Agree entirely. When I received my copy of the DIS and DTS issued by the racing car driver, I submitted a Freedom of Information request asking, inter alia, why MoD were planning to spend money on an R&D programme intended to meet a certain specification, when the successor equipment, to a better specification, had passed final trials in 1999. And noted MoD owned the Intellectual Property Rights.
The office that responded (in London) was clearly not amused, simply saying the R&D would identify the optimum cost-effective technology, which would then be "pulled through" by procurers. When I pressed, they admitted they knew nothing of the existing kit.
A few months later, AbbeyWood issued an Invitation to Tender for this R&D, valued at up to £5M. I spoke to the company who manufactured both the original and upgrade. To earn their corn, they would merely have to dig out 12 year old documents (which MoD paid them to maintain and store), put a new date on them and submit them at the end of the R&D contract. And add at the bottom "But we can no longer meet your specification because all the obsolete tooling has been disposed of at MoD's request".
If I have this correct, the MOD issued a contract to develop a widget that had already been replaced. The earlier contract for the better widget was fulfilled, the MOD then asked the supplier to destroy the tooling (???) and paid the supplier to maintain the documentation. Despite pointing out the "other" contract, the MOD then continued and issued the contract to the SAME company that had already supplied improved widgets?
Why are there not embarrassing questions in Parliament about this? This looks like either Sir Humphrey Appleby or incompetence of the severity of the Chinook Mk3, if not the scale.