Originally Posted by
Biggus
If the UK were to try to buy Patriot, or a similar system, assuming Rachel Reeves would fund it, tomorrow, how many countries do you think would be in the queue ahead of us for new systems and missile restocks? How many years would it be before we saw any hardware on site?
Rachel from Accounts won't be looking down the back of her purse to fund it, but yes, we'd be a long way back in the queue and would be decades away from in-service.
Probably better off jumping in with many other European countries and ordering some IRIS-T systems, which maybe only medium range compared to Patriot and Arrow 3 systems, but better to have something rather than the nothing we currently have, although isn't there a land-based system already on the market that uses the same Astor 30 missiles used in the T45, which might make more sense to the UK?