RN to lose 3 amphibs

There’s a need for a utility transport down there in any case, so one might as well enable it to double up as a tanker. You get a much better tanker than a buddy tanking Typhoon, it doesn’t eat into your air combat assets, & it’s a fraction of the price, as the transport capability has to be there anyway.

That is, if you can station a KC-130J or an A400M with refuelling kit down there, instead of being stuck with a crazy contract which requires you to use an A330 supplied by AirTanker. 😡

What if the deatachment was increased to six? I’m trying to establish if buddy tanking might an alternative to stationing either an A330MRTT or an A400M tanker in the Falklands? Could the Typhoons carry buddy tanks? Britain does have experience in this area:

Four fighters isn’t enough to fight and refuel each other.

Buddy tanking

The air refuelling problem in the Falklands will go away once the new F/A-18E/Fs are delivered. 😀

Indeed thats what I feel should be done, a few pod kits for the A400 to move around the fleet with one stationed on the Falklands much the same as they used to do before the VC.10 was stationed at MPA. Its a waste operating one of what will be a small fleet of A330mrtt off the Falklands, rotate one of the A400 instead. If C130J is retired early there won’t be much capacity in the A400 fleet to do tanking but rotating one should be OK.

As for Argus, I feel her days are numbered. Better to go on a capability holiday in respect of her then lose a newer and more capable unit.

Half? I reckon we could make do with even less. Half a dozen should do, though more would be nice. Park one A400M with the gear on the Falklands, as a do-everything transport & tanker, & the rest of the kits could be fitted (they’re plug ‘n play) as & where needed.

Cobham has contracts to supply 66 A400M wing pods, i.e. 33 aircraft sets: 10 for France, 10 for Germany, 9 for Spain & 4 for Malaysia. France (5) & Germany (6) are also buying centreline hose kits.

Both CVF will have really nice, large medical sections which will approach that of Argus (if not actually equal hers.. still, nothing to complain about).

The RAF is scheduled to get HOW many A400M? 22

All of which can take a refueler kit if Airtanker PFI were canned!

Just buy kits for half of them, and you’ve got a really nice tactical tanker fleet, and can get away with a smaller A330 tanker fleet. Buy kits for all of them, and you really can save some money.

Consider that the USN/USMC use the far slower KC-130 very often (and well) for refueling their F/A-18s… Typhoon & F-35B should refuel nicely from the much faster, larger-capacity A400M.

Question. Due to this talk of expanding defence ties with France, would it be a step too far to do some sort of joint deal for new Airbus derived SIGINT plane’s?.

The UK need’s them and France does too….I don’t mean share so much, but co develope/buy a bunch?

Might be better then jet’s pushing half a century that won’t be as capable as what they replace.
:confused:

I hope they don’t scrap Argus. I was very impressed with the facilities when I went on board a couple of weeks ago. Hospital for 100 patients, about 20 emergency beds which looked extremely well equiped, three operating theatres, latest spec CT scanner, several x-ray machines. I believe it also has a lab for blood work etc. It was clear major money had been spent on her recently including an enormous circular ramp that went right through several decks of the ship for wheeling gurneys, plus two large new patient lifts.

Then you go below the rear deck and there is that enormous split hanger that looks like you could park 10-12 Sea Kings, Merlins or Harriers below. The bays can’t do this role without major expenditure and the hanger would always be smaller and above deck as the through deck lift on those is for small vehicles only and an underdeck hanger would restrict dock space anyway.

What chance some of these ships will be layed up rather than sold ?

Right . . . .

We have a contract with AirTanker, including the purchase of 14 A330s. How much will it cost to buy AirTanker out of the contract? We should be able to keep that down by letting ’em keep the support & infrastructure provision parts of it, & they still have the conversion work & manufacture & supply of hose units, etc., so it shouldn’t be too bad. We can throw in a few hose units for A400M to keep ’em sweet, because they’ll be useful anyway, & keep down operational costs of the tanker fleet.

Can we sell on the delivery slots? If so, getting out of the aircraft purchases, except for those already undergoing conversion, shouldn’t cost anything. We then buy, as suggested, a batch of used A330 from storage. Won’t save as much as if we’d done that in the first place, but no use crying over spilt milk.

Wheeled APCs. I don’t care which one we get: Boxer, Piranha V, VBCI – they’ll all do the job. Just make sure they’re OTS except for fitting kit we already have in inventory or on order such as radios. Meet other AFV needs by upgrading existing kit. You want a heavy AFV for recce use? What’s wrong with some of those Warriors we’re supposed to be upgrading? How many of them can be modified for the cost of just the design & development contract for super-ASCOD?

Wot Obi Wan says for the Hercules, cut operational Tornados back to what we have a support contract for. Don’t buy lots of Chinooks for Afghanistan which will arrive too late to be used there. Don’t spend £1bn on converting 45 year old KC-135s to replacements for newer Nimrod R1s, which it must have been possible to fix for a fraction of the cost. Oh, so many ways to save money!

Revisit in the next parliament.

Agreed that the FRES recon vehicle – a version of the ASCOD AFV – should be binned (and some of those formation recce regiments with them), but the FRES utility is another matter. Whether you call it FRES or not, the army needs a new wheeled APC. However rather than overspeccing it, and then changing or adding to the requirements after the contract is signed – as militaries always do – it should be a straightforward off-the-shelf buy, as there are a number of suitable vehicles on the market.

Agreed. Off the shelf and no changing the specs after the fact!

Agreed that the FRES recon vehicle – a version of the ASCOD AFV – should be binned (and some of those formation recce regiments with them), but the FRES utility is another matter. Whether you call it FRES or not, the army needs a new wheeled APC. However rather than overspeccing it, and then changing or adding to the requirements after the contract is signed – as militaries always do – it should be a straightforward off-the-shelf buy, as there are a number of suitable vehicles on the market.

Air Tanker can be canned, but the RAF would still need Tankers, so it might be a bit cheaper, but not by too much.

Air tanker can be covered as it always has been, not by buying ‘gold plated’ new airliners custom built for the role but by buying second hand airliners and converting them. Instead of the current FSTA £14Billion PFI (and you are forbidden from using anything else inthe tanker role such as A400Ms…) find some low mileage second hand Airbus’s sitting in the Mojave desert and issue them to the existing sqns and make use of the existing infrastructure. Could be done for less than £2billion IMHO. The ‘Black Hole’ is actually £3.7Billion a year over ten years, which is a better figure to work with rather then £37Billion which is constantly thrown about. Unless to match it we should start quoting the defence budget as say £360Billion over ten years (ballpark figure).

So bin FRES and make do with existing assets upgraded where possible (saving £15Billion), bin FSTA ans substitue second hand aircraft operated by the RAF (saving £12Billion), bin GR4 early (saving £7Billion), lose the C-130Ks early (saving pennies in reality but the politicians don’t know that) and perhaps chop the T42s early too (mothballed, not scrapped just in case…) and the ‘Black Hole’ is well on the way to being plugged! SEEMPLES!;):D

Air Tanker can be canned, but the RAF would still need Tankers, so it might be a bit cheaper, but not by too much.

I hope you’re right. But this isn’t just an SDR with a 10%-20% cut, it has a £37bn black hole anyway and is likely to get Trident costs dumped on top of it.

The Black hole fills up quick when you bin £15 billion of FRES, Airtanker PFI, SAR PFI, retire the c1 and c3 hercs early, accelerate retirement of the trafalgar class, cut back the MOD civvies and the brass, bring home troops from germany, reduce GR4 force by 2 squadrons (thus extending in service life of the type by allowing airframe hours to be spread better, thus putting off any replacement buy), cutting back the RLC and a host of other relatively painless methods I’m too tired to list.

This SDSR sh*t is easy 🙂

They’re mainly meant for carrying & landing heavy equipment, not amphibious assault, & the dock & troop accommodation are sized accordingly, but more troops could be carried, although in less comfort.

I think this may be the key point to the rumours. The touted move to ‘strategic raiding’ as opposed to supported assault landings could, conceivably, bring a lesser requirement for afloat heavy forces. With F-35B, WAH-64 and developmental weapons systems like Fireshadow, perhaps Firescout or even Mantis the belief maybe that effects on target can be delivered without the need to put logistically demanding heavy sytems ashore.

With a lower requirement for deployed heavy forces two Bays could suddenly look readily sacrificeable. Insanity from top to bottom of course, but, hardly suprising if it turned out to be accurate!.

I think a lot of these “projected” cuts are being punted about to soften us up for the real thing, I can’t see any of the Bays or Albions going, Ocean is almost a certainty to go without replacement, Argus is coming to the end of her service life (not to mention her role as a hospital ship becomes redundant with the facilities on the CVFs), Diligence will probably go too, and we’ll probaly lose HMS liverpool early aswell.

Astute boat 7 is under threat, but only if the V class replacement moves up a gear.

Beyond that your guess is as good as mine, but wouldn’t just be a PR coup for a new defence secretary to prevent all the doom and gloom that’s doing the rounds right now?

I hope you’re right. But this isn’t just an SDR with a 10%-20% cut, it has a £37bn black hole anyway and is likely to get Trident costs dumped on top of it.

Weeelllll . . . actually, Australia has a requirement for a ‘sealift ship’, to deliver heavy equipment & provide logistical backup to an amphibious landing, or support troops ashore, if necessary without having port facilities available, mostly in support of the LHDs. A ship of 12-16000 tons has been described, probably with a dock, & of a proven design, with small crew needs.

That requirement seems to be written around the Bay-class, or an austere version of the Rotterdam/Galicia. I think Navantia & Damen Schelde must have started salivating when they saw it.

I didn’t realise that – it certainly sounds almost tailor-made for a Bay.

Sounds like a plan, until the Dutch or Spanish pitch in and undercut you 😉

Bah! You’ve spotted the fatal flaw in my plan. 🙁

I think Trenton doesn’t offer a permanent hangar either, so I don’t suppose India would miss it. Maybe salvage the Phalanxes off Trenton and put them on the currently active Bay – that way they’ have actually got something out of the ship 😉

I doubt accommodation on the old Trenton is better though.

All good points.

I considered them, but they do have 2 LHDs on order already. Do they still have a requirement, money and manning capacities to warrant an LPD on top of that?

Weeelllll . . . actually, Australia has a requirement for a ‘sealift ship’, to deliver heavy equipment & provide logistical backup to an amphibious landing, or support troops ashore, if necessary without having port facilities available, mostly in support of the LHDs. A ship of 12-16000 tons has been described, probably with a dock, & of a proven design, with small crew needs.

That requirement seems to be written around the Bay-class, or an austere version of the Rotterdam/Galicia. I think Navantia & Damen Schelde must have started salivating when they saw it.

I think a lot of these “projected” cuts are being punted about to soften us up for the real thing, I can’t see any of the Bays or Albions going, Ocean is almost a certainty to go without replacement, Argus is coming to the end of her service life (not to mention her role as a hospital ship becomes redundant with the facilities on the CVFs), Diligence will probably go too, and we’ll probaly lose HMS liverpool early aswell.

Astute boat 7 is under threat, but only if the V class replacement moves up a gear.

Beyond that your guess is as good as mine, but wouldn’t just be a PR coup for a new defence secretary to prevent all the doom and gloom that’s doing the rounds right now?