Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The cost of military equipment

Having read this article on the BBC about the theft of military equipment I was shocked to find out that night vision goggles are costing us £45,000 a pair. Why so expensive?



I remember being told during my training that army equipment needs to be 'soldier proof', meaning that it needs to be virtually indestructible. Of course this extra protection will cost more money but in doing a little bit of research online I found goggles averaged out at about $4,000. So why such a huge disparity?  I have spent the last 2 hours trying to find these goggles online but failed miserably. If anyone can recognise these glasses then tell me and I will update this.
Anyway, my father always told me that in the army if it wasn't nailed down it was stolen.

7 comments:

  1. always full of mistakes.
    But to be fair it doesn't say one pair of goggles cost £45K it says multiple goggle(s).
    I remember comparing maplins prices with military prices and the mark up is always horrendous for the same resistor or capacitor etc. It was always best to keep quiet if we sourced stuff from tandy's or maplins etc because they immediately changed the price and did an 'inspection' of the item because it was 'military spec'. Often bollox. The same item with a different code stamped on it was all it was. This was confirmed by running a soak check and monitoring output parameters for fixed input levels and checking temp etc.
    The Uk just scrapped Nimrods and sold our Harriers off for £400K each to the US. We could have had them lol

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    1. I would have to apologise for seeing 'goggles' as singular. After all, the plural and the singular of 'goggles' is the same. You don't get one 'goggle' after all. Having said that I think you got the idea about the criminal waste going on in military procurement, then, when you add on the top heavy 'top brass' who are on good money and pensions we see a situation where billions of defence procurement and wages are being wasted.
      I didn't know about the Nimrods and Harriers. I loved the Harriers. The best military kit that ever came out of England.

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  2. Previous post got cut. Was going to say the BBC isn't very accurate. Those are night vision binoculars and are about £500. Pretty poor things and not the same technology as night vision goggles used in the military..

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Owl-NOB3X-Vision-Binoculars/dp/B001H31CZG

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  3. Well an organisation that was buying light bulbs at £22 when you or I could get them for under £1, obviously doesn't have a very efficient purchasing department.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12643966

    But again this comes with the proviso that the BBC lies.

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    1. Is it just bad procurement procedures or is this a smoke screen to hide massive fraud? One has to wonder why the treasury figures are so hard to get to as it makes you think that they are deliberately trying to hide something.

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    2. I can see why a bulb for a Watchkeeper UAV System radar costs £22 - aviation needs traceability etc and limited number of a special design (short production runs), but the Watchkeeper UAV for the RA rankles. 54 units at £15million each versus the US Army's development of the Predator UAV at c £6 million each (we should buy from their catalogue). The Grey Eagle can fire missiles which Watchkeeper can't (to protect the RAF Union and the RA's own loitering munitions project). Nothing's too good for Our Boys 'cos it's only money wasted.

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  4. Those are different goggles to the ones in the photo, but I'm not going to disagree on the price as I couldn't find those in the BBC picture anywhere.

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