Originally Posted by
Onceapilot
At the present time, UKGov has committed a huge part of the UK defence budget to an inappropriate and limited capability, ie the UK "Carrier group".
OAP
Just to try and put things on some sort of remotely factual - as opposed to hysterical - basis. NAO MPR 2015 (the last one with the useful individual project sheets), lists the totals for CAT A projects beyond MG as about £73.5Bn. Of that total, £18Bn on Typhoon, £11Bn on FSTA, £5Bn on F35, £6Bn on QEC, £0.5Bn on MARS tanker, £0.3Bn on Crowsnest, £5.4Bn on Ajax, £2.7Bn on A400M, £11Bn on Astute (inc the NPPT), Marshall £1.9Bn and Complex Weapons at £1.3Bn).
Downstream are about £18.5Bn of pre MG projects including AH64E (@£2.3Bn), Morpheus at £2.9BN, T26 (£8Bn) and Successor at £4.9Bn (just the assessment phase).
Of the £73bn, only QEC and Crowsnest can be described as directly CV-group. MARS tanker is wider than that but even included gets you to just over £7Bn. The £5Bn for F35 isn't all CV-group, but even assuming it was, you're now at £12Bn from £73Bn. About the same as FSTA (albeit on a different basis).
It is simply untenable to suggest that the "carrier group" is a "huge part" of the EP - particularly when the primary expenditure on the ships stretched from 2008 to about now) - ie £6bn spread over nigh-on 10 years. Put another way - if you assume that the EP has been running at about £8Bn a year over the last 10 years, the "carrier" part of the budget has been running at 7% at best. Leaving another 93% buying other equipment.
But don't let facts get in the way of a good bit of prejudice eh?