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We are friends with Russia now, we have a whole range of countries who we have invaded more recently...

History[edit]

In July 2001, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) was split into two parts, Dstl and Qinetiq. Dstl was established to carry out science and technology work that is best done within government,[4] while the majority and that suitable for industry was transferred to QinetiQ, a wholly owned government company before being floated on the stock exchange.

I knew DERA turned into QuietiQ, looks like dstl is the spookier of the two.

N.
 

Urwumpe

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We are friends with Russia now, we have a whole range of countries who we have invaded more recently...

I don't really meant militarily challenged... rather challenged by the technological aspect, since right now, Russia is the country with the fastest cruise missiles. :cheers:
 

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Russia was bound to have the fastest, they like that sort of thing. Can't see the Sabre engine being suitable, it needs that curved shape. Mind you that's only for Skylon, wonder if they can make a straight version for the military?
 

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Russia was bound to have the fastest, they like that sort of thing. Can't see the Sabre engine being suitable, it needs that curved shape. Mind you that's only for Skylon, wonder if they can make a straight version for the military?

Not sure if the straight version is really needed, but then a cruise missile does not really need all that precooler stuff, since it does not need to be multi-cycle.

What could be more interesting would be a cruise missile transporting UAV, which can do Mach 5...
 

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That link only mentions the heat exchanger.

The heat exchanger technology is, from what I've heard, extraordinary. I'm sure that it has MANY potential applications civil and military.

Don't assume that it's limited to high speed propulsion.
 

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Don't assume that it's limited to high speed propulsion.

By the costs of that complex technology, you can be sure that it won't fly in a cruise missile. If it costs more to build a cruise missile, than the target that it could hit, its not really for your advantage. Wars of attrition are popular.
 

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By the costs of that complex technology, you can be sure that it won't fly in a cruise missile. If it costs more to build a cruise missile, than the target that it could hit, its not really for your advantage. Wars of attrition are popular.

What are you talking about?

You seem very naive to the military industrial complex.

Weapons destroying targets less expensive than themselves has been going on all century.

If what you said was true, there would be no air campaign against ISIS, for example.
 

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What are you talking about?

You seem very naive to the military industrial complex.

Weapons destroying targets less expensive than themselves has been going on all century.

If what you said was true, there would be no air campaign against ISIS, for example.

Think about it then - what do you have gained by it? Have you defeated IS? Have you even threatened them economically? Can you at least talk about political victories against IS?

In the past, military strategists had been at least been naive enough to consider that a NATO tank, that costs as much as six Warsaw Pact tanks, should also at least kill six such tanks before getting disabled.

For the IS, I can tell you so much: Right now, your air campaign is a nuisance, that the IS might even turn to their advantage. You need at least a 40,000 USD SDB for knocking out a 250 USD truck with a 500 USD heavy machine gun - often manned by some guy who is easily replaced, since his training did not cost a few hundred thousand USD. And there are many such trucks, which are easily taken by IS warlords for mounting cheap weapons on them. Of course you take out targets. You do cause damage. BDA will look fine. But on the strategical balance sheet - what have you gained?

Guess how well that math fares on the US home front. You bomb, increase Boeings revenue, but have to explain your voters why there is the IS again pushing into the next power vacuum.

The bigger the impact of firing a weapon on your economy gets in relation to the damage it causes on your enemies economy, the harder it gets to get a political victory, regardless how many tactical victories you have (see Vietnam there)

That is now getting worth a new thread in the basement, if you mind.
 

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None of what you just said has any relevance to the point at hand.

In fact, I meant precisely that your type of cost benefit analysis is obviously not a factor as to whether a weapon system will be build or used.
 

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None of what you just said has any relevance to the point at hand.

In fact, I meant precisely that your type of cost benefit analysis is obviously not a factor as to whether a weapon system will be build or used.

You should not deduce from the fact that you are unable to understand the argumentation, that it has no relevance or is not a factor about the usefulness of a weapon system.
 

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I can when the topic of discussion was whether a weapons system would be built or used, not whether it would be "useful".
 

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I can when the topic of discussion was whether a weapons system would be built or used, not whether it would be "useful".

Look, we can have lengthy discussions about useless weapon systems. A German called Adolf would play a very popular role in that soap opera.

But if you want to talk about sane, rational decision makers engineering a weapon towards a requirement, which itself was defined by rational people, you better look at the definition of "useful". If you start to place your bets on Wunderwaffen, you have likely already lost the war.

We could also discuss about useful weapons, which simply turned out too expensive and complex for its role (You could also call it: Too good). The MBT-70 should be good example for that category - both M1 and Leopard 2 are today in their latest and most advanced versions cheaper than the projected costs of the MBT-70. Likely many current US weapons will also get a favourable mention in that category, since many developments of the late 80s and early 90s are still waiting for the war they had been designed for.
 
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We weren't having a conversation about sane, rational decision makers.

You were having that with yourself, apparently.
 

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Godwin's Law has reared its ugly head in our Reaction Engines thread! :lol:

FWIW monetary value is not the determining factor in war; if I can take out a $10 antenna using a million-dollar missile, and taking out said antenna leads me to win the war, then the trade-off was worth it.

Likewise, if I can spend billions of dollars on superweapons that will never be used (like ICBMs), simply because their existence deters their use and prevent my country from being destroyed, than I might find it worth "wasting" all that money, know that if my scheme works then the net value of targets destroyed will be zero.

In any case, engine technology as advanced as that being developed by Reaction is never going to be overlooked by the military, especially the part of the military that exists solely to examine futuristic tech. It may ultimately be judged too expensive or impractical for military uses, but only after it's been examined.

Orion-drive nuclear pulse propulsion is a good example of this.
 

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FWIW monetary value is not the determining factor in war; if I can take out a $10 antenna using a million-dollar missile, and taking out said antenna leads me to win the war, then the trade-off was worth it.

If you can take it out by dropping a $0.1 brick from a UAV, you also have won the war and still have the million-dollar missile for taking out the targets that really require it - require could for example mean: Other weapons in your repertoire would result in much higher effort and might have higher chances of losing an expensive unit.

Also, you have to admit that a $10 antenna is likely not that hard to be replaced that you can win the war by taking it out. Even damaging multi-million radar antennas with a HARM did not yet win a war, it often just takes a few hours to fix the damage.

And if your enemy forces you to fire million dollar missiles at $10 antennas, that can be replaced in a few minutes, you quickly run out of expensive missiles and money, which then limits your ability to wage war and results in a lost war, even if you might have won many unimportant battles in unimportant places.

And if you invest 40% of your resources into hunting something that represents just 1% of the enemies resources, you have only 60% left for the remaining 99% of the enemy. Many idiots in history have managed well to underestimate these 99% - especially in the USA recently. Or did the US armed forces defeat the Taliban? Al Quaida is now even some sort of an ally in the war against IS.

Sorry, maybe you are not liking it, call me a McNamara, but you have to say that the US warfare efficiency looks like that: 3% goes against the enemy, 97% into the pockets of the shareholders.

(Of course, I know that in a real war, you have to use sometimes an expensive tank shell for taking out a cheap target. But don't mistake this with designing a special expensive shell for such cheap targets. In war, you have to use what you have available when you need it. In strategic planning, you make sure that you have the right weapon for the right target available at the right place at the right time)
 
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http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/news_updates.html

Monday 28th December 2015

The Board of Reaction Engines Ltd is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Allam, Engineering Director at BAE Systems, as a Director of the Company. His appointment is part of the strategic investment and working partner relationship BAE Systems has entered into with Reaction Engines and he will co-ordinate BAE Systems’ collaboration on Reaction Engines’ development of its SABRE™ engine.

Good news I think, moving toward more development than research. More metal-bashing this year!

N.
 
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