Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "Ed Nash's Military Matters" channel.

  1.  @whitewidowgaming4887  Musk never did that either. Paying people to invent things doesn't make him a genius.
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  2. The F-16/79, a fighter that's not totally forgotten, but probably deserves to be.
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  3. The US Secret Service predates that other SS, but I'm sure that's exactly why "Secret Service" almost always gets spelled out rather than abbreviated.
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  4. Kind of too bad that Dassault didn't design a "Mirage G1" with a single Atar 9K as the cheaper option. But then again, "variable geometry wings" and "cheaper" would've run at cross purposes, so I suppose he made the right decision with the F1 even if it would've looked a lot cooler with swing wings.
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  5. The M-71 was an absolute beast of an engine, comparable in performance to the Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp yet 220 pounds lighter. And it seemed to have no particularly significant reliability problems either. It got cancelled because the Soviets' production capacity was insufficient to even meet the demands for existing engines, let alone also creating a production line for a new one.
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  6. At one point, the talk was of switching from 8 small engines to 4 large ones, instead of the 1-for-1 replacement with 8 mid-sized jets.
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  7. You'd think they'd have the sense to use a 57mm rocket rather than 80mm. Even for Russia this was stupid.
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  8. And by Lockheed bribery. The F11F-1F was demonstrably far superior to the F-104, and a J79 powered F5D probably would've been as well.
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  9. Though some aircraft designed to be interceptors turned out to be capable of dogfighting anyway. That said, if any fighter ends up in a dogfight in modern combat, things have gone very wrong. People overemphasize dogfighting because it's what looks cool on the movie screen.
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  10. They don't want the F-35, they want to be able to design their own 5th generation fighter. They're hoping for the HAL AMCA to have a prototype ready to fly in 2027.
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  11. Trump isn't actually unpredictable. He does whatever will benefit Russia the most.
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  12. The Shinden might well have ended up as successful as the Saab 21 if circumstances had allowed its continued development. Also almost certainly would've ended up with a jet version like the Saab 21R, since Kyushu Aircraft Company already had that in mind for the future when they built the 2 prototypes.
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  13. "Meizhou bao" ("American Leopard", the Chinese name for Leopard) doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. So I wonder what name/designation the PLA Ground Force intended to use for this tank had it gone into service.
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  14. Argentina can't afford the Rafale.
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  15. Yeah, he's not unpredictable at all. He's very predictably pro-Russia.
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  16. The Navy was never going to accept a subsonic aircraft as a fighter, regardless of the Sea Harrier's performance in the Falklands. When Mach 2 is listed as one of the requirements, the Harrier and its side nozzles are removed from consideration.
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  17. Shot traps aren't really a thing for modern long-rod APFSDS projectiles. If it fails to penetrate the armor, it's going to shatter, not ricochet. And that wedge style of frontal turret armor (which originated on the Leopard 2A5) isn't actually the front of the turret. It's a hollow assembly that's attached to the front of the turret. An APFSDS rod that penetrates it will tend to tumble while inside the hollow portion, meaning that it'll be the side of the rod rather than its penetrator that hits the main armor.
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  18.  @grndzro777  I can't say for sure that the Tigershark would for sure have been better than the F-16, since it's a highly successful fighter in its own right. That said, I see no reason they couldn't have coexisted. The Gripen proves that there's a place in the market for a smaller, lighter, and less expensive to fly multirole fighter. The Tigershark would've been the Gripen of the 80s had Northrop just been allowed to sell them.
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  19. The F-104 is a perfect example of how you can't just strap bombs on a single-role fighter and call it multi-role. Some fighters turn out by accident to be easily adaptable to the ground attack role ("not a pound for air-to-ground" was the motto in designing the F-15A/B, yet the F-15E is an excellent strike aircraft), but some just aren't.
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  20.  @super-cacti  When a document gets leaked, that makes it publicly available. Even if said document is illegal to publish in a specific nation.
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  21. It certainly should've been, yes. As the video points out, it was quite a blunder on Rockwell's part to never fly the XFV-12 as a STOVL aircraft. Particularly given that decades of Harrier operations have shown that VTOL is more gimmick than useful capability for a warplane, while STOVL (still allowing operation off a short deck but allowing far more fuel and weapons to be carried) is insanely valuable.
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  22. ​ @onceamoth  The 747-100's JT9D and the C-5's TF39 were both given their initial flight testing via a JB-52E, in each case replacing the inner starboard pair with a single larger engine. You're right that this wouldn't have worked for the outboard engines because of ground clearance issues. Boeing at one point suggested replacing each pair of TF33s on the B-52H with a single PW2000 (as used on the C-17), which isn't as large as the TF39 and JT9D. But it still would've required significant changes to the wings to have enough ground clearance for the outboard engines, which is why it never happened.
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  23. 0:52 About that. In the immediate postwar period when the Aeronautica Militare received P-47Ds and P-51Ds, the Italian pilots had mixed feelings. They loved the firepower, but in terms of flight performance they considered the American planes a downgrade.
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  24. That's a perfect example of the abject idiocy of MAGA.
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  25. I'm surprised that none of those nations were willing to just make a revised version using non-British ejection seats. For that matter it's also surprising that the US hasn't sold them F-16s, which uses the entirely American Collins Aerospace ACES II rather than a Martin-Baker ejection seat. Sure, that might piss off the Brits, but it's better for US interests than having Argentina move into the Chinese orbit.
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  26. Canadian nicknames: Lawn Dart. Aluminium Death Tube. German nicknames: Erdnagel (tent peg). Fliegender Sarg (flying coffin). Witwenmacher (widowmaker). Pakistani nickname: Badmash (hooligan).
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  27. IIRC, the TF30 worked pretty well in the F-111. Seeing as the Mirage F2 was meant to be primarily a low-level ground attack aircraft, the TF30 probably would've served it well enough. The Mirage G, on the other hand, was meant to be a fighter, and thus could very well have encountered the TF30's lovely tendency toward compressor stalls at high angles of attack.
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  28.  @HollywoodMarine0351  You mean WWI and WWII where the United States showed up late, after Europe had already spent years fighting?
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  29.  @MrArgus11111  Even taking into account that 1960s jets pretty much all had high accident rates, the F-104 had the highest of any of the Century Series by a wide margin. And these were USAF pilots, who weren't brand new to supersonic jets like the Luftwaffe pilots. The F-104 was a challenging plane, and shoehorning it into roles it wasn't designed for definitely didn't help.
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  30. Imagine if the collaboration with Egypt on the E-300 engine had actually been followed through on. Then at the very least the HA-300 3rd prototype would've gotten to do flight testing to see if it would live up to expectations. And the HF-24 would've had the thrust it needed, making it a formidable all-purpose fighter instead of solely a ground attack aircraft.
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  31. Trump desperately wants to be Putin.
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  32. Another good comparison would be the Grumman F11F-1F Super Tiger, in that both were in part brought down by outright bribery. This time around, rather than Lockheed it was British Aerospace paying out the bribes. That's why when the Saudis decided they needed non-American aircraft (out of worries that the Israel lobby might succeed in blocking further F-15 sales), they ended up with the less capable Panavia Tornado instead of the Mirage 4000. Not that the Tornado is worthless, but the Mirage 4000 is clearly much better. Whereas the Tornado required separate ground attack and interceptor models, the Mirage 4000 could simply perform both roles without modification. The Mirage 4000 also had a better than 1:1 thrust-to-weight ratio at typical combat weight, while both versions of the Tornado fall well short of that. And the Mirage 4000 is much more maneuverable.
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  33. From what I understand, SOCOM already had a handful of Super Tucanos.
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  34. Not without getting a new ejection seat for the Rafale. All current models use Martin-Baker seats and thus are subject to the British embargo. And not without subsidizing Dassault to sell them at a loss, since otherwise Argentina can't afford the Rafale.
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  35. It's a pity that Northrop didn't just sell the full blueprints to Taiwan "under the table". Basically a license production deal, except without the government's permission.
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  36. In retrospect, the RAF would've been better off relegating the Battle to target tug duties and going into WW2 with the Henley as their single-engine light bomber. Especially given that (as mentioned at 5:50 of this video) the Henley was later demonstrated to be able to match the Battle's bombload by adding underwing hardpoints.
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  37. It's easy to imagine that if the Super Tiger had a successful export run, Grumman might've offered a "Super Super Tiger" in the same vein of how Northrop created the F-20 Tigershark out of the F-5: give it a new radar and an F404 turbofan. And then just like Northrop, they'd get screwed over by the Pentagon and Congress seeking to maximize F-16 export sales and thus reduce its unit cost to the USAF. Though perhaps Grumman's long history with the US Navy would've allowed them to snag that aggressor contract.
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  38. From what I've read, the RAF rejected the P.106 in favor of what would eventually evolve into the Eurofighter Typhoon as being "half the effectiveness of the two-engined aircraft at two-thirds of the cost". Though given comparisons of the Typhoon vs the Gripen, I think the RAF probably got that backwards. BTW, when it comes to lightweight fighters with an Adour turbofan...did BAE ever give any consideration of adding reheat to the Hawk 200? Or would have been pointless without also completely redesigning the wing for higher speed, thus giving up on the advantage of being a low-cost modification of the Hawk trainer?
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  39.  @TheMoodyLoners  No, they aren't.
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  40.  @FinsburyPhil  I seriously don't understand why nobody with STOVL carries is using an "EV-22 Osprey" for AEW. Hanging your radar under a helicopter seems like it should've only been a stopgap until tilt-rotors were available, but instead it's remained to this day the go-to solution for any carrier that can't launch an E-2 Hawkeye. It makes no sense. An Osprey has better endurance and can fly higher than a Merlin, both such obvious advantages for the AEW role.
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  41. That was the premise behind some 1960s tanks like the Leopard 1 and AMX-30. They were armored only against light weaponry because it was presumed that the latest tank guns and ATGMs would defeat any conceivable armor. These days, though, armor has advanced to the point that you can provide good frontal protection against tank guns without impeding the tank's mobility, and hard-kill active protection systems can counter top-attack ATGMs.
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  42.  @keithmoore5306  As did Japan. And Germany had a fighter with both pusher and puller engines.
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  43. The Gloster F.5/34 seems quite obviously to be more suitable to adapt into carrier use than the Spitfire was. But of course, the RAF didn't particularly care about Royal Navy needs, and the Fleet Air Arm was under their thumb until May 1939. By which point Gloster's fighter had already been rejected and the two prototypes relegated to instructional airframes.
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  44. Argentina knows they're never going to seize the Falklands. It's only a fantasy they sell to nationalistic voters.
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  45.  @edsutherland8266  It's a pity Australia didn't go for the Avon Mirage III. Particularly since CAC was already license-building the non-afterburning versions of the Avon. The Avon 67 would've been a significant increase in thrust compared to the Atar. As for the Mirage IV's limited range, I'd love to know what sort of range the Mirage IVS would've had. The Spey turbofan isn't as thirsty an engine as the Atar turbojet.
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  46.  @DH.2016  Which is why you'd buy a license to manufacture the Leopard 2A7 domestically, like what Switzerland did for the 2A4 and Sweden for a modified 2A5. You'd still get to build the tanks in Britain and produce British jobs, but you get brand new tanks at a lower cost. Whereas with these Challenger 3s, Britain is spending more simply to avoid admitting they're still fielding a de facto German tank.
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  47.  @allangibson8494  A Mustang with a Griffon engine would have been quite interesting.
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  48. The Convair 200 seems like it was by far the more promising of the two designs, but for some reason the XFV-12 was the one that got a prototype built.
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  49.  @iiwhatisyouremailprivatenn2470  The Yak-141 uses a similar system that was developed independently. Lockheed Martin (which now owned all the Convair designs via their purchase of General Dynamics' Fort Worth division) licensed all the Yak-141 test data from Yakovlev, since the Yak-141 had actually been built and flown whereas the Convair 200 had not. Thus, the F-35B's nozzle isn't directly based on the Yak-141's, Lockheed Martin just used the Yak-141 to verify that the system would work they way they expected it to.
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  50. The Merkava Mk 5 Barak started coming into service this year. It's basically the Mk 4M with Iron Vision added; they're just calling it Mk 5 because they consider that a significant enough upgrade to merit a new mark number.
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  51. Unfortunately, Lockheed's bribery made sure Europe was focused at the time on the F-104.
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  52. 10 F-86s were tested in Korea with four FMC T-160 20mm revolver cannon (which had a significantly higher ROF than the Navy's Colt Mk 12) instead of the usual six .50 cal. This was highly successful and the T-160 was adopted as the M39, which became the standard armament for the F-86H, along with the F-100 Super Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, and F-5 Freedom Fighter/Tiger II.
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  53.  @alganhar1  That's why every prototype/experimental MBT with a 130mm or 140mm gun has been an autoloader. Everybody is well aware that a shell that big won't be viable with a human loader.
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  54. The big difference is that New Zealand is a much more remote location than Ireland. There's not any prospect of Russian or Chinese bombers intruding in NZ airspace for a back door approach to Australia, because the distances involved would just be too ridiculous. NZ can probably get away with complete neglect of their military because of that. Ireland isn't remote at all, they've just let their military atrophy under the assumption that nobody would ever want to attack them. And that they can let Britain foot the bill for defending their airspace.
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  55. Rafales use Martin-Baker ejection seats. Even if Argentina could afford Rafales (and they can't), they're subject to the British embargo.
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  56. Buy Chinese seats instead.
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  57.  @ohredhk  Landing vertically seems like it'd be less challenging than taking off vertically. You don't actually need enough thrust to hover for that, just enough thrust to come down slowly.
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  58. The F-14, F-15, and F-16 were all originally designed to be single-role, and turned out to be readily adaptable to other roles. Had the Crusader III entered service, I can't imagine it would've taken long to start strapping bombs under the wings too. No, it still wouldn't have been able to carry as many as the F-4 Phantom could. But that doesn't necessarily matter, because being both cheaper and physically smaller, you'd be able to have more Crusader IIIs on each carrier.
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  59. Before you even got to the explanation of the real rason why a Merlin-powered Whirlwind was never made, I was already saying "It's because it would use twice as many Merlins as a Spitfire or Hurricane." Though honestly it would've been really interesting if the RAF had stripped a few Merlins out other, less useful aircraft for testing in the Whirlwind.
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  60. The reason that the F-14 isn't still in service like the F-15 is that Dick Cheney had a seemingly pathological hatred of Grumman.
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  61. The thing I found most puzzling about the Australian Mirage III is that even though Dassault specifically tested one with an Avon 67 engine, the RAAF ended up sticking with the Atar 9C for their Mirages. Despite the Avon being not only an engine already being license-built (in non-afterburning form) in by CAC, but also just a better engine than the Atar in all respects. Marcel Dassault had simply assumed that this would be necessary to obtain the contract (hence going to the trouble of building an Avon powered prototype before even securing the deal), and was surprised when the Aussies opted for the regular Atar powered Mirage III.
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  62. This is a private venture by Rheinmetall. The German government isn't throwing anything at it.
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  63. If Duncan Sandys had been a literal Soviet agent, he probably would've done less damage to Britain because he would've felt the need to be subtle about it to avoid getting caught.
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  64. There actually was a proposal to adapt the An-71 to carrier use as the An-75. But this was rejected on the basis that such an adaptation would be so expensive they might as well design a carrier-based AWACS from scratch. This was the Yakovlev Yak-44, which never even got off the drawing board because of the collapse of the USSR.
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  65. I don't see any reason to put those UAVs in the tank itself. The UAVs don't need their launcher to be under armor. Even if they're being directly controlled by a 4th guy in the tank, either have an unmanned ground vehicle carrying the drones or just launch them from 100+ miles back.
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  66.  @spamuraigranatabru1149  MOD doesn't have any authority in Moscow.
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  67. Where did you find that photo of the 40mm Mustang in flight from below?
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  68. I know there were instances of the Soviets sending prototype tanks and SPGs like the Object 220 (popularly called "KV-220"), SU-14, and SU-100Y into battle due their desperation at the beginning of the German invasion.. It's kind of surprising that the same wasn't done with prototype aircraft like the DB-LK. Even if it was inferior to other Soviet bombers, it's still an extra plane beyond what was already in service.
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  69. 5:24 Would it have performed better if the landing gear door could close properly? 😂
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  70.  @mrjockt  Because what does the most successful fighter pilot of all time know about fighters? Obviously the bribed politicians knew better. /s
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  71. Yep, but with an enlarged fuselage.
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  72. Ironically, if the Argentine junta had waited another year or so to star the war, the scheduled downsizing of the Royal Navy would've left Britain without any realistic capability to retake the Falklands. Hermes was going to be decommissioned in 1982 and Invincible sold to Australia in 1983. While Illustrious entered service in June 1982, she wasn't fully operational until March 1983 and Ark Royal wasn't completed until November 1985. Without carriers, Britain would've had no choice but to concede the Falklands, since with no fighter cover any troop ships sent to retake them would've been easy pickings for Argentine aircraft.
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  73.  @truthboomertruthbomber5125  One of the things that came up during GUNVAL is that in stateside testing there'd been no problems, but in actual combat the engine would flame out after firing the cannons. They quickly realized this was because the gas from the cannons vented into the engine, and real combat was happening at higher altitudes (ie thinner air) than had been tested before. They hadn't accounted for the fact that with less oxygen being pulled into the engine, the gas from the cannons would displace enough to flame them out. So they quickly modified the cannon mountings to have the gas vent outward instead of inward.
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  74. There are quite a few aircraft that weren't adopted which were clearly missed opportunities. The Fw 187 was one of those. The Fw 159...was not.
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  75.  @BadwolfGamer  That might well be why Britain didn't go for the 130mm in the Challenger 3. The possibility that NATO might decide to go with 140mm instead, leaving Britain yet again fielding a non-standard gun. Otherwise, the small number of Challenger 3s that they'll field really would seem like it would make sense to enhance their individual lethality by installing the bigger gun.
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  76. Given that the hulls are existing Challenger 2s with a new turret, building more would presumably involve taking the remaining Challenger 2s that don't get upgraded and dropping the new turret onto them as well. There's no active production line for building Challenger 2 hulls, so there's a limit to how many additional Challenger 3s could be made. By the time Britain might decide to add additional tanks to their force, they'll probably end up buying whatever the Franco-German MGCS program comes up with.
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  77. @Boomstick McNugget I'm guessing that a significant portion of those T-72s and T-80s in storage were actually just husks that got cannibalized for parts to keep the rest of Russia's T-72 and T-80 fleets operational.
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  78. Had the F11F-1F gone into production, I think France would've also revisited the Super Tiger in a few years. The French Air Force wasn't going to buy American, but the French Navy is another story. It would've been a better option than the F-8 Crusader for their carrier-based fighter.
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  79. Long-rod APFSDS cannot be spin-stabilized in the first place, they're too long relative to their diameter for that to work. And for HEAT shells it's actually detrimental to spin them, because it disperses the molten jet. Hence fin stabilization. You can still fire fin-stabilized rounds from a rifled gun, but it doesn't work as well.
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  80. If the Super Tiger had been bought by Germany and Japan, there probably would've been further export orders. Given that French Air Force had already looked at it and were impressed but uninterested in buying foreign, it seems like there would've been a good chance of the French Navy choosing it rather than the F-8E Crusader for their carrier-based fighter. (None of the Mirages were suitable for carrier operation, so there wasn't any domestic competition for that contract.) But what I'd really love to see is what some smaller nations might do to upgrade their Super Tigers when their budget doesn't allow for buying brand-new fighters. Imagine if in the 1980s somebody replace the J79 with an F404 turbofan and the AN/APG-50 radar with AN/APG-65.
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  81. This channel uploaded that exact video yesterday.
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  82. That might be a bit of a hard sell given that the Rafale is already there for anybody who wants a heavier twin-engine fighter with greater payload than the Gripen. The Gripen's biggest selling point is that it has much lower operating costs than other 4.5-gen fighters, while still having equivalent air-to-air capability and not that much worse air-to-ground. I'm not sure if trying to compete even more directly with the Rafale than they currently do would be to Saab's benefit.
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  83.  @610Mungral  Thanks. I'd always thought it would've nice if the little Hawks could go supersonic in level flight, but it makes sense that isn't achievable with straight wings regardless of how much thrust you gave them.
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  84.  @doc7000  That's what the Luftwaffe wanted, certainly. But the Bundesmarine had no need for an interceptor. They wanted only a strike aircraft. I can understand West Germany opting to buy the same jet for both services, since in theory that saves a lot of money on logistics. But the F-104G was clearly the wrong plane for the job.
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  85. Elon Musk is a fool who thinks his money makes him a genius. When it comes to military affairs, he doesn't even rise to the level of a dilettante. Also, it appears that the "evidence" the Muskrat presents to back up his argument is an AI-generated video. Enough said.
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  86. Torque would probably be an issue, since it's it's not a contra-rotating prop. Given RFB's focus on "handles like a jet, except slow and simple enough for basic training" it's a bit surprising that they didn't go with contra-rotating so that there'd be zero torque. But maybe they deemed the torque to be minor enough to be not worth worry about.
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  87. The F-104 had by a wide margin the worst accident rate of any any USAF jet fighter.
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  88. I have no idea why they eliminated the Super Hornet from the competition. Of the planes the RCAF was considering, it was obviously the most suitable. Particularly given that Canada's been flying Hornets for decades. Imagine how easy it would be for pilots to convert to what's basically a bigger Hornet and has the exact same cockpit.
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  89.  @davidcarr4991  Presumably you load the missile after the pilot is strapped in and closes the canopy. Meaning you'd have to fire off that missile before you land.
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  90.  @Dembilaja  Poland has also provided a handful of their Leopard 2A4s to Ukraine. Nearly all of their T-72s have been handed to Ukraine, with any remaining probably being in too poor condition to do anything other than scrap or strip down for parts (it's know that they had about 100 in storage that were in bad shape). There are still about a hundred Twardys left in Poland, but they're presumably getting phased out soon enough. I wouldn't be surprised if they do the same with their remaining Leopards, since they're going to be by far the least numerous of Poland's MBTs once all the Abrams are delivered and domestic K2PL production begins, which would make them the easiest ones to get rid of (or at least put into storage) to reduce the logistical complications. Aside from planning for an eventual 1,000 K2PL, Poland is also buying 506 HIMARS and 288 K239 Chunmoo (a Korean platform that's compatible with the M270 MLRS/HIMARS ammunition). They're very serious about becoming one of Europe's top armies.
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  91. The Mitsubishi F-1 was built to very similar requirements to Jaguar and used the same engines.
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  92.  @jonsouth1545  Honestly I'm not sure why BAE has never made a version of the Hawk 200 that uses an afterburning engine.
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  93. Saudis would've been far better off with the Mirage 4000. Honestly would've been better off with it over their initial F-15C/D purchase as well, despite how good the F-15 is. Since they would've been getting F-15E equivalent capability a decade earlier. Plus the logistical and maintenance advantage of a operating a single type of fighter instead of two vastly different types that share no components in common.
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  94.  @jwb1227  The Leopard 2s are also going to Ukraine, now that Germany stopped dithering about giving permission. I'm sure it's a coincidence that Germany finally gave in on the issue less than a week after Poland's (IIRC) Defence Minister hinting that they were ready to just send the tanks without German permission.
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  95. While it was faster than any Harrier-derived aircraft would ever achieve, the Mirage IIIV was a fundamentally flawed concept. Those eight lift jets it needed to take off vertically meant it carried a literal ton of dead weight around once it transitioned to horizontal flight. Those lift jets were almost 10% of the Mirage IIIV's total weight, but were completely useless except on takeoff and landing. The internal volume they took up also meant it could carry much less fuel than a CTOL fighter of the same size, a problem compounded by the fact that vertical takeoff will expend more fuel than conventional takeoff to lift any given amount of weight, since you're brute-forcing your way into the air rather than having aerodynamic lift help you.
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  96. The XP-47H would've looked amazing with the bubble canopy.
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  97. It's a pity that CAC lacked the capacity to just build their own Double Wasp (or similar-performing engine) from scratch rather than needing to have one provided to them.
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  98. Pretty sure it was rejected because of what it looks like. Also, it lacked the key advantage that led to the F-104 Starfighter's success: bribery.
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  99. If nothing else they'll probably keep those hulls in storage to cannibalize for parts. Or as testbeds for potential further upgrades without needing to take any of the 148 active Challenger 3s out of service.
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  100. Back in the days when "just fly higher, LOL" was a valid tactic for a bomber to avoid interception. Unfortunately, missiles would soon put an end to that tactic.
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  101. And by Lockheed bribery. The F11F-1F was demonstrably far superior to the F-104, and a J79 powered F5D probably would've been as well.
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  102. The J7W Shinden also flew with a canard delta on August 3, 1945. But a certain couple of events in the next week after that meant that it never got past the prototype stage.
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  103.  @tetraxis3011  Danish F-16s already have AMRAAM capability. Of course, that doesn't mean much since the US probably isn't selling AMRAAMs to Argentina.
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  104. IIRC, Taiwan has the M1A2T (basically M1A2 SEPv2 minus depleted uranium) on the way.
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  105. The Mirage IVS (a Spey engined version) was offered by Dassault and BAC after the TSR-2 was cancelled, but Britain opted for the F-111K instead for political reasons. And then cancelled it too.
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  106.  @wbertie2604  Britain has botched quite a few aviation projects. Almost always at the hands of Parliament.
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  107. It's kind of amazing, really. Lockheed made so many design compromises to create a Mach 2 lightweight fighter, and yet Grumman achieved the same speed almost by accident while also having a easier to fly, more maneuverable, and more rugged fighter.
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  108.  @chrismartin3197  Given the need for a carrier-based attacker to kill ships, I imagine it's likely that the French Navy would've gone for a similar upgrade of the Jaguar M had it been adopted. It stands to reason that it would've had similar longevity to the Super Etendard, since the French Navy doesn't really get an option of buying all-new aircraft often.
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  109. Nothing lasts forever. The A-10s are coming up on 50 years in service, after all.
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  110. Not tricked, bribed.
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  111. Because this engine was too big to fit into a P-51 or Spitfire. The only other single-engine Allied fighter that mighv'e been big enough was the Hawker Tempest. And this was a US project so naturally they used a US fighter.
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  112.  @jamesburleson1916  Trump isn't just "amicable" with Putin, he's flat-out submissive to Putin.
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  113. The Piranha project didn't happen until a decade after the HA-300 had been cancelled, and a year after Willy Messerschmitt's death. So that wasn't really in the cards.
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  114. The Mirage 4000s would've been a dramatically better choice than the Tornado, but Britain bribed the hell out of some Saudi princes to make sure they'd buy the Tornado.
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  115. I tend to think that the XF8U-3 would've ended up with plenty of multirole capability anyway had it entered service. The basic Crusader in later models gained a pair of underwing hardpoints for a 2,000lb bomb or a Bullpup AGM. The Crusader III had larger wings (4'3" longer wingspan and 20% more wing area), and as such I imagine it would've been easy enough to add at least 4 underwing hardpoints for the Crusader III.
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  116.  @MrHws5mp  And the next UK government tried to phase out even those. If the Argentine junta had waited just one year to invade the Falklands, Hermes and the brand-new Invincible both would've already been sold. The junta's stupidity saved the Royal Navy from being destroyed by its own government.
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  117. Given his efforts to make a streamlined biplane, I'm surprised he didn't remove the struts like on the Zeppelin-Lindau D.I.
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  118. I'm not sure about the D.3801. It seems like something that would be really hard to convince even the dumbest minister that it's up to the task. This might be cheating since the specific model wasn't even put into production, but since it's a variant of an aircraft that was in production as of 1945 I'll suggest it anyway. The Gloster Meteor F.1, but with Rolls-Royce Trent turbofan engines. It's in keeping with Elbonian weirdness, and it shouldn't be hard to sell the air minister on the idea that this would give the best of both worlds between props and jets. When it would instead be more likely to give the worst of both worlds.
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  119.  @bholdr----0  This wasn't the Stalin era. A hero like that would've been treated well.
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  120.  @EdNashsMilitaryMatters  He basically cuts off his coverage at the missile era, with few exceptions.
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  121.  @neiloflongbeck5705  Yep, it was now a product they owned, but one that their competitor had developed.
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  122.  @FallenPhoenix86  India probably wants to be able to domestically source all the parts anyway. They're clearly trying to make their defense industry self-sufficient.
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  123. The sad but hilarious part is that the Russian government thinks it makes them look better to throw the Moskva's dead crewmen under the bus and say that they let the ship catch on fire so badly that its magazines exploded and sank the ship, instead of just admitting that it got hit by a pair of Ukrainian anti-ship missiles.
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  124. For good reason that it resembles that La-5. They used the same M-82 engine.
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  125. One thing that's noticeable from the photos (see 1:35 and 2:08 ) is that some of them show the IS-1 with a two-bladed propeller and a less pointed spinner. An assembly which looks like it came straight off an I-16. Most likely that was the initial fit when they were rushing to try to get it flying for Stalin's parade, and making maximum use of existing components. While the rest of the photos show the three-bladed prop and a more streamlined spinner. Probably what the design team had intended all along. Also, it kind of surprised me that (unlike the later IS series of heavy tanks), sharing Stalin's initials seems to have been a complete coincidence with these planes.
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  126. Between Russia being not nearly as strong as assumed and the attrition they've suffered in Ukraine, I figure if the war games were run again it would be more like 3 months before Polish troops have liberated Brześć, Grodno, and Królewiec.
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  127. No wonder this one wasn't adopted. It didn't have a V name.
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  128. So is there any way KAI could make a version of the FA-50 that doesn't use those British components? You'd think they would want to try, so as to not miss out on this sale. If not, Argentina might just have to accept buying something Russian or Chinese, and adapt their infrastructure to operate non-Western aircraft. Or else give up on having an air force.
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  129. You call it a Mini Pfeil, I call it a very angry Cessna.
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  130. Was that 20 rounds total, or just 20 rounds of ready ammo for the autoloader?
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  131. Given how poorly the Martin Mauler worked out, it's too bad the Navy didn't give Kaiser Fleetwings more time to develop the XBTK. Not like it could've turned out any worse.
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  132. So was the Su-57, LOL.
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  133.  @remylopez4821  But ironically, it was the B-32 that ran into all sorts of issues.
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  134.  @johnphillips519  He retrieved that data directly out of his ass.
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  135. As you can see at 2:04 the Mixmaster was also at one point upgraded to mixed propulsion (highly appropriate, given its name) with the contra-rotating pusher props retained but with a small turbojet hung under each wing. This was the XB-42A. As for replacing the side-by-side canopies with a single canopy for both crew? That's what was done with the 2nd XB-42 prototype. It doesn't seem to have ever been done with either XB-43 prototype. Probably because by the time they worked out that the single canopy was a better setup, it was clear that the XB-43 would only be a testbed rather than an operation combat aircraft, so it would've been a waste of time to make changes like that.
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  136. Their thinking was probably "if we adopt the Rheinmetall 130mm, NATO will end up standardizing on the 140mm instead."
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  137. Britain simply isn't that large a nation.
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  138.  @EdNashsMilitaryMatters  Sigh. Youtube gonna Youtube.
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  139. One thing we know for sure, is that even if the N-102 Fang had been allowed to have a prototype built, even if it had beaten the F-104 in a fly-off for the USAF, it ultimately wouldn't have gotten as many export customers. Because the F-104 got its contracts via bribery, not by being the best fighter for the job. Remove the bribes and Japan would've bought the Grumman F11F-1F Super Tiger, the Netherlands would have bought the Mirage 5, and Germany might have saved the British aviation industry by buying the Saunders-Roe SR.177.
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  140. Antonov should be required to build another one, since if not for their negligence the original An-225 would've been flown away before the Russian invaders arrived.
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  141. Leave it to Netanyahu and Erdogan to always make every situation worse.
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  142.  @janwitts2688  I would presume the Argentine invasion of South Georgia was simply to deny it as a potential staging point for a British retaking of the Falklands.
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  143.  @uwsinned  Taiwan's own F-CK-1 has plenty of F-20 in it as well, along with F-16 elements.
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  144. Pretty sure Gripens include British components, so that was probably the issue.
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  145. Argentina can't afford J-10s. Just like they couldn't afford new-production F-16s. There's a reason their previous wish-list items were second-tier fighters like the FA-50 and JF-17. Their defense budget doesn't have room for 4.5-gen fighters.
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  146. Just because everybody's buying it doesn't mean it's the best choice. Remember when everybody was buying a certain other Lockheed jet?
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  147.  @truthboomertruthbomber5125  1,000 RPM for the Navy's Colt Mk.12, 1,500 for the T-160/M39.
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  148. Shot traps aren't really a thing for long-rod APFSDS projectiles. They either penetrate or shatter, they don't ricochet. And there's no doubt that the wedge on the front of this tank's turret uses the same principle as the one on the Leopard 2A5 through 2A7. It's hollow and causes projectiles to tumble after penetrating it so that the side of the rod instead of the pointy end will be what hits the main armor.
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  149. Not only in terms of what designs he might have produced, but also how he would influence any American designers he worked with.
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  150. Given the US track record, more likely that we'll only adopt the Rheinmetall 130mm gun but put it on an American tank. Whether that will be just a re-turreted Abrams or an all new chassis, who knows.
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  151. What I'd like to know is, why did the British never even seem to even consider a floatplane fighter for use on the CAM ships? When you're flying against Fw 200s, it doesn't really matter if the floats reduce the fighter's performance. It's not as if a 4-engine bomber is going to be able to dogfight with you. And a floatplane seems like an obviously better solution than requiring the pilot to bail out and let his fighter crash into the ocean.
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  152. Northrop's lawyers apparently did a poor job when it came to the contract with McDonnell Douglas, and thus the company's own design got stolen from them.
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  153. The USAF was a mistake.
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  154. Call it the RAH-67 Shoshone.
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  155. Not that different from the F-8, A-7, and F-16. Lots of aircraft have done well with a belly intake.
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  156. Imagine it reengined again, this time with an F404.
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  157. The thing you have to bear in mind about Ukraine is that the Russian Army sucks. Apparently those ex-Soviet officers who had any concept of combined-armed tactics retired a long time ago, and so did the people trained by them. It doesn't take long for a military to lose its institutional memory, and now Russia is having to re-learn the basics of warfare while using a poorly-trained army.
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  158. Actually, the reason that the Goshawk was the "preferred engine" wasn't that the RAF was fixated on it. It's that Rolls-Royce was loaning them out for free to any F.7/30 competitors who wanted one. Clearly, RR saw this a way to maximize the chances of a the winning aircraft being one that used their engine.
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  159. One of many examples of how putting morons into political office never has good results.
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  160.  @blackenedmagic888  And every time there was this supposed trend away from manned aircraft, anybody who was paying attention should've been able to know better. Duncan Sandys predicated his cancellation of most manned aircraft (and defensive SAMs as well) on the premise that ballistic missiles would replace manned strategic bombers and that they would be impossible to defend against, so there would soon be no reason to bother with defensive weapons. And yet the Soviets were very blatantly not phasing out manned bombers, and instead were continuing to build them in large numbers. They clearly intended that in the event of war with NATO, they'd be launching mass bomber strikes that would absolutely need interceptors and SAMs to stop.
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  161. Does every channel need to be political?
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  162. Look at every single one of the export contracts for the F-104. In all cases, it was the worst of the fighters being considered and yet "won" because of bribery.
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  163. The 2nd F.5/34 prototype did have the 8 machine guns installed. And the real missed opportunity with the F.5/34 was not as an alternative to the Hurricane and Spitfire, but as an alternative to the Sea Gladiator. The Sea Gladiator wasn't ordered until 1938, 2 years after the F.5/34 first flew. If those 2 years had been spent instead navalizing the F.5/34 and converting the Gladiator production line to build it, the Fleet Air Arm could've had a modern monoplane fighter going into WW2 instead of a fixed landing gear biplane.
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  164.  @troutwarrior6735  Why not? Would be a great way to field-test the new technology.
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  165. Seems strange that there was such a small production run.
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  166.  @timonsolus  In fact, skip the Sea Gladiator, which wasn't even ordered until 1938. The F.5/34 prototype first flew in 1936. As for an engine upgrade? The P&W R-1830 Twin Wasp would work well if it was available in sufficient numbers.
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  167. The Douglas B-23 Dragon did have a limited production run of 38, and briefly saw use for maritime patrol on the Pacific coast (afterward some were relegated to training and the rest converted to transports). But that clearly wasn't the Dragon they were looking for.
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  168. Even with the "don't buy foreign" bias that pervades US weapons procurement and is only rarely overcome, the Convair Model 200 (which unlike Rockwell's design didn't get a prototype ordered) seems like it would've been a more promising option. It's the origin of the swivel nozzle system on the F-35B, but with a separate auxiliary lift engine behind the cockpit like in the Yak-141. This has the obvious downside that the lift engine is dead weight when in horizontal flight, it has the significant benefit of actually working. Presuming that the engines would've actually produced the specified thrust (which admittedly has been the downfall of some previous aircraft), the Convair 200 should've been able to actually get off the ground and then fly at supersonic speed exactly as Zumwalt wanted. Convair was also proposing a Model 201 version that deletes the lift jets for use on regular CATOBAR carriers as a lightweight fighter. Though for that role, I think the Navy probably got a better outcome with the F/A-18, with its higher payload than the 201 would've been able to carry.
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  169.  @minhthunguyendang9900  I'm pretty sure Arafat never made any such claim.
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  170. Being a German company, surely that would be "Löwe"?
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  171. Yeah, the performance of the CR.42DB was largely just brute forced by putting such a powerful engine on it. There's quite a bit that could've been done to streamline the design. Aside from a retractable landing gear, I suspect it also would've been possible to reduce the number of struts and braces on the wings. And to implement an enclosed cockpit.
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  172.  @jimmyw7530  Reverse engineering isn't as easy as a lot of people assume.
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  173. With regard to the Bf 109G, I suspect the Luftwaffe hand-picked the worst examples they could find to send to Switzerland. (Because honestly, they'd have been pretty dumb to not do that.)
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  174. Well for a twin-engine heavy fighter that's operating at night (and thus implicitly not having any need to dogfight), there is some logic to it. Lower performance isn't necessarily that big a deal in a night fighter. What I find most mystifying about the Beaufighter Mark V is that they chose the already-unpowered Mark IIF for conversion instead of the Mark IF with Hercules engines.
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  175.  @mikearmstrong8483  That's why it was such a blunder for India to pull out of the E-300 development. That engine was exactly what the Marut needed.
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  176. Yeah, that's pretty odd that they expected so little out of the J79, seeing as its dry thrust was significantly higher than the J65's afterburning thrust. (A fact which leaves me wondering if the Super Tiger could supercruise.)
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  177. It doesn't. N-102 is Northrop's internal designation. It never progressed far enough to get a USAF designation. Had a prototype ever been ordered, it probably would've gotten the designation XF-108. (The actual fighter to get that number, the North American XF-108 Rapier, wouldn't even begin its development until a couple of years after Northrop cancelled the Fang. So it would've been the first unused number available in 1954.)
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  178. @Shahbaz Tanoli The JF-17 is an evolution of the F-7. It's basically intended as a lower-budget alternative to the F-16.
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  179. Ironic that the socialist Bellamy came up with the Pledge of Allegiance partially as a very capitalist marketing ploy. Almost as ironic as how the 1954 revision literally divides the phrase "one Nation, indivisible" by adding "under God" in the middle.
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  180. The AN/M2 weighs 62 lb, while the faster-firing AN/M3 weighs 65 lb. (The latter would've been what the Jetmaster would've likely carried had it entered service.) Both are a good deal lighter than the 84 lb ground-based M2, since you don't need as heavy a barrel when it's constantly being cooled by airflow. So the guns would combined weigh 1,040 lb. Strafing-configured medium bombers during WW2 usually carried 400 rounds per gun. A 100 round .50 BMG belt weighs about 22 lb. So that's 1,408 lb of ammo. Seems to me that when your guns and ammo literally weigh over a ton, you might as well be using 20mm cannons instead of machine guns.
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  181. This wasn't Ilyushin's last go at an armored ground attack aircraft either. There was the Il-102, the jet shturmovik. Which was also gloriously ugly.
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  182.  @stephengloor8451  That was the German joke about the F-104.
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  183. The name "Seamew" is clearly cursed, at least when it comes to planes. All three aircraft with that name (the Supermarine, Curtiss, and Short) were failures. The river gunboat HMS Seamew, on the other hand, seems to have been successful enough with a 20-year (albeit uneventful) career.
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  184. Marcel Dassault had a huge ego. The Jaguar was a plane he had no role in designing.
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  185. I wonder how it would've turned out if Lavochkin hadn't opted to create a smaller Derwent-powered "backup design", and instead had focused all their efforts on the Nene-powered La-168. Because the Soviet Air Force really set them up for failure by choosing the La-174 to be put into production as the La-15.
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  186. The Jaguar was a vastly more capable jet than the Super Etendard, with higher top speed, longer range, and nearly double the the payload. Even accounting for slight performance losses due to added weight from the carrier adaptations, the Jaguar M seems like it would've been a huge upgrade for the French Navy.
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  187.  @73North265  Presumably if they're going to use The T-54/55 as makeshift artillery, they'll create additional elevation by driving up hills. Or where hills aren't available, use dozers to pile up some dirt. That said, this is a very rudimentary artillery capability they'd be getting. Immensely vulnerable to Ukraine's drones and their own artillery, and without nearly as much range, accuracy, or HE payload as a dedicated howitzer.
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  188. The British government didn't even want to support Fairey's pursuit of the world speed record, completely pulling out of their collective arse reasons that the Delta 2 wouldn't be able to do it so it wasn't worth trying. Then Fairey proceeded to not just break but obliterate the record.
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  189. The same way the F-104G managed to beat the F11F-1F Super Tiger and Saunders-Roe SR.177. British Aerospace showed they'd learned how to play Lockheed's game.
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  190.  @yousefmahgoob4876  Poland is a NATO member, so it would be Russia who commits suicide if they actaully attacked Poland over such a move. And as far as giving up large numbers of tanks? Poland just bought 250 M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 tanks. That should do nicely to replace their 232 PT-71s. They also have 382 even older T-72s of various models. That's 614 tanks that Ukrainian crews would have little difficulty operating. The T-72 isn't Ukraine's primary tank (the sold off most of the ones they inherited, because they have the factory that built the T-80 and thus it was easier to standardize on), they still retained enough that their maintenance crews will know how to handle them. (Something that's helped with dozens of T-72s and a handful of T-90s captured from Russia.) Since Poland's new Abrams also put them on the path to fully standardizing on NATO 120mm, that also means their large stockpile of 125mm ammunition will soon be of little use, but would be very useful to Ukraine.
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  191. Erdogan is the Enver Pasha of the 21st century. He sees genocide as a solution to all problems.
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  192. I would've figured Chile isn't in the market for replacing their Leopard 2s yet since the just bought them recently, but increased the demand for Leopard 2s could be a factor. And seeing as Chile is unlikely to ever deploy their tanks abroad and the Merkava places so much emphasis on crew survivability, it wouldn't be a bad choice for Chile which isn't going to field a huge tank force. (Though it's larger than Britain's current plans, LMAO.)
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  193. In that case, it was NATO mistakenly assuming the Ye-152A would be designated MiG-23. Whereas with the Ye-8, it was Artem Mikoyan himself who initially expected it to be adopted as the MiG-23.
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  194. The Panther II actually dates to 1943, and was cancelled that same year in favor of simply developing a new turret for the Panther. (The famous Schmalturm, which was meant to enter service in 1945 on the Panther Ausf F.)
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  195. The real reason that the Firebrand and Firecrest were failures is that they weren't ugly enough to be Blackburn aircraft.
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  196. At a first glance at WW2 aircraft, you'd think that installing a Merlin was the cheat code for turning a mediocre aircraft into a great one. (It certainly did that with the Mustang, after all. Along with turning the pitiful failure that was the Manchester into the stunning success that was the Lancaster.) Which leads to all the questions of "why didn't (X aircraft that had any sort of difficulties) use the Merlin?" that always come up. A more in-depth look with often show there were perfectly good reasons, though. Whether it's the Merlin being a poor fit for a particular plane or just (as in the Whirlwind's case) bad timing meaning that when it could've happened there simply weren't enough Merlins to go around. And of course, the failures that used a Merlin tend to either be forgotten entirely or just never remembered for being Merlin-powered. While the Merlin was a great engine, it was never as simple as "install a Merlin = automatic epic plane".
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  197.  @bfps2020  Possibly the RAF would upgrade their presence in the Falklands to a full squadron if this happened. (Which they might do anyway in response to the JF-17s; it wouldn't be a terrible idea.) But in practice, the Argentines might rattle their sabers for domestic consumption, but they know better than to actually have a go at invading the Falklands again. They might be able to take the islands after they get back to having an air force, but they'd never be able to hold them. Not when the Royal Navy can roll in with a pair of aircraft carriers escorted by Type 45 destroyers and Type 26 frigates. For that matter, the Type 83 destroyers that haven't even been designed yet will probably be in service before Argentina gets back to having a real military.
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  198. It was the Helldiver's USAAF version (the A-25) that reused the Shrike name. Helldiver itself was a name Curtiss used for all 3 of their naval dive bombers. First was a dive bomber conversion of the F8C fighter-bomber biplane, then the SBC scout/dive bomber biplane, and finally the SB2C monoplane that everybody associates with the name. Everybody reuses names, but Curtiss really liked to do it.
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