The photo is from Christmas Day 2010 over Helmand Province, it is a RN Sea King, the guy is (was) a Petty Officer, and it is a GPMG - that's standard for all door gun mounts in the British forces with the exception of the C-130J where costs inhibited changing the existing mount from the M240, so we just bought them instead. :sunny:

For a price I can also supply the name of the PO, and the photographer. :O:

What is rationale behind privatization? What you do when pilots are in strike? :hmmm: I assume they are full civilians and can't bge forced to fly? :o

Send in the reserves, so long as you want something doing on a weekend or bank holiday...:O:

(Just kidding, please don't hit me!:timeout:)

Well, the army first, so long as it's not a Thursday. :O:

Part of the ever closer to the bone budget cuts of the UK, it's a form of tradition that every British government since World War II takes a giant axe to the military, but the trouble they're running into now is that they're running out of things to cut without leaving us with the military strength of Liechtenstein.

In regards to strike action, I guess the pressure would be on the RNLI lifeboats to take up the call, or they might well put them under the same sort of agreement that the police are under which prevents them from going on strike (which means that the police can be absolutely rogered by the government and there's nothing they can do about it...but that's another story), but to be honest that's a legal grey area, and since the whole thing is purely financially motivated the people making the decisions really don't care.