SD67 wrote:Ron5 wrote:
Luckily the US has other things to offer other that technology transfer, like actual defense.
"Dear Japan, if you buy our jets, we will defend you with our biggest navy in the world ,our biggest air force in the world and our best equipped army in the world including our nuclear weapons, love America" versus "Dear Japan, partner with us in developing new jets and if China invades, we will send you our very best wishes, love Britain P.S. if Jeremy is our PM we won't even send you that"
Ron if it were was black and white as that then the Saudis would never have bought Typhoon and Tornado. Didn’t affect the US decision in GW1. The US is confronting / competing with China in the Pacific for a host of very good strategic reasons and one fighter purchase is not going to change that.
Japan are already collaborating with us on Meteor. The sky hasn’t fallen on anyone.
Whether they’d actually be a good partner for Tempest - I have my doubts. Most likely they’re using us as leverage to get the
Operational sovereignty they’re looking for. I
On the P1 / P8 question I think the RAF should have at least held a competition. With a transparent process and a clear validated set of requirements. Funny how Boeing seems to always get waved though without a competition <cough cough> Ryanair Factor <cough cough>
We were talking about Japan and with Japan, the UK has next to no leverage compared with the US. That is my point. If you want to argue otherwise have at it. If you want to talk about Saudi Arabia, that is another discussion.
No "threat", implied or otherwise, of partnering with the Brits on Tempest will make the slightest difference to the US poistion. It's a paper tiger (see what I did there).
Collaborating on Meteor eh? Jury is still out on that one.
Regarding P1 vs P8, why have a competition when the world and his brother knows who the winner is going to be? Effing pointless.
Or as the Brit general in charge of MVRP said when asked why didn't he have a competition before choosing the American JLTV "the other companies clearly could not build a vehicle for less than twice the price so why bother?".
So whoever is in charge of the P-8 purchase might say, "the Yanks lets us train and fly their P-8's for free for however many years since Nimrod was binned on the understanding we would eventually buy P-8's, are we now going to say we've changed our minds?"
Sorry I don't get the Ryanair reference. If it's another limey whinge then I'm not interested in getting it either.