Blighty's first home grown war robot takes to Welsh skies!

How the hell...

..do you walk with such a heavy chip on your shoulder?

IT workers on the whole are better paid than assembly line workers, so should we get rid of all IT staff and give better pay to these?

On the whole, many grunts are poorly educated, with poor backgrounds and shit prospects. Even worse when the Army chucks them out on the streets with a useless 10 year career behind them.

So yes the money could be better spent, not on the Army, but in schooling and support resources, so they are not forced into shit jobs where they are target pratice for other poor, pissed off people

. And maybe, they to could earn a decent wage, pehaps working for these companies?

I know a hell of a lot of RAF people, that now work for your other "chip on a shoulder megacorp" BAE, what else would they do? One retrained and worked as a teacher for a year, thought it was shit and went back to BAE.

Get over yourself.

Testing armed Israeli drones in Britain?

Anyone who wears one of those Palestinian scarves* might want to leave it at home until they've ironed out all the bugs then.

*You know, those things that are the de facto uniform of the junior wing of the champagne socialists.

Rewriting that for you

"...British drone-manufacturing industry in the process, our troops fighting overseas would have got what they needed a lot quicker and for a lot less money."

Should read:

"..British and NATO troops defending their OWN borders and territory are having a good time at the barracks."

Even the best and most cost-efficient American drone with 256 Hellfire missiles will not convince those stone-age people that they have to boot out the Taliban. Mr Karzai's soldiers are a band of drugs-addicts who only joined his army because they get free meals and clothing. The Taliban are the one and only functional Afghan army and they are respected by the locals because they are not corrupt losers. Not just respected, but supported.

The West has to accept that we punished the Taliban for harbouring AlQaeda and now it is time to get out. If they make trouble again - go in for punishment and go out again QUICKLY.

Or slowly bleed withe. That's what we currently do.

title

ah, spending much more £ on items which have less features than other cheaper items of the same class, well, business as usual then again in this country, eh?

What the hell?

The British army has been saying for ages that they want more robo drones, as soon as they get delivered, you then go and bleat about them not getting the kit they want?! You are picking the wrong project to slag off Lewis, there are others more deserving of even more of your (somewhat but not always flawed) analysis.

Buying defence kit directly from the Isrealis and directly supporting the Isreali arms biz who produce that kit with the specific purpose of bombing the crap out of Palestinians is a big political no no. (Damn those UK people for having some ethics!!) This approach, at least means the UK gets the good stuff without directly supporting what gets used on Palestinians (Hermes 450, the UK version, does not drop bombs). Holes can be picked in this argument I know, but are you suggesting a totally un-ethical buying policy?

Buying from the US is a pain in the arse. Everyone knows this, in fact everyone knows this so well, some countries have gone out of their way NOT to buy stuff from the US. Ask the Germans (who bought Isreali) or all the other countries like France and Italy who publically state they want European alternatives. The UK (and Italy) bought Reapers to support Afghanistan and they don't want to be totally reliant on this one very capable, but horribly restricted system. The UK has a great relationship with the US, but still cannot fully use Reaper to its full potential.

Sky Warrior and Reaper may be per unit cheaper, but the Yanks have poured billions into development and have more Reapers than most countries even have jets which makes the sums spent on Watchkeeper seem paltry by comparion. You just cannot compare the two systems in terms of costs like you have done. As for supporting people in the British economy, right now the economy needs all the cash it can get!

This article does a severe dis-service to British service men and women. I generally have some respect for the writing of this author, but this is so bad I feel quite peeved on their behalf!

Taffy-ho

Is it wrong that I'm imagining the MoD head honchos thought "hmm, test flight of armed UAV, might go wrong - ok we'll do it in Wales then. Tally-ho"

a Columbo moment !!!

Just one more question.....

Why the fuck are spending so much tax payers money on a Israili robo plane with onboard french radar tech?

shouldent we be developing our own robo plane with on-board british radar technology and other top secret items? then selling cut down versions to france and israil.

£17m for *this*

The words you got to be s^&*ing me come to mind.

Let's just hope its video downlink and command uplink are a little bit more secure than their American counterparts.

Crackistan

Two weeks ago three German soldiers were killed in an ambush that was fully supported by an Afghan village. The soldiers were looking for buried/hidden mines close to a village and everything appeared peaceful - villagers working on the fields, a party going on in the village.

Then the people on the fields disappeared and immediately after that all hell broke loose - heavy fire from machine guns out of the village from probably 40 Taleban. During the battle, three soldiers killed and an armoured vehicle destroyed by a mine dug in probably weeks before. The Taleban had virtually unlimited supply of ammo and tried to kill as many Germans as possible. Air strikes "not being possible" because "woman and children" were seen around the houses were the machine gun fire came from.

What's the lesson of that event ?

1.) The population supports the Taliban to the point of complete conspiracy and deception of NATO troops.

2.) They use "women and children" to protect themselves from airstrikes, because they know of the stupid NATO engagment policies on that.

3.) The Opposition has all the time they need to accumulate enormous amounts of weaponry and ammunition until they decide to stage an ambush.

Bottom Line: We are not fighting "the Taleban". That's a F**king Fairy Tale. We are fighting the Afghan people, who support their fighters, WE CHOSE TO CALL TALEBAN. They can blend into the "civilian population" anytime. Store weapons, ammo and supplies with "civilians".

Short of Hitler-style killing of populations supporting the enemy we could lock up probably 50 percent of the Afghan population in "reeducation camps". The efficiacy of reprisal killings is questionable, as the Russians discovered between 1978 and 1989. So even the "Hitler" solution might not work. Apart from our own moral questions about that.

SO: Stop believing into the DREAMWORLD OF POLITICIANS AND JOURNALISTS. We have to get out of this hell-hole right now.

Today, four more German soldiers died. For the f**king dreams of stupid Americans who can't cope with reality. And British lapdogs sucking up to them. And the German government emulating the British.

About time you learnt some economics

Think of it this way...

If the government spends 1M in the good ole US of A it costs 1M. (more - cos theres upgrades to follow)

If the government spends 1M in the UK it costs nothing!

How come?

Well firstly those well paid armsbiz jobs pay tax and NI, and then VAT on what they buy - so the government gets 51% back immediately. Then the remainder get spent in the british economy and more Tax and NI and VAT is paid. After a couple more cycles the government has got 100% back in tax and has kept a whole load of people in jobs.

Q.E.D.

No Welsh jokes yet?

It's barren ground though, not much scope for taffy-baiting.

I thought it was going to be about the new Cardiff blimp:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/cardiffonline/cardiff-news/2010/04/15/giant-cardiff-bay-balloon-is-granted-planning-permission-91466-26246342/

Sigh

Lewis has again outdone himself... Chip? I'd say the whole spud is on that shoulder.

Were you once frightened by a UK company that makes you want to run and spend your money on US kit so rapidly? (Where is the Chinook Mk3 angle? Could you not have worked that into this article??)

For the general audience... Thales, large multinational, owned by Johny Foreigner, but employing people in the UK (its a fact of life - get over it).

To the other AC with the columbo moment in mind - read the article not your prejustices (which are Lewis's prejustices anyway). The "Killer Drone" is unarmed. The clever stuff in the thing is UK based tech... if it wasn't they would still keep using the Hermies 450.

Iain - It's not a remote controlled plane... if it was it wouldn't cost that much - doh!

Its not a Reaper... Then it's not going to do that job. Also we dont need to be in a bunker in the states to use it with our special friends watching.

Posted as AC too as I clearly know more than I'm saying.

Er...

...haven't they been flying these drones for years for years here in Wales or have the journos just caught up with yesterday's news? One of the bays near here is littlered with the damned things that they've been flying and testing for decades.

@LPF

You are right that I have never been to Afghanistan. Have you ?

All I hear here is that the population helps the NATO Opposition whenever they can. They give them food, shelter (for men, weapons, ammo) and Intelligence. Where is the oppressed woman using her mobile phone to tip off the Germans that the "Taleban" are gathering in her village ? Why are these "women and children" running around a house that is used as an emplacement for a heavy manchine gun, so that bombers overhead don't drop a bomb ??

I can tell you - these "oppressed women" don't see it (which exists for at least 1000 years) as a problem. Rather they see US as a problem. That's why they ALL wage war against us.

We should really stop to see their life through OUR eyes. They don't like our presence in Afghanistan and their "vote" against that with heavy machine gun fire. Time to get out and just dump the politico's theory about the dangers of Terror nests there.

What we need to do is to properly secure our borders and incoming airliners and simply don't allow the muslims into our countries. Then it doesn't matter what they do in Afghanistan, Jemen or Somalia.

Anyway, there are more than two billions of Chinese and Indians who are 100% peaceful and happy to do business with us; I don't understand this Anglosaxon sympathy with those adherents of a brutal religion - must be a leftover from the time of Lawrence of Arabia....

127.0.0.1

Any chance of one of these picking me up from Schiphol airport or am I stuck here until this bloody volcano thing STFU?

call me when they

finally link the drones an xBox 360.

Obviously the enemy combatants will be using PS3's.

Netbook with Linux surely

The xbox has a fundamentally flawed os - I think I would want a bit of reliability so would be using Linux. You could always replace X with a Java windowing system to give a faster and more flexible interface - whoops - I've just invented Android.

Why Wales?

The reason Wales was chosen is because it very similar in terrain to Afghanistan. Think about it:

1, Mountainous terrain - Check

2, Deep valleies - Check

3, Large areas of sparce population - Check

4, Unfriendly populace - Check

5, Large qualtities of opiates - Check

Afghanistan / wired.com

To those still believing in the crap they get from those well-meaning politicos and journalists, please read this:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/army-researchers-why-the-kandahar-offensive-could-backfire/

The US Army themselves figured that the Afghan National Army and Police are considered a bunch of corrupt rent-seekers, while the "Taleban" are seen as incorruptible.

It may be Britishj(ish)

But is it any *good*?