Thats even worse for the MICA tho, not that much more expensive compared to the other AAMs, yet its only really used on the Rafale/M2Ks, with india ditching the MICA for the ASRAAM on their jets entirely it seems…
Interesting, so the US and UK screwed eachother in a nice lose lose situation (with some advantages for both tbf), while everyone else went their own ways…
Oh it definitly will, except they wont try, they’ll just force ppl to buy the AIM-260 on anything they havent already allowed Meteor integration on already.
Thats if they dont invade Canada first or collapse under the economic idiocy of their current admin and populace.
Pretty sure they are doing/did the same thing with AH-64E and JAGM iirc?
Well it’s more that the US tried to screw everyone else over by locking them into AMRAAM purchases, and then refusing to buy a European SRAAM, and the UK saw that they had enough leverage left to at least benefit from the situation. There were other factors two like Hughes promising to move work to UK on other programmes.
The UK also believed that Hughes had a strong enough lobby in the US that they would be able to convince the US government to allow exports, as they would have a stake in the sales.
The AMRAAM-AXE would fit in the internal weapons bay, but since thatd be a cheap an effective miasile, the US aint integrating it despite it being developped and offered.
The US defense industrial complex is at best a jobs program, and at worst just a money printer for the owners and their friends.
Current US figures put the unit cost of a Lockheed Martin-made JAGM at around $324,805 (£229,101) per missile; however, this figure is expected to fall significantly as production is increased, with the aim being a full-scale production unit cost close to that of the current AGM-114R Hellfire missile.
The cost of Brimstone would also decrease given large enough orders; however, Defence industry analyst and consultant specialising in land warfare Nicholas Drummond told Army Technology that it would be unlikely to go below £200K per missile.
Selecting Brimstone; however’ would have also incurred further integration costs, whilst the JAGM is already integrated onto the AH-64E. JAGM is also already integrated within the aircraft simulators and mission planning systems. - Source
But JAGM does have other benefits
On JAGM, Bronk added: “On the flip side, JAGM offers a more flexible warhead for other targets such as troops in the open, dug in weapon positions and structures.