Good news.

I don’t like the sound of this bit though:

The MoD says the PFI should, in the long run, save many millions of pounds compared with a more standard procurement approach in which the government purchases the hardware outright.

Sounds like someone at the MOD has bought the whole PFI argument hook line and sinker.

Boeing offers to assemble Chinooks in UK

By Sylvia Pfeifer, Defence Industries Correspondent

Published: March 1 2010 23:35 | Last updated: March 1 2010 23:35

Boeing is offering to assemble Chinook helicopters in the UK for the first time, in a sign of increased commitment to the British defence market.

Britain ordered 22 Chinooks in December in response to criticisms over a lack of military helicopters in Afghanistan.

Boeing makes Chinooks in Philadelphia and is due to deliver 10 of the 22 new ones direct from the US during the course of 2012 and 2013. It has now offered to shift final assembly for half the order to Britain.

The US aerospace and defence group said the work could take place at one of two locations: Gosport, on the south coast, where it operates a maintenance and support contract for Chinooks already in service with the RAF together with Vector Aerospace, or in the west country at a plant in Yeovil owned by Agusta-Westland.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cd05c184-2572-11df-9cdb-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss&nclick_check=1

There’s a debate on the BBC website about this now, 90% of the ‘Your say’ comments are full of the most ignorant rubbish you can possibly imagine coming from all sides of the debate.

Really?

The possible transfer to Argentina of a refurbished model of the French manufactured fighter-bomber Super Etendard, which had an outstanding performance during the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict, is under consideration by the French Ministry of Defence, reveals the French publication, Mer & Marine.

The operation which includes giving the Argentines part of the sophisticated avionics of the Super Etendard Modernized (SEM) model would take place in 2015 when the French navy will de decommissioning their air fleet to be replaced by the new Rafale.

However in the event of the operation going ahead it will depend on the availability of SEMs at the moment the French navy begins the decommissioning process, subject to the Rafale delivery program.

http://nosint.blogspot.com/

The idea is that those Brit aircraft will have nowhere to land by the time they arrive. If they land on Las Malvinas they will become Argentinian war booty.

No, the idea is that the above plans don’t really have a realistic chance of success (as has been pointed out repeatedly) and those Brit aircraft will be landing on a secure airbase in British hands.

Superpower budget? the only big cost is the VLS loadout, Like I said I’m not talking about a missile ship, I’m suggesting glorified missile barge, sure we should be building C1/C2 with plenty of cells, but we’re not going to get many hulls, and not only would this idea increase the number of missiles (of any type) in a theoretcal task group, but also using them almost as old school pickets means they can intercept an incoming threat (missile/boat/plane/whatever) whilst it’s outside the range of the motherships missiles but within the detection range of the radar umbrella.

If the vls loadout is so insignificant how come the entire RN stockk of Tomahawks could fit in one of the ships you are proposing, there’s only one Navy in the world that has a substantial stock of LACMs and even the closest thing they’re building to what you’re proposing are the Zumwalts, even they have some utility as multi-rule vessels.

There still isn’t anything that these ships can do in peace time, that’s significant for any navy when there’s nobody presenting an immediate threat.

As an interesting aside, what will all this potential oil money mean for the Falklands and UK?

Will the UK actually see much of the revenue? I know the Falklanders are keen to pay for their own defence needs, but how far will that stretch? Just paying for the costs of keeping the current units stationed there, or paying for beefing up protection of the oil fields with new units etc? Ideas?

If the amount of oil down there is anything close to the speculated 50 or 60 million barrels the Falklands Islanders would probably be willing to pay for what already exists and maybe a little more. I’m sure a decent case could be made for a couple of extra patrol vessels, SAR would definitely need to be improved with all the extra traffic (not necessarily defence I know)