https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/1 ... -disaster/
The following really comes to the core of the issue - the UK MOD is incapable of working with UK industry to built new platforms - but always looking for a cheap option on the basis of "market efficiency". Looks like the RAF managed to put their foot down and insist on it being done right..But there were problems. The MoD wanted to jam a whole raft of new features and tech into the old Ascod hull. Indeed, according to the National Audit Office (NAO), the MoD added a total of 1,200 ‘requirements’ even though both they and GD ‘did not fully understand some components’ specifications or how they would [fit]’. The biggest change of all was to come on top of the vehicle – where the 30mm cannon of the Ascod II was to be exchanged for a far heavier 40mm gun.
According to the NAO, the 1,200 changes were the subject of confusion and discord between the MoD and GD. The result was delay, and a vehicle that was neither tried and tested like an off-the-shelf purchase, nor truly bespoke. What was clear was that every change added complexity and, above all, weight to Ajax. Scimitar weighs around 7.8 tonnes. Ajax now tips the scales at over 40 tonnes. As Francois has put it, what was commissioned as a reconnaissance vehicle is now a giant that is ‘as stealthy as a Ford Transit full of spanners’.
The route to avoiding cock-ups in future seems apparent: work with industry on projects as they develop, so that problems are identified early on – as the RAF is doing with the BAE-led consortium behind its next-generation combat jet, Tempest.
>>As always -the problem is the UK MOD that takes a proven design and attempts to gold plate it - causing an overall failure of the procurement programme...