Good news, it seems that sustainment funding for the BAe Mantis has been found with enough cash to keep things going until the SDR decides it’s future.
The scale of opportunity is significant but we have to have the confidence to push on alone and not be tied down with European collaborations that would dilute the effect, extend timescales and push costs up.
The Mantis may seem too much like being behind the Predator curve and not sufficiently ambitious like the Talarion but this is not actually the case, extensive development and experience of autonomous operation and collaboration with other manned platforms means that the Mantis could very well develop into an operational and export success.
The UK has a significant and practical lead over our European competitors, for once, lets actually take advantage for ourselves and start making weapon systems that the world wants to buy.
One thing I noticed was that we’re still discussing a joint project with European partners, of which the Mantis MIGHT form the base. Since Italy and France have nothing anywhere near this level yet, IMO it should be picked, with partners provided payloads and sensor packages, or nothing at all. What happened to the good old days of just buying a product because it was good?
I really hope we buy it as our long term answer to Reaper. No one seems to mention that we still have to operate the damn things from Nevada, not exactly sovereign power is it.
Not knowing a great deal about the operational requirements for the Reaper activity and the synergies of operating out of the same venue it would seem an interesting point vis a vis operations potentially not in a US led coalition. I think too much has been made of the current South Atlantic tension but it would make for an interesting conversation if Reapers were to be retasked and then operated from US soil. Probably operationally irrelavant but just a thought.
Fromafar, that is a brilliant point and flies right in the face of those that argue for buying everything off the shelf, as long as that shelf is owned by Uncle Sam
I might make a separate post out of it and steal all the glory myself
Carry on by all means. I just think that sovereignty over assets should be very carefully controlled as associations? relationships? special or otherwise can change over time and you need all the flexibility you can get sometimes.
I was under the impression that we chose to operate Predators from Nevada, rather than were forced to?
We could presumably build our own Sattalite Communications Network and run them from Salisbury Plain if we wanted, couldnt we?
Mantis is a very promising asset. Besides, it is an UCAV more than even Reaper is… and carrying Brimstone and Paveway IV, it would reduce the logistic burden. Brimstone and Paveway Iv are british equipment, while the Reaper needs US made weapons.
Besides, the Mantis has one very important advantage that no one ever points out: with two engines instead of one, it is far more reliable.
The RAF already lost a Reaper for an engine failure, and the Predators and Reapers are known to suffer of this kind of failure (often definitive since it brings to the destruction of the drone) far too often for it to be a good thing.
Go for Mantis. Better drone, more reliable, british, and with a massive export potential. It could ensure a lot of works and a serious technology advancement for real.