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| Britain | ||||
| UK to sell £43m fighters before seeing service | ||||
| 2004-06-01 | ||||
No single piece of military hardware has caused so much trouble for successive governments, in Britain and across Europe, as the ill-fated Eurofighter Typhoon. Beset by problems with design, hideous delays and enormous cost overruns, the fighter is already four years behind schedule. But, just as the Royal Air Force prepares to take delivery of the first of more than 200 Eurofighters to which it has been committed for almost a decade, it has emerged that the RAF will not have all of them in its hands for long. A sheepish Ministry of Defence (MoD) has admitted that moves are already underway to sell off dozens of the brand-new super-fighters as soon as they are delivered. "Some consideration has been given to the scope to provide for early The MoD had been planning to spend £20b on 232 Eurofighters over the next 20 years, already £2.3bn above the original budget. "In the next couple of months, the government is going to announce that it will make the most swingeing cuts to our armed forces," observed Tory defence spokesman Gerald Howarth. "They are looking to make savings wherever they can." Ministers deny that they are planning to impose such drastic budget restrictions on an arm of government that routinely complains of "overstretch", but the signals from within the MoD tell a radically different story. The department’s most senior civil servant, Sir Kevin Tebbit, has already admitted that the armed forces face major cuts because of Treasury spending restrictions.
Howarth, at least, recognises the spin-off value of what would inevitably be an embarrassing development, to British manufacturers including BAE, which are heavily involved in the Eurofighter project. "Providing we have sufficient cover, if some of the production-line places allocated to the RAF are allocated to the open market, I cannot complain," he told Scotland on Sunday. "Defence sales are hugely important to the UK because, without them, our unit costs for our own equipment would be incredibly expensive." The wider argument, one more enduring than any short-term budget crisis, is that the UK would simply not need so many of the new planes, even if it could easily find the money to pay for them. Some critics, in fact, argue that, with the Cold War threat having evaporated, Britain does not really need the new planes at all. "The really ironic thing is that the planes we might have the most need for, the ground-attack variant of the Eurofighter, are in the third tranche [of 88 planes], and that is the one most at risk of being cancelled," Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Paul Keetch told Scotland on Sunday. "The first tranche, the air-defence Eurofighters, are terribly good aircraft, but there is no longer any aerial threat to the UK, so who are we going to use them on? The only nation with a comparable capability is the United States and, short of going to war with them, I can’t see us ever needing any of these planes." Howarth insists that Eurofighter, and particularly the ground attack variant, will be vital in defending British forces and interests in future conflicts. "We don’t want to find ourselves ranged against a country that has air supremacy over us," he said. "Without supremacy in the air you put your men at risk on the ground. With the anniversary of D-Day coming up, anyone who thinks we can just get rid of planes like these should be reminded of the slaughter that can be suffered by ground forces if you do not win the battle in the skies above them." At the MoD, however, the mood remains defiantly optimistic. "Maybe next time we go into a project with the Italians and the Germans and the Spanish we’ll get it right first time."
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 You have to remember that the Eurofighter was conceived 20 years ago when there was far more enthuiasm for European cooperation than there is today. Since then the UK defence industry has moved to closer cooperation with USA and were the decision made today the decision would almost certainly be to buy/build an American plane. Having said that I think they should go with an unmanned/autonomous aerial vehicle. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-06-01 9:20:13 PM |
| #2 With all due respect to Steve and Spot,the smartest thing the Brits should have done was build their own F-16 Variant,like the Japanese are.They could then have entered into partnership agreements w/Euro F-16 users for upgrade/replacement.Could still be done,but unlikely as Eurofighter has become totally political,w/Britain not wishing to further anger Euros. FYI,the naval officer charged w/overseeing F-18E/F project told a group of writers and retired Aviation Admirals that it is true that F-18E has less range,less acceleration,less turning ability than F-18C,but other than that the F-18E is superior.(US Navy range figures for two a/c show F-18C w/2 300 gallon external tanks,and the F-18E w/2 450 gallon external tanks!)BTW,the Navy promoted the officer.In Iraq war,Admiral who had both F-18C's &E's,used his C's for strike missions and used his brand-new alledgedly superior F-18E's as tankers. As to F-35,I have used too much of Fred's bandwidth in past b***ing about it,for now let's just point out it was originally supposed to enter service next year,and it is going thru severe cost increases. |
| Posted by: Stephen 2004-06-01 7:38:06 PM |
| #1 The Brits (RN and RAF) are also involved with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. That's the plane they need (delivery schedule in 2008). In the meantime, we don't need no stinkin' eurofighter! |
| Posted by: Spot 2004-06-01 10:25:16 AM |