engineer(retard)

With a typical military airframe you are investing in something thats has to last 20-30 years and operate everywhere that you might concievably go. Consider whether the requirement managers in 80s took the prospects of GW1 seriously. If they had we would ahve had less UORs and less platforms struggling to cope with hot sandy conditions. What is the projected life of the US buy or are they putting a sticking plaster on a shortfall until they can afford what they need?

This is where your comparison with the police fall down. They are unlikely to be faced with a complex tactical situation and have to co-operate with a multitude of nations, and potentially hostiles trying to listen in. Hence a simpler comms suite. They do not have to consider operating at sea, in the mountains and deserts and artic regions under austere conditions. They are unlikely to be operating under intense hostile fire nor having to return fire. All of these capabilities cost.

I would not get too hung up on the Lynx ISD, I think you will find it is driven by funding availabilty rather than development issues. Export orders of Lynx are usually turned round pretty quickly. This is the crux of the problem, money is too tight even for the cheap and cheerful.

regards

retard

EU Referendum

Thank you for your time and patience on this - even though I find profoundly depressing your comment on money being "too tight" even for the cheap and cheerful.

Moving onto territory were I personally am on firmer footing, governments in my experience can always find money if there is a clear case for the expenditure and a strong, united lobby pushing for that expenditure.

Of all the equipment issues in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it seemed to me that more helicopters are the most important priority and, of that, tactical as well as transport helicopters are needed.

If there was any consensus as to what was needed, and some knowledge of the rough costs, it would be possible to get a campaign up and running.