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April 23, 2008

Flying Pork

Somehow I can't help thinking the Telegraph missed an opportunity to dish some dirt with this story about the loss of one of the 3 Reaper UAVs operating in Afghanistan.

The Telegraph - RAF destroys £10m spy plane in Afghanistan

The RAF deliberately blew up one of its own £10 million spy planes after it crash landed over Taliban territory in Afghanistan. Faced with the prospect of the technology falling into enemy hands, commanders immediately despatched an elite unit to remove "sensitive items" from the unmanned Reaper spy drone.

Which is all well and good, but the article closes with a simple yet potentially misleading statement.

According to the US Department of Defence Security Cooperation Agency, Britain is looking at buying another 10 Reapers as part of a wider £540 million deal.

If only that were the case. Unfortunately it is nigh on impossible to use the core defence budget to buy imported equipment containing no local input. So any replacement would have to come via the conflict resolution budget, but that source of funding is under pressure from the Treasury.

Which is where the flying portk comes in.

The proposed replacement for the Reaper is the Watchkeeper, a UAV which the Army is touting as an ideal British solution. There're a couple of gotchas that they don't really highlight.

Firstly, the airframe is Israeli, made by Elbit and it also includes a significant amount of French technology. So hardly a real British solution, but maybe all the better for that, considering previous experience with our battlefield tech in Afghanistan.

Secondly, and possibly more important, is the fact that Watchkeeper isn't cheap. Keep in mind that £10million figure for the Reaper.

The Register - UK MoD reveals Watchkeeper spy-drone numbers

Rather refreshingly, the MoD conceded this point, and sources there revealed today that the £800m Watchkeeper project will deliver 54 aircraft to the British Army. In very broad-brush terms, then, each Watchkeeper will cost the taxpayers £15m.

So a 50% surcharge to buy a not-really-British-at-all replacement instead of the American Reaper. And if you look at the spec for the two UAVs, you'll seen that the Watchkeeper is smaller and less capable.

Thus the flying pork analogy, because once again we're going to spend more money than necessary on a less capable weapon system in order to maintain a pretense of buying British.

Posted by Clive on April 23, 2008 9:34 PM in the category

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