In message , phil hunt
writes
On Mon, 10 May 2004 00:16:44 +0100, Paul J. Adam news@jrwly
nch.demon.co.uk wrote:
...and so it goes.

I can think of several purchases the MoD has made in recent years
which didn't represent value for money (IMO) and which together
would have saved more than enough to fund Typhoon fully:

Of course. Naturally, procurement authorities are fully prescient.

I can offer quite a few modern examples: the problem keeps coming down
to funding.

Does it though?

Yes. Defence is not a vote-winner: being able to boast about how much
you spent on the sacred schoolsandhospitals is.

There are countries that sped less on their military
than the UK, but seem to get better value than us. Consider Sweden,
for example. This country has a per capita GDP about the same as
Britain's, and spends a similar proportion of GDP on its armed
forces (2.5 % for Britian, 2% for Sweden). Imagine if Sweden and
Britian had a land border and were hostile towards each other; who
would win?

Sweden, easily, because nobody expects Sweden to be able to fight out of
area, maintain a blue-water navy, have credible amphibious forces that
can deploy outside home waters... life is easy when you only have to
fight at home.

Now, if Sweden felt it necessary to put a battalion of troops into the
People's Republick of Uckfay Ouyay to get their people out alive ahead
of the revolution... how would they do that?

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk