"Tony Williams" wrote:
| "Brett" wrote in message
...
| "Tony Williams" wrote:
| | Chad Irby wrote in message
| m...
| | (Tony Williams) wrote:
| |
| | Chad Irby wrote:
|
| | Part of that "cost effectiveness" appeared to be a lowball
| pricing
| | structure that fell through on closer examination.
| |
| | Do you have a source to support that? You may be right, but I
like
| to
| | work on hard info rather than forum gossip.
| |
| | This talks about the cost issue:
| |
| | http://stage.defensedaily.com/VIP/ddi/previous/ddi0927.htm#A1
| |
| | "We had a cost-growth problem that forced a recompetition," he
said.
| | "Affordability is a prime concern of the program. Based on that
we
| were
| | forced to recompete the gun system integration. We selected our
| | supplier on a best-value case."
| |
| | Thanks for that link. I had to smile at: "GD had initially offered
its
| | GAU-12 25mm gatling cannon for the JSF in July 1999, but withdrew
its
| | proposal in February 2000." since that was only after L-M had
selected
| | the BK 27 - in the UK, we call that 'spin'
|
| The comment in the article was "Lockheed Martin originally selected
the
| BK 27 27mm cannon offered by Boeing [BA] and Mauser in July 2000"
which
| would have been 5 months after GD had withdrawn its proposal in
February
| of that year. If that comment is true Lockheed Martin, by default,
| selected the only weapon left in the competition.
|
| Sorry, I was mixing it up with Boeing. I have a print-off of an item
| from 'Defence Systems Daily' dated April 29th, 1999, which says: "The
| Boeing Company has selected the Advanced 27mm Aircraft Cannon for its
| next-generation JSF combat aircraft...The gun is also a candidate for
| the Lockheed-Martin version of the JSF."
|
| Presumably GD saw the writing on the wall.

They probably did, they started the process to buy Primex Technologies
before the end of 2000, and if the Government didn't get involved they
would have owned Boeing Ordnance as well before the end of 2001.

| Why else would they
| withdraw their gun, which they seem more than happy to provide now?

The RAF dropped the BK27 cannon from their Typhoon's because it was
supposedly "too expensive". The defense budget may be large it isn't
bottomless.