CVF delays - you knew it was coming!

[Buzby061]

Hi,

If you prefer for your carrier, we have in France the Rafale M which is ready to fly.

SPang

Thanks for the offer but, malheureusement, I don't think our carriers will be big enough to take them. A typically British fudge.

[Greg B]

We could always spend the money on something useful - like a replacement for a tanker fleet which is running on 40 year old aeroplanes rather than a messed up PFI which is gettting further and further delayed...

Yep, the airbridge fleet and tanker force are more of a farce than force at the moment.....

[Mike]

Mike (and others),

Before flinging around uninformed personal insults, you might just want to bear in mind that some of us frequenting this site (e.g. myself and at least 3 others I know of) do this (defence acquistion and support) for a living.

My civil service colleagues do NOT have "executive", or any other kind of company car (unlike their private sector equivalents with the same skills and experience), and far from "feathering their nests", they are paid such ridiculously low salaries in comparison with the private sector, and so often the subject of public ridicule (for political ends IMHO) that the MOD are struggling to recruit or retain any of them these days.

You are entitled to your opinions, of course (indeed that is the underlying reason why many of my friends and colleagues, military and civilian are risking their lives on a daily basis at this very moment), but please don't believe everything the papers and politicians tell you without checking out the facts first, or at least reading beyond the sensationalism of the first few paragraphs (the FT article that started this topic being a perfect example).

So to counter my generic comment about corruption & selfish excess in the high reaches of power, you're taking it as a personal slight to every civil servant. Oh, and you've added the military in there as well, when they weren't even mentioned in my post. Were we reading the same thread? In future, please seek clarification of my comments before assuming you know what I'm on about & galloping off on your own personal hobby horse.

You might also want to look up the phrase "personal insults"...

[Mike]

Ps - knowing him quite well, Mike ain't the sort to chuck the muck without having an informed opinion

Aren't I? Oh...

[entlim]

[Tim]

Contrary to the earlier comments, the new carriers (when we finally get them) will certainly be big enough to handle Rafales, but of course the British government wouldn't want them. The recent talk about discussing the option to buy Rafales wasn't serious, it was just a political move to try and put pressure on the Americans who were dragging their feet with the F35. Based on the current projected Order of Battle (which is nonsense of course, but there you go), we will have more Typhoons than we actually need, so there would be no point in even considering an inferior aircraft like the Rafale. The situation seems to be treading water until there's a more concrete prospect of the RAF/FAA getting the F-35's we supposedly want, but if the F-35 programme finally ends in tears and Britain pulls out (which is still by no means impossible) it seems pretty certain that some of the "surplus" Typhoons would be navalised for carrier operations. BAe have repeatedly said that this can be done fairly easily, and the new carriers will have catapult/arrestor recovery capability built-in, so they would be able to handle the Typhoon without any major redesign work - just as well, when we will probably need to buy some Hawkeyes sooner or later.

Just have to wait and see whether the government forges ahead with the tedious and pointless F35 order, or whether they'll finally get out of it and use the Typhoons that will already be paid-for and sat in storage!

As for why delaying programmes saves money, well of course that's obvious - it allows money to be shunted into different financial years. Doesn't actually save a penny but it makes the civil servants look efficient.

Oh, and as for the comments about defence procurement having always been regarded as either a joke or a shameful waste of public money, you only need to pick-up a few history books to wade through the countless episodes where huge sums of money have been wasted thanks to ill-conceived procurement decisions that even a five-year old could have handled better. As we all know, the RAF (and FAA) has a long history of being saddled with stupid decisions, wrong purchases, acts of supreme folly, etc.!

Edited January 16, 2008 by Tim