RunningStrong wrote:I think you're completely overblowing the situation. What prior experience did Force Protection Europe have prior to Foxhound? (A limited reachback to US Corp HQ?).
I agree, the design was a joint effort by many qualified companies, but the result was so good (British standards, once again) that it can't compete in the "mass" market.
- the latest SDSR said something about regaining combat mass? Which means that unit costs will matter
Supacat has great internal design capability, but at times had to have all of the production done by a contracred party. A situation for which a better balance has been sought lately:
"Towards the end of 2014, the highly successful design engineering firm, Supacat Group, acquired heavy fabrication and machining specialist, Blackhill Engineering Services Ltd, a business established in the 1950s operating from Blackhill Quarry, Woodbury near Exeter.
Blackhill originally serviced the quarry industry, providing an engineering centre for English China Clays (Quarries Division), designing, fabricating and installing a variety of heavy duty engineering solutions. It was taken into private ownership in 1995 and began to provide bespoke engineering services to other sectors as the quarry sector retrenched.
Few, if any, engineering competitors can match Blackhill’s facilities and ability to handle very big projects. It currently operates from four workshops covering 28,000 sq ft divided between fabrication, assembly and large and small machine shops, with the capability of lifting 60 tons on site."
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)