I made a mistake. I’m so sorry.

Stop press: FE news bulletin.

A day or two ago I wrote that santa had been shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile. I was wrong. It transpires that they were not the culprits. The real villains are exposed below in the article.

The US Air Force, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), in a gross case of mistaken identity, disintegrated Santa Clause and his 18 reindeer over Washington airspace this evening. Apparently, the heavy red man was flying over restricted airspace when he was mistaken for an intercontinental ballistic missile and was disintegrated on the spot.
The pilots of the two, F-18 Navy Hornet Fighters sent to the area say they tried to contact the object and unleashed several AIM-9 sidewinder missiles into the side of his sleigh after he failed to respond.

Volunteers who were working with NORAD Santa Tracking Operations Center (STOC) were dismayed when they had to break the bad news. Children, who were busy calling in and sending emails wanting to get a fix on Santa Claus' whereabouts before the incident occurred, were shocked to hear the news.

Those kids who were watching live, 3-D video-stream footage of the jolly saint getting blown to smithereens had it the worst said volunteers.

"What kid is going to understand that their number one hero was blown to smithereens just doing his job?" said children's advocate and author, Jonothan Kozel.

Social workers were being called in from all over Washington and locations outside the DC area to deal with the crises. Crisis centers opened throughout the city so that families could take their children for help dealing with strong emotions.

When asked again if he thought that the two Navy fighters acted in haste, Keating said, "We're a defensive organization. We have no intention of conducting offensive operations unless we're attacked. Those two fighters tried to make contact with him, but there was no response on his part. We're not even sure if that was the real Santa Clause, or a Communist impostor."

Researchers compared tonight's incident with the US Army Infantry fiasco reported earlier this month whereby US Abrams tanks blew up the Buddhas of Bamiya during a morning target practice exercise.
Researchers say that it has been too long a journey for the Fourth Century Bishop, over 1,600 years, to end up disintegrated in the sights of an F-18 aircraft.

This is a sad day for everybody.

In other news today, the US Navy has another one of their submarines in trouble off the coast of Australia. Apparently giant sperm whales are being attracted to the submarines for some reason.
Navy officials are not sure if it is the Navy's sonar that the giant whales are attracted to, or just the design, or if Cuba is feeding the giant fish large doses of Macca to stimulate it's sexual appetite to disable the subs. This issue is currently under investigation.

SOURCE

And Merry Christmas to the source.

Good does not mean expensive.

In relation to my last post about the expensive MRA4 debacle, I cannot understand why we always seem to go for expensive weapons systems suited for the cold war, that has been over for some time.

Now I was at sea for a considerable number of years and saw a tendency for the ordering  of very expensive high tech warships but few in number. The problem as I see it, is that those ships cannot patrol all our vested interests. To give you an example we had one Frigate/Destroyer and a support Tanker in the Caribbean undergoing counter drug operations, disaster relief, and protection for our Dependencies. We had another small warship in the Falklands along with a support tanker.

Now we have one minor war vessel in the Falklands, most of the time no warship in the Caribbean, and one support tanker trying to cover both areas.

In the past after the Falklands conflict we normally had a Type 21 Frigate and a cheap and cheerful Rover class tanker in each area of operation.

This gets me to  the point I would like to make. Why don’t we either build/buy some cheap and cheerful frigates armed with a gun on the front, a point defence missile system, and a reasonable anti submarine detection system.

Another idea would be to build more “Wave Class” Auxiliary Oilers (AO) which have proved themselves in the Caribbean by the very fact that with their fuel capacity, their facility to carry a Law Enforcement Detachment  Team from the US coastguard, Helicopter, weapons, etc, they have become a range extender for the coalition in the fight against drugs. (Incidentally I was on an AO out in the Caribbean, where we intercepted 32 Tonnes of Cocaine being shipped to Europe). Present armament Two 30mm powered mounts, two Mk 48 miniguns, and five GPMGs. Plus active decoy systems, ECM, and ESM. Plus the provision to fit CIWS phalanx.

Pic is of a minigun.

Armament could be enhanced by buying something like THIS. That would be quite sufficient.

Lets think numbers, rather mine’s bigger than yours.

And don’t get me started on Eurofighter Typhoon.