No doubt this thread was started as a result of the recent bad news at ISK, and possibly quite rightly so.
I am no apologist for BAE systems, indeed, on the basis of the H-C report I believe some of their senior management should have been prosecuted for fraud and possibly corporate manslaughter, but I have this annoying habit of preferring people to actually get their facts right. On that basis I have the following comments to make (this is not a dig at you personally Jamesdevice - but most of the comments seem to be in response to yours!).
1. The Upholder class were built by Vickers when it was an independent company and had nothing to do with BAE or GEC. Which is not to say they didn't have numerous faults.
2. In my personal experience, Stingray was a reliable and aggressive little ASW torpedo. As a "lightweight" ASW weapon it is not carried by submarines, and therefore does not attack the launching sub. Whether or not it attacks a ship it is launched from I cannot comment on, certain weapon settings should prevent this. To the best of my knowledge it never tried to attack any airborne platform that launched it...
3. Typhoon. Many pprune contributors have made incorrect comments on this platform over the years, no doubt either because they are young, and so weren't around during its development, or have forgotten some of the facts. It was a 4 nation project, so any faults cannot be laid solely at BAEs door. In terms of the extended development and cost overruns, people seem to forget what actually happened. During the development period the German military became very tight on money. For several years they just said, "..we have no money to contribute this year, cancel it if you want, if not, we'll be back next year to talk again...". The project went into minimal tick over, but costs were still incurred, even though no real progress was made. This added several years to the project. While not the only cause of delay, this was undoubtedly a major contributor.
Typhoon was only required as an air defence platform by the Germans, Spanish and the Italians, it was only the Brits, who wanted to replace both the Tornado F3 and Jag with the Typhoon, who initially had any requirement for any ground attack capability.
Finally, Typhoon is a software intensive aircraft. I don't think people fully appreciate the issues this can create (F-22 computer lock ups on crossing 180 E/W) in terms of testing, configuration control, etc....
4. Type 45 missile - once again a multi nation programme, but any faults appear solely attributable to BAE?
I did a course many years ago, during which the students were told some procurement cock up stories - like the new PLB that was entering the trials phase. When about to board a launch to go out and do some trials work at sea, the company representative looked suprised, and said it probably wouldn't work. The new PLB wasn't waterproof - why not, because that was not specified in the requirements!! You get what you ask for.
We suggested as a course that a sort of "procurement OCU" should be set up, which all military officers should do prior to going into a procurement related jobs - if it only saved one or two mistakes the cost of the course would be saved many times over.
The staff response - they thought we were being a "difficult course"!
