flamming_python Sat Dec 20, 2014 6:57 am
F-15E wrote:Russian Sailors Left France Without The Mistral.
What's going to be even more funny is what the French will do with this hulk if the Russians decide not to permit the sale of their hull section, electronic systems and other propriety technologies installed on it to another customer. In effect, the French won't have to return the money for those components given that the Russians refuse to sell them - but what they will be left with is a completely useless ship that they will have to start over with again and only half of which they'll be able to salvage - costing them a great deal of money while there is still no customer in sight for a new Mistral. And everyone else knows there is no customer in sight, but that the French will be forced to build the Mistral anyway otherwise it'd be a waste. So anyone in the market will just wait until the French finish - then wait a little more for the price to lower, and then buy it up for cheap.
All that of course, will be after the return of the money that the Russian government has already given to the French shipyards to do their sections of the Mistral, and the payment of penalty fees to the tune of some $300 million or whatever it is that is specified in the contract for non-delivery.
The Poles and so on are claiming that now France's chances for contracts will be higher - that might be the case only as long as France doesn't step on the toes of the US, which dominates all the contracts there - so France might get some small pickings in compensation.
What they will lose though - is not only this Mistral, but the one after it, and the possibility of any further ones, or future large projects with Russia - where there was great potential. The other casualties of this are the French-Russian JVs on building next-gen military radios for the Russian MoD, cable-laying & logistics vessels possibly for both country's militaries, and an AFV targetted for the export market.