10dme,

Fedaykin,

I honestly cant think of an example of the RN or Army angling for part of the RAF’s budget. I will admit here to not being fully versed with every RAF project that has been in the works, but, I honestly cant think of any where either of the more senior services have put the boot into the RAF. I know there was much dissatisfaction in the RN about being left to shoulder Polaris and the SSBN programme solely out of its own budget. As I recall though the RN’s argument was that, as a primarily political weapon system, the national deterrent should be funded outside of the Defence Budget and not draw funds from any of the services.

At a push you could make a limited case that the RN Polaris force undermined TSR2’s nuclear strike mission, but, otherwise the comparison between that and the RAF’s very deliberate and dilligent machinations to undermine CVA-01 is a difficult one to draw. Certainly these are emotive issues, but, there is always an objective standpoint from which to view from and, as dispassionately as possible, I cannot comprehend how, when TSR2 was developed to take over the V-force mission, the RN could be blamed for the loss of the heavy bombers?.

Nice plan with the one obvious flaw. You would get one service lobbying, moving Australia etc, for a larger amount in its budget even if at the expense of a smaller one for one of the other services. The same situation would carry straight on.

A fair answer Jonesy, believe me all three services have no problem putting the boot into each other it means getting a chunk of the budget. In respect of TSR2 there was heavy lobbying from dark blue circles to get it killed. The irony is both them ended up shooting each other in the foot.

As for now its all out interservice warefare over the scraps they get in the budget. Certainly the RN has seriously lost out recently but the situation isn’t good for anybody at the moment.

I certainly don’t join in with the sentiment expressed by a certain somebody that the RAF serves no perpous, tell that to the squadies who are living now because of RAF Chinooks evacing them for medical attention or fire support against enemy positions. Its RAF fighters that patrol our skies and defend the Falklands, I have and still do know many RAF personel who are straight up people who would certainly have a few stronger things to say if it was said to their faces.

Its a sad situation in all respects.

The Nizhny Novgorod aviation plant is called ‘Sokol’ (Falcon) – nothing to do with the name of the MiG-29/35.

The name Fulcrum is not a MiG name anyway – it is a name allocated by the then Air Standards Co-ordinating Committee (ASCC) to the MiG-29 as a Reporting Name.

The Russians wouldn’t call it Fulcrum, Falcon – or anything else.

Ken

Actually its a bit of grey area, both RSK Mikoyan and Sukhoi have happily used the Fulcrum and Flanker names in certain sales competitions on occasion.

Exactly. Typhoon is obsolete and a dead end in development.
Rafale is far superior, as is F-15K, MiG-35, everything above SU-30, F-35, F-22.

The Typhoon in unreliable, expensive to buy and operate, has a legacy radar system, lacks range and AG capability.

Look at the RAF, they would love to trade in their Typhoons for half the number of F-35.

?

Well, the deployment gives Japan. Yet, another look at the F-22……..Hopefully, the US will allow the export of the type if it approves 60 more for the USAF.

Well it looks like that Japan is going to make one final push for F22 when Obama comes to power and if the answer is still no then it looks like Typhoon is at the top of their shopping list.

I think there is a very good chance Obama is going to sign off an F22 export to Japan with strings attached to support jobs. There will be NO TOT and it will be an entirely American weapons package with no integration of local systems and certainly no local assembly line.

If Japan swallows that then they get Raptor and if not well hello Typhoon…

As former Works and Pensions secretary Hutton will be well aware that the entire budget for Carrier Strike doesnt even amount to half of the value of the unclaimed benefits pool out of the Social Security budget last year. Throwing 10000 on to the dole in the manufacturing sector for what is, in relation to that budget, pretty small beer would be a difficult thing to survive.

I’m afraid its very, very fair to criticise the RAF for its part in the White paper you mention. The RAF’s involvement in that process did little more than underscore the conniving and naieve nature of the light blue brass at the time. They launched a very deliberate and disingenuous campaign of disinformation about the carriers and their own capabilities to ‘support the fleet wherever it deployed’….what they didnt add was ‘provided it was in the Solent’.

Do I need to re-tell the story of how their crabby air-marshallships moved the continent of Australia, in the maps submitted to adivse the carrier decision, when it proved to be in the wrong place to provide basing coverage over the Far East?.

That offering up another services core capabilities for the chop, instead of joining that service in opposing the cuts in the first place, encouraged the politicians to get axe-happy is hardly a difficult future to predict. That they were too stupid to see past their own agenda is lamentable.

If you are asking where the services would rebuild CATOBAR skills from the answer is simple. The US and French Navies. Deck handling or, in the jargon ‘plane mangling’ is a transferable skill and it would not be a complex issue to cycle RN deck crews through the USN programme. My guess is CATOBAR would mean F-35C and so it could be more or less guaranteed that the USN would be as supportive as possible of this kind of endeavor.

The flying skills are perishable, as I’ve alluded to elsewhere, so CATOBAR for CVF would effectively signal the end of JFH. The retention of a pool of deck-qualified pilots would be extremely difficult under the current structure.

I know your feelings are very strong on this especially in relation to the RAF but all the major services can be just as conniving and naieve be it light blue, dark blue or green. All of the services have at some point launched some kind of deliberate and disingenuous campaign to get the politicos axe happy with another services pet project in the hope of getting the budget for themselves. Of course the reality is the politicos pocket the money and it never gets transferred. As the RN and RAF tend to have big capital spend projects for aircraft and ships they do have the most bitter relationship when it comes to budget allocation. Whilst there are many on the navy side of the argument who like to point how the RAF campaigned against CVA-01 to get the money for TSR2 and blame the RAF for the loss of big carrier aviation the RN was also campaigning against TSR2 for much the same reasons. I know many from the RAF side who blame the RN for the loss of TSR2 and the big bombers.

The Greenies (dry and wet) like to sit back and hope for the spoils of the blue bust up…but they have not been afraid to join in the fun.

The real enemy is the UK defence budget, firstly too small but also operated as one budget with funds allocated on a need for need basis. It only promotes the petty interservice rivalry we get now. We should allocate a fixed budget for each service like the Americans with maybe a seperate R&D budget to support industry.

All our services are vital and the petty rivalry saddens me:(

Optimised for STOVL operations. No wasted space or weight, maximum length deck that can be squeezed in, etc. May not be able to operate it at maximum T/O weight, but probably better than anything else the same size, & some larger ships.

Very much the case a very well thought out design, on the other hand the Invincible class which is seen by many as the definitive “Harrier Carrier” is not an optimum design for the task by any measure. They might be bigger but they don’t make best use of the 20,000ish tons! Considering they were built to operate ASW helicopters only with Sea Dart for self defense the specification was not optimized for Harrier operations. On the other hand the RN makes do with what it has and has got their moneys worth out of them.

I must admit that I am surprised that the Ark Royal is going to be retired before Illustrious, considering that she is the biggest and newest in the class and she spent most of the 90’s stripped to the bones for a deep refit followed by another extensive refit in the last few years. She also makes a logical back up to Ocean.

Well it is an interesting development in light of the return to service of the Hunters to support operations against guerillas.

I would argue that the Su25 would of been a more manageable and suitable type for those kind of operations with some Mi35 thrown in for good measure.