Development costs vs. purchase price

I’m a bit of a worrier over F35. Will it do what its supposed to? Will it be cheap to buy? Will it be cheap to maintain? Will the spiral in development costs result in aquisition costs spiraling? And many others.

But, putting on my happy face for a second.

There is actually a rationale for US ponying up for most of the development costs and selling units on at or near planned cost.

US industry is gaining the experience with ‘5th Gen’ (whatever that means) and if it wants to be world leader will have to do so. Various partners aren’t getting that experience and knowledge. On top of which arms sales seem to take a special place in economics.

So the bright positive idea that maybe JSF will sell at the proposed price tag doesn’t seem so daft to me after all.

Wouldn’t it be incredibly funny if Japan bought Typhoon? :diablo:

If by incredibly funny you mean fncking cool then yes 🙂

There have been a few reports about Japan seriously considering ‘phoon if Congress won’t let them have Raptor. But is that only a bargaining tool? We can but guess.

‘phoon would look awesome in JASDF colours

Plus I’d expect some beautifully ingenious, nay unexpected, solutions to problems which Eurofighter might not realise that they even had.

a la

Internal cannon – Mauser 27mm has no commonality with rest of JASDF so redesign for 20mm six gun? 25mm five gun? Or some kind of podded external cannon with OBS capability?

AESA – use Captor, part fund AESA, provide own, provide expertise for joint venture?

Very neat birds. The nose in almost unbelievably long. 🙂

Which reminds me. I assume that someone has thought of and dealt with the issue of muzzle flash right in the pilots FoV?

Well done the Aussies for getting half the fleet wired for conversion to Growler

Do you really think it’s likely that the RN is going to get SSGNs?

Not in the slightest. Is there anything I (or anyone else) has typed which has suggested that I/they do?

And what is this obsession with Tomahawks,

This is an armchair enthusiasts forum and there has been lost of footage of Tomahawk being used in anger. Also RN already has Tomahawk. But we do like to buy lots of small buys of different items of kit so with Tomahawk in RN, Apache (:)) in RAF expect next Cruise Missile to be purchased for UK to be Brahmos

Aster missiles can’t be quadpacked

No but rumours abound that CAAAMMMMM will do

Fireshadow is also designed to be fired from VLS, and is going to be a damn sight cheaper than tossing around TLAMs

Indeed, if it works and can be bought in economical numbers. But there is that range issue you mentioned

In my opinion if they army wants cost savings what about pulling out of Germany?

Or capping pension for one star and above at Captain RN or equivalent (rather than retiring on full salary as pension)

Or binning ceremonial duties

Or stop continually going for low rate production, little or no export market, tailor made gold-plated drain pipe solutions

Or stop upgrading AFVs which won’t be deployable even after the upgrade

Or perhaps most importantly realise that denigrating programmes in the other services (whether we end up with 2 or 3) won’t get more money for one’s own service. The money saved will not stay in MoD. That’s not the way the treasury works.

A Bel and hence a Decibel is a ratio of signal loss.

i.e. the more decibels the quieter

So a 110 dB submarine is quieter than a 100 dB chainsaw

Its also a logarithmic ratio (base 10) so a 10 dB difference is a significant difference

I noticed this –

Maybe that’ll persuade people to stop describing it in frigate terms, with frigate armament – but I doubt it. 🙁

Quite right. We’re all being far too timid

Hyuga for C1
Ocean for C2
Absalon for C3

Sorry Swerve beat me to it, when I started typing it wasn’t there yet

Fixed that for you