21.09.2009
Replacement of Trident sea-based ballistic missile systems, construction and equipping two new aircraft carriers for British Navy will cost £130 billion ($210 billion). That is considerably greater than British Government's evaluations, wrote The Guardian on Sept, 18. The experts of international ecological organization Greenpeace have come to that decision, underlines the newspaper.
In particular, according to analysts, the officially estimated cost of the weapons does not include expenses of British budget during 30-year operational period of the armament. It is about £79 billion more, though.
Approximate price of the aircraft carriers supposed to be built for the British Navy has been increased from $2 bln to $5 bln during the last ten years. Nevertheless, according to
Greenpeace, the government has overlooked the subsequent expenses which could make £10 bln more, and also has not counted the cost of
F-35 deck-based fighters the ships planned to be armed with.
The cost of new missile systems
Trident does not comprise the expenses for conventional formations responsible for nuclear forces' direct support. The price of equipment supposed to be installed in
Oldermaston Nuclear Weapon Research & Development Center is also non-scheduled. The British Government has recently adopted a decision to appropriate £3 bln for those purposes.
We recall that under renovation program of British army's nuclear component, London plans to replace US-developed
Trident intercontinental ballistic missiles for more advanced analogs and also to build new submarines for them. Aircraft carriers
Queen Elizabeth and
Prince of Wales planned to be made on behalf of British Navy are to integrate it in 2014 and 2016 correspondingly. The first steel piece cutting ceremony of the first ship took place in July, although the beginning of construction had been postponed many times.
Source:
