No need to apologise WEBF - my ire is directed at those in positions of responsibility in MB, ABW and elsewhere, who tamely swallow this guff and then spend endless time and money trying to square an irreconcilable problem.
As you mention surface combatants, FSC is a classic case in point. The broad requirement for the ship has not changed materially in ten years (a brief aberration in the direction of a US-style LCS excepted). We were told "it's unaffordable within the EP, pull the project and we'll start again in a couple of years when we have some better OA". Two years later - same answer in terms of ship capability, cost and numbers (although the tupperwares were binned, "cos it can all be done with UUV"), but "still unaffordable and in any case industry can't design and build it in the timescale", so the Coherency study was put in place to balance EP, industrial capability etc, but the IPT was binned before it reported. Now we have the Pathfinder / S2C2 study which will come up with the same answer - broadly 16-20 new combatants, some ASW, all capable of defending themselves. In the background the muppets are trying to close a naval base "because numbers are going to fall", when in fact the ships are getting bigger and more berths are required.
It's all driven by the initial half-@rsed assumptions........
Last edited by Not_a_boffin; 30th Nov 2006 at 12:57.