Blighty's expensive Watchkeeper spy-drone in further delays

As has already been proved

The more you outsource all your capability to the cheapest foreign company

The less of an industry you have left

The less you can export

and the worse your balance of payments get.

(Oh and the deeper the **** you are in if you get in a war that your suppliers don't approve of. What would have happened in the Falklands if the British couldn't have bought more Sidewinders from the Yanks, and the Argentinians could have bought more Exocets from the French?)

Money spent in the UK recirculates in the UK

Money spent in the US doesn't.

For the last twenty years we've had oil to sell: its now running out. Exactly what will we have left to persuade food exporting countries to trade with us rather than China?

Economies of scale

War would be much more cost effective if every country would just agree to buy weapons from Google.

What could possibly go wrong?

As clear as day

Whenever the cost of a product is such an obvious rip-off, does it denote a struggling and criminal administration in charge of delivery? And a lack of Intellectual Property to sustain their regimes. And such monumental overruns are just another form of quantitative easing to prop up the crooked Ponzi money system and its politicians.

A different UAV in the past.

I have seen a UAV contract in the past. What happened was that the contract was signed, and then a change was made to the sensor package. Then another change, meaning that the plane couldn't have it's own undercarriage and had to launch from a ramp and leave the undercarriage behind (to lift the extra weight!).

Then it got another sensor upgrade which meant that it had to land upside-down (!), and the engine needed an upgrade to lift it. Then another change, which also meant an aero package change to generate a bit more lift.

In the end, the thing was nothing like it started. In addition, it was nothing like it would have been if you started it with all the new requirements.

This is the kind of thing that pushes defence contract costs through the roof and deliveries into the next century.

Unarmed?

What's that hanging hook doing there then? Lies and deception! It is obviously meant to rip the turbans off the Talibans heads and so expose them to the lethal rays of solar radiation. Or to upset and overturn their carts if they stop to take a leak on the edge of a cliff. Or to steal their washing if the Sigfried line is there...

Virtual OmniScience, AI Special Forces Terrain for Perfect Team Players/Ab Fab Non-State Actors

Methinks, or if one is a Brit, one hopes and fully expects that Blighty's concentrating on RAW Excellence in the Field of Cyber Command and Communicative Computer Control for Remote Leadership of the Global Narrative with Media Tales following and launching IT Trails and AIMIssions.

It is certainly something which they will be competing against, and chasing after if their Cyber Security Operations Centre isn't up to scratch, for the want of ITs SMARTer NEUKlearer Weapons and HyperRadioProActive ProgramMING.

And those two paragraphs are directly targeted at the brightest in Thames House and the finest in Cheltenham, for surely they can do better than accept sub-prime ministerial leaderships and petty cabinet coup plots for nations' daily fix of information and intelligence, which has been somewhat considerably dumbed down of late, to catch the attention of the virtual retard rather than educate and entertain the masses with the pleasures and opportunities of the future.

[Quantum Communications BetaTest XSSXXXX 1103021630]

yes but one more thing....

..... i couldnt give a flying f**k who builds, designs or even dreams these things up what really pisses me off is that a company comes to the MOD and says,

"hay look look at this wonderful new toy i have"

and the MOD says hell yeah, we'll take some of those but we need it to do x y and z as well"

They say, "no bother bob it will probably take 5 years and cost around £500 million"

10 years later and and £1 billions over budget

"are you nearly there yet? been quite awhile now?"

"ah- nope, we had another technical difficulty, we'll need to charge you a few more million"

OR

MOD says we want new toy that does this..."who can do this, whos the cheapest and how long?"

business man says, yup, 5 years £500 million

another chap comes out with, aye wee man, ill have it done for a couple of pints and a pack of fags, done next year mate.

MOD - jobs yours mate, have a smoke on me whilst you get started

10 years later and £1 billion

MOD "are you nearly there yet? been quite awhile now?"

"ah- nope, we had a technical difficulty, we'll need to charge you a few more million"

Now obviously its a lot more complicated but essentially that is what is happening, if a company says they are going to do something for a price then they should do it for that price or they should have kept there mouths shut if they couldnt do it. we should be fining any company that keeps shafting us like that. If a contract is won based on a bid then its there fault for bidding too low, of course there will be small changes in price but any other company out there producting anything will be held acountable if they dont do what they said they would.

Good reasons not to buy US

NZ has a small fleet of surplus, obsolete Skyhawks. They could have been sold years ago to one of many nations or collectors who want obsolete miljets, but the US holds a power of veto and has refused all sales.

Hence they are having to be scrapped at non-insubstantial cost. If we'd bought French planes, none if this would have happened.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4149581/Skyhawk-giveaway-after-failed-sale