BAe - All our eggs in one basket

I see BAe Systems are performing to their best as usual. First The Telegraph reports:

"A £1.2 billion submarine being built for the Royal Navy is facing renewed setbacks two years after the main structural work was completed.

Work on HMS Astute, billed as the first of a new generation of nuclear submarine, stopped at Barrow-in-Furness last month when a fire broke out in the conning tower as 20 people were working on board.

Now it has emerged that there are problems with the vessel's propulsion system, a fault which engineers have been unable to rectify because of the fire.

Part of a programme to replace the existing Swiftsure and Trafalgar class submarines, HMS Astute was expected to go into service this month.

The Ministry of Defence was unable to say when she is now expected to be ready but the maker BAE Systems' annual report, published a few days ago, predicted that she would be delivered by the end of the year."

Second The Mail reports:

"now, nearly a century after inventing the first armoured warhorse - to storm through German lines in the First World War - Britain is to stop building its own tanks.

In the week British troops formally ended their military operations in Iraq, BAe Systems, which makes the Army's Challenger 2 tanks, revealed it was closing its tank-making operation at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

It is also shutting its armour business at Telford in Shropshire and at other locations because it sees no prospect of new Government orders.

The closures could result in 500 job losses and means the Army is likely to go into battle in future with tanks using German guns and Swedish chassis."

OK the second one is as much due to this Labour government's inadequate funding of the UK armed forces as it is BAe but still...