft at a 1/5th the cost of a MRA4 that:
1. Works
2. Is safe
3. Is interoperable with our main Atlantic peer (the US)
4. Is affordable
If this can't be done, then a RPAS/UAS solution should be found.
iRaven