Biggus, apologies, cross-purposes, I was responding to Riley Dove's assertion that the next big game would be Africa. Africa has been bubbling for decades and aside from Libya and Nigeria, do we have any real interests or even appetite for involvement on the dark continent?
And Biggus, I quite agree with your first two points in the preceding post.
What others have not addressed is just how many MPA/MMA would be needed for their postulated missions.
The strategic aspects are:
1. Do we want to get involved?
2. If we want to get involved will this be a unified international effort or will we want to maintain an autonomous capability?
3. If unified, how many patrol cycles would we be required to mount?
4. If autonomous, how many patrol cycles?
5. What mission rate? One aircraft per day or maybe 3 aircraft per mission per day?
Whatever way you cut that cake, the number of MR2s was adequate, the number of MRA4 was inadequate, and the postulated MPA/MMA numbers ludicrous.