Donald J Trumpleton; World Ethical Limbo Champion 2025
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The man that could limbo under a snake, whilst wearing a top hat…
If you read the book Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen no-one and I mean no-one will ever push the big red button. As in the film War Games, there can be no winner.
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No Sane person would …..but unfortunately they are not the ones that worry me!!
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To be frank, it’s a really good thing in deterrent terms that people think he might do what others consider unthinkable.
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I’m honestly unsure if you are talking about Putin or Trump here, but I think it applies equally to both (and I agree with you either way!) 
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I was talking about Trump, for the record.
I would argue that Russian deterrence has less to do with whether or not Putin would push the button and more whether or not the button would work.
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I wonder if Trump has the drones up?
ETA: The Americans have warned of “dangers” to passing air traffic: Seis aerolíneas cancelan conexiones con Venezuela tras advertencia de EE.UU.
Looks like the Mod Should have bought the CV90 and not the Ajax.
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Or frankly carried on with Warrior CSP and got some new hulls built, the plan was always for Warrior to replace FV432 (in the ‘90s!) but cuts meant only a limited number were bought and FV432 carried on in support roles.
Now Boxer is to replace FV432, and Ajax (the Ares turretless version) Warrior, leaving us with potentially too many Boxer, and too few Ares (and Ares has only an MG as armament anyway), and a mixed wheeled tracked fleet.
Plus we are now in the Patria consortium for the 6x6 wheeled wagon.
So yes you are right - we should have gone with CV90 (perhaps teamed with a cheaper 6x6 wheeled APC for the light role units) or refurbed and got some more Warriors. We spent £430m on developing Warrior CSP, that would have got at least a couple of regiments’ worth of CV90!
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It’s just ridiculous that the system still has these issues when we knew about them 4 years ago, and they haven’t been fixed. Yes, CV90 is older and might have cost a bit more, but they work! Ajax doesn’t. What we need is a moratorium on developing our own rubbish for a few years, and only buy what is being sold within Europe. Maybe we can get contracts to manufacture the designs within the UK.
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AJAX was meant to be off the shelf - ASCOD (or ASCOD2). In service with Spain and Austria, basis for the (now cancelled) US M10 Booker too.
But we messed with it, added gold-plated extras then failed to QA the initial production hulls, if what’s been written is correct.
Doesn’t really answer the question of why they didn’t go for CV90 in the first place.
in my head our ORBAT should be
CR3
CV90 - stick the 40mm off AJAX on it if you must
K9 SPG & Archer SPG
MLRS (which we have and works)
Patria CAVS 6x6
Scimitar 2 with modern armour and a new 30mm auto cannon (fantasy option!)
The Patria takes over the role of the old Saxon. Light role units get Patria and Archer, heavy K9 and CV90.
I don’t really see how Boxer fits in, unless we also procure a Recce variant or another wheeled Recce vehicle (eg the French Jaguar). But a Patria CAVS recce would be cheaper and more mobile, if that is what is pushing for wheels not tracks.
I’m not sure what the CV90 users do for Recce, do they use one of the variants (as the US do with the M3)? The Dutch have Fennek but that’s closer to Foxhound than a CV90 or AJAX.
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I believe some users just use the CV90 for recce. Some use the Patria AMV.
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This type of operation isn’t new.
Waaaay back when I was as AEOp ( now WSOp of course), the Russkies used “survey” ships as intelligence gatherers, for both above surface & sub-surface operations.
NATO sea exercises always had one in tow, so EMCON played an important part in minimising what they could pick up. For other “survey” operations in the Iceland / Faroe gap, no-one could work out what their survey ships were trying to find. However, one bright spark thought it was highly likely that they were trying to locate the SOSUS main nodes.
This led to a lot of tasking against one particular ship - looked very mundane - but clearly browsing around for something. It was also being re-supplied, which was an indication that the operation it was conducting was quite important - I think I took those photos!!
Over several sorties, a pattern emerged that the survey shop was in very close proximity to SOSUS nodes. Also, there had been the very faintest hint (but not confirmed) of sub-surface activity - the guess was that the survey ship was being used to mask this activity by drowning out any signature noises.
So, tactics needed - we managed to catch the ship unawares travelling at a reasonable whack - so we dropped several sonobuoys ahead (at the minimum legal distance away from the ship) with some varying depths settings.
Loud & clear, the various sound characteristics of a nuclear submarine were presented to us as it passed by the sonobuoys - it had to have been almost underneath the ship! Gotcha!!
UK and Norway form naval alliance to hunt Russian submarines - BBC News
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Did you get Strut Curve from the Boris Chilikin?, always a good cue. The Sov’s weren’t the only ones up to this though, but we tended to base our activities on combatant platforms, try “outboard intercept suite on RN ships” in Google or for more depth refer to
The Royal Navy the Cold War Years by Edward Hampshire
Neither were we reticent in seeking information of Soviet sub-surface systems as as this account of Operation Keystone describes.
Finally, a bit more about Svanetya; an old girlfriend of mine; may be found in:
In Deepest Secrecy: Dutch Submarine espionage Operations from 1968 -1991
exmpa
A long time ago to remember radar signatures! Also, I was on the “wet” team (not a KGB assassin for those not aware of the maritime recce connotations! ) so the black magic of the ESM was left to the “dry” team. I can manage to teach principles of radar though! 
One of our dry team had been on Sunderlands (Ted Rose - what a gentleman - liked a G&T) - we were doing a doomwatch JMC sortie from Kinloss as we were lumbered as a visiting crew from dahn sarf. I watched him play the old fashioned ASV21 radar - he plonked the cursor on a contact that was one of dozens (loads of fishing boats around) - “this one feels different.”
I went to my position in the starboard beam as we ran in - “Mile & a half - searchlight!!” was the call. Blow me down, a surfaced sub. Pretend wpn drop - dead meat! Surprised they didn’t dive based on our radar signal - although I think Ted might have put it to standby after declaring the contact - maybe bluffing things out amongst all the fishing boats?
He did the same the following night too!! Black magic.
Can’t remember if it was Ted or Fred Reeves (another great old style operator) who had been involved in a ditching (or maybe even 2 of them! 
).
Yes, lots of covert ops around at the time - the good ol’ Cold War.
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Very interesting tech advances for submarine detecting.
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To go along with this.
Been going on for the past four years.
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Anyone fancy a Holiday in Cambodia?