RonO
Chill out mon brave. You are right about a great many things, but don't let a few misinformed dick-wads get you down or otherwise distract you from the certainty that depite the fact that your country f*cked us over Suez, the UK is your one true ally (measured in blood and treasure) and desrves a bit of respect. So lay-off Queen Bess, if only because a large part of your military-industrial infrastructure is located in 'Virginia'.
The bald truth which I and my countrymen are naturally reluctant to admit is that we are simply not trustworthy: our prime defence contractor is a corporate tart that will sell anybody's secrets (including our own) at any price to anyone; our govt will not proscribe UK military sales to China because it doesn't make financial sense and, as long as we can get away with it without seriously jeopardising our strategic relationship with the US, any penalty paid in terms of our own military capability is probably worth it; and although our military are entirely honourable and trustworthy, they have been immasculated by the bodies politic and economic.
As I have opined on other threads I don't think JSF is what we need - unless we feel obliged to try and make some sort of meaningful Day 1 contribution to the ubiquitous 'US-led Coalition Campaign', which we clearly do. However, why not make a meaningful Day 30 contribution instead - I'm sure Willy, or maybe it'll be Jeb by then (and you rebelled against our system of inherited privelege?!) will greatly appreciate it. Whatever the UPC, or JSF's forecast or actual TLC, running a single fleet of Typhoon with a quasi-national design/support authority has got to be cheaper and more flexible (perhaps only just) than running two seperate aircraft types with all the associated transatlantic IPR bollox (and I am not under-estimating the challenges stemming from all the pan-European IPR bollox).
As you rightly identify, the UOR argument is utter pap. The UK gov doesn't have the minerals to underwrite any risk, technical or otherwise, on any platform in any situation short of General War; the idea that that sort of work would be done/underwritten at huge expense by anyone other than LM is complete ar$e. Besides, what new or even old weapons system are we going to be able to afford or want to integrate onto JSF that won't already be in the weapons integration programme, or for which clearances can't be read-across with an acceptable degree of risk? Stormshadow, BVRAAM, or perhaps some other weapon designed to compensate for a lack of stealth? Maybe integrating ASRAAM would be cheaper than buying AIM-9X - not. These ideas advanced by the same sort of barking mad, buy-British-bugger-the-integration-and- performance-cost strokers that decided to Spey the Phantom.
However, an entirely valid consideration for Typhoon . . . we are going to have to spend a bootful of money that we don't currently have on integrating a number of different weapons onto Typhoon, perhaps under UOR, and if not, in a timescale which, if he knew/could accept the truth, would probably make Jackonicko physically ill. That's the investment that needs to be amortised. . . and another good reason for wishing you every luck with JSF and your next campaign. . .
And let's hear it for Benedict Arnold, or 001 as we like to call him.
GTP