Mark

@thinkdefence @warmatters Labour just followed the same failed policies that we’ve tried for the last 20 years but with more gusto and then wondered why the outcome is no better. They haven’t realised the policy’s they have championed their entire political careers is what needs to change.

@warmatters As I have said, they are all the same, an equal opportunity of paucity of talent

Yep

BREAKING: Sweden's Supreme Commander Michael Claesson, in an interview with SVT, warned that Russia may test NATO sooner than the one to five year window most alliance security services have been working with. Claesson stressed the window is now while NATO is still rearming and before defenses reach their intended strength. Claesson emphasized that Russia cannot defeat NATO militarily, so the target is alliance cohesion. He warned about a potential strike on a Baltic island not to seize territory, but to test whether every NATO member would respond to an attack on one of them. He stressed that such an operation would not require troops from Ukraine. A smaller, limited move would be enough to run that test. When asked directly when Russia might be ready he answered with one word: "Now." He added: "They know the entire Western world is getting ready. Why would one wait to exploit perceived vulnerabilities?" Asked if it sounds dangerous, Claesson did not soften it. "Yes, it is clear that it is dangerous." He stressed that Sweden and its neighbors must continue rearming, training, and maintaining readiness persistently over time. On the Baltic Sea, he pointed to Russia's growing shadow fleet and tightening escorts around those vessels as a direct and growing source of escalation risk. Asked whether the situation is worse than a few years ago Claesson said yes.

@thinkdefence Highlights the range, performance and capabilities of a330/ a400m and the army team.

This is bloody fantastic, and if I do say so myself, exactly the kind of niche capability I have been talking about in the context of wider discussions on parachuting.

@GarethJennings3 Have we bought any for our f35bs?

Hard agree, there's always a need for a gun. On the subject, I've asked a few times if GCAP will get one (ahead of presumably getting a directed energy weapon later in its service), but no one has yet been able to say...

@thinkdefence It certainly took near a decade of yard capacity away from being able to build anything else.

From October 2024, what is the answer today?

@Zaphod2042 I think Westminster has given up, everything is just bumbling on, they have not a clue how to fix things.

More uncomfortable reading on the state of the Royal Navy....

“That is not a navy for a maritime nation, that’s a joke.” Times Radio’s @afneil condemns the state of the modern British navy.

The Forties Pipeline System (FPS) This is the pipeline system that carries most of the oil from the North Sea to the UK. It collects the oil from 85 different North Sea oilfields, and flows around 550,000 barrels of oil per day back to the UK mainland. For context, in total the North Sea has around 400 offshore platforms between the UK and Norway, producing and exporting both oil and gas. FPS is a British oil pipeline system. Exploration drilling for North Sea oil is currently banned on the UK Continental Shelf. It has been since the current government came to power. As a result of the drilling ban, the Forties Pipeline System is currently uninvestable according to its owner INEOS. They haven’t invested in its upkeep for 2 years. INEOS have said the pipeline will close by 2035, but without investment maybe as early as 2030, which is now just 3.5 years away. 550,000 barrels / day is equivalent to 38.96 GW of primary energy. This is 10x more energy than the UK’s new Hinkley Point C nuclear power project, which is projected to cost £48 billion for 3.2GW of electrical power. Electrical energy is joule for joule more valuable than chemical energy, but the comparison of scale is real. 38.9 GW is more energy than the entire National Grid carries. The largest energy system in the UK is not the grid it is this underwater pipeline system. With drilling banned, and the North Sea entering a period of forced closure, the Forties Pipeline System is going to close in the not too distant future. Once the pipeline is no longer economical, the entire Central North Sea oil production will collapse with it. This isn’t something that closes down gracefully, the entire Central North Sea basin reaches market through a single pipe. BP recently announced they are selling up their remaining assets and getting out, Exxon, Chevron, etc are all already long gone. Nobody wants their brand near this collapse. The tax rate is 78%, the government wants this national infrastructure to shut down. It will. The German Chancellor recently called their nuclear fleet closure a “Strategic Blunder”, interesting choice of words. But I think it was obviously a blunder to anyone outside their propaganda bubble. Likewise the UK’s North Sea. The German nuclear fleet averaged 10.3 GW of primary energy output over its operational life, which is around 1/4 the primary energy of the Forties Pipeline System. The UK has a few other pipeline systems but this one is by far the largest and the most critical. Now this infrastructure, isn’t supposed to last forever. But when it goes you should have a plan. In the UK nobody talks about this. It’s taboo. A lot of people think “yeah but they won’t let that happen”… well it happened in Germany, and it happened in Japan. A lot of people want it to happen, and a lot of those people are in politics. So what replaces this? Nothing? Is the UK just going to go silently into the night?

warsight.com/2026/04/03/rus… Great summary of the Strategic air war over Ukraine and the battle between OWE and Interceptors and the adaptions and evolutions that have occured.

@Zaphod2042 Could be, Definitely for those with deep pockets! I’m not convinced by them tbh. Maybe one day who knows!

@golfsalot2 It's a fair bit smaller. More a (very expensive) Huey replacement I'd say. Some of us still patiently wait for quad-tiltrotor to arrive...

Nice... now let's see the wing and blade folding....

@thinkdefence When you read what they really think you begin to better understand the decisions they have taken since they came to power.

Can this get any worse?

@Zaphod2042 Shame they never tried to move the countermeasures pods to the wing tips freeing the outer wing stations.

One of my all time favourites. Jaguar never skipped leg day.

One of the most magical days ever at Happy Doggo Land. Nothing will prepare you for the emotional ending and the sheer joy of it all. Amazing that one little dog like Sonny could bring so many humans together like this for something so magical ❤️

@thinkdefence hi-yo silver away

And were off

@dave987a @Zaphod2042 I don’t know how noisy it is but it can take the strain off other and can embark merlin or other rotorcraft. I would agree on sub but that’s even further away. Indeed a coherent plan funded priorities would be nice

Trouble with the T31 it’s very noisy is ASW. The only way to bolster ASW is drones and extra P8’s the problem with the P8’s is lack of crews to equip them. Personally I would go with 12 Astute replacements with a constant 4 at sea at any point in time. And us talking is just talk, until we get a government that is willing to spend money on defense

The original Type 23 fleet was comprised of sixteen ships. Which was backed up by about ten of the ten Type 22 Frigates. Getting to 16x Type 26 and 10x Type 31 would be an adequate return to 1990s strength. Not a chance in hell of it happening under current Govt, or last one.

@Zaphod2042 @stuarthammond14 I fear have so few jets these days we could disperse 4 to all the major airports in the U.K. and still not have jets at them all.

@stuarthammond14 A few decades ago perhaps not. However watching what's happened in the Gulf and Russia in recent years, we need to disperse more. Three bases have all of our fast jets.

Crazy idea.... How about using the massive fucking airbase as an airbase? Madness, I know. We've wasted more well located runways in this country than most nations have ever built.

@dave987a @Zaphod2042 If they want to get out of this mess this side of 2040 and I’m not sure they do, then I can see no other option than variants of type 31. It’s a more simple build and requires lower crew and doesn’t need a gas turbine.

@Zaphod2042 Them numbers are at least 15, probably 20 years away especially with the T26. Stick with the 8 T26 then go for the T45 replacement would go for 15 x T31, loaded out as much as possible Currently we don’t have the yards.

EU boosts imports of Russian gas as Middle East crisis squeezes supplies ft.trib.al/3NkzbQL

@Zaphod2042 @TBrit90 Rumour was they were all US ones!

@golfsalot2 @TBrit90 I also have suspicions about how many sonobuoys we carry operationally / have in stock.

Brutal work on our modest P-8 fleet.