Originally Posted by Ministry of Defence

Prime Minister David Cameron has today announced that the MOD is to order an additional C-17 Globemaster, taking the number of aircraft in the RAF's fleet to eight.

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You mean they're not going to ask BAe to start designing one now with an anticipated arrival date of Summer 2036 at a cost of £254 billion?

UK defence has really come down when the Prime Minister seizes the sound-bite opportunity of a single aircraft purchase.....

Originally Posted by Hexitele

You mean they're not going to ask BAe to start designing one now with an anticipated arrival date of Summer 2036 at a cost of £254 billion?

And even then it would look like it was designed by a committee of idiots.

Fitted for, but not with engines?

Originally Posted by 4(T)

UK defence has really been royally shafted by the Treasury when the Prime Minister seizes the sound-bite opportunity of a single aircraft purchase.....

Hmmm....bear with me...I'm slow.

So....a new C-17 costs £200M ?

And we have given India £280M every year since 2001?

So.....since 2001, just by turning off aid to a country with 'more millionaires than UK ' , we could have provided the RAF with...hang on...(removes socks to assist with arithmetic)...uh...an additional FIFTEEN of these movers ? ( notwithstanding whether we had the other necessaries to actually operate them)

Meaning that the airbridge to Afghanistan wasn't maxed out and creaking at the seams, reliant on airframes that were all the rage when Kevin Keagan sported a mullet ??

Meaning that in 2006 we could quite readily have put a troop of Challenger 2s into Sangin if that's what the Battle Group Commander said that's what he needed ?

Meaning that not a single soldier would have had his 2 weeks R&R period cut by a third because the RAF couldn't get him out of theatre ?

hmmmm......interesting stuff....I expect my maths is all wrong though.....

Quelle betise....

Back when the RAF were due to lease just four C-17s, I was thinking "why not just fecking buy a dozen at the best price the US will do - we are bound to need them". Just goes to show that the government and MoD are bunch of utter useless muppets completely lacking in any realism, pragmatism or a thought for what might be in the best interest of the UK....

I was staggered when I heard him announce this during PMQ's yesterday - talk about spin! One additional C17 in amongst all the over Defence cuts - whip crack away Mr Cameron, I am impressed! I hate to say this, but the way he keeps listing so-called Coalition triumphs every week reminds me of the previous bellend we had spouting rubbish at the dispatch box. Can we have the Conservative party back please?

Westpoint likes an RSS feed???

Funny how when Ministers are furiously defending the ever late and dramatically under performing A400M EuroTurkey, the price of the C-17 is puffed up to such an extent, the A400M EuroTurkey seems an absolute bargain at 'only' £140 Million.

Yet magically, when we buy ANOTHER C-17 because the A400M EuroTurkey is still nowhere to be seen in RAF colours, Tadah! The cost of a far more capable and proven C-17 is actually the rather bargain basement £200 Million people have been quoting all along and getting rubbished for.


ETA:

This quote needs printing out in letters 10 foot high and hung from the front of Main Building…

"…"Buying equipment off-the-shelf allows us to quickly deliver equipment that our troops need on operations at best value prices for the taxpayer"…"