Future Carrier (Including Costs)
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At least they serve wine at lunch..!!!!
Would that an average day at work would accept such practice nowadays in light blue land.
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petition to save the Harrier
Admiral Woodward & Sharkey Ward Petition to save the Harrier
After the Prime Minister made public the appalling decision to withdraw the Harrier from Naval and RAF service, my son Kris managed to raise the issue with him and in doing so hit the headlines. We wish to put pressure on the Prime Minister and the government to reverse this dreadful decision and I am now writing to you with some urgency to ask your assistance by signing the petition online at:
Saving the Harrier
If we do not retain the Harrier in service we shall lose all the expertise that is so necessary for operating from an aircraft carrier (over 90 years of dedication, huge combat success and the loss of countless lives in peace time and in war will have been in vain). Such expertise cannot be “reinvented” overnight. It would probably take decades to achieve this.
Hopefully, you will feel it appropriate to help publicise this petition request as a matter of urgency and pass it on to all your friends and colleagues and ask them to do the same.
UKNDA - United Kingdom National Defence Association
After the Prime Minister made public the appalling decision to withdraw the Harrier from Naval and RAF service, my son Kris managed to raise the issue with him and in doing so hit the headlines. We wish to put pressure on the Prime Minister and the government to reverse this dreadful decision and I am now writing to you with some urgency to ask your assistance by signing the petition online at:
Saving the Harrier
If we do not retain the Harrier in service we shall lose all the expertise that is so necessary for operating from an aircraft carrier (over 90 years of dedication, huge combat success and the loss of countless lives in peace time and in war will have been in vain). Such expertise cannot be “reinvented” overnight. It would probably take decades to achieve this.
Hopefully, you will feel it appropriate to help publicise this petition request as a matter of urgency and pass it on to all your friends and colleagues and ask them to do the same.
UKNDA - United Kingdom National Defence Association
Mr Boffin to the thread, please
In the light of the new Anglo-French agreement, I hope someone has checked out any launch or recovery energy limits on the Charlie de G.
F-35C is one hell of a lot bigger than Rafale.
F-35C is one hell of a lot bigger than Rafale.
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Rafales for the Navy
Mon dieu, what a brilliant idea. France will have potentially rather a lot of Rafales to spare after agreeing to keep the Dassault line at economic levels, Britain will have a few FSTAs, a carrier that it can't afford and a desire to get rid of aging aircraft (rightly or not) but a rather long wait for the F35. Looks like grounds for an entente.
Must look out my big bumper book of C13-3F cats. Mk7 gear should be OK for recovery though.
Got to hand it to the French though, look at the comparative chart on the Beeb
BBC News - Cameron and Sarkozy hail UK-France defence treaties
Aside from the various inaccuracies, thay appear to get a lot more force structure for buck (or Euro). I know equipment count is only as good as the readiness and training behind it, so may be a bit misleading, but can't all be conscript effect can it?
Got to hand it to the French though, look at the comparative chart on the Beeb
BBC News - Cameron and Sarkozy hail UK-France defence treaties
Aside from the various inaccuracies, thay appear to get a lot more force structure for buck (or Euro). I know equipment count is only as good as the readiness and training behind it, so may be a bit misleading, but can't all be conscript effect can it?
Suspicion breeds confidence
The Head of the Indian Airforce says he doesn't want the Harriers, describing them as "iffy" and obsolete.
FT.com / Asia-Pacific / India - Indian air chief dismisses UK?s ?iffy? Harriers
FT.com / Asia-Pacific / India - Indian air chief dismisses UK?s ?iffy? Harriers
Last edited by Navaleye; 2nd Nov 2010 at 22:22.
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Here's the BAES letter to No 10 (not, MoD, interestingly) explaining why it's cheaper to build than cancel, released today.
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/lett...government.pdf
Interesting reading!
S41
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/lett...government.pdf
Interesting reading!
S41
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Having been brought up with "D" Notices and The Official Secrets Act, it is quite something to be able to read a letter like this so soon after it was written!
George Osborne and David Cameron have ridiculed the previous Government for signing this Contract with BAe. The letter highlights the intention of the previous Government was, as well as buying two ships, to use this to force the consolidation of remaining capacity as part of a strategy to maintain a core surface warship building capability in the UK.
In return for consolidation and Private Sector investment, Government promised continuity of work to lead on from the Type 45 Destroyers (all of which have now been launched) through the building of two carriers to the as yet to be designed Type 26 in the longer term. The strategic alternative was to give up this capacity and in future, order warships from abroad.
The issue of the penalty clause is therefore a Red Herring. It was our new Government, anxious to save money who, via a rushed SDR, tried to change an agreed plan with Industry by re-thinking the need for carriers or at least one of them. However, was there anything to prevent a follow on order for say more Type 45's to keep the Yards active long enough to work off the penalty clause if this was indeed a real change of strategy? The fact they did not suggest the cost was the real issue and using the contract terms as a stick to beat Labour looks more like gesture politics to rank with "building carriers with no aircraft" after having chopped the aircraft to make this true in the first place.
George Osborne and David Cameron have ridiculed the previous Government for signing this Contract with BAe. The letter highlights the intention of the previous Government was, as well as buying two ships, to use this to force the consolidation of remaining capacity as part of a strategy to maintain a core surface warship building capability in the UK.
In return for consolidation and Private Sector investment, Government promised continuity of work to lead on from the Type 45 Destroyers (all of which have now been launched) through the building of two carriers to the as yet to be designed Type 26 in the longer term. The strategic alternative was to give up this capacity and in future, order warships from abroad.
The issue of the penalty clause is therefore a Red Herring. It was our new Government, anxious to save money who, via a rushed SDR, tried to change an agreed plan with Industry by re-thinking the need for carriers or at least one of them. However, was there anything to prevent a follow on order for say more Type 45's to keep the Yards active long enough to work off the penalty clause if this was indeed a real change of strategy? The fact they did not suggest the cost was the real issue and using the contract terms as a stick to beat Labour looks more like gesture politics to rank with "building carriers with no aircraft" after having chopped the aircraft to make this true in the first place.
And lays bare two interesting facts that have been conspicuously absent from the spin -
1. The intense pressure applied by Lord Drayson to rationalise as part of the maritime industrial strategy
2. The myth that it's jobs in Rosyth that are at stake. The main gap (steel production and fabrication of units) would be in Portsmouth and Govan, plus on Tyneside, in Devon and in Merseydive.
1. The intense pressure applied by Lord Drayson to rationalise as part of the maritime industrial strategy
2. The myth that it's jobs in Rosyth that are at stake. The main gap (steel production and fabrication of units) would be in Portsmouth and Govan, plus on Tyneside, in Devon and in Merseydive.
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Mr Boffin; Draken;
Most interesting. I thought the most telling point was that it was typical BAE bullying - much like the Hawk T2 deal, threatening to renege on MRA4 back in the day (oh, the irony) etc etc.
My counterfactual question is not, however, answered by this note: what was the contractual Terms of Business Agreement (TOBA) over time? Did it decline? What was the profile? Specifically, could something like this workload have been used instead:
- 2 to 4 T45
- MARS (Fleet Tanker)
- 10 to 12 T26
If so, (and if this is the equivalent cash - T45s at c. £800m each; Fleet Tanker c £2bn?) would this have been a more appropriate fleet mix in 2020 rather than the likely composition? Irrelevant now of course, but it would be interesting to know if this was seriously considered.
S41
Most interesting. I thought the most telling point was that it was typical BAE bullying - much like the Hawk T2 deal, threatening to renege on MRA4 back in the day (oh, the irony) etc etc.
My counterfactual question is not, however, answered by this note: what was the contractual Terms of Business Agreement (TOBA) over time? Did it decline? What was the profile? Specifically, could something like this workload have been used instead:
- 2 to 4 T45
- MARS (Fleet Tanker)
- 10 to 12 T26
If so, (and if this is the equivalent cash - T45s at c. £800m each; Fleet Tanker c £2bn?) would this have been a more appropriate fleet mix in 2020 rather than the likely composition? Irrelevant now of course, but it would be interesting to know if this was seriously considered.
S41
S41
1. Could have been done, but much reduced workload
2. Why pay £2Bn (£400m each) for what is a 30000te product carrier with a slightly different hullform and more accommodation at the stern. The Waves built nearly a decade ago cost £120M each which was bad enough - one should be looking at <<£100M per ship, built overseas to a UK design. More pertinently, tankers don't really need the high end of the skills market that warships do.
3. No. Detail design is not yet underway and therefore steel cannot possibly be cut before 2013-4 at the earliest. So it doesn't solve the problem.
I'm afraid bullying in action is not limited to BAE. The carriers were used as a carrot to get consolidation - the stick being the inordinate time that MoD delayed the order. Keeping design teams together costs lots of money to industry - they had already been disestablished once (~2003) I think when MoD delayed placing the early assessment phase contract for a year. BAE / Thales could not afford to maintain the teams, (when people leave, they don't generally come back) so six months and many £M wasted getting a new team up to speed.
1. Could have been done, but much reduced workload
2. Why pay £2Bn (£400m each) for what is a 30000te product carrier with a slightly different hullform and more accommodation at the stern. The Waves built nearly a decade ago cost £120M each which was bad enough - one should be looking at <<£100M per ship, built overseas to a UK design. More pertinently, tankers don't really need the high end of the skills market that warships do.
3. No. Detail design is not yet underway and therefore steel cannot possibly be cut before 2013-4 at the earliest. So it doesn't solve the problem.
I'm afraid bullying in action is not limited to BAE. The carriers were used as a carrot to get consolidation - the stick being the inordinate time that MoD delayed the order. Keeping design teams together costs lots of money to industry - they had already been disestablished once (~2003) I think when MoD delayed placing the early assessment phase contract for a year. BAE / Thales could not afford to maintain the teams, (when people leave, they don't generally come back) so six months and many £M wasted getting a new team up to speed.
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Mr Boffin,
Sorry I wasn't clear - in effect I was scratching around for some work to keep the yards busy until the 2013-14 of T26 start. No, I don't think £400m each for tankers would be great value, but if the real cost is £150m, then you could have 6 and 4 or 5 T45s for the same cash, then so be it.
My point is simply if the TOBA set the quantum of cash to be spent on warships, then could we have done better than buying the QEs in view of the actual fleet in 2020? Seems to me that the answer is probably yes.
S41
Sorry I wasn't clear - in effect I was scratching around for some work to keep the yards busy until the 2013-14 of T26 start. No, I don't think £400m each for tankers would be great value, but if the real cost is £150m, then you could have 6 and 4 or 5 T45s for the same cash, then so be it.
My point is simply if the TOBA set the quantum of cash to be spent on warships, then could we have done better than buying the QEs in view of the actual fleet in 2020? Seems to me that the answer is probably yes.
S41
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Willard
Canny call that, didn't think of the Spamhawk! After all we do have some in house experience of said cab. What do les frogs use in a Goshawk stylee? Or is it straight to the deck in a Rafale (2-seater?) post Alpha jets on land? I know, lets put hooks on the Reds.
Canny call that, didn't think of the Spamhawk! After all we do have some in house experience of said cab. What do les frogs use in a Goshawk stylee? Or is it straight to the deck in a Rafale (2-seater?) post Alpha jets on land? I know, lets put hooks on the Reds.
Apparently they do carrier training in the US. There is more Franco-US collab in that sphere than we usually think, with Rafales having landed on CVNs and classic Hornets on CdG. The carrier also has US-designed cats and Dassault used the Lakehurst facility for initial cat tests on Rafale.
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draken,
It's all very well forcing a consolidation of the shipbuilding to ensure it's strategic survival but the surely the question should be whether the last government wrote a cheque they couldn't cash?
We know there is a blackhole in the equipment programme somewhere in the region of £36 billion over the next ten years, according to the NAO. This appears to use an optimistic figure for the cost of the JCA (whatever form it takes) and omits the cost of Future Surface Combatant so it would appear the gap would be even greater by 2016 if action isn't taken.
Considering that the MOD was forced to re-profile the contract not long after signing it, how likely is it they have put sufficient thought into what happens 10 years down the line? Indeed, when they re-profiled how much thought was put into the long term effects of the change and not just the short-term in year savings? Or was the MOD in crisis mode and planning to worry about that when the time comes?
It seems to me that criticising BAE here or the previous government for signing such a contract misses the real point: that the last government provided insufficient funding, permanently deprived projects of funding because of delays between 2002 and 2007 (would shipbuilding be in the present mess had the carriers gone ahead earlier or the full requirement of Type 45s been ordered?), and made promises that they had no way of keeping.
It's all very well forcing a consolidation of the shipbuilding to ensure it's strategic survival but the surely the question should be whether the last government wrote a cheque they couldn't cash?
We know there is a blackhole in the equipment programme somewhere in the region of £36 billion over the next ten years, according to the NAO. This appears to use an optimistic figure for the cost of the JCA (whatever form it takes) and omits the cost of Future Surface Combatant so it would appear the gap would be even greater by 2016 if action isn't taken.
Considering that the MOD was forced to re-profile the contract not long after signing it, how likely is it they have put sufficient thought into what happens 10 years down the line? Indeed, when they re-profiled how much thought was put into the long term effects of the change and not just the short-term in year savings? Or was the MOD in crisis mode and planning to worry about that when the time comes?
It seems to me that criticising BAE here or the previous government for signing such a contract misses the real point: that the last government provided insufficient funding, permanently deprived projects of funding because of delays between 2002 and 2007 (would shipbuilding be in the present mess had the carriers gone ahead earlier or the full requirement of Type 45s been ordered?), and made promises that they had no way of keeping.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
To make the point bluntly, Gordon Brown raped the defence budget to help support an obsolete, inefficient, uncommercial legacy industry. In doing so he irreparably damaged the defence of the nation.
The worst of it is that this leech will now keep sucking at the budget for the next 50 years in overruns, maintenance and update contracts for which they know they can be the only bidder.
Cameron should have some guts and done a Maggie Thatcher. Told them they could take their money and walk away, with the promise they'd never get another MOD contract, or they could sit down and renegotiate an affordable deal for ships the country actually needed.
fat chance with Cameron and eco-green Eton chums however, I don't think he has any more real understanding or like of defence than Gordon.
The worst of it is that this leech will now keep sucking at the budget for the next 50 years in overruns, maintenance and update contracts for which they know they can be the only bidder.
Cameron should have some guts and done a Maggie Thatcher. Told them they could take their money and walk away, with the promise they'd never get another MOD contract, or they could sit down and renegotiate an affordable deal for ships the country actually needed.
fat chance with Cameron and eco-green Eton chums however, I don't think he has any more real understanding or like of defence than Gordon.
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Thanks Ninja-Lewis.
Agreed. Labour tried, within a shrinking Defence budget, to fight two wars but discovered our Army needed better vehicles, small arms, body armour and helmets and then paid for these using contingency funding. Meantime the other forces tried to carry on business as usual buying Typhoon, Astute and Nimrod MR4 etc perhaps hoping costs would work out someday. Government also decided to make longer term plans for the more sensible use of our remaining industrial base. Clearly an SDR was long overdue.
However, I blame not only the Labour Government but also the Service Chiefs and our Defence Industries for this situation. I have some sympathy for the latter when trying to deal with a customer that can never decide what it wants or when it's needed and then when it does, tries to alter their initial decision anyway!
Now we are ditching capability having spent huge sums, to save running costs. Is this SDR not just another round of cuts with more to come when we are out of Afghanistan? We still have to find money for enough JCA's but do we still need it? Seems we do. What will it cost? Dunno. What will it do relative to other platforms? Not quite sure. Is there another option? Eh possible but then are we not already committed by our need to maintain capacity post Typhoon, our Level One Partner status and contracts with BAe?
I gather from "Air Forces Monthly" that the cost to maintain the reduced Tornado Fleet of 80 aircraft will be £ 7.6 Billion. If we really are broke, does the RAF really need them and Typhoon given the perceived lack of threat we face pre 2020? And is another Astute SSN really just to keep Barrow in work until we decide to replace Trident?
Agreed. Labour tried, within a shrinking Defence budget, to fight two wars but discovered our Army needed better vehicles, small arms, body armour and helmets and then paid for these using contingency funding. Meantime the other forces tried to carry on business as usual buying Typhoon, Astute and Nimrod MR4 etc perhaps hoping costs would work out someday. Government also decided to make longer term plans for the more sensible use of our remaining industrial base. Clearly an SDR was long overdue.
However, I blame not only the Labour Government but also the Service Chiefs and our Defence Industries for this situation. I have some sympathy for the latter when trying to deal with a customer that can never decide what it wants or when it's needed and then when it does, tries to alter their initial decision anyway!
Now we are ditching capability having spent huge sums, to save running costs. Is this SDR not just another round of cuts with more to come when we are out of Afghanistan? We still have to find money for enough JCA's but do we still need it? Seems we do. What will it cost? Dunno. What will it do relative to other platforms? Not quite sure. Is there another option? Eh possible but then are we not already committed by our need to maintain capacity post Typhoon, our Level One Partner status and contracts with BAe?
I gather from "Air Forces Monthly" that the cost to maintain the reduced Tornado Fleet of 80 aircraft will be £ 7.6 Billion. If we really are broke, does the RAF really need them and Typhoon given the perceived lack of threat we face pre 2020? And is another Astute SSN really just to keep Barrow in work until we decide to replace Trident?