These are the 🇬🇧 UK's HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carriers.

First, as you can see in this picture, only one actually carries aircraft. The UK barely had enough money to buy the F-35B for one. For the other the Blairites expected the US Marine Corps
1/9 to provide the required aircraft, because the two carriers were bought so the Royal Navy could fight alongside the US Navy against China in the Pacific.

But the US does NOT want the British carriers anywhere near its carrier strike groups, because the UK carriers would slow
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🇬🇧 decline: Only one SSN is operational, three are no longer fit for service and got no crews. One carrier has no air wing and has been sent to rust away. The other carrier only has an air wing when the RAF cedes a third of its fighters. Only 1 destroyer is operational. The
1/5 frigates are falling apart. New Type 31 frigates won't get Mark 41 VLS or bow Sonar. The RAF took 48 of its Eurofighters apart, because it got no money for spares. The army has just 14 155mm howitzers. The Ajax vehicle is injuring the troops it carries. The Warrior IFVs are
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International Law is worthless paper if you cannot and will not back it up with military power.

Dictators do not care for international law. But they fear the US Air Force. The moment the US signaled it would no longer back "international law" putin annexed Crimea and Assad
1/10 gassed his people. International Law is what defence laggards hide behind to not have to spend for their own security (hoping the US will save them from their irresponsibility) .

European politicians like to grandstand about "international law" but NO European nation has the
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All this "NATO is unprepared for the use of drones like the war in Ukraine" is ridiculous, because:

• of course NATO is unprepared for the use of drones like the war IN (!) Ukraine,
• because that is not how a NATO-russia war will be fought. NATO, even just European NATO,
1/4 fields: 244 F-35, 403 Eurofighter, 183 Rafale, 177 modern F-16, 3 Gripen E, and 896 older fighter types.
A total of 1,906+ fighters (without the US Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force; and with more new fighters entering European service every week).

russia, when counting
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Gripen fans keep hyping the Gripen with fake claims & as long as they do, I will counter them:

Scandinavian Air Force officer about the Gripen E: It can either be fully fueled or fully armed or flown from short runways. Never can 2 of these things be done at the same time.
1/25 The Gripen fans keep claiming that the Gripen has a better range than the F-35 and can fly from short runways... then admit that its max. range can only be achieved with external fuel tanks, which weigh so much that the Gripen E can no longer fly from short runways.
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Gripen fans continue to spam my mention with claims how fantastic Sweden's Bas 90 and Gripen combination is... and that it would work for Canada's North too...

Ok, let's quickly compare Canada's three northern territories (Yukon, Northwest, Nunavut) and Sweden... ...
1/6 Land area:
🇸🇪 450,295 km2 (173,860 sq mi)
🇨🇦 terr.: 3,593,589 km2 (173,860 sq mi)

The land area of just the three territories (without Canada's 10 provinces) is already 8 times bigger than all of Sweden...
(In total Canada's land area is 9,984,670 km2
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Saab loooves to tout the claim that the Gripen can "operate from dispersed air bases".

They do that, because they know no one of you knows what it means. And every time I see someone regurgite "dispersed air bases" (or "road runways" or "short runways") I know I am dealing
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with someone, who knows absolutely nothing about the topic.
So allow me to take you on a deep dive into what "operating from dispersed air bases" actually means.
Let's start with Såtenäs Air Base in Southern Sweden - the most important Swedish air base.
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The 11th Airborne Division is the least likely to be used to invade #Greenland.
The division's deputy commander is Canadian. He is responsible for Operations. The 11th would have to arrest part of their own officers, before being able to plan a Greenland invasion.
Also
1/6 there are just 8 C-17 Globemaster aircraft at Elmendorf Air Force Base. The USAF would need to fly a dozen more up to Alaska, which of course Canada would notice. Then to reach Greenland the C-17 would have to cross Canada's North, which NORAD's Canadian officers would report
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This is a typical clown tweet by someone, who knows nothing about WWII.

3 years before D-Day, the Soviets & nazis were in a love-feast, while the US had not entered the war; & when it did it had to cross an ocean full of nazi submarines to stage troops & materiel for D-Day.
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https://twitter.com/ShoahUkraine/status/2006761522979360956

And unlike the warmongering Soviets, which in June 1941 fielded 304 divisions, the US Army fielded just 37 divisions when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (+ two Marine Corps divisions).
Before any D-Day the US Army had to start forming new divisions (38 in 1942 and 17 in 1943) &
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The @RoyalAirForce - once the strongest air force in Western Europe... but now...

7 Eurofighter Typhoon squadrons are expected to fulfill the tasks, for which 35 years ago the RAF fielded 40 squadrons (31 active & 4 reserve + 5 shadow squadrons, which would have been formed
1/27 from the personnel & fighters of the RAF's operational conversion units).

At the end of the Cold War these 40 squadrons were assigned to 4 commands, each with a specific mission & enough aircraft to fulfill their mission.

No. 1 Group was tasked with striking Soviet forces
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Since there are still people claiming the Gripen is the "ideal fighter for Canada"... here are the refueling stops the Gripen C/D needed to get from Ronneby in Sweden to Eielson Air Base in Alaska.

So of course this is an "ideal fighter" for Canada... as it will have to stop
1/5 at every Canadian airfield to refuel...

For the curious ones:

On 13 July 2006 five Gripen C and two Gripen D left
their base in Ronneby Sweden. They refueled at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, then flew to NAS Keflavik in Iceland, where they refueled and stayed overnight.
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I was asked to talk about Austria's Armed Forces... which is a bit boring, because surprisingly their armed forces get so much right.

Yes, the Austrians are some of the worst sanctions ignorers when it comes to russia, and they host the biggest russian signals intelligence
1/22 station outside of russia, and are home to the largest number of russian intelligence operators after London, but when it comes to the Austrian Army and Austrian Air Force procurement there is little to criticize... except of course that many of their officers are compromised
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Italy has ordered its first KF41 Lynx infantry fighting vehicles... but there is a twist.

As the Italian Army is in a rush to ready its forces to battle invading russians in the Baltics (& Finland), the first 5 × KF41 will arrive within weeks in the Hungarian configuration.
1/8 That means there won't be any Italianization of the first 5 × KF41. The Italian Army feels that it can't wait for that. Training has to start ASAP.

Therefore these 5 × KF41 will come with Rheinmetall's Lance Turret with 30mm MK30-2/ABM autocannon. Along with these KF41 Italy
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I am relaxed about the US ending the rotation of a light brigade through Romania.

Yes, it is bad optics and russia will use it for its propaganda, BUT two armored brigades, a combat aviation brigade, a division artillery, a division sustainment brigade, and a division HQ
1/4 continue to rotate to Poland and the Baltics.

Right now the:
• 3rd Infantry Division HQ (arrived in Poland 4 days ago - photo)
• 1st Armored Brigade, 1st Infantry Division
• 3rd Armored Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division
• 3rd Division Artillery
• 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade
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Of course russia can quickly seize the Suwałki Gap and cut of the Baltics from the rest of NATO... but have you had a look at Kaliningrad's border and the flat dry country beyond?

There are 9 Polish brigades in that area (and 11 in reserve, with 4 more forming). Sure russia
1/5 could move 50,000+ men to Kaliningrad to secure the border or build a defence line along the Pregoła river... but those need to be supplied from Belarus, which also is easily invaded unless russia sends 50,000+ troops to secure its flank there. A buildup of 200,000+ russian
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In 1982 the 🇬🇧 Royal Navy deployed 43 ships to the South Atlantic for the Falklands War, including:

• 2 aircraft carriers
• 2 landing platform docks
• 8 destroyers
• 16 frigates
• 6 attack submarines

and even though this fleet sailed South the Royal Navy still had
1/4 enough destroyers, frigates and submarines to fulfill its NATO role. Today the Royal Navy fields in total:

• 2 aircraft carriers
• 6 destroyers
• 8 (soon 7) frigates
• 5 (soon 6) submarines

Mainly because the Royal Navy spent all its shipbuilding budget on two oversized
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The North Atlantic - one of the key battles in a russia-Europe war.

If Europe is defeated here, which with Europe's current forces and capabilities, is almost certain to happen... then russia can nuke the UK without fear of retaliation.

This will be a unsettling thread:
1/40 This battle will be very different from the battles in the Black Sea and Baltic Sea, which I discussed in an early thread, which is linked below.

To understand the North Atlantic Battle we need to look at Imperial Germany's WWI submarine campaign,


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https://x.com/noclador/status/1963672692990816364

2 days ago I did a thread about the reasons russia can't defeat Ukraine and yet is still a deadly threat to Europe and NATO (link to the thread the next tweet).

Today I will talk about three of the fronts of a russia-Europe war:
1) Black Sea
2) Baltic Sea
3) North Atlantic

1/36 These three fronts will be air and sea battles, while Finland and the Baltics will be air and land battles; about which I will talk in another thread in the coming days.

I do not believe the US under control of Trump or Vance would come to the aid
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https://x.com/noclador/status/1962651802802770133

• russia has no chance to defeat Ukraine
• russia is a deadly threat to NATO and the EU

Both of these are true... because as of 2025 Ukraine fields a far more capable military than NATO's 30 European members combined (!).

Let me explain.
1/39 As of August 2025 russia fields more than 1,3 million troops; at least half of which are fighting in or against Ukraine.

Ukraine has an estimated 1 million troops... maybe even 1,1 million troops. NATO's European members have double that: some 2.2 million troops, but
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People forget that for most if its history Europe was much, much more militarized than even during the Cold War.

Italy, from the end of the Third War of Independence in 1866 to 1939 fielded always 360-400 battalions, which fell to 110-115 during the Cold War, as the US
1/14 backed its European allies with the its massive air force. Today Italy fields 41 battalions (infantry, tanks, recon, special forces, rangers).

Likewise the British Army fielded for most of its history (especially after the 1908 Haldane reforms) 450-480 battalions, which came
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This is Berlin.

And this is how Berlin would look like 3 days after putin attacks Europe... because Germany doesn't have the air defence ammo to defend any of its city for more than 2 days.
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This is Copenhagen.

And this is how Copenhagen would look like the morning after putin attacks Europe... because Denmark doesn't have any air defence to defend itself.
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