Posts by Bruce 10 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Sep 2007
Having been a keen follower of things MOD for many years (if you like farce this is the hobby for you) i feel i can finally put my hat in the ring, There is a gravy train here like no other that rewards incompetence with hard cash. I want to be a part of it, where do i sign up, when can i get my peerage and who do i have to sleep with/give a bung in order for my hand made crap napkin based body armour to be approved and purchased? I will even let the napkins be glued together in Scotland if it helps.
Keep up the good work Lewis, come the glorious revolution you get the MOD as your private bitch.
Surely you mean those nasty people that actually take an objective interest in the subject, have a basic understanding of strategic implications and are not part of the greased palm gravy train?
Are there such people? Know you of any?
Taking odds on His Lordship to wash up on the board of Bae systems within the year thus completing the circle of incompetence, malfeasance and ongoing clusterf**k.
We can only hope that the beast of BAe will finally get the slap it deserves. You can con all of the people some of the time (the UK public), you can con some of the people all of the time (MOD Procurement) but you can't take the piss for as long as they have and hope to get away with it.
Philip Jeffery..........i am up for it.
Cost of Eurofighter program to UK stands at £15.9 BILLION. SO FAR !!!!
Total MOD budget for 2006 around £30 Billion. RAF budget always strangely 33.3% of the total.
Orders from the RAF first tranche 144 units (115 active rest as spares)
Second order tranche committed to by the government but unwanted by the RAF (not enough pilots etc, 7 squadrons only wanted) bring total to 232. Remainder will be mothballed.
Cost per plane for the 232 is £86 Million (lets say $175 Million). Cost for the original 144 that is actually wanted of which perhaps as few as 120 will ever fly is closer to £175 Million (lets say $350 Million). That is per Unit.
Projected Per unit cost of the vastly better F-35 will be $55 to $70 Million depending on the model type.
Time of project from start to operational status 21 years. (remember how this was called Eurofighter 2000...yep thats how late it is)
And that is just what it has cost the UK
Oddly enough both the F-16, F-18 and the F-22 Raptor come with a cannon....and the 'why take something you would never use to a fight' argument has never stopped the navy ordering loads of anti submarine frigates 16 years after the Red Banner fleet tied up and started to rust, and since the EF2000 is such a great air superiority fighter it is interesting to see what it will be up against since the only comparable air superiority role would be held by an F-16, F-18 or F-22?
Alternatively, the Saudi Air Force recently obtained 72 F-15 with all the kit for $372 Million....around $3 million a pop.
Now Philip, if you still want some fun and games do you want to play with Merlin next or Nimrod?
All figures from either Manufacturer, Global Security sources, or from the Author of the original article in The Reg, Lewis Page and his excellent book 'Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs'. Available in all good bookshops
Adam - When you say 'what if a few projects run over budget?' could you name any BAE project that has run under budget, early (or even on time), and been better than kit already in production from other suppliers? Why do we as UK tax payers end up paying more to H&K(owned by BAE at the time) to repair our rifles, than we would if we purchased brand new M16s? why do our Apaches cost £40 million each when Israel buys theirs for £12 million, or shall we talk about Nimrod????
I would rather send an F-16 up against a Bear than a Typhoon and save the 200 odd million pounds per aircraft (aside from the 100 odd that the RAF will mothball because they dont want them, cant crew them and cant afford to run them) but then maybe i value my nationalistic 'pride' in BAE less than you do. I would prefer it if my taxes didnt act as a subsidy for a private corporation to produce late, poor kit for our armed forces purchased by a department of state that is so bad at its job even the govt select committee is running out of suitable phrases to describe the cluster f*** that is the MOD.
Hold the phone...what makes you think the UK arms industry is a success? BAe turns over a lot of money granted, but most of it is a direct feed into the MOD budget where we the UK tax payer is stung for late, poor and vastly overpriced crap that no other government would touch with a 10 foot pole unless there was a hefty bung involved.
The British arms industry - BAe - is actually about as much use as the great British car industry, and just about as British. Very few manufacturing jobs are actually still in this country, and if it wasnt for there malign influence at the MOD BAe would quickly be down the road and far away. Don't swallow the hype, do the research instead. Facts and Figures dude..facts and figures.
Let me guess, BAe Systems trying to con the world into buying the crap only HMG considers worthwhile? If we have to use force at least let it be well priced, on time and capable of doing the bloody job.
Now, anybody interested in a used TU-95. Will accept a swap for a couple of Tormado F3's.
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