Originally Posted by
pr00ne
Another solution?
Order/update the right number of Merlins in the first place!!!
To be fair to the RN, the cunning original plan was 108. Around half would role-fit Commando variants, to supplement, not replace, Sea King HC Mk4. All were to be ASW capable, which was the weak point of the plan, given it was predicated on 5 Merlins being able to do the job of 8 Sea King HAS Mk6. The Treasury walked all over the RN. A slightly lower 50/50 split would probably have got through scrutiny.
In 1994 the winning bid for what became Sea King AEW/ASaC Mk7 was a Blue Vixen variant in Merlin. Two things stopped this being awarded.
First, Merlin was late, and there could be no guarantee the airframes would be available, given the AEW avionics schedule would deliver quite quickly. It was a sensible decision to stick with Sea King, albeit expensive. At that point AEW/ASaC was deemed a stopgap, witness the refusal to allow surplus and much newer Mk6 cabs to be used. Instead, most were original Mk1s, further increasing cost and complexity of configuration control. Also, the RN only asked for 10, against a requirement for 16. The project office managed to change this to 13, plus a look-alike at Boscombe.
Second, a political overrule dictated Searchwater LAST be upgraded (yet again) and the contract awarded to a company who didn't bid. Who were then bought a bidder who had withdrawn as it was all too difficult. The official reason was that if Ferranti got the job, everyone in Crawley would be made redundant. If given to Crawley, it would make no difference because no-one in Scotland/Edinburgh made radars. (Sea Harrier, Lynx, EFA, the clever bits of Tornado, simulators, components, test equipment.... One of the few things that weren't were the displays in Birmingham, so Ferranti built their own facility at South Gyle after being let down).
What we know as CROWSNEST has taken the best part of 28 years to materialise. Externally, what you see is instantly recognisable to anyone who read the Ferranti bid of 1993 (which was 2-part; continue with LAST, or upgrade to Vixen). Internally, it is decades out of date. The wrong (political) decision was made in 1995 to eschew a world-beating solution. Thereafter, everything seems to have been done on the cheap, CROWSNEST being a minor task, in a financial sense, compared to the Mk7 job.