The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[Palnatoke]

ASFC

I am not trying to "sell" the Stanflex, it's a 20 years old system. thailored to the needs of the danish navy. Though it's huge succes for the danish navy in adding modularity, fleetwide standardisation and conformity as well as flexibity (all which has lead to value for money) are experiences that I feel other navies (small as big) could take advantage off, in designing a modern navy for the 21th century.
To accomplish this endevour in large scale the german MEKO enters the picture, I have little to add to the german MEKO concept other than, "naturally". So what I suggest is something that draws from both the danish StanFlex and the German MEKO experience (to my understanding MEKO is more large scale than the StanFlex which more deals with the details - we need a comprehensive approch that deals with both aspects)

The Stanflex and MEKO, imho, represent a bottom up approch, in which idealy the totallity of the needs of the customer (navy, defense department/ministry) are analysed, and you then design a concept from bottom up that can meet the customer demands.
That's in contrast to traditional procurement where the customer issues a set of specifications which are then meet, a top down approch. One approch if succesfull leads to a clean and lean design of cost savings, while the other leads a jungle of costs and unforseen problems.

What I don't agree with is tieing yourself to a set number of containerised weapons that are 'pooled' for fleet use. You want the ability to have the best weapons available for use in your navy, not tied to whatever can be 'containerised' into certain positions.

"not tied to whatever can be 'containerised' into certain positions"
If a weapon system can't be containerised (or there is no point) then ofcourse you don't containerise it. But there is a point in standardising it regardless (f.ex so that it can communicate with the ships mangement system - which is a standard ). As you mention, The large VLS system on the new frigates or the 5" Gun on absalon are not containerised. Infact the only identified risc in the project to build the new multirole/AAD frigates is the interface between the VLS and the mangement system (yes I did say "only", a contributing factor to the oddity that the danish navy get her ships on schedule, on budget and at a fraction of the price of other comparable ships)
"You want the ability to have the best weapons available"
This you exactly achive, because you can easely update the weaponry simply by exchanging old for new modules/containers. As an example. The danish navy went from SSM to ESSM fleetwide, simply by buying a suitable number of containerized ESSM, updated the combat mangement system, more or less, of the navy and deployed to all units (who then entered certification etc) Ofcourse it's not so easy with the stuff that can't be modular/containerised. Though you can still make sure that that also adhere to certain standards.

I wonder how many times the Thetis and Knud Rasmussen classes have/will carry the heavier weapons that being stanflex ships allows them to?

They probably won't, I think both of them has the 76mm OTO SR, to make sure that it is a dejure "warship" (that has implications for their role of maintaining danish sovereignity, over areas where certain countries has a very hard time figuring out the basics of "mine" and "yours") 99.9% of their work is to keep an eye on modern pirates (you know the kind that prey on other people's marine ressources) and surporting the Greenlandic communities with rescue and such.
But when you want of different reason to have a weapon on those ships, what's more natural than plug and play? Why waste money on figuring out how to make a new system? Why waste ressources on training an operator specifically to operate yet another system? The design and construction of the Knud Rassmussen class was a simple low risc enterprise, the StanFlex eleminated all riscs concerned to the specifics of a warship. So efforts could be directed at the interesting topic of makng a ship that could perform superbly in one of the world's most difficult waters.

The total procurement of ships of the danish navy the last 25 years including the 3 multirole/AAD frigates in production is worth less than 2 Type 45s (going with the 1bn figure for each ship).

 

[ASFC]

The total procurement of ships of the danish navy the last 25 years including the 3 multirole/AAD frigates in production is worth less than 2 Type 45s (going with the 1bn figure for each ship).

Really? Does that include all the weapons, sensors etc? If you are going to make that sort of comparison then it needs to be equal-I wonder how much the baseline T45 costs with out the R&D and cost of PAAMS?

 

[harryriedl]

Change of subject, bit of good news:

Britain’s special forces to have new weapon - Times Online

Quote: “The combat divers of Britain’s Special Boat Service (SBS) will soon be getting some new transport. The “shallow water combat submersible” (SWCS) will be able to carry six frogmen for 100 miles at depths of up to 300ft. Studded with sonar sensors, the lightweight mini-sub is designed to detect and evade an enemy, before landing Special Forces under its nose. “

Looks like the UK variant is the same proposed for the SEALS (no surprise as both share similar doctrine). However I thought they would have gone for a dry system, rather than sticking with the wet option similar to its predecessor, particularly because it can operate at 300 ft. Old oxygen based re-breather meant you used to be restricted to 30 metres, the newer generation models no longer have the same problems associated with CO2 poisonings.

The Sea Dagger offered by Kokum is dry mini-sub and can be configured for specialised missions. The submarine is still pretty small, with displacement in the range of 55t tons. And could easily be fitted behind the sail on the Astute.

Sea Dagger Special Operations Submarines - Naval Technology

Not sure if any Navies are currently using dry systems, or how many Navies outside the US/UK use swimmer delivery vehicles?

very intersting thing you found there as far as i know this SBS delivery sub has been missing since the Swifsure class set up to be SBS configered sub. its intersting that the RN decided to stay with the wet system proble something to do with problems the SEALS had with with the dry systems which caused its cancillation (im sure its cancelled but not 100%). The wet system dose have its advantages over a dry system incuding simplicity. The problems that the SEALS and the USN had getting their system to work proberly had an impact on chosing a wet system.

As far as i know on the UK/USA use swimmer delivery systems.

The Sea Dagger looks intersting dosn't look very manouverable and is only a paper desgin but the consept intersting

EDIT: Yep the dry SEAL system was cancelled after a few prototypes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_SEAL_Delivery_System
Wiki but footnotes lead to decent places so it seems accurate

 

[Palnatoke]

Really? Does that include all the weapons, sensors etc? If you are going to make that sort of comparison then it needs to be equal-I wonder how much the baseline T45 costs with out the R&D and cost of PAAMS?

Well my, unscientific, claim very well depends on exchange rates, "then" value etc.

I think that the navy has developed a habbit for budgeting without the actual Stanflex container, since that is, logically, a different procurement.
In short that means that the actual ESSM missile or gun would typically not be included in the budget of the ship-procurement. Though everything that has to do with making the ship and it's systems conform to the standard is.

F.ex. In the Ivar Hvitfeld class (multirole/AAD frigate) the budget (to my understanding) includes the sensor systems; sonars, the Thales APAR-Smart-L radar, and other radars and sensors etc. It includes the magement system, including combat manegement, includes the mk41(??) VLS (since that specific for the ship) etc. Though it does not include the ESSM missiles, the harpoons, the CIWS and the OTO SRs, which are StanFlex containers, but it includes the integration of those (which is a near free round).
With respect to the VLS, while the budget include the launch system and integration It does not include actual missiles (actually they havn't decided which but it's 99.9% certain that it will be the SM2, later on there is a potential for SM3, Tomahawks etc).



Anyway, I base my claim on:
I believe to know that the 14 SF300 (the role changing small LCSs that initiated the StanFlex) procurement back in the late 80ties where around 2bn DKr

The two Absalons were around 1-2bn Dkr

the budget for the 3 Ivars is less than 5bn Dkr

that's around 8-9bn DKr, let's say 10bn Dkr.

I think the exchange rate is around 800DKR to £100 (not long ago it was near to 1000-100) so we have some money left to take care of smaller procurements and weapons.

I believe that the british part of the PAAMs development equaled £1bn and then the system cost some. So would it be unfair to say that 6 Type 45s without PAAMs was around £5bn?

What ever the true figures are, The yearly total danish defense budget is around 20bn DKr, Of which the army sucks up most. So you could say that you can run the entire danish defense for a year or two, for the procurement cost of the 6 Type45.....

 

[ASFC]

Well my, unscientific, claim very well depends on exchange rates, "then" value etc.

I believe that the british part of the PAAMs development equaled £1bn and then the system cost some. So would it be unfair to say that 6 Type 45s without PAAMs was around £5bn?

Well-Beedalls site says £380million per ship excluding PAAMS-or £270 million per ship (excluding PAAMS) if all 12 had been built.

That is a lot less than the £5billion for six ships (excluding PAAMS) you are claiming............In fact I make it £2.2 billion for 6 ships excluding PAAMS. If we include the costs of fitting PAAMS to the ships-it comes to just over £3billion-which just happens to be the 'assumed' price the MOD quotes for if we had builf the T45 07-12! It also goes to show just how much the R&D probably has cost, plus a fair bit spent on the other two cancelled programs (NFR-90 and Horizon)!

So you will see why I find it so difficult for people to slate how much money (taxpayers money-of which some of it was mine!) was spent on T45 when we got good ships for it.

 

[Palnatoke]

Well-Beedalls site says £380million per ship excluding PAAMS-or £270 million per ship (excluding PAAMS) if all 12 had been built.

That is a lot less than the £5billion for six ships (excluding PAAMS) you are claiming............In fact I make it £2.2 billion for 6 ships excluding PAAMS. If we include the costs of fitting PAAMS to the ships-it comes to just over £3billion-which just happens to be the 'assumed' price the MOD quotes for if we had builf the T45 07-12! It also goes to show just how much the R&D probably has cost, plus a fair bit spent on the other two cancelled programs (NFR-90 and Horizon)!

So you will see why I find it so difficult for people to slate how much money (taxpayers money-of which some of it was mine!) was spent on T45 when we got good ships for it.

The reallity is that the entire project had a cost of over £6, had you build more the ATC would have gone done, had you builded less it woud have gone up, that's how it always is. Though as a taxpayer you are free (I know I would) to speculate and dream about what £6bn could have bought your local community, I am not qualified to have a stern oppinion about the operative cababilities of the Type 45, I am sure it's a lovely ship, and I don't know how many money went into the steel of the Daring and how many money went into the pockets of the share holder's of different companies, but £6 bn is a lot of money, even for the UK.

 

[ASFC]

The reallity is that the entire project had a cost of over £6, had you build more the ATC would have gone done, had you builded less it woud have gone up, that's [snipped].

I don't deny that the entire program cost £6billion-but I found it hard to belief that the baseline ships cost £5billion of that!

Unfortunately, R&D costs money, and you can't seem to get around that. Its alright if you are one of the many European countries who can buy what you need from your friendly allies (but at the cost that the technology is not necessarily up-to-date.) And buy that tehcnology at retail price (like what Denmark is doing for its new Frigates) but we can't all do that-what would happen if everybody in Europe started buying off the shelf elsewhere because it was 'cheaper' and you could buy 'more of it'? Europes Armed Forces would lose out capability wise when compared to its peers around the world, because R&D had stopped.

My point is that yes T45 costs us more than if we had bought of the shelf-but we would have had a less capable platform in the long run if we had bought OTS, and somebody has to develop the new AAW systems, we can't all run along to the Americans and accept a less capable system.

BTW, as a British Taxpayer, I don't wonder what I could have spent the T45 money (which is money well spent, protecting our sailors from air attacks), I wonder how my Govt could better spend the money it wastes on the EU and MPs expeditures, for example.

 

[kev 99]

True. But consider the combat mangement system. If you make (essentially a piece of software) it using an open architecture approch, you can make a scalable system, in which you can add or remove subsystems (F.ex. an ASW module, AAD Module etc). In that way you achive one combat mangement system for the entire fleet, AAD destroyers as well as fishing inspection units. Though we don't have to limit ourselves to "combat", while we are add it you can also add engine montoring systems, navigational systems, emails and entertainment for the crew etc. In the other end the StandFlex standard makes sure that the weapons, sensors etc can communicate with the mangement system of the ship (the container has the necessary electronics/software to accomplish this).
When you think about this you realize that not only can you tailer the system to meet specific demands, that the man-machine interface can be standardized, but also that the navy do only need to build and maintain competences and qualifications to service one scalable system. You have definately reduced complexity.
You have defined a standard and you reap the rewards of conformity.

Most of the the individual subsystems on RN ships will have a similar modular design built to run on similar platforms, I don't see what you're proposing here is anything particularly new.

As for AAD destroyers having the same combat system as an OPV that sounds utterly mental. Look at the sensors and armament of an OPV, it'll have a GPMG or 2 and maybe a 25 or 30mm cannon, austere low range radar and maybe a small sonar set, probably not much in the counter measures department, compare that to a AAD destroyer the computing power alone would be orders of magnitude higher, it doesn't sound remotely practical.

No, the container communicate directly with the "bus" - part of the containerisation.

I was talking about the interface between the weapons system and the ships Combat management systems and NOT the interface between the container and the CMS, this includes the "bus" but it is only one piece of it.. The full interface is everything that connects the weapon to the container, the container itself, the space the container physically fits into and everything that connects the container to the CMS via the "bus".

Ofcourse, but I ask have f.ex. the RN commited herself to a single standard?

No, nor has it been possible to, the T45s are the only escort to have been designed this way AFAIK, the three escort classes currently in the RN inventory were designed over the space of the previous 3 decades, the T42s and T22s were designed in the 70s and the T23s late 80s/early 90s, think how much computer technology has changed in just the last 15 years. the invincible class are also mostly around 30 years old. This does not mean they have not been upgraded to common standards because they have.

I have to agree with whoever write this above, this has all gone massively Off topic there.......................

 

[Grim901]

I don't deny that the entire program cost £6billion-but I found it hard to belief that the baseline ships cost £5billion of that!

Unfortunately, R&D costs money, and you can't seem to get around that. Its alright if you are one of the many European countries who can buy what you need from your friendly allies (but at the cost that the technology is not necessarily up-to-date.) And buy that tehcnology at retail price (like what Denmark is doing for its new Frigates) but we can't all do that-what would happen if everybody in Europe started buying off the shelf elsewhere because it was 'cheaper' and you could buy 'more of it'? Europes Armed Forces would lose out capability wise when compared to its peers around the world, because R&D had stopped.

My point is that yes T45 costs us more than if we had bought of the shelf-but we would have had a less capable platform in the long run if we had bought OTS, and somebody has to develop the new AAW systems, we can't all run along to the Americans and accept a less capable system.

BTW, as a British Taxpayer, I don't wonder what I could have spent the T45 money (which is money well spent, protecting our sailors from air attacks), I wonder how my Govt could better spend the money it wastes on the EU and MPs expeditures, for example.

Couldn't have put it better, well done.

As for this going off topic, I can't really see how, just about ever post has linked to the Royal Navy, all that;s happened is that the discussion has branched out to explore the ideas for a possible future of RN ships.

 

[Palnatoke]

ASFC

I think it's great that France and Itally and later on UK developed the PAAMs, and ofcourse that costs money, that's fine with me. To me it also seem that PAAMs and it's derivative systems will be worth the investment.

You are welcome, and it's fair, to leave PAAMs out of the procurement cost (1-£1.5bn), that still leave you with 6 ships (without a principal weapon system) in a neighbourhood of £5bn. I think that's something that's noteworthy and calls for improvement.

Kev

I was talking about the interface between the weapons system and the ships Combat management systems and NOT the interface between the container and the CMS, this includes the "bus" but it is only one piece of it.. The full interface is everything that connects the weapon to the container, the container itself, the space the container physically fits into and everything that connects the container to the CMS via the "bus".

Look, I meerly attempted to give a description on an abstract level of such an architecture, it will carry us extreamly off topic to get into details.
Though without knowing the details; In the C-flex you add nodes to the open architecture (of the mangement system) everytime you want to add a new sub-system (a new container type). The container's software, is developed to surport this way of integration. In that way you achive "plug-and-play" fretless incremental update and fleet wide conformity (you only have to do it once). And it's pointless to argue wheter it can be done or not, since it's been demontrated for 20 years, and is not "costly" (it's the opposite, it's cost saving)

No, nor has it been possible to, the T45s are the only escort to have been designed this way AFAIK, the three escort classes currently in the RN inventory were designed over the space of the previous 3 decades, the T42s and T22s were designed in the 70s and the T23s late 80s/early 90s

Well, you have to start somewhere.

Yes, we are off topic.

 

[ASFC]

ASFC

I think it's great that France and Itally and later on UK developed the PAAMs, and ofcourse that costs money, that's fine with me. To me it also seem that PAAMs and it's derivative systems will be worth the investment.

You are welcome, and it's fair, to leave PAAMs out of the procurement cost (1-£1.5bn), that still leave you with 6 ships (without a principal weapon system) in a neighbourhood of £5bn. I think that's something that's noteworthy and calls for improvement.

I have demonstrated using figures from Navy Matters, and from figures that the MOD think ships 07-12 would have cost, that 6 T45 cost around the £3billion mark-and that therefore the remaining £3billion of T45s cost was R&D/cost of PAAMS. I am not leaving any cost out-however when YOU claimed that Denmark was buying three frigates for the cost of 2 T45, you included all the costs of those T45 in the comparison, but not all the costs of Denmarks new frigates (given that Denmark has not bought some of the weapons and other hardware for their frigates yet)-making your comparison false.

You then used that comparison to claim that the MODs procurement decisions where wrong, and that it should do what Denmark did (or similar there of), without also considering (on top of your comparison) that whilst Denmark has deliberiately chosen to buy largely of the shelf systems for their new frigates, paying retail prices, and spreading the R&D costs of their new class of frigates with the previous Absalon class, whilst the UK practically built the T45 design from scratch (with a few influences from horizon) and then paid upfront for alot of the R&D costs-as well as then paying for the 6 ships as if it had just bought them of the shelf!

Both countries have got what they paid for. Denmark has got three frigates that are based on relatively modern technology now, but with no guarentee they will be upgraded to remain as such in years to come, whilst the UK paid for a ship that is based on as up-to-date AAW system they could get, which has an upgrade path, where they have access to its full design to upgrade it as they see fit, on a Destroyer with plenty of room for upgrades to stay current in the future. And guess what, we paid for it, and I have no qualms about the cost we paid for it. We can't all rely on other countries technology to keep our Armed Forces current and modern for the next 25-30 years. But then Denmark has calculated that risk and made the choice to maybe not be as good in so many years time and pay cheaply/cheaper than others for it now.

Horses for courses in my opinion, and done to death on this thread.

Stop putting words into my mouth as well-I don't think the baseline cost for 6 T45 is £5billion alone-and I certainly do not think PAAMS cost £1-1.5 billion either, or that the R&D was cheap. You don't have to agree with me, and thats fine.

I'd also like to talk about other RN related subjects as well, not spend large parts of this thread debating past procurement decisions that one user seems to disagree with. Disagreeing with those decisions is fine, setting out your thoughts on here is fine, but the argument is getting tired and we are going around in circles, and the RN doesn't just consist of 6 T45 destroyers.

On that note, I'm tired. Good night.

 

[Systems Adict]

...As for AAD destroyers having the same combat system as an OPV that sounds utterly mental.


Look at the sensors and armament of an OPV, it'll have a GPMG or 2 and maybe a 25 or 30mm cannon, austere low range radar and maybe a small sonar set, probably not much in the counter measures department, compare that to a AAD destroyer the computing power alone would be orders of magnitude higher, it doesn't sound remotely practical.

Mmm...

T45 CMS is based "around" NAUTIS F / NAUTIS II.

THAT is the same CMS that was fitted on both the Malaysian "Lekiu" Class Corvettes & the Brunei OPV's.

Lekiu Class Frigates - Naval Technology



Nakhoda Ragam Class Offshore Patrol Vessels - Naval Technology


Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction....

SA

 

[Palnatoke]

ASGC

. I am not leaving any cost out-however when YOU claimed that Denmark was buying three frigates for the cost of 2 T45, you included all the costs of those T45 in the comparison, but not all the costs of Denmarks new frigates (given that Denmark has not bought some of the weapons and other hardware for their frigates yet)-making your comparison false.

No, I claimed that the Danish navy's procurement budget for the last 25 years were equal to 2 T45. The 3 fregates cost around 5Bn DKr, which is equal to around £0.7bn, for 3 ships.

that whilst Denmark has deliberiately chosen to buy largely of the shelf systems for their new frigates, paying retail prices, and spreading the R&D costs of their new class of frigates with the previous Absalon class, whilst the UK practically built the T45 design from scratch (with a few influences from horizon) and then paid upfront for alot of the R&D costs-as well as then paying for the 6 ships as if it had just bought them of the shelf!

I fail to see your point. Your saying that it's wrong to be economic?

Denmark has got three frigates that are based on relatively modern technology now.

??? care to source that claim?

Stop putting words into my mouth as well-I don't think the baseline cost for 6 T45 is £5billion alone-and I certainly do not think PAAMS cost £1-1.5 billion either, or that the R&D was cheap. You don't have to agree with me, and thats fine.

We don't have to "think", The national audit's report is posted above, and they speak the word of God on the cost issue. Which they have at around £6.5B - I am then saying that for comparison we can deduct PAAMs (£1-1.5bn).
You are making phoony accounting by trying to separate out the R&D of the ship to arrive at your above £3bn for "baseline".

I'd also like to talk about other RN related subjects as well, not spend large parts of this thread debating past procurement decisions that one user seems to disagree with. Disagreeing with those decisions is fine, setting out your thoughts on here is fine, but the argument is getting tired and we are going around in circles, and the RN doesn't just consist of 6 T45 destroyers.

If you notice for the last days I have only been "replying".
Personally I think Navy procurement and cost structure are at the heart of a modern navy in a modern world, though that's just my oppinion.

 

[Palnatoke]

Mmm...

T45 CMS is based "around" NAUTIS F / NAUTIS II.

THAT is the same CMS that was fitted on both the Malaysian "Lekiu" Class Corvettes & the Brunei OPV's.

Lekiu Class Frigates - Naval Technology



Nakhoda Ragam Class Offshore Patrol Vessels - Naval Technology


Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction....

SA

Yeah, though stuff like a combat mangement system, however complicated, is a one time "offense". When you have developed it, you got it and can/should-be-able-to replicate it at a fraction of the initial (high) cost.

 

[kev 99]

Mmm...

T45 CMS is based "around" NAUTIS F / NAUTIS II.

THAT is the same CMS that was fitted on both the Malaysian "Lekiu" Class Corvettes & the Brunei OPV's.

Lekiu Class Frigates - Naval Technology



Nakhoda Ragam Class Offshore Patrol Vessels - Naval Technology


Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction....

SA

I think you highlighted the important word there though, what Palnatoke is suggesting is that it would be the same with just an AAD module plugged into it.

 

[kev 99]

We don't have to "think", The national audit's report is posted above, and they speak the word of God on the cost issue. Which they have at around £6.5B - I am then saying that for comparison we can deduct PAAMs (£1-1.5bn).
You are making phoony accounting by trying to separate out the R&D of the ship to arrive at your above £3bn for "baseline".

Where are you getting these figures from?

From the MOD factsheet:

- Cost of construction of 6 ships £6bn approx, including PAAMS
- Unit Production Cost (UPC) in 2005 was £561.6m per ship (note: UPC excludes cost of development and 'cost of capital' charges)

According to this total unit costs for the six ships are a little under £3.4m including the cost of procuring PAAMS, that puts R & D costs of PAAMS and 'cost of capital charges' in the region of £3b.

If you are using the National Audit report figures (figure 12 on page 19) which it lists as independent then it shows unit costs to be: £659m ex development costs or £948m including, making a total cost of £5.688. This makes development costs a little under £1.8b. Since this report lists total cost the the programme to be £6.46b (page 17) that makes a shortfall of £770m.

 

[Grim901]

No one has yet mentioned that the R&D costs of the T45, apart from producing an excellent AAW destroyer, may also be useful down the line. A lot of development has gone on in the program and every indication at the moment is that C1 will be based on the Type 45, so a lot of the research costs may be useful when it comes to the FSC, which is going to be a much bigger program. It may be that by paying now, we have just offest the cost that we would have to have paid later.

Now, I think we all need to accept that one person here is not going to start listening or, it seems, even comprehending what it is we're saying. So unless you all want to keep arguing with someone utterly convinced that their way is the only one and ignoring all evdience to the contrary, can we just move on?

Sorry if my post is a little garbled, I wrote quite a long one explaining it better and the damn thing got deleted as I tried to post it.

 

[kev 99]

No one has yet mentioned that the R&D costs of the T45, apart from producing an excellent AAW destroyer, may also be useful down the line. A lot of development has gone on in the program and every indication at the moment is that C1 will be based on the Type 45, so a lot of the research costs may be useful when it comes to the FSC, which is going to be a much bigger program. It may be that by paying now, we have just offest the cost that we would have to have paid later.

Now, I think we all need to accept that one person here is not going to start listening or, it seems, even comprehending what it is we're saying. So unless you all want to keep arguing with someone utterly convinced that their way is the only one and ignoring all evdience to the contrary, can we just move on?

Sorry if my post is a little garbled, I wrote quite a long one explaining it better and the damn thing got deleted as I tried to post it.

MBDA have already stated that the control system for CAMM is being based on PAAMS.

You've got a point about the rest of it.

 

[Palnatoke]

Grim and Kev

I think we have established that we got two that doesn't understand basic finance theory, and keep not understanding relative simple concepts like Total Costs, Total average Costs and Marginal Costs.
And maybe that's why the discussion continues to go in circle because someone simply refuses to regard objective facts, and instead continues to debate non-debateable issues like what the total cost of the Type45, the TAC of the Type45 and MC of the Type45 means. "That this is surely worth it because it's a wonderfull thing" (I mean God damn. the national Audit more or less say the opposite - but ofcourse they are just evil bureaucrats, and not the persons employed by the people to look after how the executive power throws your money around )

According to this total unit costs for the six ships are a little under £3.4m including the cost of procuring PAAMS, that puts R & D costs of PAAMS and 'cost of capital charges' in the region of £3b.

Listen, the £500M pounds, you pulled out from the RN homepage, is a useless figure. It has nothing to do with anything, It doesn't make sense. That's why they post it there so that people who doesn't have a first idea about finance can think "Wow we got a type 45 for £500". No, you don't you got it for £6.5Bn divided by 6. That's a well know metric called: total average costs.

 

[kev 99]

Listen, the £500M pounds, you pulled out from the RN homepage, is a useless figure. It has nothing to do with anything, It doesn't make sense. That's why they post it there so that people who doesn't have a first idea about finance can think "Wow we got a type 45 for £500". No, you don't you got it for £6.5Bn divided by 6. That's a well know metric called: total average costs.

Once again you are ignoring parts of a post and choosing to comment on ones that you suit you, what about the other set of figures I posted? the ones from the National Audit Report? What about where I asked you where you got the figure of £1 - 1.5b for PAAMS from, no reply to that either.

You can keep posting the cost as £6.5b total cost all you like, that this is the cost of the programme is irrefutable that's fine but listing figures all by themselves don't really mean much so here's a little something from the National Audit Report to go along side it:

One particular issue affecting development costs is that the Department is now only procuring half the number of ships originally planned, meaning that the costs associated with the extensive development of a wide range of new systems, such as PAAMS, are not being spread as widely as expected.

Which was rather the point everyone has been trying to get through to you for so long.