Pasted in from Mark's post because he's thinking along the right lines...
To start with; what exactly are our ELINT needs? there is a debate opening about this now in this thread; from that I suggest you make a reply then we might start to be able to make a list of current alternatives if there are any. Is it Afganistan or Bradford we should be most concerned with?
However I would say for the sort of spends involved and the rapid pace of technological development a very pertinent question to ask early on in this debate would be do you see the replacement as being an manned or unmanned ELINT platform?
Could not a much smaller unmanned platform packed with the same equipment provide the same sort of ELINT collection capability at a fraction of the cost? All the Nirmod could do other than ELINT collection was to drop rubber dinghies to ship survivors when it was used in ASR ops.
As always, Mark
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