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Originally Posted by Dangerous Dave
No offence, but the RAF have been a little behind the times for a very long time now. Towards the end of WWII they began to lag behind technology wise, they reinvented them selves in the 50's-70's but since then it has all been about getting the most of what is left. Look at the Falklands campaign, nothing but the Avro Vulcan could do the job and most of those aircraft had already been scraped and the remaining few were earmarked for retirement. The new Typhoon for example is a 15 year old design, and it still doesn't work to its specification.
The modern US military is driven by computers and the internet, okay it was not a live war but the Cold War produced a lot of stuff which is now the basics of what is now public.
I am not saying everything in this world was developed by war, but the mobile phone was started this way. You are right, the public market is a huge contributor of development for products but a lot of the basic invention came from battle.
The amount of technology that is yet to be filtered down to the public sector is unbelievable, making it public isn't always the best thing to do though.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ThEGr33k
Im not offended... I know the RAF is **** (insert your own 4 star word).
TBH though isnt it the same for all the UK's forces, arnt we all lagging behind massivly due to not enough money? I mean for a long while we had to use a rifle that didnt even work right... How much worse could it get!? ammunition that doesnt work? Sigh.
I agree the military has contributed to a lot of things tech wise but I dont think you could say this is due to the military (outside of weapons).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dangerous Dave
No comment on that one mate, we do alright.... 
Too right, the SA80 is a excellent design on paper and a load of bollo**s in the real world. The redesign by H&K was a revelation but the basic flaws are still there. We will not touch the SA80, we need a weapon that works every time in all conditions which isn't afraid to get wet let alone submerged. |
I'm not too sure that the blame for the failures of the Army, Navy, and RAF lies with themselves, as the issue with the tools that you had at your disposal was controlled by people who do not know your job (politicians and civil servants).
I know how much critisms the SA80 gets, and when my mate was in Sierra Leone looking down the wrong end of an SLR he still wished that he had that weapon. Why did we choose the SA80? Wasn't the choice of a weapon's expert was it.....
The biggest trend of mistakes over the last 100 years has been with our avaition industry: Just take one look at the TSR-2, oh and the first plan to go supersonic used British engineering developed in 1943.
Politically you lot have been sold short; It would be illegal for me to send my lads out to do their job without the tools, equipment, training and PPE that they need. The British Armed forces get the training (the one thing that they can control), but the rest?