Nick Stanley

@CdrEricson History’s most unimaginatively named warship!!!!

M 1 class minelayer HMS Miner VII (M 88) T/A/Lt.Cdr. Eric Charles Hoblyn, RNVR: Commissioned 31.03.44. Built by George Philip & Sons Ltd. Dartmouth, England. She had been laid down on 31.03.43.

@Gunbust09696378 @UKDefJournal They can do this because their jets have ‘legs’ …. whereas ours???? We are so far off the pace it’s genuinely shameful .

@UKDefJournal Meanwhile a USN carrier has ram and 2 phalanx fitted and moves 600miles from the coast due to threats from missiles and drones. Giving yourself sea room makes targeting harder and the kill chain more difficult.

The UK government has confirmed there are no plans to fit 30mm naval guns to HMS Queen Elizabeth or HMS Prince of Wales, despite growing concern over drone threats to warships. Click image for more. ukdefencejournal.org.uk/no-plans-to-ad…

A thing of beauty… 👇

Oleksandr Yakovenko, the founder of TAF Industries, one of Ukraine's largest drone makers wrote a good response to @RheinmetallAG's Papperger's irritating statement. I used AI to translate it for you. It is worth reading in full. "Dear Mr. Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall, When you called Ukrainian drone manufacturers “Ukrainian housewives with 3D printers in their kitchens,” you demonstrated how deeply the European defense establishment still fails to understand the nature of modern warfare. This is not about emоtions. This is about battlefield reality. Here are the figures your industry refuses to acknowledge: In 2025 alone, Ukrainian drones carried out 819,737 confirmed strikes. They accounted for 90% of all combat losses of the Russian army—more than all other types of weapons combined. A single company, TAF Industries, produces up to 100,000 FPV drones per month. Over any given 90-day period, the products of my company alone have more confirmed hits than your entire fleet of equipment over its entire history of combat use across all conflicts. And most importantly—I built this company and achieved these results in two years, not fifty. Think about that. Our drones achieve greater kinetic effect in three months than your flagship platforms have in half a century. Why? Because the battlefield has changed, while your business model has not. Russian electronic warfare has rendered GPS-guided Western munitions (Excalibur, GMLRS, etc.) almost ineffective. Expensive and complex systems designed for wars with air superiority and conventional “peer-on-peer” conflict have become easy targets for drones costing $500–2,000 that attack them from above. The cost-effectiveness ratio has been turned upside down: one 120mm Rheinmetall shell or one anti-tank missile costs more than a dozen of our drones—yet our drones still prevail. This is not a “Lego game.” This is industrial Darwinism in real time. We iterate weekly. We lose factories to missile strikes and rebuild them within weeks. We print parts in basements and deploy 100,000 strike systems per month, while your engineers still require 3–5 years and hundreds of millions of euros to certify even minor upgrades. The war in Ukraine is not a temporary anomaly. It is the first true drone-industrial war. And it has already proven that outdated European platforms—no matter how expensive or “serious”—are becoming increasingly irrelevant if they do not integrate the very technologies you are mocking. So when you say “this is not innovation,” I hear something else: “We do not want to admit that the future is being written in Ukrainian workshops, not in Düsseldorf offices.” The hashtag #MadeByHousewives is trending for a reason. Because these “housewives” destroy more enemy equipment every month than entire European armies do over full campaigns. And they do so while your industry continues to sell 20th-century solutions at 21st-century prices. The invitation stands, Mr. Papperger. Stop laughing at the kitchen table. Come and learn how the war of tomorrow is actually fought. Because the next time someone asks, “Who needs tanks in the age of drones?”, the answer may be simpler than you think: Those who still believe in 1979 will lose to those who are building in 2026. With respect (but with facts), Oleksandr Yakovenko Founder of TAF Industries One of those “Ukrainian housewives”" pravda.com.ua/columns/2026/0…

If this is where the US ends up, the Trump administration is waving the white flag. Nothing about Iranian nukes, nothing about keeping the Strait open and free, nothing about regime change. A strategic waste and failure of historic proportions.

US think tank: The UK government has accepted an ambitious and necessary vision for British defense, promised to deliver it at what it called a “wartime pace,” and then spent the better part of two years producing nothing of substance. There are no significant program commitments, no major modernization announcements, and no serious investment decisions.  fpri.org/article/2026/0…

@johnkonrad @TrentTelenko The clue’s in the name: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The Middle East doesn’t border the N Atlantic. The Treaty states NATO has a defensive posture & isn’t interested in supporting wars of whim/opportunity. Finally; it’s an organisation - not a Trumpian shitshow.

In fairness Canada did send Biden three overweight naval officers with clipboards when we asked for their help reopening the Red Sea. Three!

@IdakaborJ @yarotrof @ChrisO_wiki Spot on!

Every time Hegseth opens his mouth to give updates about Trump’s War in Iran, it’s clear he lacks situational awareness and operational comprehension for high-intensity conflict beyond counterinsurgency. They just scribble bombastic egoistical sentences for him to regurgitate. Under Trump, the U.S. military has demonstrated inflated threat assessments, miscalculated Iran’s strategic depth, and failed to develop adequate operational contingencies for asymmetric and conventional pushback. Command is compromised by a civilian authority with deficient cognitive bandwidth for strategic decision-making, reinforced by a staff echo chamber that amplifies cognitive bias and operational risks.

I have a question. Did the Pentagon look at Operation Spiderweb that destroyed a big chunk of Russian strategic aviation last year, and decide: nah, we’re good, we can just park our planes in the open within enemy reach because if we believe we have nothing to learn from these Ukrainians, our enemies must surely believe the same? And yes, Iran has precision missile capabilities that are orders of magnitude better than Ukraine’s.

Nails it 👇

Ouch!

Always enjoy Richard Osman’s House of Games on TV, but it’s bizarre seeing Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen on the show given his uncanny resemblance to Dave Grohl. Can’t be unseen! #HouseofGames #DaveGrohl #RichardOsman

@MtarfaL Also known as ‘throwing soldiers under the Ajax’ …..

Evidence from Senior Army Leadership 9/25 Lt Gen Anna-Lee Reilly, Director Strategic Capability, Engagement and Operations at DE&S, publicly stated that the Army’s investigation found the November 2025 incident resulted from vehicles “not being operated and maintained properly.” She insisted that “when Ajax is operated as designed it presents no safety concerns.”

The Ajax Armoured Vehicle Scandal: Accepted Deficiencies, Blame-Shifting, and Why the MoD Still Won’t Let Go Views my own, corrections and comments welcome AJAX Update 1/25 The Ajax armoured fighting vehicle was meant to transform the British Army’s reconnaissance capability. Instead, it has delivered delays, billions in costs, and documented harm to soldiers. These problems are not speculation (as some still try and state) they have been officially accepted by the UK Government, the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and the British Army itself. Yet elements within General Dynamics, DE&S, and the Army continue to push the vehicle forward. Even after Luke Pollard withdrew Initial Operating Capability (IOC) in January 2026, support contracts remain live. This 25-post thread attempts to lay out the facts, using all publicly available sources I can find. For the troops who must crew these vehicles (the user) and for the British taxpayer, the truth matters (or it should).

Yesterday marked the 8th anniversary of the ISIS terrorist killing of Colonel Arnaud Beltrame in France. He volunteered to exchange himself for a young female hostage held by a jihadist gunman at the Trèbes supermarket in Southern France. The jihadist slashed his throat before police stormed the building. He deliberately sacrificed his own life for a stranger. Hero of French and Western civilisation.

@militaryhistori DIME anyone….?

⚡️BREAKING⚡️ DJT has just posted on Truth Social that he will temporarily CEASE strikes on Iran's energy targets. It seems that, under pressure of Iran's threat to the world economy, Trump has blinked first. Analysis: proves Trump regime had not considered implications of their war. Will strengthen Tehran & disappoint Iranians hoping for regime change

Strange situation where we await a statement from Iran to check whether there's any truth to what US president is saying.

@johnkonrad @TrentTelenko All this tells me is that you don’t understand conflict at the strategic level.

If we lost the war it would undermine him. Which is why the media is hell bent on saying Iran has a fighting chance left and the American military is losing. Unbelievable considering we sunk their entire Navy and our ships don’t have a single battle scar.

It's tiresome to have to keep saying that he shames his office, but he shames his office.

Mine Countermeasures in the Gulf: the Royal Navy’s experience. A good article from FB. #Hormuz #Iran #Mines navylookout.com/forty-years-of…

#Hormuz #Iran #Mines