Dawes

Does Oman still use a number of contracted UK personnel in it's armed forces?

Well, in a world of polymer-framed handguns the Omanis selected the Beretta 92 as their Hi-Power replacement (back in 2017). So I guess they pretty much go their own way. Or Beretta had the most generous bribes.

What sort of threat were the Omanis? You hardly hear much about Oman in the news, which is kind of unusual given their location.

Europe has made some inroads to the US market with the UH-72 Lakota and the MH-139 Gray Wolf. If we had selected the Airbus KC-45 (the USAF's original choice), we may have had some serviceable tankers by now.

Wonder if the US Army's "Future Long Range Assault Aircraft" would meet requirements? Bell and Sikorsky/Boeing already have flying demonstrators. And these days, a clean-sheet-of-paper aircraft is fiendishly expensive.

Think this will make it all the way through to production? Five European allies sign on to build NATO’s next medium-lift helicopter (defensenews.com)

Companies like SAAB or NAMMO could probably get the job done with a minimum of fuss. NAMMO came through with acceptable AIM-120 motors when the US manufacturer couldn't deliver due to test failures.

An updated propellant (or grain configuration) might give you more range and/or speed.

If price is a critical factor, presumably CAESAR is the less expensive option?

Seems like foreign-sourced components are proving to be this vehicle's Achilles heel: https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/11/19/turkey-in-talks-with-south-korea-to-salvage-altay-tank-program/

Sounds like Future Combat Systems redux? Although this system seems to actually work.

Archer would seem to offer a higher level of automation and crew protection: https://www.janes.com/defence-news/n...er-competition https://www.janes.com/defence-news/n...nt-competition

Haven't heard very much about the UAE's combat performance in the Yemen conflict. Wonder if they did any better than the Saudis?

To digress a bit, on the model kit front what external changes would be necessary to make a UAE LeClerc from a French LeClerc kit?

It's hard to keep track of the players without a program.