Britain's buying in a bit more.
"German robotics firm ARX Robotics has begun manufacturing autonomous ground systems in the United Kingdom after securing its first contract with the British Army, the company announced Wednesday.
"The April 15 award, issued through the Army’s Task Force RAPSTONE, covers an initial order of UK-manufactured GEREON uncrewed ground vehicles that will support ongoing experimentation with reconnaissance and strike operations. The contract also includes intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance payloads as well as technical support for the Army’s Recce-Strike innovation activities."
German robotics firm ARX Robotics has begun manufacturing autonomous ground systems in the United Kingdom after securing its first contract with the British Army, the company announced Wednesday. The April 15 award, issued through the Army’s Task Force RAPSTONE, covers
defence-blog.com
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The UK is broke.
The Chancellor (Finance Minister) is from a party whose support comes from those who "have not" and are convinced that those who "have" got what they don't have by illicit means.
There is no money for defence.
At the same time most of the capital budget is tied up in long lead items that will deliver small volumes of last decade solutions at a slow pace sometime beyond 2030.
The Air Force has struggled to get fighters and helicopters delivered and maintained.
The Navy can't find sailors to keep its ships crewed, the ships on hand have sub-optimal availabilities if they aren't self-divesting, and the rest are being released and scrapped.
The Army has spent a couple of decades to deliver a vehicle that is a health hazard to its crews, that is of a class of vehicle that has been successfully targeted in Ukraine and Azerbaijan, and that is seeking a new scheme of operations.
Meanwhile shadow fleet ships and Russian subs are circumnavigating the islands at will, crossing critical infrastructure, supplying launch platforms for UxVs of all domains, gathering intelligence, constraining navigation, burning up British revenues and adding to Russian, Chinese and Iranian revenues.
Pretty dire.
The only people who faced a more dire situation were the Ukrainians on Feb 21 2022.
But they're still here four years later.
And they did it by doing things differently.
If you have to wait until 2030 to put a hull in the water what value are the hundreds of millions of pounds you are spending on keeping those Glaswegians employed to you militarily.
How many people could you employ immediately in Portsmouth and Plymouth building more 11m launches for uncrewed service and using them to deploy sensors, ROVs, mines, depth bombs, torpedoes and missiles of all sorts? And start launching them tomorrow?
If you aren't getting any value out of the millions sunk into a rattling tin can to assist your troops why not stop the contract and invest in FPVs, OWADs, Missiles, UGVs and EW suites?
If your air fleet isn't what you need but you can start turning out more of those Qinetiq target drones for pennies on the pound then why not stop spending on American F35s with no approved weapons and start spending on building and upgrading those drones?
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The nature of war is changing. Not willingly but due to changed circumstances.
Rheinmetall, dissing Ukrainian Hausfrauen, and Lockmart and RTX are struggling to keep up and stay relevant. So is the entire defence apparatus in all countries.
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China's invasion plans for Taiwan will needd to be rewritten.
Floating highways and piers are now only really big and slow moving targets.
www.fanucamerica.com
