How can he be court-martialed if he works for a private company?

Privately owned but operated by RAF crew.

India Cancels Deal for Six Airbus Tankers

The farce that is Indian defence procurement continues!

I wrote this elsewhere recently in relation to the Indian service rifle replacement but I think it equally applies here!

1) India declares a contest for a new armament
2) Only companies that have not been black listed for corruption need apply (more on that later)
3) Companies that enter have to submit their weapon to years of testing by a vast and impenetrable bureaucracy
4) During that testing local companies/factories usually state owned will complain and lobby that they could produce a local solution to the Indian government and MOD
5) To get through the impenetrable bureaucracy said bidding companies are forced to employ local ex military/goverment/politicians officials on a vastly inflated wage to help advise on how best to bid
6) Shortlisted companies will be require to offer significant offset with 80, 90 and even 100% being the required level
7) Local production as part of the deal will be required
8) Companies bidding will not be able to chose their local partners or set up new facilities to produce weapons system
9) Only old state run companies/factories with their own vast bureaucracies will be allowed by the Indian MOD to be local production partners
10) These will be the same companies/factories as those in point 4)
11) To win contract bidding companies must agree to the license production program to be managed by the Indian based companies/factories
12) Yet those bidding companies must also agree to 100% financial liability if the program overruns due to poor local management
13) Local companies/factories will continue to complain even when selected as the final partner and continue to offer local solutions
14) Once a bidding company has won the contract local Indian companies/factories/MOD/Military will drag their feet
15) It will then be revealed that the local advisers in point 5) that the bidding companies were forced to employ were paying bribes to MOD/factory/military/political officials
16) Contract is immediately cancelled with that company and all its sub divisions banned from bidding in the future
17) Indian government will go for local solution
18) That will go massively over budget and schedule
19) Indian MOD will look at new bidding process for off the shelf solution
20) Points 1) to 19) happen all over again
21) Eventually Indian PM will go with military to a common and trusted supplier like Russia or Israel and buy a solution off the shelf via a government to government deal thus bypassing the whole bureaucratic mess that is Indian defence procurement
22) Rince and repeat!

BAE Systems are proposing two solutions; one low end closely based upon the Amazon/Batch II River OPV called Avenger and a high end one based upon the Khareef Corvette called Cutlass:

Neither is a particular inspiring prospect imho.

German cars have a reputation for looking good (and cheating emissions tests) but don’t confuse that with good engineering.

They are particularly bad though.

http://www.audiforums.com/forum/audi-tt-7/tt-lemon-40302/
https://lemonlaw.org/complaints/audi/tt/2004/

This doesn’t even include at the ones that took off at high speed and killed the driver because they were shaped like an aerofoil.:highly_amused:

Well the last point you made I made to MSphere earlier. The British automotive industry has an input to other manufacturers, so what they might think is German, French or Japanese, may well not be (but none of these issues are ours :eagerness:). This is particularly true in Formula One right now.

You can blame MSphere for starting the rah, rah Jingoism.

Sigma4 do you have any understanding of what goes into the design and engineering of a modern car? In 2015 BMW spent $5.5 billion, Daimler(Mercedes) $7.6 billion and VW $15.3 billion on R&D alone.

Looks are subjective but don’t fool yourself into thinking that German cars or any other Western developed cars are badly engineered, every year car companies spend billions on engineering cars that are efficient, safe and reliable. Ironically the emissions test cheating is a sign of how good their engineering capabilities are. It should be pointed out that the cars passed the emission tests by designing then engineering a system that could detect when a car was on a test cycle then adjust how the engine runs to lower the emissions. The problem was the filters fitted to the engine, they are expensive and relatively short lived. Bypassing them reduced service costs and increased servicing intervals. It was an incredibly clever piece of engineering that took lots of detailed design and flow testing, certainly crooked but also very clever. Be assured it is not a problem unique to VW, talking to my automotive research engineer friend other manufacturers globally do exactly the same thing and VW are only the tip of the iceberg.

I am well aware of the Audi TT aerodynamic issue, again you are surfing Google to find individual problems to affirm your rather tenuous argument. The Aerodynamic issue is actually a good example of how testing regimes don’t always take account of all variables. Within average operating profiles at moderate speeds the TT was aerodynamically perfectly safe. What Audi didn’t take account of was new owners taking their new TT out of the dealership and then trying to drive at the vehicles maximum potential speed on the Autobahn. An unfortunate oversight which was engineered out with some detail changes to the vehicle. As for clutch plates or transmission issues again this is not unique or universal to German cars. It is an issue that often only manifests itself once the vehicle is exposed to regular use by the average driver. Car companies try to test for all eventualities but that does not mean they can cover all bases. All vehicles are a compromise between component life and and cost to operate, that doesn’t even take account of the supply chain and how on occasion parts can be out of spec.

What you are again doing is making sweeping statements on a very Jingoistic basis about matters I am not entirely sure you understand. Your arguments about German cars are nonsensical and petty.

You can spot a Leaver, not always accurate, but see the EU for what it is. You can also spot a Remainer… Generally, inward thinking and… Thick. Usually spotted protesting against democracy.

But in all seriousness: Which ever way anyone voted, good for you, we live in a democracy but get over it. The UK are going to leave, pi**ing and moaning about what will soon be the past isn’t going to do anything. Just, look ahead into the future and think about the best possible opportunities and think about how the country can go from a negative to a positive on all fronts.

I’ve never seen such belly aching in all my life, especially when I past those muppets protesting in London the other week. Get a bloody life and enjoy it.

Frankly EELightning I am tired of the insults from both sides of the argument, I should point out that the majority of Remain supporters were educated,middle class and certainly not Thick. As a Remain supporter myself I support democracy but I also feel that I have every right to carry on pointing out the problems of Brexit and whilst I accept the result don’t see why I should just “Get over it”! I don’t see this as a positive move and that is highly unlikely to change. As for the protesting “Muppets” as you so call them, they were mainly young people who by in large voted Remain and are now going to have their work and travel rights in Europe removed.

As far as I am concerned the result stands however slim a mandate but I hope the British public in the future can be persuaded at the right time to reconsider this decision. Ian Hislop sums up my view nicely!

When it comes to marketing a product experience is highly important. The defence sector has some unique challenges that Japan will have to learn about. This is nothing particularly new.