Spitfire9Proposed cuts to USAF fighter complement – USAF Chief of Staff
“The changes, if approved, would reduce the size of the USAF fighter fleet to 54 squadrons. Depending on the number of aircraft in each squadron, the total number of fighters would dwindle to between about 1,080 and 1,300. That number is significantly below the USAF’s plan to buy 1,763 Lockheed F-35As, which would serve as a replacement for all its A-10s, F-15s and F-16s.”
Spitfire9No, more like:
‘We want them just like everything else in our armed forces including personell. We just don’t want to pay for them.’
In the UK wrt armed forces, the two words, ‘Spending’ and ‘Money’ don’t go down together. Ask any British soldier thats had his arms & legs blown off in Afghanistan & paid compensation. Government* ‘Sorry about what happened to you, but you’ve served this country well, we’re all proud of you! Heres some compensation….Actually, can we have that money back please, we need to give it as aid to a country with it’s own space programme. Thanks awfully.’
Sorry EE but there is no special link between funding overseas aid/development and compensating injured servicemen. If overseas aid/development were reduced to £0 per annum, it would free up less than 0.3% of government spending to be spent otherwise. 0.3% is such a miniscule proportion of government spending that it would make a miniscule difference to the government’s ability to fund non-overseas aid/development activities.
WRT to saying Typhoon has “potential”, I see that as a euphemism for saying that the partner nations have failed to develop its potential. Put another way, Typhoon could do x, y and z but does not.
Spitfire9Flightglobal offers its guesstimate of the schedule re: MMRCA contract finalisation:
“Assuming the formal granting of L1 status, final negotiations between Dassault and the Indian government’s Contract Negotiation Committee (CNC) could take between six months and one year, said an industry source familiar with Indian defence procurement policy.
The process can be a tortuous one. According to defence ministry tender guidelines, a CNC should be comprised of individuals representing the stakeholders involved in an acquisition. In the case of MMRCA, the source believes the Indian air force, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) and other key parties will be represented.
The CNC will conduct a two-stage negotiation. The first will deal with details such as contract language and deliverables, and the second with pricing.
On clearing the CNC, the contract will need the approval of the Defence Acquisition Council and India’s finance ministry. Finally, the package will go before India’s Cabinet Committee on Security, which will give the final sign-off.
1. L1 needs to be announced before negotiations can be arranged?
2a. Contract Negotiation Committee – deliverables
2b. Contract Negotiation Committee – price
3. Approval of the Defence Acquisition Council
4. Approval of the finance ministry
5. Sign off by Cabinet Committee on Security
How long to sign off – > 1 year and < 2 years?
I can’t see Dassault agreeing a price quickly somehow. Having been selected, I imagine they will fight for the highest price they can get. The longer the whole process takes, the more flyaway frames may need to be bought (at a higher profit than kits) so I don’t see Dassault being in a great hurry.
Spitfire9Some reaction from David Cameron..
“We must go on making the case. This (Eurofighter) is a superb aircraft with far better capabilities than Rafale and we will try and encourage the Indians to take that view,” he added.
It may be worse in some ways and better in some ways but “a superb aircraft with far better capabilities than Rafale” it is not. In any case it’s irrelevant whether it’s got better or worse capabilities than Rafale – the test to choose the winner was L1.
Spitfire9Kind of. But really, Dassault is outsourcing production and transferring technology to India. On the front end, that’s great money for Dassault, and no doubt some work for Dassault engineers. But over time, it’s not really much of a job creator for France. And if the deal includes provisions to allow Indian-made Rafales to be sold outside India, like the Brazil deal did, then it’s even worse for French industry.
In my opinion the world is changing. The long era of US/European/Russian manufacturers enjoying a monopoly on development of sophisticated fast jets is drawing to a close. Brazil and India want to do the same and have a mechanism to lever technology from the manufacturers – the lure of fast jet orders being contingent on TOT. The European manufacturers are prepared to accept that demand if that is the price they have to pay to secure orders for their products.
Spitfire9Seriously, they should try it and just watch as UK industry is mysteriously excluded from all future contracts with the government of the world’s third-largest economy. Someone still thinks they’re living in the days of the Raj it seems. :rolleyes:
+1
I remember Airbus getting very upset by Air India’s evaluation criteria when Air India selected Boeing 787 in preference to Airbus A350. Airbus threatened to take them to court, I think. Some years later Air India has a number of B787’s on order and zero A350’s on order.
Spitfire9Why are French people “foolish” and “idiots” for being concerned about job losses?
I would say that short term and medium term (say 2012-2025) supplying TOT, Rafale components, kits and assembled aircraft will not result in job losses at Dassault or their suppliers. It will be surprising if it does not increase the number of people employed in France as well as securing existing jobs.
Spitfire9One could hope that an air force also will want to keep cost down,
or stand trial for treason if not
Keeping costs down appears to be the stance of the Brazilian air force, perhaps through awareness that choosing one of the most capable fighters under consideration
(a) may not be sanctioned by the government due to cost, resulting in further deferral of delivery of new fighters
(b) if sanctioned may require cutting other air force expenditure
I will not be surprised if Brazil does a Switzerland to Dassault later this year by choosing the lowest cost fighter. Buying a fighter with top grade capability that reduces capability in other areas is not necessarily a good idea. Remember that India narrowed MMRCA down to 2 aircraft that met minimum performance criteria and subsequently chose between those 2 on the basis of lower cost, not higher performance.
Spitfire9So what is the state of play now? Of the 2 aircraft meeting performance criteria, Rafale was estimated to have the lower L1 cost so Dassault now needs to negotiate TOT and arrange concrete offsets. Anything else required to sign a contract (apart from sanctioning the funds required)?
I wonder what arrangement will be made regarding local Rafale component production. As part of the deal will Dassault be providing India with the full specification of components so that they can be produced locally – and any TOT required for that to be possible?
Spitfire9If it’s true, congratulations to Dassault.
What speculation do we focus on next – Brazil?
Spitfire9simply because you don’t govern a country by being emotive, but by looking for your best interest, and getting the best aircraft at the best price is your best interest…
I don’t understand: Switzerland runs a selection process to choose a replacement for a light, single engined-fighter. It chooses a light, single-engined fighter. What is emotive about that? What is the best (most appropriate) Tiger replacement out of Gripen, Rafale and Typhoon? Undoubtedly Gripen. Which aircraft had the best price? Gripen.
what’s more, the gripen as such is highly contested by more or less everybody in switzerland (except Ulli Maurer and his gonvernment and SAAB of course) so, even poiticaly they can use that to delay an unpopular process and maybe get an even better deal than previous one
Personally I dont think the Swiss are opposed to Gripen in particular. From the results of the few opinion polls I have seen over recent years it appears that the majority do not support the procurement of any fighter to replace Tiger – whether Gripen, Rafale or Typhoon.
Spitfire9The answer is in the press release.
Which part? The part where Dassault are reported to have said (if I understand the French correctly) that they never had the opportunity to show how 18 Rafale would be just as effective as 22 Gripen?
“il n’a jamais eu l’opportunité d’optimiser le rapport coût-efficacité.
Selon le constructeur français, 18 Rafale seraient tout aussi efficaces que 22 Gripen…”
The article finishes by saying that if parliament rejects the Gripen deal “the evaluation would need to be started from scratch again to put all the players on an equal footing”.
«il faudrait recommencer l’évaluation au début, afin de mettre tout le monde sur un pied d’égalité.»
Spitfire9why “stupid move”? right now, their pffer was refused in favor of the gripen, so, the best they can expect is to get the process cancelled and restarted, which is exactly what such offer can do (not sure, but there aren’t that many other options left to them)
I don’t see this as a clever move in the sense of wanting to get the selection process cancelled and restarted. Would any country inviting bids for a new fighter want to include a company which, if not selected, would risk delaying re-equipping their air force in this way?
Spitfire9Maybe the French know something about MMRCA that we don’t? 😀
It’s very easy to drop your prices when you know what the competition are offering, currently they have nothing left to lose.. except now everyone else knows what they can offer, they might expect the same? What would India do if this new price is lower than they have been offered!?
It’s not really possible to discern the price of the aircraft from the deal price, is it? If you offer 100 aircraft + spares + support @ 10 billion then drop your price to 8 billion, have you lowered the price for the aircraft or the spares or the support or some/all of those? Only the client reading the quote can know for sure.
In any case it does not make much difference whether 100 aircraft are priced @ 7 billion and the extras @ 3 billion or 100 aircraft are priced @ 6 billion and the extras @ 4 billion. The aircraft on their own are useless so the buyer has to buy the spares and support, too.
Spitfire9Dassault made a new offer 19th January:
– 18 Rafale for 2.7 billion Swiss francs
– France offers 24 hour a day access to French bases
Also in the article:
– Gripen deal needs to be sanctioned by parliament (in June)
– almost two thirds of Swiss consider the acquisition of new military aircraft unnecessary (out of of sample of 1000 questioned)
You have to ask why Dassault did not offer this price before. There was a selection process. Gripen was chosen on the basis of the 3 bids submitted. If Dassault had priced their bid differently, they might have got the deal but they chose not to offer their best price. Coming back after the winner has been selected to say that you could have offered a better deal than the one you chose to offer, so having lost at the price you offered you would now like to offer a lower price is not very business-like IMO. It tends to confirm my view that Dassault are below par as far as marketing and selling Rafale are concerned.
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