Sunk
“I think anyone mentioning the "financial pain" of CVF should be shot on sight- that Torygraph article mentions two other contracts, one for £2bn and one for £4bn without batting an eyelid. CVF is not expensive”.
You’re quite willing to try, but given the crap ammunition the Services reportedly have you’d probably miss or have a stoppage. Now, back to Immediate Action…
I never said CVF is expensive, but the headline cost we read about does not, I believe, include MASC. This is a Cat A project within a CAT A project, and you seldom hear it mentioned. What is clear, however, is that there a number of CAT A projects in progress, not just aircraft, with very noticeable peaks in expenditure anticipated in certain years (if you collate the data in recent NAO reports). This is the “pain” I talk of, and the normal way of smoothing these peaks is to “spread” the pain. If this can be done by meeting the headline target (in this case, two CVFs), the non-delivery or delay of a complementary MASC capability will be lost in the
PR noise.
I asked a simple question as to whether the article I linked has any substance. If the SK is run on until a refit is due, I imagine the initial cost of CVF would be lower compared to CVF + MASC. If for no other reason than the programme has, for around a decade, assumed transfer of Cerberus to FOAEW/MASC, and along with it the hugely expensive onboard support facilities. In cases like this one normally sees financial sleight of hand whereby, for example, CVF would not pay any costs associated with retaining SK, thus artificially reducing the cost of CVF. SK would have to pay it, probably out of their existing budget, which in turn would affect other Marks. Doing this is so common as to be almost policy and is a de facto cut in Defence expenditure. Then, when it comes to first refit, and delivery of MASC, it is spun as an enhancement to capability, conveniently ignoring reality. I’m not saying there is anything necessarily wrong with most of this scenario – it’s just that this is seldom discussed.
But if I’m wrong or misunderstand, I apologise.