is the 127mm confrimed? be interesting to see what gun ends up on them. I suspect at present it'll be recovered 4.5's to keep supply chain simple and save cost.
An early design, shown in CGI and a model, had a 4.5'', but all the later designs have used the Italian 127mm - including the one with what looks like a badly scaled 76mm (wrong model purchased from TurboSquid?).
The thing is that sticking with the 4.5'' only saves money in the short term - i.e. it eases cashflow. Given that the 4.5'' shell seems to be in a developmental dead-end, it is *highly* likely that, over the lifetime of the ships, the 127mm, and it's guided shells, would be adopted. Fitting them up-front would probably be cheaper, but it may come down to cashflow on the day.
RP1
thing is RP1 its not just the epense of buying 127mm's its the cost of retraining all the gunfitters and crews, The complication of having 2 sets of spares and ammunition in the supply train at a stroke you have to cut the ammount of Ammunition carried by RFA's as you have to carry 2 natures, the same goes at the Ammunition depots. For NGFS teams it also means having to remember which has which. Yeap the Mk8 is at the end of its devlopment. I do hope that the 155mm comes back to play as its a very flexible round and if its the same as is in the army supply chain simplifies things.