Yes, that's right: £3.47bn with nothing to show for it, and little sign that there will be any result any time soon. Over the past 3 budget years, £1.73bn has been spent, at a time when, it is pretty obvious, that the programme has been in deep doo-doo @thepagey@wavellroom
So, at a time of non-delivery of Ajax, the contractor has received 50% of all outlays on the programme since it kicked off in 2009-10. Simple question: how can these payments continue when there is no delivery of an acceptable product?
It is well worth noting that Lockheed Martin has had to make three financial adjustments for penalty payments and extra expenditure on Warrior CSP - there is no evidence that General Dynamics has had to do similar. Indeed, a PQ about the MoD enforcing damages against GD...
was answered in that there had been no such charges enforced. Again: how ON EARTH can this be happening?
£3.47bn is 64% of the total Demonstration & Manufacture phase budget for Ajax. And. No. Working. Vehicles. Have. Been. Accepted. Into. Service.
Before anyone says, "well, we spent several billions on the carriers before they came into service" - true, but irrelevant. The budget/build profile for, say, a carrier/SSN is different from that of an AFV.
No-one else has spent this level of money on an IFV, over such a length of time, and seen nothing to show for it. And, fine, 14 "Drop 1 unturreted vehicles" have been delivered. Whoppee-Doo! "Delivery" is not in-service.
There are few signs that the turreted vehicles will be suitable for delivery for...well, possibly ever. So, will FY21-22 see ANOTHER £500m+ outlay on Ajax. If so, WHY???
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Apache weaponry... Hearing that despite being deemed a significantly superior capability (oh, and it works, and is cheaper), MoD has decided to ditch Brimstone for AH64E, and go with JAGM. @nicholadrummond@bealejonathan@byMBDA @BeaverWestminster @benmoores2@ArmyAirCorps @
The Army Air Corps, having started off as hostile to Brimstone ("it's an RAF weapon"), seem to have been won over - but somewhere between Main Building and Abbeywood, someone/some people have been told by either of Boeing/Lockheed Martin that integrating Brimstone would be...
Before anyone says, "without it, there will be a capability gap!" Wake up: that gap is already there with a programme/system that does not work, and has little likelihood of doing so...
And, again, before anyone says that £3.36bn in 2010 money is £4.4bn in 2020 money, so, we should spend even more with a failed programme to ensure that we meet another failure?
Oh dear, oh dear, it has already started! Let's start with a basic factoid: for a £450m budget, you'd be lucky to buy 10 Blackhawks, not the 20 that - reportedly - are required. express.co.uk/news/uk/141882…
And please don't come back saying that a Blackhawk is $20m - that is for a non-flyable aircraft. The average cost for export customers is $60m - and even that does not cover everything. BTW, does anyone believe that the SF would be "happy" with a vanilla Blackhawk?
Unlikely... And once you start adding all that SF night flying stuff, your £450m budget looks even less adequate. So, quite frankly, SF/SBS "support" for the Blackhawk is looking pretty irrelevant.