If we need a nuclear deterrent then the delivery system must be affordable, which means handing over the launch keys to the RAF/FAA (The USAF expect the F35 to be able to carry nuclear weapons). That will save 90% of the cost of replacing Trident.
Merging the three armed services doesn’t work and has never been proven to be cost effective – all it does is undermine morale.
The problem is that BAE Systems are so tightly joined to the MoD at the hip that the tax-payer pays for some of BAE Systems overheads (even before we pay for such luxuries as weapons and weapon delivery systems). We are told that we are building two large aircraft carriers because it would be too expensive to cancel – what rubbish. If the government really wanted to save money they could have put a gun to the head of BAE Systems (hypothetically speaking) and we would have been able to walk away from these two expensive carriers – paying for work already undertaken. I personally think we have to stop buying from BAE Systems and buy off-the-shelf.
I would rather have the MoD design a hybrid destroyer/aircraft carrier that would be smaller than HMS Ark Royal but larger than the Type 45 Destroyer. It would carry the same weapon systems, but be able to carry around eight harriers/F35s and two to four helicopters. And for the price of just one giant aircraft carriers and four Type 45s we could have built six hybrid warships as described above.
The problem with the Harrier is that it never really evolved. My understanding it that originally the aircraft was to have been supersonic but the government said NO, so if we are to retain a V/STOL aircraft it has to be the F35.
While the Harrier was designed to be used in Europe from makeshift woodland clearings, it was ideal for carrier operations using much cheaper and smaller ships. It’s use also in recent conflicts was also valuable – then again maybe a squadron of turbo-powered Spitfires would have just been as effective against men with spears (okay, AK47s and IEDs).
Goodbye Harrier. Goodbye Nimrod MR4. Goodbye Britain. Maybe we should have left the Germans to have over the country in 1940 or the Russians in the 1950/60/70s – can’t see ’em doing any worse.
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