Re: F-35 Budget update


Message posted by Angus Batey on April 02, 2012 at 1:02:04 PST:

JoenTX, you're pretty much spot on as far as I can tell at the moment.

The Strategic Defence and Security Review of October 2010 - not just the first overarching review of UK defence priorities and spending, but the first detailed look at the defence budget by the Conservative-Liberal coalition government elected five months earlier - made a number of changes to the carrier strike programme. The key ones were that while both of the previously announced Queen Elizabeth-class carriers would be built, only one would enter service, with the fate of the other (sold to another nation? Held incomplete until finances improved? Finished but not deployed? etc.) left to be determined; and that the F-35 variant would be switched from the STOVL B to the carrier version C, with a reduced number to be bought given that there'd only be one carrier to put them on, not two.

There were a number of questions raised by this, the main ones to my mind (and in terms of interest to this forum) likely to be 1) over the numbers of F-35s to be bought, given the RAF's plan to move to a fast-jet force of only two types - F-35 and Typhoon (ie, the F-35, whether B or C, wouldn't just be replacing the Harriers, retired from service under the SDSR and since sold to the US Marine Corps for spares, but F-35 and Typhoon would eventually take over all roles that Tornado currently performs, including close air support and reconnaissance missions, as the Tornado presently does in Afghanistan) - ie, just because you halve the number of carriers doesn't mean you're halving the number of F-35s you need to do all the things F-35 was supposed to do; and 2), the carriers weren't designed to include catapults and arrestor gear for conventional fixed-wing carrier operations, so buying the C rather than the B would mean re-designing the carriers, inserting the relevant equipment, and also regenerating the capability to do catapult launches and cable landings in a force that hasn't done the job since the Ark Royal was retired in the 1970s. There are other points that also are worth considering, such as that the change to C came too late on to prevent the first two F-35s the UK has bought being Bs (they are finished and off the line at Fort Worth and will be delivered in the summer), so you've got to wonder what would become of them - it's hardly going to be worth training pilots and ground crews to operate and maintain the variant if you've only got two - and that one of the two internal weapons that would be included in the unit flyaway cost of the B version for the UK won't work on the C because the weapons bay door is a different shape and won't accommodate it, meaning that, without additional spending on installing, testing and clearing other weapons, a UK F-35C in stealth configuration will only be able to carry a Paveway IV.

On the question of carrier operation and the B/C switch, the UK government has spent quite a few millions of pounds examining the options and financial implications of the B-to-C switch since the SDSR and recent media reports are suggesting that the costs are too high to make it a sensible choice. Initially it had been envisaged that fitting either a conventional steam catapult or EMALS to one of the carriers and regenerating the capability would have cost something like £800m; latest leaked figures claim this has now exceeded £2bn. Against this, it should also be noted that the SDSR highlighted the advantages of interoperability with allies, such as the US and the French: if the UK uses the same launch and recovery systems the logic of only having one carrier works better, because you could still maintain a carrier strike capability when your carrier wasn't serviceable by working in coalition with another nation's carriers. The SDSR also said that the C has lower through-life costs and described the aircraft as "more capable" than the B, presumably a reference to the greater fuel load it carries and what I believe is a larger weapons bay (setting aside the issues with the door).

The other interesting question is the size of the UK order. Including the three test aircraft, the then Labour government set the overall UK F-35 buy at 138 airframes, for mixed RAF/Royal Navy use. In the SDSR, the Conservative/Liberal coalition government said that they would reduce this number, but didn't say by how much. Behind-the-scenes, the UK has continued to confirm the 138 figure to Lockheed, even while telling the nation that the number will be lower. This is most likely to be because the work available to UK industry will go down if the UK opts to buy fewer F-35s (at present, according to figures given by a UK defence minister, 15 per cent of the value of every F-35 built will be earned by British companies). The MoD says that the 138 figure won't be officially revised until the next SDSR, which is due to take place in 2015, after the next UK general election.

I discussed some of this stuff in a piece published in January in the Mail on Sunday (link below). Not sure that the level of detail there will add much for readers of DLR but it may be of interest.

Cheers,

AB

Attached link: Mail on Sunday piece

In Reply to: Re: F-35 Budget update posted by JoenTX on March 30, 2012 at 19:15:12 PST:

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