FedaykinYou sem to have fallen for the RN’s brilliant PR masterstroke, that is not telling th world at large what they REALLY intend to use them for! The whole STOVL/LPH mission profile for the CVFs is the best way to sell them to the government as low cost, and therefore get them built in the first place. If they had said from day one these ships will be CTOL carriers with two catapults and three arrestor engines each, enabling the operation of up to forty F-35Cs and a flight of Hawkeyes, the upfront buying cost would have tipped the balance against the whole project and aroused serious opposition from the RAF Brass into the bargain. Remember the RN has a long track record of slipping the ships they want ‘under the radar’ of likely opposition (treasury and RAF). Since 1966 they have commissioned five flat tops without actually openly calling them that when asking for funding (three invincible class ‘Through Deck Cruisers’ !, RFA Argus, a ‘28,000ton Aviation Training Ship’, !! and HMS Ocean, a 20,000ton ‘Amphibious Support Ship’ !!!). For a long time I was convinced the CVFs were a decoy which would attract all the criticism from the anti carrier lobby whilst the RN would slip something innocuous past under the radar which would form the real carrier force of the future. Then CVF became a real prospect and whatever contingency plan the RN had (LPHR?) has been put on the back burner.
Upgrading the CVFs to CTOL configuration will not be a difficult task. They are after all designed to accomodate cats and wires from the start so even if the descision to switch was made in the next couple of years it shouldn’t cause more than a few months delay, and that would be more a matter of supplying the equipment rather than work on the ships themselves. Remember also that smaller carriers (LHDs) are not necessarily cheaper carriers. The RN in asking for the 65,000tonne CVFs are going for the ‘most carrier’ they can get into Pompey and Guz for the best price. Carriers increase their efficiency and striking power exponentially as their size increases but their cost does not increase at the same rate. Smaller carriers are not cheaper but are less effective. Compared to the other costs of a modern warship, steel is still cheap and the air it surrounds is still free…
My personal preference has always been for CTOL CVF/ F-35C/ Hawkeye but will happily accept STOVL/ F-35B/ Merlin ASaC in the meantime, as it is infinitely preferrable to handing all responsibilty for fleet air cover to the crabs.
Yep Obi Wan has the situation pretty much correct there, except recently the RAF hasn’t been the primary threat to the carriers but rather the Army.
The Army has been beating a constant PR drum against RN and RAF major projects in the last few years. Usually ex generals doing the dirty work with articles in various newspapers stating that A-Stan is the kind of warfare of the future and how they are disgusted at Carrier and Jet purchases. Actually the usually hysterically anti RAF Odin of the highly partisan Warships magazine pointed out the main catch with the armies argument in that the UK is pulling out of A-stan.
FedaykinBy the time IAC2 is being built, EMALS should be ready for export, as long as the USA is willing to export it to India. EMALS is probably easier to integrate than steam catapults unless the ship is to be steam-driven.
I think nobody is building steam catapults now, although the ability to do so should remain as long as there are catapults in service & needing maintenance.
Puts my mind back to a thread I started long ago about future requirements of the Brazillian navy.
If India can keep the costs down a catapult IAC2 design could be an attractive replacement for the Sao Paulo. Maybe slighter smaller between 40 and 50 thousand tons which would put it inbetween IAC1 and IAC2 size wise. With some sections built in Brazil to support the growing naval industry of the country its an interesting concept. Considering Sao Paulo and her AF1 Skyhawks are good until around 2025+ and India will be busy with IAC2 until at least 2020 there could be a nice sequence to work on.
FedaykinL-15 was rejected by the Chinese, too. Seems like there is little call for a big multi-engine trainer even when you have a little extra spare change to spend.
I have seen no evidence that the L-15 has been rejected by the PLAAF or PLANAF. A preproduction batch was ordered by the PLAAF and considering its advanced nature it still has a fair amount of development ahead of it.
The JL-9 on the other hand is a direct evolution of the JJ-7 leading to a far simpler quicker path to state acceptance.
FedaykinAny updates on the Russian Mistral deal? I’ve been reading up on it and I can’t understand why they’re so desperate to get their hands on its systems. Most of them already have equivalents in the Russian defence industry. The MRR-3D-NG radar isn’t even a phased array system and is comparable to the Podberezovik series. The rudimentary air defence system already has superior Russian counterparts. The only extraordinary thing I can find are the propulsion system, navigation radar, Integrated BMS and maybe the ESM suite, all of which can be purchased separately for integration on a Russian LPD design.
If Russia wanted to acquire the latest Western naval technology they should be looking at frigates and destroyers, not LPDs.
The deal doesn’t involve millitary systems, the ship will be delivered in a civilian fit with navigation radars and no defensive fit. If Russia wants defensive systems then it will have to install them themselves, then again there probably isn’t any reason why the required coolant water, power and data cables can’t be installed in the yard.
As for acquiring naval technology, Russian yards are in need of serious modernisation when it comes to ships in the Mistral class so its entirely the right choice.
FedaykinJust read a piece in the news section August edition of Combat Aircraft Monthly (Page 10) on the SDR they say the cuts will be the GR4 squadrons, and a spot light will be shone on the carriers and the F-35B’s in terms of stamping down costs.
Cutting GR4 squadrons is pretty much in line with what I was thinking.
In respect of F35 that probably means splitting the buy.
FedaykinFor the Fleet Air Arm F35B with ASRAAM, AMRAAM C-5 (hopefully Meteor), AESA radar and helmet mounted sight is a significant improvement over Sea Harrier FA2 which is the primary goal.
For the RAF the F35B is a significantly better mud mover then Harrier GR7/9 in.
Used sensibly with an eye to the F35B capabilities it will be fine.
FedaykinIs the ugly button nose the E/O pod?
Radar
FedaykinI think the F-18E/Fs are too large to operate with the CVF’s even with a catapult – this is certainly the message I got when I suggested the same as all I was looking at was the current US multi-year buy and how the planes are coming in at about ~$50 million a plane, and F-35B’s price seem to vary according to who you believe from ~$60 million to about ~$130 million.
The Rafale could do the job but I would imagine that its price tag is to high, unless we could get some sort of offset from France with them buying a couple of billion pounds worth of British stuff (a carrier for example) if we buy 50 Rafale-M’s. Plus it would prove to the French that we can operate a carrier of the size and design that they need with the Rafale-M which is more likely to persuade them to commission a carrier in the UK.
Obviously at the higher risk end is the UK committing to either a CATOBAR or STOBAR Sea Gripen – I quite like the idea of a CATOBAR Sea Gripen but I would imagine that once you factor development costs in it would cost as nearly as much as a F-35B – I think personally the decision to build the carriers has come 5 years too late to pursue any option other than F-35.
CVF is a similar size to the Forrestal class and they could handle the F-14 (and the C130 for that matter) so Super Hornet wouldn’t be problematic at all.
You could operate the Super Hornet off the Charles de Gaulle and that is only 38000 tons and has been said the F-4 which isn’t exactly small operated off the Ark Royal at a pinch which is a shade under 54000 tons full load.
CVF has room for a 300ft C13 or EMALS catapult and there is room in the sponsons for the required boilers or Gas Turbine and energy storage subsystems.
FedaykinAntoine Bouvier, Chief Executive Officer, said: “These successful firing trials demonstrate that MBDA has fully mastered the technical issue with the Aster strake that was uncovered last year on recent missile manufacturing. The trials have been completed in support of making sure our domestic customers are in position to deploy the full operational capability of the PAAMS(E) system with the French and Italian navies and the Sea Viper system with the Royal Navy later this year. ”
So . . . a manufacturing defect in strakes, by the sound of it. Oops!
Certainly Oops but also lucky! Means there is no fundamental issue with the system.
An inspection of produced rounds and a fix to defective ones on site should suffice.
FedaykinIts pretty much a non starter for all the reasons listed above but there are other safety options that are cheap, effective and could save lives that have not been adopted for industry reasons.
The most effective being facing the passengers seats backwards. Air crash investigators have found that flight stewards in rear-facing seats have suffered less severe injuries in accidents than forward-facing passengers. This is because the energy from the body as it decelerates rapidly in a crash is dispersed evenly through the seatback, rather than concentrated on the seatbelt, which cuts into a person facing forward. It makes safety briefings far easier as you tell the pasengers to sit back in their seats with their heads firmly against the headrests. The airlines won’t adopt it as they say passengers don’t like the idea of travelling backwards. It is done with RAF transport aircraft like the VC10 without complaint of service passengers.
FedaykinAn explanation of what those aircraft are doing on deck.
http://www.informationdissemination.net/2010/06/about-those-fixed-wing-aircraft-on.html
So in oter words performing the same role as the FRADU Hawks in the UK.
FedaykinSaudi Arabia has got 24 Tranche 2 airframes from the UK’s allocation, not 72. The other 48 are extra aircraft.
My bad, well that still puts us in the 250ish mark.
FedaykinThis quite likely the appropriate forum to expose my ignorance. According to the RAF Handbook 2010 (pages 115 -119) the fast jet squadrons are as follows:
No 1 (F) Squadron – Harrier
No 2 (AC) Squadron – GR4
No 3 (F) Squadron – Typhoon
No 4 (R) Squadron (Harrier Conversion Unit) – Harrier
No 6 Squadron – Typhoon
No 9 Squadron – GR4
No 11 Squadron – Typhoon
No 12 (B) Squadron – GR4
No 13 Squadron – GR4
No 14 Squadron – GR4
No 15 (R) Squadron (National Tornado Operation Conversion Squadron) – GR4
No 17 (R) Squadron (Typhoon Operational Evaluation Unit) – Typhoon
No 29 (R) Squadron (Typhoon Operational Conversion Unit) – Typhoon
No 31 Squadron – GR4
No 41 (R) Squadron (Fast-Jet and Weapons Evaluation Unit) – Harriers & GR4
No 111 Squadron – F3
No 617 Squadron – GR4Front line squadrons – 12, split as 1 Harrier, 1 F3, 7 GR4, 3 Typhoon
Non-front line squadrons – 5(I have assumed that Flight 1435 and the Tornado Detachment in Afghanistan are detached from established squadrons)
The figures given in Parliament give the totals as Jan 25th 2010 as:
Harrier – 71
Tornado F3 – 54
Tornado GR4 – 137
Typhoon 62TOTAL 324
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100125/text/100125w0003.htm
I know the figures given to Parliament includes planes which are spares but I am having a little trouble reconciling the figures to the number of squadrons for example there are 137 GR4 spread over 7 front-lines squadron (and 1 and a half non-front line squadrons) which means an average of 16 planes per squadron (137/8.5 = 16.12), which I thought seemed too high as I understood a typical squadron size is 12 air craft does this mean the rest are spares in storage to allow rotation of the aircraft or that squadron sizes are typically larger than 12?
So ignoring the F3 as they are nearly gone, phasing out GR4 and Harrier and adopting a full Typhoon buy and F35 buy gives you 382 aircraft.
Considering the UK will probably split the F35 purchase, with about sixty aircraft in the first round and 72 Tranche 2 airframes to Saudi Arabia and possibly a further few airframes to Oman you end up with an initial streamlined fast jet force of just over 200 getting closer to 300 with the Full F35 buy.
But if they do split the F35 buy then by the time that purchase is forfilled Tranche 1 and some Tranche 2 Typhoon will probably be at the end of their lives.
FedaykinSurely this is what the SDSR will decide. The UK on its own is never going to need to fight an a counter-insurgency war and it seems to me (who is not an expert) and a lot of expert opinion the UK can decide to fulfil its moral obligations to NATO in one of two ways –
1) Either enlarge the army so it can be deployed for long term deployments like it has in Afghanistan and Iraq (which the Army does not seem currently designed for) which is what the Army wants but means expanding the Army which will force a cut on the Navy and parts of the RAF (possible to extent they cannot fulfil other core defence duties);
2) Or we move to deploying agile commando/special forces units in the opening days of a conflict and we then are replaced by those NATO countries with forces to hold the gains made by the UK – this is what a IMHO is what Liam Fox will push for, it requires a smaller army, but more highly trained and better paid, a lot of air and sea lift, a lot more helicopters than current have, fast jets able to provide first day of way strike capabilities (F-35), air craft carriers and generally fits into the equipment UK intend to purchase and builds on our current strengths and from the previous SDR.
I personally prefer 2.
I would certainly lean towards option two, but the army and its fan brigade have been making lots of noise for option one.
FedaykinTotally agree, but at least the army does not go around pretending it needs 2 armoured divisions.
Some people will defend their viewpoint almost at any cost.
I fail to see your point, the army has 1 Armoured division with significant heavy equipment which is hard to justify, are you suggesting that the RAF is pretending it needs more capability then it has? The Army and its fan club will happily say that they need to be expanded whilst fighter jets and carriers should be cut and we shall be see A-stan style warfare for the next twenty years despite our government saying we will be out by 2015!
Why don’t you cut to the chase and explain your chip on your shoulder over the RAF, because I see an organisation which has had to cut significant capability in recent years as well as a massive reduction in personel and aircraft.
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