Out of interest how many C130/C17/A400 sorties will it take to deploy and support a new Medium Brigade in the field in say Syria?
I am no expert in logistics but according to my calculator the answer is a ...er lot, and the number goes up if they actually have to do any fighting. Plus the MOD has just pulled out of the Boxer programme as the vehicle is too heavy at 18 tonnes for the MICV role, and it appears some of the alternative vehicles eg a derivative of the LAV won't currently fit in a C130 without letting the tires down and applying large quantities of vaseline.
Whilst the original RAF order of 232 Typhoons was originally calculated by adding up all the harriers and Jags (and a few other airframes in service circa 1987), even I figured out the RAF would be lucky to get 130-140 by the time the treasury had applied its axe, particularly when the wall came down in 1990.
The talk about cancelling tranche 3 of the Typhoon buy with a unmanned fighter is really about the bean countrs being able to defer a hardware purchase as long as is (un?)feasibly possible. So either the RAF will have to make do with aging airframes or more likely will have to do without. I doubt anyone in the MOD has ever heard, or more importantly understood what is meant by the phrase "The better is the enemy of the good".
Everytime I think about being reliant on unmanned aircraft I get cold chills up my spine. I can just see some terrorists overrunning a command post (or more likely 14 yr old hacker) ordering a strike to return to its base and give it a good hammering.