No, the 2-8 example provided is from different manufacturers, the MOD then picks 1 of those designs for production.
Shiny new British Army tank unable to reverse over 20 cm high sleeping plods!
- Thread starter stockhausen
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So what? The point was that they wanted end users to test it - so these designs have to be proper designs and proper prototypes need to be built. Who wants to pay for the 7 designs that don't make it?
Deleted User 298457
Deleted User 298457
These chaps live on the internet not the real world pal.
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Remind me; how many that don't make it backwards over a 20 cm high obstruction are the Government paying for?
Soldato
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I like to see the U.K. have some equipment at the beginning of of a war which isn’t utterly **** and gets the soldiers that use it killed.
The Army Chiefs originally wanted to modernise their Warriors with beefier armour plating, new engines, state-of-the-art electronic warfare and weapon optics. When Lockheed Martin presented their prototype (after originally winning the contract), the Army Chiefs thought that the main gun was too small and wanted a bigger one... On the same chassis which was already over-beared from the extra weight of the new engine, new electronics, etc. So that upgrade was delayed, costs rose and the project was eventually scrapped as the MOD gave them new funding and they wanted shinier new toys again.
All "billion dollar" arms manufacturing companies do that to some extent - companies make prototypes (the military give a little money to help out on the cost), the military test them and pick the best and the "losing" companies then sell their designs around the world trying to win other contracts.
The problem is that since 2001 those companies didn't want to do that any more as they realised that Governments will happily pay for ALL their R&D work, for ALL the prototyping and for ALL the testing and then, when it turns into a pile of uutter crap, the manufacturers can charge lots more to fix the problems that they didn't know about until AFTER the contracts are signed and the testing begins.
That is something which needs to change in future contracts as the utter failure we have at the moment has a company which somehow sold the Military an AFV in which sub-contractor A's turret had never been fitted or tested onto sub-contractor B's chassis until after 5 years AFTER the initial £500 MILLION "build a prototype" contract was signed in 2010 - winning against an already made and operational design by BAES the CV90, leading to the current shambles where things which should have been shaken out at a prototype phase, before we even signed a single contract, now need fixing on a contact we're stuck paying around £5.5 BILLION for and the company is just loving it, so much extra money to squeeze out of the UK tax payer for all that juicy profit.
**EDIT**
So lets just compare the two designs as they stand currently -
AJAX - Less than 15 prototypes made so far, buggered and a bit of a disaster which will take lots of money and time to fix unless it gets scrapped first.
CV-90 - Currently 1200+ in operational service with 7 Nations where it's combat-proven in Afghanistan by both the Danes and Norwegians.
Yeap, the Army/MOD definitely made the best choice there!
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How to "save money" and "increase efficiency" by having "one size fit all", i.e. create an vastly expensive thing that doesn't fit anything properly. You'd have thought that after the first few hundred times that failed in a catastrophically expensive way people would have stopped doing it, but no.
What a mess. I'm sure lessons will be learned and a whole new layer of value for money ensurance policy decision gate review audits will be added to the procurement system in a few years time to make sure this never happens again. With the end result being that the next procurement exercise will be even more expensive while producing an even more flawed product than 'Ajax'.
I predict that the next project will be a next generation smart-rifle with a facial recognition camera to ensure that no one except the authorised soldier can shoot it. Of course it will meet all contractual milestones perfectly on time to ensure the supplier gets their on time delivery bonus, and when delivered will require soldiers to remove cammo cream, helmets, and any eye or ear protection to allow it to recognise their faces.
I predict that the next project will be a next generation smart-rifle with a facial recognition camera to ensure that no one except the authorised soldier can shoot it. Of course it will meet all contractual milestones perfectly on time to ensure the supplier gets their on time delivery bonus, and when delivered will require soldiers to remove cammo cream, helmets, and any eye or ear protection to allow it to recognise their faces.
^ You would think lessons would be learnt, but the history of the TSR-2, F-111K, Nimrod MR4, Type 45 destroyer programmes etc sadly says otherwise. Our defence budget is around the top 4 in the world, but like almost every government kitty is squandered due to shocking inefficiencies and mismanagement that would ruin any genuine business.
As others have suggested getting manufacturers to submit several designs for tender used to be par for the course, allowing the customer to choose the best from competing designs and in exceptional circumstances meant we ended up with multiple solutions; the 3 V bomber types being a great example. Even as late as the F-22 vs F-23 and X-32 vs X-35 (that would become the F-35 Lightning) this was normal practice.
As others have suggested getting manufacturers to submit several designs for tender used to be par for the course, allowing the customer to choose the best from competing designs and in exceptional circumstances meant we ended up with multiple solutions; the 3 V bomber types being a great example. Even as late as the F-22 vs F-23 and X-32 vs X-35 (that would become the F-35 Lightning) this was normal practice.
Soldato
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Another day, another stockhausen post whining about capitalism this despite the fact its about an incompetent public service wasting huge amounts of public money.
I remember exactly the same thing happening on an army procurement drive a long time ago there was a trial of tanks on offer the best on test was the german panzer but which one did they go for... the american one. They couldn't bring themselves to buy a geman tank no reason stated but the only conclusion you could draw is because... it was german. Either that or the americans host a better drinks party.
I remember exactly the same thing happening on an army procurement drive a long time ago there was a trial of tanks on offer the best on test was the german panzer but which one did they go for... the american one. They couldn't bring themselves to buy a geman tank no reason stated but the only conclusion you could draw is because... it was german. Either that or the americans host a better drinks party.
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Soldato
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Just seems a disconnect on what defence actually wants. Armoured vehicles going to war is not on trend anymore.. so why?
Should just go for off the shelf and more of them which would probably still end up cheaper.
Should just go for off the shelf and more of them which would probably still end up cheaper.
I remember changing from SLR to SA80 and it felt weird; I really missed the full 7.62 with the 5.56 feeling like a toy in comparison. I never really left the semi-auto behind despite ending up as section gunner. We were on the LSW for a while but I was soon returned to the GPMG with the joy of that weight!
Yeap, sadly too many higher ups (Military and Civilian) believe in the Hype of drawing board designs given to them by arms companies without demanding actual proof of ability to deliver before paying any money -
"Hey, if you buy it we promise the new equipment will do XYZ, but you need to buy it first! Oh, and only then will we'll see if it can actually do what we promised and, if it can't, well you'll just have to pay more and more money until it does or you decide lower the requirements to fit what we can actually make".
Of course it also doesn't help that the military higher ups are universally famously for "mission creep" when buying new equipment -
"Hey, you know we asked for XYZ well now we want ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW12345678910 adding to it's build requirements too, that's a good chap! What's that, it'll add a huge amount of extra time and extra cost to built them? Well never mind, I'm not the one picking up the bill am I *guffaw* and I'll have probably moved jobs in the time it takes folks to realise it's a white elephant programme which'll never work".
You'd think at this point they'd design a base chassis, engine, PowerPoint and drive drain.
With a fixed space for a container style module to be put in and locked into the chassis, troop compartment, drop it in, turret compartment with ammunition drop it in.
If they wanted multi role rather than these take a design for A then slap everything else on it to do b,c and d
Problem is you need everyone at every stage of designing and iterating on the design to understand and work with the ethos. Hence what happened to stuff like the Boxer.
In theory it really shouldn't be hard to have a modular barebones chassis, engine and power plant/drive train which could be used as the basis for a large variety of light to medium armoured vehicles.
In theory it really shouldn't be hard to have a modular barebones chassis, engine and power plant/drive train which could be used as the basis for a large variety of light to medium armoured vehicles.
Caporegime
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Really?
All the British tanks in ww2 were terrible compared to the german and Russian designs.
I'm struggling to think of any British designed weaponry in ww2 that was super effective, sajs the firefly but that was simply a bodge ...
Spitfire and hurricane were okay, but the hurricane first flew in 1935 and spitfire in '36