Stabilisation Practitioner, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Birmingham, MBE, Defence & History, Literature, Tech - work 130 warzones so far. Have dog.
Both BRAKESTOP and NIGHTFALL are sovereign developed, ITAR-free and domestically produced capabilities, like FC/ASW, but unlike the Anglo-French-Italian MBDA missile programme and to be low cost and rapidly developed for fielding before 2030. 
On the 'The Wargame' Sky podcast, Gen. Sir Richard Barrons, one of the SDR architects, said an 'Iron Dome' for the UK would cost £24 billion and is thus unaffordable.
Introduction of an ACP to FAA needs to be timed with a 2030s MLU of the carriers, but can enter service earlier with the RAF, initially as part of UK IAMD and for the SEAD/DEAD mission, increasing mass in the fast jet force. 
During the 18th and early 19th centuries the sloop was formalised as an unrated single gundeck warship of 18 guns, under the command of a 'Master and Commander' rather than a post Captain. Smaller than frigates, they were used for trade protection on distant outposts. 
Like the Bitterns, they would be built to naval standards, but power was raised from 3,300 to 19,000 shp on two shafts, giving a speed of 28 knts.
The 'P' class were armed with five 4" HA guns for improved AA performance. 
They had a heavier torpedo and ASW armament than the Battles - 10 torpedo tubes and twin 'squid' ASW mortars, and were optimised for ASW escort of carrier groups. 
Four were completed with four twin 4" HA mounts in place of the 4.7" barbettes, and it was found the better AA performance and higher rate of fire of the 4" guns offset the loss in weight of shot.
As some of the most modern destroyers in Royal Navy service during the first two years of the war, they were heavily engaged in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Inidan Ocean, and 13 of the 24 ships were lost - mostly to aircraft while on convoy escort duties in the Med. 
By mid-1941, the wartime shipbuilding programme began to pay dividends, with large numbers of smaller combatants coming into service.
Yet during the second half of 1941, Malta's light cruisers and destroyers of Force K and B, u-class coastal submarines and Swordfish torpedo bombers had sunk 60% of Axis shipping supplying North Africa. 
By the end of 1940, they had been joined by the walking wounded from the Mediterranean war. 
Adm Tovey, C-in-C Home Fleet, could afford to detach Force H to Gibraltar with Hood, Valiant, Resolution and Ark Royal to counter Vichy French naval forces in North Africa, and send the battleships Warspite and Barham and the new carrier Illustrious to the Mediterranean. 
Churchill's immediate concern in June 1940 was the fate of the French fleet. 
Much of the phoney war was taken up by an operation to hunt down the surface raiders Deutchland and Graf Spee, both of which set sail for the Atlantic a week before the invasion of Poland.
The Arctic convoy route was one of three major arteries to deliver lend-lease to the USSR, along with the Persian rail corridor from the Gulf to the Caucasus and Bering Straights from Alaska.
The British 'standing' Army was founded after the restoration of the Monarchy, in 1660. 
The bar at the British Legion was packed with men and women who never spoke of their wartime experiences, but if one dug a little would turn out to have been a RAF tailgunner or an able seaman on arctic convoys. It wasnt unusual, or special, to have done so. 