The monarchy hasn’t done enough for years for any overseas territories. No surprise, Charles should have been in the US and talking about Jamaica before Starmer visited. He would have too, but all monarchs have been hamstrung by the foreign office for a long time. The English parliament does not care

Depending on the rules. He may yet win. Trump only needs to come not last too. He’s playing shithead with a Switch hand

Probably a share of any developed resources. And defence today. Probably not enough to consider this deal, I hope it is time limited

The power requirements for lasers that can damage drones is pretty extreme. Ye cannae change the laws of physics captain! And so, deployments to mobile platforms likely to be probably more suited to a dedicated support type role IMO. Mounted to AFVs perhaps. LFVs anyone?

30mm is probably unsuited, you don’t need that calibre vs a drone, you need agility, and higher RoF.

The detection abilities all look undercooked for me too, some sort of mesh radar, infrared, and visible spectrum cameras combined with high speed classification network with targeting abilities, and realtime information about current friendly movements is still necessary to identify and confidently neutralise enemy drones. To counter jamming some sort of fibreoptic umbilical system and/or lifi would be necessary too.

And I know its being worked on, but people are being pretty hush hush about that. The challenge then being productionising these systems, it’s all very well on a test bed, but the front line has some rather extreme conditions for hardware, and software, and the manufacturing of these integrated systems is challenging too. You’ll need loads of them to really be effective. Mobile big dog type platforms would also be fabulous to run alongside a tank brigade

They are coffins on tracks now. The tank, the warship, the aircraft carrier. All exceptionally vulnerable to $10k drones and thus: all obsolete. Until some sort of anti-drone minigun on AI enters service, the tank sits, the warship barely floats, and the aircraft carrier is 500km away.

But: attaching some sort of infrared and visible spectrum 360 camera to a processing unit isn’t beyond the pale already. It won’t be long until these units are all back in action. Stealth drones already? Hypersonic missiles? Good old fashioned AT launchers? Reactive armour? Spaced hulls? Laser interception? Gauss canons?

We’re in an accelerated arms race right now indeed

Dunno, stateless in a refugee camp currently as Bangladesh won’t let her in either. Think I’d opt for keeping a low profile in Britain instead, change name, get the hair dye and sunglasses on and move to a shitty wee town somewhere

Sadly, it is. Britain did it a few years ago to some kid that joined IS. She held rights to a passport to a country that she had never been even visited and that was enough for the Home Office to yank her British one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamima_Begum

A pretty tragic tale imo

https://onukdefence.co.uk/military-capability/are-uk-aircraft-carriers-vital-or-white-elephants/ - ain’t just my analysis!

Ukrainian expedition means he can break his fiscal rules. Reeves is about to do something drastic anyway, and what better way to reinvest capital than with UK arms production too? Military industrial complex is a hell of a drug

Ways for floundering statesmen to get a ratings bump: go to war. Why does this always give a boost to incumbents?

Scholz and Macron both ready too? Le grand armée marches again! Germany with an election this year, and they are less keen on troops for obvious reasons. Macron will support, seen his ratings?

But none will go in whilst it is still hot. Meaning Putin doesn’t care, he’s likely to get Crimea and Donbas out of this, and be ready to re-arm for Moldova. Too little too late for this war from the European leaders, and it took fucking Trump to get them to not even agree anything yet!

The long game, get England back for 1812!

Aircraft carriers have been useful about once since 1945. The Falklands. A war fought in the middle of nowhere about a tiny island that nobody really needs. The last colonial battle. Every other conflict has been better served from ground bases. The gulf wars could easily have been served almost exclusively from Cyprus for instance.

So usefulness: not so much, mostly offensive

Costs: exorbitant. Massive issues with the most recent pair in the UK. And don’t buy Japanese (or anyone else’s) exceptionalism. These things are money pits in hardware, manpower, training, testing, supplying, fueling, maintenance, and repairs.

Modern day defence capabilities: almost fuck all. No anti missile defences, no anti AUV, anti-submarine is usually a heli on board. With glide bombs being de jure primary weapons currently and them having a range of approximately 70Km. Combined with the threat of hypersonic missiles. Usually housing vast quantities of marines too.

These things are massive white elephants, obvious targets, expensive to boot. Why the fuck would you convert a destroyer? (Even one as obviously not a destroyer)

Only an idiot would think that Ukraine would actually have half a trillion dollars worth, and that they’d give it all to the USA even if USA blackmail them here. Zelensky will say lots right now to persuade the orange one. But he also won’t be in power after the war to see it through, very few leaders are retained after any way.

Ukrainian neutrality was effectively guaranteed by America, UK, and Russia when they gave up their nukes. And there is also an economic clause to this agreement

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

Or: does Trump view them as right wing? They would all claim to be centerists. It isn’t about my viewpoint, Trump lacks natural allies in major economies

Me obviously, it certainly isn’t anyone else

No right wing in power is what I meant, why else do you think Musk is bigging up the afd? If Germany and USA bilaterally stop supporting Ukraine then it’s game over. Only 1 and they are Russian pawns, a blame game ensues. 2 and it’s “Ukraine needs to accept Russian rule, they are historically Russian”

I very much agree, but the UK has shown that it wants to be a bully itself by pulling out of the EU. Trump parallels with the rise of the third Reich, and appeasement politicians were proven wrong in the 30s. But until Trump literally invades we won’t see anyone really stand-up is my bet. The economics are what is dictating this ultimately. Don’t be in deficit to America

Well you can see he hasn’t yet done a huge amount in Europe at all. Including Ukraine, which he once boasted about solving day one. I suspect due to no right wing parties in UK, France, or Germany he lacks enough leverage to actually do much. In addition, the US tech markets are almost wholesale extracting wealth out of the EU with their services and guess who is his right hand man?

He may well fuck this all up yet, or run out of culture wars BS with his current neighbours, and so turn his view to Europe. But he’s also old, how much bandwidth does he have to deal with it too? Palestine, South Africa, Mexico, Canada - and that’s just this week! Isn’t he supposed to be making America great again?

100% we won’t see Starmer engaging with this whilst Trump is dithering. And why should he? Canada turning to us after being spurned by America isn’t a good look. Especially as we would then risk the orange one’s wrath