Some news about the Algerian frigates contract:

Very interesting in Respect of BAE Systems, I presume that the delegation was from the new shipbuilding alliance. Also it hopefully shows that BAE Systems is finally seeing sense and is going after the bread and butter small frigate/Corvette end of the market.

Also has interesting implications in respect of the RN’s own frigate replacement program.

Ever heard of Aegis?

No, only the more sophisticated Sampson in the case of the Royal navy.:diablo:

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Well a Hornet or Rafale purchase could have an impact on future carrier operation plans. I do wonder if Brazil has plans beyond the Foch… on that note I know I have said this long ago in another thread but the new Indian carrier class could have a very interesting future on the Export market. Its just the right size for several types to operate off it and there is no reason why future variants could have catapault rather then the Ski Jump. If India price it right it could be very attractive to a number of nations Brazil included (maybe even with a split buy with Argentina).

On the other hand a Gripen purchase would be very attractive, its through life logistic and operation costs are excellent.”

One of the discussions is to include the Navy in the deal. There are plenty of As/Bs/Cs/Ds Hornets on storage that could be delivered to the Navy and recently French Navy has disposed a couple of Rafale F1 versions. I don’t believe that the navy has plans to operate another carrier and in fact i prefer to have the jets land based, retiring the carrier. As I mentioned before, with the agreements with France for Helis, Subs and equipment for the Army, I doubt Rafale will win. My guess….SH and Gripen NG for the Air Force, Legacy Hornets for the Navy.

Alas the majority of the Hornets in Storage at AMARG have been parted out to keep the operational fleet going. For that matter the same goes for the F15 and F16 in storage as well.

I have said it before and I will say it again now … Boeing should never of ceased production of the C/D model Hornet. It was an attractive export type and I think a few of the recent contracts that went to the F16 or Gripen could of been won by the Hornet if it was still on the market.

If we are working on a thought experiment on the scenario of China taking Taiwan we can certainly define China’s plans from recent defence procurement and development.

In recent years China has been updating and streamlining it’s forces to fight as has been stated by them a high intensity high technology war in their local area. China knows that in a global sense that America is the big boy but that doesn’t matter. The idea is to move quickly overwhelm Taiwanese and American(and allied) forces in the Taiwan area take the Island with a massive airborne and sea invasion supported with IRBM’s before anybody can properly react.

With the Islands occupied they will position their fleet and airforce in a screen around the area and they will threaten any American response with the use of nuclear weapons stating it as an internal matter bringing a rogue province into order.

Folks,

During the Falkland’s War in 1982 some of the RAF Harriers were sent down south to help the RN Sea Harriers (ie the Sea Harriers could not drop laser bombs). Before they were allowed on RN carriers, the RN insisted that their pylon connections be modified to mount the RN 2 inch fold fin rocket pods. Something about the powerful radars on the RN warships being able to set off the 68mm Brandt rockets that the RAF used.

Does anyone have any info on the type of ignition system that the RN 2 inch rockets used that made them safer to use on warships with powerful radars instead of the 68mm rockets?

Jack E. Hammond

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Anything is possible I suppose, but I had heard that it was done for logisitic reasons.

No point carrying two different type of rocket pods down south.

So it is Ukranians that are launching rockets into Space from Baikanour or mining Uraninium mines or running the space tracking station at Orak or protecting countries from Afghan border. ur seriously deluding if they can manage to built a rifle by themselves.

You know you really make me chuckle sometimes Star49, of course the Ukraine can make rifles and pretty much every other kind of defensive and offensive system you could buy. You seem to forget that a significant part of the Soviet defence industry was in the Ukraine prior to the break up of the USSR. Actually in many ways its the other way round, there are a number of things that Russia is having difficulty producing without Ukranian support. A good example being large ship Gas Turbines an industry which was pretty much based in the Ukraine only before the break up.

I don’t know why I bother all your going to do now is go of on one of your google trawling cut and paste replys to explain how the mighty Russian defence industry is amazing at building large ship gas turbines and the Ukraine can barely build a tractor…

I suggest you wind your Fanboy neck back in:rolleyes:

For the likely costs involved in refurbishing and reusing existing mounts we have in the system NOT redeploying the Mk8’s seems more daft to me than mounting them. In fact the only issue is, like Phalanx, going to be in numbers. As far as I can tell there would be 11 or 12 that could be taken from the 42’s (though that may be more like 8 or 9 actually reusable and I think the T45’s guns may be drawn from this pool), the 13 from the T23’s and the 4 from the 22B3’s. Could be that we’d only actually have about 20 guns available to the C2/3 force from our own stocks. In an irony though it may be possible to come to an arrangement with the Pakistan Navy for the Mk8’s off their 21’s when they discard them and maybe even with the Argentine navy for the guns off their 42’s!.

Of course that’s assuming that our remaining 22B3 and T23’s are scrapped at the end of service freeing up their guns. If they are sold on to other navies I would think they woild want to keep the MK8.

I just don’t think for the tasking fitting the MK8 to the C3 is worth it, that’s my opinion.

Oh and I think the words “When hell freezes over” covers the likely hood of Argentina selling back its MK8 mounts.:p