Russia's poor use of armour and terrible tactics are more the problem.
In the above it also missed the fateful impact that the Dunkirk evacuation had upon British forces with much of the BEF's heavy equipment having to be abandoned. This in turn caused British industrial output to be focused in many cases on replacing vehicles, armour and artillery that was lost or abandoned. Having a sudden shortfall of tens of thousands of vehicles and ~2,500 artillery pieces that were needed to equip forces in being, before new production could be done to expand forces and/or new development of kit to improve or replace many existing designs.
Thats a very good and valid point. Industry must be supported and developed, even if production is at a low rate.
This is a distortion of the truth, the reality is the modern warfighter will have to contend with an increasing amount of AI assisted or controlled drones and defence needs to act smartly and efficiently with regards to its counters. I would not go so far as to say the numbers of armored vehicles need to be cut, quite the opposite, but there needs to be an effective counter and its implementation needs to be expedited. Whether or not that actually involves boots on the ground and not troops in a remote weapon station/control centre is another argument entirely.
Is it? Why do I see all these airforces buying jets, armies buying armoured vehicles and navies buying navy ships?
Yes, trying to mention, or discuss, the Taipan fiasco has turned into that famous Faulty Towers episode with that equally famous quote:
Had they kept them maintained, after it was obvious if was not economical to return them to service, had they returned them to flyable condition to supply to Ukraine, instead of converting them to components, many if the very same people who are losing their minds over not doing do, would be losing their minds over them doing so.
As far I....Dave the tax payer is concerned, I am happy to re coup any $ we can from them. If that means Ukraine misses out, bad luck. I think I read they rejected the F/A 18s.....any money back in the coffers has to be good.
Tired of all this "what if".
Word is getting around that Sweden and Norway are also stripping down their retired NH-90’s and selling the parts for as much as NHI will pay for them…
The A400 and Typhoon also suffered due to workshare amongst Euro partners.
If I was a grunt on the ground, I would 100% want a human, flying overwatch in a capable platform, who I can talk and direct in person to save my arse. There is a place for a platform like Strix of course, to complement the manned platforms, but not to replace it. There is no such thing as overkill where soldiers lives are at stake, keeping in mind, it is the politicians who sent the soldiers into harms way, not the soldiers.Looks like the Apache buy will go ahead but wouldn't surprise me if that changed and the buy was scrapped.
Instead put $5.5 Billion into say the BAE Strix ( or something similiar) to provide rotary ISR and ground attack. Likely get ten Strix for every one Apache.
So 290 Strix or 29 Apache. Which would provide most capability if the budget is fixed and you can spend the money on one or the other?
Australia doubles down on army choppers despite warnings they are ‘obsolete’
Military experts say the war in Ukraine has shown that helicopters are increasingly vulnerable to drone attacks and becoming largely useless in a conflict.www.theage.com.au