That PR12 black hole in full:

MoD budget 'now back in balance' - Defence Management

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond is set to announce that the Ministry of Defence's £38bn financial 'black hole' has been "dealt with" and that the defence budget is now balanced for the first time in four decades, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph.

The story also suggests that around £2.1bn of unallocated funding has been found in the ministry's current financial planning round.

They may well have balanced it for PR12 (next 5 years) but they still have several years to go yet before they are out of the woods and there will still be savings required in PR13/14/15/

What an unbelievable :mad:ing mess.

That Cat in the Hat won't be able to pick this one up. Has anyone thought about what happens if (when) sequester kicks in in the US? Or if some of the numerous fixes and bodges being developed for the B add 100 pounds of weight apiece, or require the pilot to stooge around at 10,000 feet while the clutch cools down? Or that the system can't deliver improved VL performance without being redesigned completely?

Important point about Panetta's ending of probation: He did not reverse the key action that Gates took, which was to drop B production to a crawl until the aircraft worked. In fact, both B and C are in single digits until 2018-19 deliveries.

Widger

+1

If you can't afford to buy tailor made suits you buy "off the peg" - as the US did with our 70 Harriers - & the US Treasury must be laughing all the way to the bank...

The Harrier took many years to iron out the initial problems. The same will be true of the F35B - especially as the US will probably refuse to supply anything other than a flyable airframe!

That means MOD having to pay millions (billions?) more to kit the "bare bones" out with AI radars, weapon systems etc. - & we all know where that goes don't we! The A/C will be out of date before it enters service in a useable combat condition for the UK. Again, the US must be laughing - but they are nearly bankrupt & need our $$$........:ooh:

Also

Directly from;

I rest my case. Any advice to the contrary can only be based on self serving interests

Major mistake moving away from the 'cats & traps' both in terms of capability and long terms finances, but only to be expected from the politicians.

If the Evening Standard is right, then Cameron got mugged by Obama and th eoprion of going backed to the B is off the table.

Quote:

.......However, voices from Wahington suggest that the President said this was no option at all, and he wants the British to reconsider and go with the more powerful "C" version of the F-35.

It is being circulated that the US is now likely to order only four squadrons of the jump-jet "B" version for the US Marine Corps. Since this would be a maximum of about 65 planes, it is now thought in Washington that this is all a preliminary to cancelling the "B" version altogether.....

"Dave, there'll be no Dave "B", but I can't tell the Jarheads that outright right now, because I don't have the balls. You'd better order the "C". Tell you what, how about some F/A-18s to be going on with?"

"Oi Phil, tell your Navy blokes they're getting the C. Any questions?"

Whatever they order is going to get cancelled anyway, so the whole argument is pointless
However, they will order the - B. and then cancel it. Why? Because as its the more expensive aircraft, they will be able to announce bigger savings when its chopped.
Of course they'll be able to offer an earlier saving by not buying the catapults.

So ....first they announce the most expensive carrier option - and then pull back, so saving a fortune that they were never going to spend anyway, and then they save an even bigger fortune by not buying the aircraft they were never going to buy

LM warned, no more cost overruns or the US DoD will take less F35's.

More cost growth would cut F-35 buy: US Air Force | USWebDaily.com Follows News Happening Now.

ORAC - Do you have a link to that?

So is Cameron taking over what Brown started by keeping the ship yards in work?

I'm not a fan of the carriers and don't think they are a sensible option for our future Forces, the full cost of building, kitting, protecting and operating them will cripple the Defence budget for years. However if we are getting them a conventional design gives us a much more flexible platform with more options. I still can't believe they are not nuclear powered, which muppet didn't think oil prices wouldn't increase sharply in the next few decades.

With the F-35 rapidly slipping to the right, why not just build the carriers flat sans catapults and use them for helo ops? In 2020 +/- a few years we will be able to see if the B or C are actually fit for purpose and can carry out a refit. Continually changing a contract almost always ends in a large delay, poor value for money and a compromised product :ugh:

Just a thought, if the US bin the B we could buy those 65 odd aircraft destined for the USMC, then the UK could have a horrendously expensive bespoke fleet of poor performing aircraft :mad:

>>> Its a mess IMHO


Over on Aarse, they are speculating that the change is being made because the STOVL carriers have greater survivability (less to go wrong and leave your carrier dead in the water).

http//www.aarse.co.uk/current-affairs-news-analysis/178170-uk-aircraft-carrier-plans-confusion-ministers-revisit-square-one-9.html

Sorry, no. It's was in the late edition today. tapped in the above on my iPhone direct from the page.

Article was by Robert Fox their defence correspondent.

>>>Why were the Invincible class carriers and the Harriers scrapped?


Now that's a different matter entirely. You never throw your shoes away, until you have bought a new pair - a very basic adage that every five-year old learns.

But you don't expect our politicians to have the wisdom of a five-year old, surely? Come, come, now, don't be so naive....



>>>Would they not have been better off to spend a fraction of the money
>>>doing a really serious refurb of the little carriers and Harrier?

Don't be silly, that is logical and rational thinking, you cannot expect that from politicians. You have to remember that 98% of politicians are lawyers and economists, and they have trouble with words like 'machine-tool' or 'diesel-engine' - it like a Martian speaking, to them.

And you all wonder why none of the infrastructure in the UK works. And don't get me started on the Thames Estuary Airport again......



>>>The theory for bigger carriers was sound.

No it wasn't. A nation has to live according to its budget. To have had four smaller carriers would have been much more flexible and probably cheaper (economies of scale) than two large ones. It was the most stupid idea ever, and who knows why the Admiralty fell for it.



?

That well-known military think tank.:ugh:

Almost sounds like the AW159/Wildcat/Lynx Wildcat/Future Lynx order in places.

@The Helpful Stacker

Just like here then.

Are We Being Unfair On The F-35 Development Teams?
 

The F-35 series of fighters are highly complex systems that will work, sometime. Look at the P1127/ Harrier development. That was ten years or so until a useful aircraft was developed; wasn't it?

Due to the increased complexities of the F-35 variants, plus the fact that there are really three different aircraft being developed isn't it reasonable that it will take longer to develop than the Harrier and cost one heck of a lot more?

I know there are problems and that costs are increasing, but is this not the same for every project which is at the leading edge of technology?

Do most of us (including myself) have a downer on the F-35 due to the fact that we were promised the world at unrealistic costs? Should we not be looking at what the three variants will provide in the future?

In other words: -

1/ Were marketing making unreasonable promises?
2/ Will the aircraft be worth waiting for?
3/ Will the aircraft do what they need to do?
4/ Are they the correct aircraft to develop for the future, or should some other product be under development?
5/ Can the development teams (excluding marketing) be blamed for the current situation?

But the point is that the P.1127 was designed as an experimental prototype / technology demonstrator that through development was refined into a production model
With the F-35 production of what was close to the final configuration was decided on before any prototypes were built
The development process has been turned on tis head: instead of finding whats possible and then commercialising it, with the F-35 they've decided on a commercial product without finding if its possible.

Good answer Milo Minderbinder.

In response I write that if we only built what could be built now then developments would not occur.