On Sun, 18 Apr 2004 22:20:58 +1000, John Cook
wrote:
Just as a follow on the UK goverment have stated this:-

"24 Mar 2004 :

Mr. Gerald Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence with
what (a) short range air-to-air, (b) beyond-visual-range air-to-air,
(c) precision anti-armour and (d) other stand-off weapons the Future
Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) will be equipped; and for what reasons the
requirement for (A) advanced short range air-to-air missiles and (B)
Brimstone systems was removed from the JCA programme. [162643]



Mr. Ingram: No final decisions have been taken on the weapons fit for
the Joint Combat Aircraft, beyond the requirement that it will have a
precision bombing capability and an air to air capability when it
enters service.

Weapons systems which we are considering integrating on JCA as the
requirement evolves include:
Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile
Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile
Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (Meteor)
Paveway IV
Storm Shadow
Brimstone
Our considerations will cover which weapons should be carried
internally and which should be carried externally on JCA. Under
current plans, it is not considered cost or operationally effective
for JCA to carry ASRAAM and Brimstone externally, but the internal
carriage of these weapons remains an option. "


So the external carraige of ASRAAM and Brimstone not operationally
effective??, this raises some interesting questions, likely loadouts
and the JSF usage in the RAF..


Cheers




John Cook

Any spelling mistakes/grammatic errors are there purely to annoy. All
opinions are mine, not TAFE's however much they beg me for them.

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