Ken
Not sure where you get your figures from, nor how accurate they are, but I'm guessing the figure you are using is the "full cost" figure rather than the "marginal cost". I think you are comparing apples with submarines. Full costs include the crew's pay, the groundcrew's pay, an element of spares, a proportion of the cost of running Brize etc etc. The crew get paid whether they fly or not, as do the groundcrew, as do the overheads of running Brize. The problem with these figures is, if you charge full cost you rapidly price yourself out if the market. And the Army don't actually get "charged" full cost; they might be billed marginal costs and that's likely to be less than the cost of charter; for which the current bill is horrendous. As for more capacity than we know what to do with post Afghanistan, I'm not sure who you've been discussing this with, but I respectfully suggest they don't know what they're talking about.