No one in the Marine Corps will admit it.
Its politically incorrect and is frowned on in polite society.
But its fun to stomp on your enemies.
But its something else entirely when you as a friend, take advantage of a friend. Even when the friend is being stupid.
That's what we have in this story from Defense News. Go there for the whole thing but the good bits....
The United Kingdom has proposed trading F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft with the United States, according to a Pentagon letter to the U.S. Congress.and...
Under the proposal, the United States would give the United Kingdom one of its carrier variants (F-35C) of the F-35 in exchange for a short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) version, called the F-35B.
Under the exchange, the United Kingdom would have to cover any costs required to upgrade its F-35B aircraft so that it would be identical to the version the U.S. had planned to buy, according to the letter.Many observers are going to claim that this is indeed cost neutral and mutually beneficial. I beg to differ. The USMC is going to get another F-35B sooner....will be able to put wings on deck sooner....and will be able to divest itself of the capable but aging AV-8B sooner. In return the Brits are getting F-35C's in schedule and are going to have to make an necessary changes to them on their own dime, while paying for changes to the Marine Corps F-35B.
The United Kingdom would also be responsible for any unique requirements it has for the F-35C.
Under the plan, United States would get an F-35B two years earlier. This means $10 million in additional operations and maintenance costs for the Marine Corps in 2013 and 2014. This would be due to increased flight hours, fuel, training costs, etc.
The Corps stomped on them and they don't even know it.
well this makes sense, their queen elizabeth class is going to be done using CATOBAR system, and hell, who is going to be using these aircraft? the brits may not even have the ships to use them, we have many ships that can use them, lets get those B's to the fleet and start kicking ass.
ReplyDeletefrom a purely operational sense its the thing to do. but the Brits are going to be paying a premium for this deal and thats where i'm going when i say thats the shame of it.
ReplyDeletei mean for God's sake they're a tier one partner. they came in on the ground floor with us. i can see if we charged Turkey a premium....even Japan if they join late but the UK?????
they're our brothers....you don't take a stake or a K-Bar to a brother.
I agree that this is a good deal for USMC and that the UK ought to get a little more love but aren't we just talking about one plane here? It may speed up marine testing and training but how is one plane going to make any difference for getting rid of the AV8s? I would assume that's going to be gated by some combination of the production ramp and/or the risk of retiring AV8s before the F35 has fully combat capable software.
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