New F35 exceeds specs by reducing them and we want to dump our Eurofighters for it!

jakspyder said:
part of the problem i think with the eurofighter is we dont have a use for air superiority. Or rather all you need is a hot air balloon and you've gained air surperiority now days.

That and they dont run of carriers. Air power of the future is going to be predominantly carrier based. Its more effective and versatile. Land bases will become predominantly for rotary aircraft and logistics C130/C17 etc with the brunt of the air support for ground troops being delivered by apaches (they're extremely effective at it!)


The RAF is becoming more and more a logistics branch and the navy is picking up the air power.
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You have to understand though, we cannot prepare ourselves for the battlefield of the moment, there is no telling what the capabilities of future enemy forces, Its the old saying, prepare for A war not THE war, which is a massive failure on the armed forces recently, they have become far too afghan focused(rightly enough at the time) but things are currently starting to look beyond HERRICK and with this a change in focus to the type of battlefield/enemy we will face, a lot more generic war fighting style of things.


but there is no doubt that there is serious wastage and poor levels of foresight.
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Dear god... dont get me started, granted they have made advances on this in recent years there is a long way to go, MOD procurement in the last few decades has been nothing short of DIABOLICAL!
definitely too much red tape, poor decisions, and in my opinion theres definitely some people high up looking out for themselves if you know what i mean...:mad:
 
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India were considering the Typhoon but went for the cheaper Rafale, Japan were also looking at it but opted for US aircraft i forget which. The Typhoon is multi role, its agility means it exceeds many others in air to air combat but it can still be used for reconaissance and tactical bombing. Although these roles are increasingly being taken on by unmanned drone aircraft
 
Typhoons can take off from our carriers. Can't land on them without redesigning a few parts.

The F35, at present, is a piece of ****. We don't want any. Not in exchange for harriers or in exchange for typhoons. Bad plane.
 
steve45 said:
:rolleyes:
Nah, not enough, however we spend FAR too much on the benefit system, but thats another topic entirely, lets not stray from the intended subject.
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yea tighten the budgets and get rid of the few riff raff members of the army.

the ones that roll eye the people paying their wages!

the army is one step up from JSA on the ladder
 
arknor said:
yea tighten the budgets and get rid of the few riff raff members of the army.

the ones that roll eye the people paying their wages!

the army is one step up from JSA on the ladder
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Haha you really are full of BS aren't you? Do you just sit at your computer at night and think of ways to argue with people?
 
teaboy5 said:
Haha you really are full of BS aren't you? Do you just sit at your computer at night and think of ways to argue with people?
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No ,I sit at my computer and think of ways we can reduce the countries deficit and the armies budget seems like a good target seeing as we wouldn't miss a large chunk of ours
 
Surely buying Aircraft and equipment from the states is a better option than pouring billions down the drown in R&D on shared projects with our European allies who dont get out of bed when there is a war on?
Makes things easier in the field with increased spares and repair expertise availability, shared ammunition, shared personnel if required, reduced training costs.
We should be doing it with everything to be fair, Tanks, rifles, Helicopters, the lot.
 
^^ agreed, let the US spend the R&D money and once they have a top end refined product do what we did with the apache.

Buy it, take the silly bits out, put better bits in. and boom better apache.
 
This is the catch 22 we have, the US (Our esteemed Allies) already have enough military to deal with just about any current problem, so we don't need a military beyond defence...however being an ex-imperial power (ego to boot) and also being a permanent UN council member/NATO signatory etc...it is a requirement to have a mildly useful military.

Again however...it costs a tonne, which is also worsened by the "desire" to keep our nuclear deterrent wonderfully static, i wont bother arguing with people, but don't moan about reduced troop numbers when you have a simple solution.
 
I don't believe that Typhon is being dropped like you have said at all. There is a radar development program running for Typhoon that is currently funded and it is sill going ahead, both for the MOD and the European partners in tandem.
 
Just a few comments on things raised in this thread so far-

The UK armed forces have been savaged by massive cuts in recent years and is already reaching a tipping point and cant absorb any more cuts, especially when some studies find that cuts in military equipment do more to damage an economy if they are domestically produced due to weakening support industries and in turn damaging long term competitiveness.

For example the typhoon, superb interceptor can leave the F35B standing as it can take off and hit mach 2 in the time it takes a Dave to waddle its way through the transonic barrier. When first produced they would have been a competitive price and was looking to secure excellent over seas sales. However initial purchases were cut to save money which drove up the price of the craft which in turn killed many sales options costing us more money. Have seen a report from one defence analyst which stated that if the original partners hadn't cut numbers to 'save money' foreign sales and support may have made the venture actually potentially profitable over the airframes lifetime.

Recently following years of bad news and being torn a new one by the pentagon Lockeed Martin have gone on a PR offensive with quite a few claims like being more manoeuvrable then the Euro Canard designs... BS only swallowed by the worst of the JSF fanboys. Especially given only a few weeks before the sustained G figures of the 35 were slashed to the level that would have gloster meteor pilots giggling.

Some posters have mentioned buying alternatives from US stocks such as the F-18, not a bad idea its a great aircraft but the new variants actually come with a hell of a price tag and as no part of them is made here the end result would simply be giving money to America and costing jobs and the economy here, so not a great long term decision especially for what is a fundamentally old design.

With construction of our carriers very much under way and going quite well when the government arent changing their minds every 10 minutes my choice would be to buy sufficient F35 B's (a large part of which is built here and is worth billions to our economy) to fully stock both carriers and have a few trainers. Then replace the vary aged and war worn tornadoes with Typhoons having a one craft RAF fast jet fleet which would be a logistics dream and focus all the development funds into one aircraft type.

The Typhoon destroys the F35 in speed, range, manoeuvrability* and running costs plus so much of it is made here it would be a massive boost to our decimated aero industries.

*wish the MoD would pull their finger out and fund the EJ2xx and Vectored thrust nozzle which combined would give the Typhoon devastating performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=ss96tsbG5KY
 
There are two question on the table:

- Do we need to keep the current level of spending in our armed forces?
- Is there waste in the arm forces?

The second is better to answer first, since no, there is not waste, there seems to be a culture of total waste, and it is not the number of soldiers. It is the corruption, we do need even more soldiers and better technology.

If the house is cleaned, the money saved will make the of the questions above go away. Reducing the number of soldiers has been one of the most moronic decisions of this government, and when they showed that they rather hit our security rather than addressing the corruption.
 
Typhoon isnt going anywhere - not sure where you even got that from because the link you posted doesnt even mention it

hindsight is 2020 (ironically, I expect the year we actually get some f35s)

f35's failure isnt that it was wrong to order them from the start, just that the project itself has slipped so far right is getting stupid now

HOWEVER in hindsight f18's would be a better order now, half the price (so we can have twice as many) high tech enough for us for many years - more capable (it will take years for f35 to get weapons testing complete for everything, cheaper to maintain and we could have them right now
 
Isn't the F35 going to be our carrier strike force?

The Typhoon hasn't got carrier capability at the moment, so I can't see how their paths cross.

The F35 will be an excellent aircraft when it eventually hits the skies. I seem to recall the Typhoon being many years behind the original date and costing a fortune more than estimated.

F35 will be like the Typhoon, when it is in the air and we see it's capability all these problems will be forgotten about. The F35 will only replace Tornado's as the Typhoon isn't developed to a stage where it is capable of all air to ground actions.
 
I'd have thought someone could develop a fast-drone that could take off from our carriers before the F35 will be ready.
 
Third Opinion said:
Isn't the F35 going to be our carrier strike force?

The Typhoon hasn't got carrier capability at the moment, so I can't see how their paths cross.
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this, the F35 (from what i remember) are only going to the navy to replace the harriers it would make no sense for the MOD to replace typhoon with the f35 when they both suit different roles and the typhoon is just an excellent bit of kit.

I know people think the MOD are stupid (which they kind of are) but they are not stupid enough to throw away the billions they have put into the typhoon project for the american F35.
 
atpbx said:
Surely buying Aircraft and equipment from the states is a better option than pouring billions down the drown in R&D on shared projects with our European allies who dont get out of bed when there is a war on?
Makes things easier in the field with increased spares and repair expertise availability, shared ammunition, shared personnel if required, reduced training costs.
We should be doing it with everything to be fair, Tanks, rifles, Helicopters, the lot.
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I don't think you get it, we are paying for the R&D its the JSF F35 'Joint Strike Fighter' Not only are we paying for development and R&D we will also have to buy the aircraft itself once its done.


JSF Wiki
The development of the JSF will be jointly funded by the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, The Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Norway and Denmark .
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