Agree 100% . That’s the real issue. Same with France .
It's not just that. What money the UK does spend is often wasted due to poor procurement and/or contract execution:
In the case of E7, 40% capability was cut for a 10% cost saving. Ajax is a standing joke, even relatively successful projects like QEC and Astute are invariably late and over-budget. Further back in time Nimrods AEW3 and MRA4 were both disastrous attempts to maintain a bespoke national capability rather than buy OTS.
Using EJ200 means it is a medium size fighter with bad side stealth due to "large vertical stabilizers"
"Based on what was shown, the demonstrator appears to be at least one-third longer than the Eurofighter, , making it the largest aircraft assembled in the UK since the Nimrod MRA4. The production GCAP fighter is expected to be larger still."
Three wings and three vertical stabilizers have been produced, two each for installation on the aircraft, and the third of each for structural testing.
Godbold said the demonstrator would continue BAE's tradition of building "large-finned aircraft," hinting that the vertical stabilizers could approach the size of those fitted to the Panavia Tornado—an aircraft often nicknamed “The Fin.”
2 x Tornado sized vertical stabs is not exactly screaming 6th gen all aspect stealth levels to me.
Godbold said the demonstrator would continue BAE's tradition of building "large-finned aircraft," hinting that the vertical stabilizers could approach the size of those fitted to the Panavia Tornado—an aircraft often nicknamed “The Fin.”
2 x Tornado sized vertical stabs is not exactly screaming 6th gen all aspect stealth levels to me.
All concept art from the initiative has shown it with fairly substantial V tails for a while now, I'm not sure why this is news to anyone or worth any commentary more than what has already been said for the last few years.
Lethe
Captain
The Royal Navy is going . Previous notional future Type 32 frigate and Type 83 destroyer programs have been cancelled.
Of course there is very considerable debate about e.g. the survivability of surface warships in the 21st century and the extent to which disaggregated autonomous warships present as a viable and preferred path forward. Nonetheless, in exploring these brave new frontiers one would typically expect a significant level of risk mitigation, i.e. unmanned warships as complementary to rather than replacements for manned surface combatants: as well as rather than instead of. But with future major programs now explicitly sacrificed on the altar of disaggregated autonomy, that is clearly not what is going on here, which fuels suspicion that these decisions are driven as much by budgetary considerations as by anything else. Yet how can that be when, less than a year ago, Keir Starmer publicly committed the UK to very significant increases in defence spending over the next decade?
When the US Navy embarked upon its transformational programs around the turn of the century, there was a certain level of mockery and schadenfreude as those programs fell flat on their respective faces. But crucially, even the spectacular failure of the entire LCS-DD(X)-CG(X) pipeline did not threaten the preeminent role of the US Navy on the high seas, because USN already had a large inventory of modern and very capable surface combatants, and they were able to pivot to continue building more of them in relatively short order. The Royal Navy has no such backstop. To be sure, the delivery of the Type 26 and Type 31 frigate programs will continue for perhaps most of the next decade. But neither of those types has any serious AAW capability, let alone BMD capability. The pathway that is now being embarked upon presents as a brittle one indeed.
Of course there is very considerable debate about e.g. the survivability of surface warships in the 21st century and the extent to which disaggregated autonomous warships present as a viable and preferred path forward. Nonetheless, in exploring these brave new frontiers one would typically expect a significant level of risk mitigation, i.e. unmanned warships as complementary to rather than replacements for manned surface combatants: as well as rather than instead of. But with future major programs now explicitly sacrificed on the altar of disaggregated autonomy, that is clearly not what is going on here, which fuels suspicion that these decisions are driven as much by budgetary considerations as by anything else. Yet how can that be when, less than a year ago, Keir Starmer publicly committed the UK to very significant increases in defence spending over the next decade?
When the US Navy embarked upon its transformational programs around the turn of the century, there was a certain level of mockery and schadenfreude as those programs fell flat on their respective faces. But crucially, even the spectacular failure of the entire LCS-DD(X)-CG(X) pipeline did not threaten the preeminent role of the US Navy on the high seas, because USN already had a large inventory of modern and very capable surface combatants, and they were able to pivot to continue building more of them in relatively short order. The Royal Navy has no such backstop. To be sure, the delivery of the Type 26 and Type 31 frigate programs will continue for perhaps most of the next decade. But neither of those types has any serious AAW capability, let alone BMD capability. The pathway that is now being embarked upon presents as a brittle one indeed.
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