NAME OF NEXT BRITISH MAIN BATTLE TANK

lol

 

The next British tank should be called CLUMSY. If a Chally can trip over a strip of white tape....


Oops, should have looked where he was going...

 

I though it was only red tape that could bring down defence projects?

 

I wonder if there's cavalry officer reaching for his pistol, ready to put it out of its misery... "I'm sorry old chap, but it's for the best".

 

any thoughts on going in joint venture with the continentals .
the french and german used to talk about doing one together and sweden
used to have a funny tank hunter , very flat with a loooong gun .

the result could be called the concord .

 

Or even bether, the Concorde....

 

And that is why joint projects are best left alone!

 

I guess so....

However it must be said that there are quite some sucess stories in such joint projects.
Concord(e), Jaguar, Airbus, Eurocopter, Ariane just to name a few out of the aerospace industry.

Arguably, given the rising costs of defence projets, joint projects are the only alternative if Europe is willing to maintain a defence industry of it's own.

 

True, and there was the Tornado and the Eurofighter.

In terms of AFVs though, joint projects tend not to work out.

The MBT-70 is a good example, although the vehicle itself was not practical.

But there have been a few collaborative projects in Europe where the various countries just pulled out and made their own instead.

 

SP70/80/90/whenever springs to mind....

 

so big a market so many possible trade-off deals, offset deals ,butter
versus swords deals , all it need is a decent specs and a few imaginative
politician scoundrels , the thing could actually work.

 

On another note, there are rumours that Britain is about to buy Rafale fighters for it's new aircraft carrier.(To enter service after 2012)
So far Britain wanted to cooperate with the US on the new JSF figther, but apparently the americans are very sensitive about technology transfer....which would go as far as not providing the codes to arm the planes if Britain wanted to use the planes for missions not approved by the Pentagon.
(This also leads me to the question wether it would not be possible for Britain to develop a naval version of the Eurofigther?)


And France's new aircraft carrier could be build on a british shipyard....(using joint british-french technology)

Altough it's hard to imagine british carriers carrying french planes, or the french navy to run a carrier made in Britain....

 

Interesting. It might be a negotiating gambit point though.

I know any JSF purchase that the UK makes will be small compared to the US military but your still talking big money. The ability to say 'look we can go elsewhere' would be a useful one. Although how you could limit the actions of conventional weapon with a codes I don't understand.

If it is possible and we did allow the Americans* that degree of control of an important part of our military, well we might as well close the MOD and accept we don’t have a military of our own.




*Not intended as an attack on the USA but lets face it your support during the Falklands War was less than whole hearted**.


** which was as much because Regan couldn't get his head around why two countries would go to war over a set of islands you could spit across.

 

Absolutely.That's certailnly one possibility.

I don't either.
It probably has to do with software codes.Remember that software plays an increasing role in modern combat planes.
Thus the security of that software become very important, and it is primordial to avoid it falling into hostile hands.
There also may be some fear in the US that others could copy or build spin off products if the JSF software was not protected enough.(After all, it's not only the UK+US that participate in the JSF programm....)

 

castellot ,you legend, check the BBC news europe

" The UK and France have formally agreed to share the cost of designing a new aircraft carrier.
In a memorandum signed by the British and French defence ministers, France agreed to pay the UK up to £100m (146m euros) for design work already done. .
It will also pay a third of the cost of further development work, if it
decides to go ahead with construction. "

but what about a german carrier

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4807710.stm

 

Came across a magazine article about this topic over the weekend. Apparently the software access is vital if you intend to do any upgrades or modifications to the aircraft. The US has so far offered assurances which are of course worthless. Hopefully the UK government won't suffer one of its regular bouts of spinelessness and will go elsewhere if the US congress continues to be difficult.

 

.
.

OZ is also in the JSF project and apparently the plane will be more costly
and later than foreseen ,same grief about access to the source codes of the
weapons integrated system
.

the aust. gov. is probably going , very firmly , to make it's traditionnal
impersonation of a carpet too ! :roll:
.
.

 

Israel has apparently been refused "permission" to use its own weapons on F-35...
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=58020
the whole thing is getting messier and messier.