The overt reason of protecting jobs in the UK is laudable, however in my opinion this should only be the case if we can produce military systems on par with the 'competition', in terms of capability versus cost.
One thing that appears to be lacking in our approach, in my opinion, is designing the components of the military 'machine' to integrate with each other.
The USA 'Carrier Group' approach to naval deployment seems to be a case in point, which we have failed to address - despite the lessons which should have been learnt in the Falklands.
The lack of adequate airborne radar during the Falklands war was one of our aircraft carriers greatest weaknesses.
You would have thought this would have become paramount in designing new carrier based systems - instead, the planned new ships are possibly relying on unproven & hugely expensive 'special' solutions (F35-B VSTOL jets & Osprey tilt rotor helicopters) to do effectively the same job as much cheaper options.
- note these options don't actually involve many UK jobs ....
Designing these ships with nuclear power plants ( not a problem, we already use them on submarines ) & steam catapult launched planes, which are much cheaper than VSTOL variants, especially factoring in the 'bargain' prices available on Hawkeye AEW planes, would seem to be a 'no brainer'
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05...ced/page2.html
The chinooks are just another example of a complete lack of joined up thinking by successive governments too inclined to balance books, rather than address real issues, it seems??