My buddy Bjørnar sent me an article on the Typhoon Eurofighter.....Read it all here but these are some highlights...
This shows the acquisition cost of the Eurofighter/Typhoon in an even worse light than it had previously appeared, when an RAF fleet of 160 had been expected. It is now acknowledged that the development and production cost to the UK of Eurofighter will be £23bn with planned upgrades.
This means that we UK taxpayers will have shelled out no less than £215m for each of our 107 jets – that's $350m at today's rates, rather more than the US taxpayers have been made to pay for each of their 185 Raptor superfighters2, almost all of which will be used operationally. And the Raptor has third-generation Stealth: the Eurofighter has no stealth features at all. The Raptor has thrust vectoring for unbeatable manoeuvrability in a dogfight: the Eurofighter doesn't.
I don't quite know what to make of the article or the source. I wish I had a better grasp of British Newspapers and how seriously to take them. One thing is certain though....if even half the claims made are true then the UK's Ministry of Defense has some explaining to do!
What I want to know is where is Bill Sweetman to tell us about this travesty?
ReplyDelete-sferrin
then why dont we offer the F22 to trusted allies like britain, Japan and South Korea, would scare the crap out of china on the final two.
ReplyDeleteIts quite complicated Sol - if we (UK Govt) had gone straight ahead with the planned procurement, including signing up the contracts for the different Tranche (blocks) on time etc then the unit cost would be lower.
ReplyDeleteThere is also the "diversion" of UK aircraft to Saudi Arabia, it appears we paid full list price, but the Saudi's might not have, so UK tax payer subsidised the arms deal.
Finally the Register is a tech web site, and the author of the article, Lewis Page is ex-RN officer who is absolutely as anti-Typhoon as I am anti-F35 !
But the original source is a National Audit Office (like your GAO) report on the Typhoon program, and overall it is pretty damning.
Two words: sunk costs.
ReplyDeleteWhichever country willing to make tough decisions today will reap reward in near or far future. The race is on.
@Jed: If the NAO is anything like the GAO they've never met a weapon system they didn't hate, so I'd take it with a grain of salt.
ReplyDeleteSo...how about $100 million less per unit than the F-35?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/awx/2011/03/10/awx_03_10_2011_p0-295042.xml&headline=Canada%20Expects%20Much%20Higher%20JSF%20Unit%20Costs&channel=defense
I think you will find Jed is being kind in his description of Lewis Page and the Register.
ReplyDeleteLewis was a middle ranking Naval Officer who has set himself up as a self proclaimed expert on ALL things defence.
His remit seems to be to criticise and sensationalis anything that will bring him publicity.
Luckily most serious defence people in the UK do not take him seriously and he seems to be more a source of amusement or at the most a minor irritation.
As far as the British press are concerned they too are given to inuendo and embellishment,at least they have the excuse of wanting to sell papers.Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
@Huron_Serenity: $450 million? Even Bill Sweetman doesn't claim that and that's saying something.
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