The situation has changed and is changing more and more especially when you factor in our main defence partner (America) is going through some very bad times with them even now thinking of extending the life of there ships to make up for short falls (Some to 53 years) and as Canada has shown that isn't a solid play to improve things but rather make them worse so we cant rely on the US and will have to do more our selves with the 2016 DWP is setting us on a path to be able to do so.
That said under the current planned budget any bomber force for Australia is purely hypothetical. We cant afford to cut anything else back as they are already limited in number as it is and what we could afford to cut back would make bugger all in savings. Any bomber force would have to come from an increase in the budget which I dont see happening. Further to that I dont see the US ever being open to selling Australia the LRSB so any bomber would have to be done from scratch and with that being the case it will never happen without it being a multinational effort with a combined fleet of hundreds.
All comes down to simple math, R&D for such a bomber.. very best case $10 billion (LRSB I have heard is meant to be around $20 billion? Will find the source). $10 billion across only an Australian force of 12 - 24.. $416 - $833 million per a bird in R&D alone, Build per each plane, Easily $250 million so already your at $666 million - $1.083 billion each bird.
So unless we can get a global order of around 200 this idea is already dead in the water.
My final 2 cents on this subject.
Regards, von_noobie
That said under the current planned budget any bomber force for Australia is purely hypothetical. We cant afford to cut anything else back as they are already limited in number as it is and what we could afford to cut back would make bugger all in savings. Any bomber force would have to come from an increase in the budget which I dont see happening. Further to that I dont see the US ever being open to selling Australia the LRSB so any bomber would have to be done from scratch and with that being the case it will never happen without it being a multinational effort with a combined fleet of hundreds.
All comes down to simple math, R&D for such a bomber.. very best case $10 billion (LRSB I have heard is meant to be around $20 billion? Will find the source). $10 billion across only an Australian force of 12 - 24.. $416 - $833 million per a bird in R&D alone, Build per each plane, Easily $250 million so already your at $666 million - $1.083 billion each bird.
So unless we can get a global order of around 200 this idea is already dead in the water.
My final 2 cents on this subject.
Regards, von_noobie