Binning the Nimrod MRA4 was without a doubt the most idiotic decision to come out of the SDSR, no doubt about that. But if the savings were going to massive then one might have perhaps understood the logic but given that we have already paid for the vast majority of development and productions costs with 1 complete, 1 about to be complete and the others in very advanced stages of final delivery one might have thought the cost savings would be overwhelmingly massive.
There is also the small matter of a capability gap, no long range SAR, ISR or maritime attack.
In a written answer today, Peter Luff has confirmed the annual savings achieved by not bringing MRA4 into service at this late stage will be £200 million per year over the next ten years. I wonder if this includes the cost of flogging Merlin’s to death when providing cover for the Vanguards, inevitably introducing a future UOR to cover the capability gap and many other factors?
£200m a year is roughly twice what it costs for the House of Commons, £150million a year more than the budget for The Arts Council of England, £11million more than the yearly grant to the British Council and a £100m more per year than our spend on development aid for India, the same India that is buying 8 modified P-8A Poseidon Maritime Multimission Aircraft from the US.
Are we really stupid enough to spunk a £4 billion investment up the wall and lose vital capabilities for the sake of saving £200m a year?
It seems that yes, they are…
But it still does not beat cancelling CVA-01, moving Australia hundreds of miles closer on the maps and then cancel the TSR2 and then cancel the F111 as well.
Nor does it beat in stupidity selling off HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible in 1981.
And i’m not sure it beats losing Carrier Strike capability for (at least) 10 years either.
Overall, it is only one demented decision of many.
As to the Merlins getting abused to cover the Vanguards, no worries. They won’t.
The idea is that the Vanguard will have NO cover. Simple like that…
Hi,
“a £100m more per year than our spend on development aid for India, the same India that is buying 8 modified P-8A Poseidon Maritime Multimission Aircraft”, the other £100 m surely would get us too the Harpoon version that provides land-attack (comes with the Poseidon purchase, but ours are old and ship-to-ship only?). A pitty that we don’t have a plane for them, anyway (but a helo would do, not with the same range nor speed of escape, though).
From here I will need to go contra-flow: Was the SDSR a great opportunity to cover up for a programme that would never have delivered (including TCO, keeping them flying and uptodate over the whole service life?). Weren’t there grounding periods for which neither the MOD nor the supplier were forthcoming with a clear explanation.
This in the same series of “dark matter” speculations than the F-35B stuff (unit costs, 3-yr delay to in-service date) that I was rambling on about in a previous post, and has by now come to trade press. { it was all known for the SDSR quick about-turn? which is fair enough, but no-one has come out with a decision rationale now that the facts are out, in the public domain!] The problem is that in the US defence contract disclosures are regular (and obligatory) but closer to home we need someone knowing what to ask? And the answers include programme costs, hardware costs, operating costs (with or without weapons systems, and with or without support for them)nicely co-mingled (have to look up from the dictionary what that means).
i was thinking the same as ACC here, something is missing, i reckon they weren’t that close to op ready as people would have us believe, personnally i would be parking a sqn of C2′s outside their HQ whilst someone takes the receipt back into reception with regards to a refund or a discount for screwing it up.
I like the idea now of a two tier MPA eads 235 for inshore and the A319 for long range.
How does the MRA (or ASW Merlin) actualy “cover” Vanguard?
Ok, we locate a Russian sub, then what?
We dont sink them, I’d have heard, so what do we do?
Many years ago I was involved in tracking a Victor class sub hanging about waiting for the duty SLBM sub to leave the Clyde.
First day, one Kinloss sqn involved. 2nd day, all 3 sqns at Kinloss. 3rd day we arrived from St Mawgan; all 4 UK MPA sqns involved. 4th day, aircraft from US Keflavik and Norwegians arrive. 5th day, Victor buggers off. Of course, a nuke depth charge on day one would have helped.
I was given to understand that we give India £900m in aid from the total development budget of £10bn….I cannot for the sake of me work out why we are spraying British taxpayers money round the world, most of it ill spent, whilst we denude our national defences….
We find a sub and ping the bejesus outta him essentially ruining his day. We can also then sneak the SSBN out while we know where he is and he is occupied trying to go and hide somewhere. Ah the Good old days of Sea Kings and Nimrods chasing Soviet subs around at silly hours and in poor weather.
You know the days of Nimrods chasing Soviet, oh sorry Russian subs, around only ended when we binned the Nimrod although i don’t think people believe it.
As we appear to have asked the Marine Nationale to cover the UK with their Atlantic 2′s and they currently only operate 20 of their fleet of 26 is there any margin in us asking them nicely if they will let us borrow the other 6 as long as we agree to upgrade them when they upgrade theirs to last to 2030? Also could we get hold of the retired German Atlantic 1′s and upgrade them to Atlantic 2 standard? I know this all costs money and we are broke, but it kind of annoys me that we bin the MRA4 and now we cannot even provide C2 capabilities if a passenger jet comes down in the Atlantic or if a cargo ship starts to sink!
ACC said: “From here I will need to go contra-flow: Was the SDSR a great opportunity to cover up for a programme that would never have delivered (including TCO, keeping them flying and uptodate over the whole service life?).”
Why the previous Government didn’t bin it ages ago I don’t know. Our MPs seem to have been unwilling to make a decision for rational reasons and instead waited for a lack of money to provide an excuse that gets both the Government and BAe off the hook. The aeroplane isn’t in-service so no fault for BAe and presumably the Government is up to date with paying for the work that has been done. Both sides can walk away from the deal without financial or legal consequences.
If we are to eventually regain a long range MPA how about A400M with say 2 turbofans instead of 4 turboprops? You’d get more airframes out of the project which ought to lower the unit cost. The same model could some of what the C-17 does too, and be a tanker.
@gareth
eads already have a twin turbofan MPA look at the A319 MPA in the airbus military website
In the Defence context, £200 million a year could buy us:
*Nearly everything we get from Lockheed Martin or
*Almost Everything from Debut Services (accommodation PFI) or
*Everything from Boeing (plus change) or
*Everything from Defence Support Group (plus some more change) or
* Pretty much everything else made by MOD suppliers outside the top 30.
Guardian data on MOD top 100 suppliers from last year:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/01/mod-top-suppliers-bae
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8191690/3.6-billion-Nimrods-dismantled-for-scrap.html
Am I just being a bit cynical in my old age but with the Wikileaks disclosure the other day that ‘Call me Dave’ had promised the USA we would buy more kit from them, doesn’t this have alarming similarities to the TSR2 fiasco?
No even going to be put in to store or try and sell!!!
Looking back on recent history …
Guess its about time for Argentina to make another move on the Falkland Islands.
Lets see, no carriers, no quick long range maritime defence capability.
“New” submarines that run aground or break down.
Poor lines of supply to the FI in the event of an Argentine take over.
Think they’d find it easier this time round.
Maybe giving the FI to Argentina is part of the cuts too.