It doesn't look quite bulletproof, does it.

That would scare the wossnames out of the kids and whilst we are at it - why not use one of those robo-dog thingies for the Mars explorer vehicles. It'd give the little green men the heeby-jeebies!

:)

Now the red button on the top looks like a good idea ..... is it

(1) A horn

(2) A thermonuclear detonator

(3) Emergency Stop

I don't think robots are intelligent enough or quick enough to do a task like this. Maybe when Skynet starts producing robots it will work.

My droid would take seconds to create,9 months to be built, 18 years of training and then given a sodding big gun and pointed towards the Hun (or other enemy as deemed fit).

How do you think the USSR defeated the Nazis ? Cold weather and wider tank tracks might have helped but shoving tens of millions of soldiers against the Nazi front line certainly did - many not having any weapons, most not even having working guns. Simply have more of our troops out there and supress the enemy.

Er, that's £10 million prize money please. And I hereby donate it to the 'Get a fcuking Chinook' fund (painted black or green, no matter).

10 out of 10.

If the UK government does buy a few helicoptors, what will Lewis find to write about then? How we need something else for the frontline troops rather than some other UK project? How about we stop investing in R&D for British troops and keep them using the same stuff they are using now? Its worked the past few years it can work 25 more, or we can always buy from the yanks because the British can't develop anything, and if they do decide to develop anything, Lewis will moan, complain and write another article asking why we are not buying it from the US.

Please replace this "journalist" with someone who is not so biased.

Look up a guy by the name of Frances Tusa, he's not cheap, but he actually has a clue about Defence Procurement

Well the UK have just spent [insert amount] on [specify tech]. The USA version of [specify tech] is better than the BAE system of [specify tech] and comes in grey. In summary [specify tech] could have got the hard working school-drop-out front-liners X amount of Chinooks [where x = y (y = ∑ spent on [specify tech]) / 10,300,000)]. Then we could really do Viet- ahem, Afghanistan in style!

If only they would think of the children!

I think is more likely at the use of spin to talk up things like this competition rather than to be direct and say it is to encourage research for the future , near or far. The winner is just a variation on the gear the army has used for years in Northern Ireland for bomb disposal, and of no use in the current theatres at all.

The point is that British troops in the current theatres are not as well equipped as they might be and spending even as little as 10 million now on goodies that the military actually want and need now, would be more useful to them. To make out that they have the troops best interests at heart with an item like this is bullshit. It's just a PR exercise to make the MoD appear to be concerned.Don't make the mistake of thinking the MoD is the army it is not . It is the governmental body that is between Parliament and the armed forces and it's job is to get messages about the needs and requirements of each side back to each other.

Very often ( particularly in between major conflicts ( like WWII) ) what the MoD wants and what the army want can be very different. My impression is that having seen some service Lewis is giving the army's point of view rather than just being negative, which I am inclined to agree with. If I am wrong Lewis I apologise for putting words in your mouth.

I think Team Stella would have done a better job. That would be me and a few mates knocking something together after some beers...

@AC surely you jest and read much fiction and wankee propaganda do we ?

But alas , obviously if that was the case of lack of arms for the average Russian infantry foot soldier in WW2 then Finland would have lost both rounds in the winter war of 1939(the average Finnish Infantry Soldier had to be sent to the front self equipped for the first month or two from his own home stores) and the six week summer war of 1944 and both times Uncle Joe said the magic word "I give up , just what is their problem of this rebellious former Tsarist province rejecting me as their dear leader for all of the three rounds since 1919 ? "!

They did not , as history tell us their Russian counterparts left ample fully loaded equipment to supply several armies just lying on the ground for any fool to pick up and use to shoot at those much fewer remaining smarter ones standing in the fifth row who wisely chose retreat over advance !

Not a reader of real history I see , but believing in propaganda can be fatal to one's health at the best of times !

How about a standard form for people to complain about LP's articles? They obviously don't have time to actually read the article, so they shouldn't have to waste time thinking up a pointless uninformed comment as well.

The whole *point* of this article is that the UK is pretending that this is actually going to end up in the field, as opposed to DARPA who are up front that their contests are purely for R&D purposes.

R&D in any field almost never goes from concept to product in 18 months, even rarer with military equipment. If that really was the goal, then they would be far better off just getting more of the kit that is here already.

In any case, I didn't see any mention of the word "Chinook" in the article.

if there was 10M worth of kit that was actually needed this week they'd almost certainly get it. The flow of new stuff is unabated and some of it is replaced with the latest version with each 6 month troop rotation. There's also a lot of battle experimentaion to try and sort the 'great idea' from the 'really useful on the ground', not doubt anything emerging from the Grand Challenge will get the same treatment. It's also clear that the real shortages are of some of the new items for training in UK before deployment. Perhaps at bit less attention to tired tabloid headlines and quotes from the immortal private tommy snooks, instant expert on everything.

I'd give all the crap about more Chinooks at bit of examination too, crews may be a more pressing need and if extra were really needed then no doubt funds could found, one teeny problem - delivery time in years. Big surprise I know, but you can't just pop down to the showroom and fly one away. It's also noteworthy that most movement in Afghanistan in totally unsuitable for Chinooks, it's boots on the ground stuff from the local forward operating base. Swanning around the desert in 4WDs doesn't contribute a huge amount either (just because that's what jolly jack does at sea doesn't mean tommy does it ashore).