To be honest, it's that the scares me the most. I've never really liked the idea of the RAF having the F35 (although converting Typhoons for carrier operations isn't really an option either, the F35 just reminds me too much of the F111), but to not take the CTOL version and miss out on the opportunity to cooperate with the French would be a huge missed opportunity. We have the chance to begin serious European military cooperation with the French (obviously outside of NATO, but that doesn't count since it isn't European and also the 'pooling' they have there is extremely limited), and ok, it might incurr a massive cost in the short term, but if we could pool our carrier force together it would also make big savings in the long term. If we are going to take the F35, at least take the one that nets us the most benefits, even if it's at a greater short-term cost.

Yeah all that story is ridiculous. I guess that now the Brits are pleased to be the "un-beatable US ally" -e.g building a fleet of modernized Harrier's at a tremendous cost and giving them away to the poor Marines at peanuts price (180M$ - seems I made an error on a previous post). The story does not say if a case of fine whiskey came with the gift ;).


Thx Baron for the heads-up

As much as I like exotic aircraft I cant help but feel we should have just went with FA/18 Super Hornets for our new carrier, its well proven, a truer tried and tested design and great all round performer and a hell of a lot cheaper than the F-35 ... some insist we need to stay at the cutting edge but we cant afford to and the next step will be even more expensive and so on and so forth.

I guess we cant back out of the F-35 program now, politics are just so backwards sometimes.

That was crazy (as was scrapping the Nimrod MR4's when they were finished!!) apparently all our Harriers were sold for the price of about one F-35 ... and the Marines will be flying at least some of them.

As I said, Politicians are just dumb.

It's not just the price but the timing. Leaving us without a single carrier is embarrassing and a tactical disaster. The Navy and RAF battle each other more than look to our requirement as a country, ending up keeping dozens and dozens of useless Frigates in preference to 2 or 3 decent aircraft carriers with a decent protective destroyer fleet. At least we have Astute class subs.

This is the reward for voting in greedy grinning public school ponces with tons of charisma for the voters but absolutely zero diplomacy, negotiation skill, business acumen, long term strategic idea nor ethical concept. British voters = media led idiots.

You might as well take out the "British" part of that last sentence. Stupidity does not obey national boundaries, and I'm sure you could insert any other nation into that sentence and no one would argue.

P.S. I'm loving this thread. Need more like this one! Helps me get through my Friday.

Edit: I should clarify: I like all the interesting information and quotes on the first page. I'm not enough of a junkie to search out this info on my own but its great when you guys do it for me!

To be fair, its not just politians. Defense companies have this habit to make great offers, which then run over budget and late on a permanent basis. Those comapnies are so used to getting their equipment taken over by the governments they got fat, lazy and plagued by an entitelment attitude.

German WWII Colour Photos.
 

http://thirdreichcolorpictures.blogs...-baumbach.html

RedToo.

World War 2 HD Full Color Movie clips
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6Wq0-HU8Kc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLxOkI7pHp8

Someone put up the whole video
 

If you like 109s watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbeRn1rgoIo