Shipbucket

That is a very good point.

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Salide - Denton - The Interrealms

I am not very active on the forums anymore, but work is still being done on my AUs. Visit the Salidan Altiverse Page on the SB Wiki for more information. All current work is being done on Google Docs.
If anyone wishes for their nations to interact with the countries of the Salidan Altiverse, please send me a PM, after which we can further discuss through email.

On the other hand, that's been pretty much a constant state of affairs in the western world for almost half a century.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

That's very true. Unfortunately the credit cards are maxed out and no one is giving anymore credit until they see that first trillion they loaned out to them. lol

[/quote]I'd rather have 16 F-35s than 24 Rafales.[/quote]

...and this is why the western world is in the trouble its in right now. You want to spend more money on less because the F-35 has a much cooler cigarette lighter. There's a term called "economy of force". Inflict the maximum amount of damage on your opponent using the minimum amount of force. The Rafale can truck bombs just as well as the F-35 and can do it cheaper. Also since you have more of them compared to the F-35 you can attack more targets simultaneously.

Britain isn't broke, we just don't care about defence. US economy is in a worse position relative to where it was, yet it retains defence spending >2x higher than Britain per capita. Britain would rather keep welfare spending high, which is fair enough from the politicians' vote-buying perspective.
Or rather, much cooler everything. If the criteria was just to haul bombs around at the lowest price per mass we would use freight planes (converted airliners, or converted business jets for carriers). Ability to survive, and to detect targets, is unfortunately necessary also, and that's what causes the expense.

Yes you are correct and civilian aircraft have been converted for military use. See the early beginnings of the Luftwaffe. The C-47 and C-130 have been used in combat "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "Spectre". However you have to find the right balance of hi tech and affordability because governments don't have unlimited amounts of money no matter how much they print or tax and all that money is spent on other things besides the military. The Soviets had many military projects on the drawing board that were never built because they cost too much.