This story from DefenseNews has my blood boiling!
If you want interoperability with a host of allies then you need the F-35B! His Harriers were operating off US Navy LHDs not US Navy carriers! But this is the passage that has me steamed....
What's more, the U.K. vice defense chief told reporters in Washington before a speech that officials also determined the nation would need the greater "range and payload" planned for the carrier variant.What a piker!
He also said U.K. defense officials also decided that since key allies like France were slated to buy the carrier variant, following suit would make sense to foster interoperability. To this end, the nation's recently completed strategic defense review states the British military will carry out most future missions and tasks "with alliances and coalitions," Houghton said during his speech.
But we really have to ask ourselves one question. How serious were the British from the start when it comes to buying the F-35B? They were after a lost capability...the full deck carrier! Once that was guaranteed were they really interested in the B model at all? It would be akin to having B models operating off Nimitz class carriers...doable but not particularly effective. Then you add in the rolling landing nonsense and I wonder if we should have seen this one coming.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice????? You won't again UK.