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future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 13 Dec 2018, 08:49
by jonas

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 13 Dec 2018, 12:13
by bobp
The powers that be need to move fast to replace Harpoon. Guess any replacement is down to hard cash as well as desire to spend it. Can France be trusted to deliver without ripping us off in the process.

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 13 Dec 2018, 19:48
by jimthelad
No they can't.

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 14 Dec 2018, 01:22
by Lord Jim
If politics come into it, there is no way we should put our faith in the French for any future defence programmes.

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 14 Dec 2018, 10:19
by RetroSicotte
bobp wrote:The powers that be need to move fast to replace Harpoon. Guess any replacement is down to hard cash as well as desire to spend it. Can France be trusted to deliver without ripping us off in the process.
They've already proven they can't with Sea Venom. They knew the UK needed it in service before Sea Skua went out and they still sat on their backsides refusing to put up the money despite being told they were off schedule.

They willingly knew they were leaving the UK without a capability, and still did it anyway.

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 14 Dec 2018, 11:02
by ArmChairCivvy
Well, their naval helos can take the Excocet
"leaving the UK without a capability, and still did it anyway"
so all that happened on their part was delaying the land attack capability by a couple of years
... and having a carrier with fast jets will fill in nicely, in the meanwhile

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 14 Dec 2018, 12:06
by Lord Jim
As far as defence co-operation is concerned we need to look outside Europe for the future, be it across the Atlantic or further afield. Turkey should be given a very wide berth and investing in partnerships with nations in the Persian Gulf should be done so with great care. As far as France goes, they see out aerospace industry as one of their main competitors and it is not in their interest to see it thrive. The French Government is also more than happy to break EU rules to provide substantial financial support to its Defence companies. Finally with a Anglo/French AShM we will be duplicating other weapon systems that already exist and either are or soon will be in service. Any benefits resulting from an Anglo/French programme will probably reside the other side of the Channel as well so the Sovereign Capability argument goes out of the window, and how many nations operating AShM they didn't develop or manufacture are there out there who are quite happy.

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 14 Dec 2018, 12:43
by RetroSicotte
ArmChairCivvy wrote:Well, their naval helos can take the Excocet
"leaving the UK without a capability, and still did it anyway"
so all that happened on their part was delaying the land attack capability by a couple of years
... and having a carrier with fast jets will fill in nicely, in the meanwhile
I'm not entirely certain what you're meaning. Sea Venom will be in service by 2020/2021, long before the carrier is around. The issue is they let the UK have a capability gap of helo launched ASMs and were happy to let us sit with that gap despite knowing their delay would cause it.

That is not the doings of a good partner, who is willing to let your forces suffer a dangerous loss in ability without a care.

On the larger ASM being covered, F-35B is hardly going to be worth anything at anti-ship at first either. Paveways do not an ASM capability make, and it is highly unlikely that Spear will come along much sooner than the future ASM anyway with the general trend in delayed entry to service.

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 14 Dec 2018, 13:01
by ArmChairCivvy
Both of these were "on their part" not ours:
"all that happened on their part was delaying the land attack capability by a couple of years
... and having a carrier with fast jets will fill in nicely, in the meanwhile"

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 14 Dec 2018, 13:35
by RetroSicotte
ArmChairCivvy wrote:Both of these were "on their part" not ours:
"all that happened on their part was delaying the land attack capability by a couple of years
... and having a carrier with fast jets will fill in nicely, in the meanwhile"
Again, I'm not certain what you're getting at; thats exactly what I'm saying. It was on them that the delay happened.

France knew the delay on Sea Venom they were going to cause would leave the UK vulnerable, and they did it anyway. Inexcusable, and not becoming of a worthwhile partner in such matters.

Re: future Anglo/French anti ship missile system

Posted: 26 Jun 2023, 18:28
by Ian Hall