Something that I’ve often done with Fishbreath is debate the question “If you were in charge of defense procurement, what would you go and buy?” I’ll have some more fun with the these prompts starting today. First, some rules and notes.

THE RULES:
1) Whatever you’re buying has to be in production. This rule is kind of limiting, since there are lots of cool cancelled projects out there, but that’s okay. We can always specify a time frame to redefine the problem if we like. But we do want to avoid hypothetical weapons that didn’t actually get out into the wild ugly world. The first test for a military system is whether or not it can escape bureaucratic hell.
2) You can only buy what’s available for export. And if there’s an export version, that’s what you’re getting. Sorry, no Raptors for you (though these also violate Rule No. 1).
3) You need a consistent environment to fight in. This takes the form of a hypothetical country, listed below.

NOTES:
Our hypothetical country is the nation of Borgundy. This is an (obviously completely made up) country in Northernish Europe. Or possibly some fictitious continent that’s a lot like the terrain and climate of North-Central Europe. They’re a lot more conservative than actual Western Europe, reflecting certain tendencies on the part of myself and Fishbreath and also because that means they’re much more likely to fulfil their NATO spending obligations. Call it a return to good old early 20th Century Militarism. Threat nations are assumed to be using ex-Soviet or modern Russian gear, though a war with other, NATO-compliant adversaries is not ruled out. Borgundy is not a member of whatever alternate-reality EU-analogue might exist. We like not listening to representatives not elected by us and controlling our own fiscal policy, thankyouverymuch.

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