http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2...-lamentable-failings

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8329117.stm

Board of enquiry report - http://www.targetlock.org.uk/n..._summary_of_boi.html

This piece of **** is based on the De Havilland Comet. The worlds first yes FIRST commercial jet airliner. It's also the worlds least reliable. So you take 60 year old ****ty unreliable design, load it up with loads of military gear, fly it until it's a hack and then wow.....BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM it flew into the side of an Afghan mountain. What a surprise.

They're even designing a MK2 variant now. You'd have just thought they'd get some 737/757's and be done with it. But nooooo, they had to go all MOD on us. Meanwhile we're building to many Eurofighters and not enough helicopters, armored reconnaissance vehicles that are so unbelievably ****ing retarded in their design (to tall, no armor except along the bottom and lower sides so even if an IED does go off the blast rips your head off anyway), building massive huge carriers for when we need to invade Argentina and talking about replacing trident.

The MOD couldn't even procure an Assault rifle that worked the first time round.

Oh we had an assault rifle which worked well...called the EM 280 in the 1950's.... but Britain with its nose stuck up the USA's arse after WW2 was told that the US wanted to introduce its own 5.56mm .223in. calibre into NATO..... so the far superior EM 280 never saw the light of day.
It appeared as the present SA80 after taking 40 years to try and convert it to the stupid 5.56mm calibre...!!!

INGENIOUS moves to introduce the 5.56 round has left a lot to be desired. "More Humane" was one argument offered for the change. But is it humane to have to shoot an enemy several times to get a result, or just ONCE, with the old FN Rifle whapping out a .308/7.62mm projectile out effectively for several hundred yards to get a result.
Kalashnikovs and other soviet assault weapons chambered for 7.62mm used by insurgents in current theatres of conflict are inflicting severe wounds on international troops, so the old story about bureaucrats and big business meddling in what soldiers are to use, should be examined and, closely.

A section blind-firing in tall, tropical grass for instance, has found some of their own rounds in 5.56 deflecting off the cane grass to the right, in some cases, their own rounds had scribed a circle and came back into the platoon area.
Not so with &.62 or .308, the heavier round and greater velocity goe through it like a lawnmower. In fact after a while, you can see the enemy in the fire lane you've instantly created.

Bige Bore forever!

quote:

Originally posted by Aimail101:
This piece of **** is based on the De Havilland Comet. The worlds first yes FIRST commercial jet airliner. It's also the worlds least reliable. So you take 60 year old ****ty unreliable design, load it up with loads of military gear, fly it until it's a hack and then wow.....BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM it flew into the side of an Afghan mountain. What a surprise.

They're even designing a MK2 variant now. You'd have just thought they'd get some 737/757's and be done with it. But nooooo, they had to go all MOD on us. Meanwhile we're building to many Eurofighters and not enough helicopters, armored reconnaissance vehicles that are so unbelievably ****ing retarded in their design (to tall, no armor except along the bottom and lower sides so even if an IED does go off the blast rips your head off anyway), building massive huge carriers for when we need to invade Argentina and talking about replacing trident.

The MOD couldn't even procure an Assault rifle that worked the first time round.

The Nimrod's problem was with fuel collected during air-to-air fueling coming into contact with a hot air pipe and causing an explosion. No mountain involved or required for that balls up.

To add insult to injury the whole MR4A programme itself has been one cluster phuk. What seemed like mere parsimony turned into a contractors nightmare when retro-spectively upgrading an ageing airframe as the Comet's were more or less hand made, each jet being slightly different to each other. The contractor assumed each jet would be like a modern jet, built to such fine tolerances each would effectivle be a clone of another. The result, massive inefficiencies, stuff that didn't fit, cost over runs, egg on face. Why they didn't fit it all into a modern airframe simply defeats me.

Way to go...

First, in 1960s it was propably a good idea to make a reconnassaince aircraft based on a 20-year old design, like the Comet. (R1/MR2)

In 1970s they thought: "Well, we have a nice plane there Nimrod why shouldn't we make an AEW plane out of it?" "Sure why not". "Oh well it came out no good, let's just buy some Boeing stuff instead". "Sure why not". (AEW3)

Then, in 1990s: "Well, we have a still a nice plane here, getting a bit old, why don't we just basicly replace every bit of it execpt airframe with new stuff, gotta be good that way". "Sure why not". First flight in Sept 2009... "Oh well let's just..." (MRA4)

quote:

Originally posted by fabianfred:
Oh we had an assault rifle which worked well...called the EM 280 in the 1950's.... but Britain with its nose stuck up the USA's arse after WW2 was told that the US wanted to introduce its own 5.56mm .223in. calibre into NATO..... so the far superior EM 280 never saw the light of day.
It appeared as the present SA80 after taking 40 years to try and convert it to the stupid 5.56mm calibre...!!!

First, it was the "EM-2".

Secondly, the push was to standardize NATO to 7.62x51mm (aka .308 Winchester, essentially a slightly shortened .30-06 round). The EM-2 used a newly designed intermediate-sized .280 round (7x43mm). I'm not really sure how it stacked up ballistics-wise against the 7.62, but I've heard it was at least an improvement over the old .303 round (which honestly wasn't all that great).

The AK-47 (and it's derivatives) uses a 7.62x39mm round with is much weaker than the NATO 7.62, especially at longer ranges. It was replaced in the AK-74 with a 5.45x39mm round, which although slightly smaller in size to the 5.56x45mm NATO round, was produced with a bullet that had a closed cavity in the tip. This cavity caused the bullet to mushroom much more than a typical FMJ bullet, making it much more effective unless the person being shot was wearing body armor. Don't forget that there are two major different types of NATO 5.56x45mm round. The earlier M-193 (55 grain bullet) and the later M-855 (62 grain bullet), which performs much better at longer ranges.

The resulting rifle for Britain was the SLR (Belgian FAL), while the US got the M-14. Having fired the G3 (well, actually a semi-auto HK91), M-14 (Again the semi-auto M-1A), FAL (actually got to shoot an auto one once) as well as lots of practice with the M-16A1 and M-16A2, I'd have to choose the G3 as my favorite to shoot.

quote:

Why they didn't fit it all into a modern airframe simply defeats me.

+1

We bought a couple of old P-3Cs from the Dutch.
Well, we now know why the Dutch were so keenly trying to throw them off...

Our old Atlantics are a lot more reliable (well, there's still one flying more missions than all P-3s together ) than those supposedly "refurbished" junk-wagons.


Tom, we're propably gonna cut the number of Eurofighters to be bought (propably the Tranche 3B birds ) - just as the RAF currently does.
Now that's putting at least one Fighter-wing in jeopady.

quote:

Originally posted by Bremspropeller:

quote:

Why they didn't fit it all into a modern airframe simply defeats me.

+1

We bought a couple of old P-3Cs from the Dutch.
Well, we now know why the Dutch were so keenly trying to throw them off...

Our old Atlantics are a lot more reliable (well, there's still one flying more missions than all P-3s together ) than those supposedly "refurbished" junk-wagons.


Tom, we're propably gonna cut the number of Eurofighters to be bought (propably the Tranche 3B birds ) - just as the RAF currently does.
Now that's putting at least one Fighter-wing in jeopady.

Don't care, getting the F-35 in a few years which will more than make up for a few clown wagons being lost.

quote:

Don't care, getting the F-35 in a few years

I feel bad for ya