Archimedes, Deliverance et al,
Sorry, I think I got out of bed the wrong side the other day!
Valid points all, however we already have/had a BVR capability with the F3 AMRAAM so why put all the effort into a BVRAAM with the Typhoon?
Maybe I have missed something, but whilst other military components are accepting capability gaps, surely we could have expended more energy earlier into Typhoons air-to-ground abilities? Especially as we already had an albeit more limited capability in the F3.
It seems that (rightly) current RAF No1 priority is getting Typhoon established with some form of AG capability so it can deploy and take some weight off the shoulders of some of the other fleets. This would also be politically expedient , given our current 'utterly useless' status!
However, the current scenario was easily forseeable (and foreseen) upto ten years ago, so why not realign the programme at that time to focus on something we really need? As far as I know, which has been spouted by every AOC I've heard on the subject, Typhoon has always been slated to get an AA role, with the AG role a distant (and apparently less favoured) cousin. it seems to me that this is and was shockingly naive.
We need to maintain a BVRAAM capability for lots of reasons, I accept, but it's a question of effective prioritisation. We needed to bite the bullet ten years ago, not knee jerk now.
We are where we are, is a phrase I hear more and more. Sadly, if we'd looked where we were going, we may well have avoided the mess!
I do object to the massive focus on Typhoon that has been the day to day thrust of RAF propaganda for the last five years. Hopefully, in ten years time the RAF will be less FJ-centric.
I'm sure Typhoon will be fantastic when it arrives in theatre, I just wish it hadn't been over hyped or three years late!
Still, would love a back seat if anyone's offering....
