I'm guessing there are some standing UK Ops that require the capability, plus enduring Ops in the Gulf area and Mediterranean, contingency Ops and .... I would also suggest that our relationship with Russia has rapidly deteriorated and we have a gap in capability that needs filling urgently.
I understand in a classic context UORs have supported direct kinetic type Ops, but think there have been a few that have stretched the 'rules' as bigger and more ambitious purchases. Second Reaper purchase took 3 years for Afg and is now over Syria? Sentinel became a UOR for Lybia, etc.
There is some suitably ambiguous language on UORs, rapid procurement and single-source contracts here
House of Commons - Defence Acquisition - Defence Committee
Ref. the platform choice, only one of those is actually real, the others are powerpoint presentations, models and empty promises from salesmen who will say anything to secure the deal. Based on the performance of procurement programs from the last 20 years they will run in to delays, significant cost increases, removal of essential support and training packages to try and get back on budget and a dumbing down of the requirement to meet poor performance. Also all those platforms have a huge flaw when it comes to ASW, current generation subs wouldn't struggle to hide from them, future ones could potentially destroy them.
Ref. E-3D, I believe the problem is we have created a bespoke UK fleet and now have to do all the development, support cost are therefore very high. Better to have kept to a US or NATO standard and benefited from shared R&D and reduced cost, even if that capability wasn't quite as good in 1990. However through 30 years plus the capability retains effectiveness rather than becoming rather dated
The future is common standards with other nations for larger fleets and shared R&D, see Reaper, C-17, C-130J, AH-64E, F-35,....P-8?
I am aware of the training issues of using the US and believe they only look expensive as the initial costings were naive or disingenuous. When set against the full cost of a UK training solution (building Sims and infrastructure in the UK and providing all the staff to man an OCU, provide airframes that we don't have, fuel costs, etc.) I would guess they are actually cheaper, however UK training is required long term to control the content and output.
I would argue that UK defense procurement needs stop making the same mistakes by getting wrapped up in legacy and dogmatic processes, getting outsmarted by companies who's priority is their shareholders and become more flexible and able to adapt quickly to the real world.
The argument for getting the high end solution is the same as the FJ rational, the requirement is to win against a high end capability, to do that you need to overmatch their capability. This is a basic principle of warfighting, go in at parity or below and you stand an equal or worse chance of coming second
Still this is all hot air, hopefully SDSR will settle this one way or the other
