It wouldn't surprise me; the cost was much higher than anyone was expecting it to be, but since I'm not an engineer/ship architect and I'm not part of the programme I don't know how much work was actually involved. I do think that whoever decided on the switch hadn't factored in additional non-equipment based costs, such as constant deck qualifications of pilots and need for aerial refueling pods etc.
How were BAE going to lose out?
interesting point, actually on the Australian AWD project when BAE stuffed up the keel blocks they wanted to scrap them and make new ones from scratch, i.e. more money for them and less pressure on delivery date than the required rework. It is rumoured that the subsequent stuff ups on the rework were actually deliberate sabotage, rather than incompetence, to try an force ASC to write off the original blocks as pilot builds and order new ones. BAE seem to love generating extra work at any opportunity.
As has said before, BAE would actually have generated more work for themselves if the Govt decided to modify the carriers to accept EMALS and AAG rather than continuing as is.
The DDG-1000's actually use the S-band for their VSR, they've got SPY-3 in the X-band for targetting.
Although it sounds unlikely to me the conspiracy theory advocated is that if we had converted to CTOL then we might have started to seriously consider alternatives to the F35 such as Rafale or the F18 which are much cheaper. As BAE are part of the F35 programme the conspiracy theory is that they inflated the conversion cost so that they could kill of any chance of not needing to order the F35.
Trying to resolve the relative costs of the CTOL/EMALS versus the STOVL for the QE carriers was clearly a circle jerk of frustration when the decision was made to stick with STOVL. How much pressure was coming from the Italian navy and the USMC to stick with STOVL? I think it is fair to say the USN's enthusiasm for the F-35C is somewhat of a concern for LM. The counter to this is the progress of the EMALS, not sure what to believe with regard to its status. I tend to think the F-35B may offer a better capability overall for the RN, Italian navy, USMC, other allies and ultimately the USN as it may make it easier for them walk away from the F-35C and go with advanced SHs and UCLAVs. If EMALS was a proven system when the QE STOVL/CTOL debate was on going then the aircraft options would be expanded and if not good for LM, it might have been good for the RN. Perhaps the F-35C would look more attractive to the USN if the RN opted for 50 of them? At this point, I think the F-35B may prove to be more successful than the "C" version.
Well, Rafale is more expensive than F35 so we can rule that one out.
Spot on, while the Ford class carriers will still get dual band radar SPY-4 has been deleted from the Zummwalts, for cost reasons, with their SPY-3 receiving software modifications to cover the VSR requirement. Apart from issues of functionality being degraded in which ever mode is not selected there is also a concern over X bands performance in heavy rain etc.
Although that not strictly true these days as the USN has just bought V22 for COD and might possibly completely replace C2
I didn't say I did. My post made clear I didn't think the conspiracy theory had much credibility. I was merely providing it in response to the poster who asked what it was based on.
There is an Obit in the Telegraph (I've hit my viewing limit) but it describes how the bloke took O boats into the Baltic for several weeks in the late 70s to spy on the Russians.
The JSM version is going to being integrated for MK41 VLS as well, I'm pretty sure the same report mentioned something about Sub launch as well but may be wrong.
Based on the recent Egyptian order for 5.9 billion and assuming the missiles and FREMM frigate represent about 2 billion of the 5.9 billion, this makes the Rafale much more expensive than the Rafale (161m each) if my math is correct. Likely the Rafale M is even more. Are you predicting only 2300 F-35s? I thought the US was 2300 and export about 500 more.