……
They are going with F35C, not Rafale. You can tell them not to, and that they should go Rafale, but I don’t think they will be interested.
Many things have changed since the original commitment to the F-35 project was made. The financial crisis, for example, which means that affordability has become a much higher priority; the STOVL requirement is gone now; the F-35 has become a troubled development programme, with many unresolved technical issues and costs that are seemingly out of control. And last, but not least, a few months they signed the UK-France Defence Co-operation Treaty, which specifically mentioned “building primarily on maritime task group co-operation around the French carrier Charles de Gaulle – the UK and France will aim to have, by the early 2020s, the ability to deploy a UK-French integrated carrier strike group incorporating assets owned by both countries…”
If you look at it in light of those factors, the idea of Rafales for the Royal Navy makes a lot more sense now than it might have a few years back.
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