Rearming the UK: What equipment? and how much?

Scott Kenny said:
Didn't General Atomics have an AEW radar pod they'd made for the Mojave/Reaper STOL?

3-5 of those onboard would have my vote.
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Yes I think GA showed a AEW solution with 3 “pods” at Farnborough 2023. Does anyone have the show report on this or GAs follow up. I believe that SAAB were developing a mini erieye for GA.
 
Forest Green said:
The rail yard just opposite Doncaster train station was converted to producing artillery pieces during WWI and II.
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I'm well aware of the wartime shadow production facilities, however these kept manufacturers mostly working within their own expertise - woodworking firms built wooden componenents, bus builders built tank transmissions and so on. Military technology, and car-building technology has evolved away from being able to easily do that.

The Telegraph's story is paywalled, but the degree of insight can be seen in their citing of Morris Motors in WWII, who were basically a disaster when they tried to manage work outside their automobile comfort zone. They were supposed to manage Castle Bromwich production of Spitfires, but wanted to use automobile technology, ignore the production drawings, and, amongst other things, redesign all the curves into straight lines. Disaster was only averted when Beaverbrook basically scammed Nuffield into handing the whole thing back to government.

Modern automobile production is no longer general tin-kicking, it's slapping together just-in-time delivered parts from all over the world. You'd need to change over the entire supply chain to get anything useful, and even then the assembly lines are so tightly optimised you'd probably be better off starting over on a green-field site.
 

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