Same old same old
As with all military mass buys the initial costs were kept down as the people in the job at the time were told to do (no doubt). As a result the Ac was brought with the basics required to get kit from a to b, little or no thought was put into the amount of diverse roles we might ask it to undertake in the future. As a result we are now at the mercy of civilian companies who will produce what you ask for but at a cost far and above what it would have cost some 15 years ago when we originally put the tender for the replacement for the K. The system will never change until the military changes the way it sources its equipment