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

  1. Unfortunately, Lockheed's bribery made sure Europe was focused at the time on the F-104.
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  2. 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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  3.  @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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  4. 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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  5. 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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  6. Buy Chinese seats instead.
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  7.  @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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  8. 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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  9. 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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  10. 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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  11. 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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  12. This is a private venture by Rheinmetall. The German government isn't throwing anything at it.
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  13. 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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  14. 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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  15. 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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  16.  @spamuraigranatabru1149  MOD doesn't have any authority in Moscow.
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  17. Where did you find that photo of the 40mm Mustang in flight from below?
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  18. 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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  19. 5:24 Would it have performed better if the landing gear door could close properly? 😂
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  20.  @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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  21. Yep, but with an enlarged fuselage.
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  22. 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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  23.  @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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  24. 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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  25.  @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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  26. 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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  27. @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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  28. 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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  29. 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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  30. 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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  31. This channel uploaded that exact video yesterday.
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  32. 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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  33.  @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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  34.  @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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  35. 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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  36. 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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  37. The F-104 had by a wide margin the worst accident rate of any any USAF jet fighter.
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  38. 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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  39.  @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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  40.  @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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  41. The Mitsubishi F-1 was built to very similar requirements to Jaguar and used the same engines.
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  42.  @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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  43. 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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  44.  @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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  45. 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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  46. The XP-47H would've looked amazing with the bubble canopy.
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  47. 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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  48. 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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  49. 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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  50. 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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