Any one know how much MOD made from the `TINCAN` sales to America.....?

I am admittedly a bit thick, but it puzzles me that we could determine a requirement for the Sentinel so vital that we needed to spend upwards of £1Billion pounds to obtain it, then having got that capability we scrap it. Do we now have something else that can do the job?

I think that depends on what you mean by "do the job".....

If you mean do the job in a way that will make the powers that be feel ok about themselves, we've got that covered....

If you mean the other kind of do the job, things may be more sticky!

ASRAAM, the CASTOR/ASTOR project had a very long gestation. It started off as a Cold War BAOR requirement (CASTOR), and was then heavily influenced by the apparent success of JSTARS in GW1 and political directives. The competition was quite broad (including an offer of refurbished U2s), and, I imagine, there was plenty of Army/RAF ‘debate’ over requirements, manning and what platform to select. To me, it looks like the RAF has willingly traded a ‘joint’ asset to secure Protector, RJ, P8 and E7 funding in the medium term - and will doubtless claim that each platform can do part of the Sentinel’s role. Interesting potted history here; https://www.raytheon.com/sites/defau...tinel_Book.pdf