Regardless of the capabilities of the weapon systems the pace of events was going far to quick for authorisation to shoot down the second and third airliners with SAMS or jets.

Up to the first impact the civil air traffic control authorities thought they were dealing with a normal hijack. Normal procedure is to wait for them to land and make their demands then sit it out unless they start executing passengers. There wasn’t the authorisation to just shoot down civil airliners at the time especially over major urban areas. The authorisation would still have had to go up to the office of the president and back down again, with the confusion the authorisation would still have arrived after the attack was finished.

The twin towers were hit within minutes of each other and the first impact was actually considered an accident by many up to the second impact. The tragic timing of the chain of events precludes the idea of the millitary having the time to shoot down the airliners even with SAMS.

One can’t help but wonder how 9/11 might have turned out had all those Nike Hercules batteries still been operational.

Exactly the same, simple as that.

The Terrorists had pretty much finished their attack by the time the US millitary realised what was going on.

Aster variants….Longer legs and maybe faster

I believe it already reaches 60g’s due to its interesting TVC… 😮

Maybe VL MICA….

But I think I’ll stick to one type of SAM

Other SAMs would be part of the CIWS (gun + missile combo)

I must admit VL MICA is interesting and it offers the advantage of using VL Seawolf launch silo’s. The issue I see on the other hand is Seawolf is getting upgraded for another 10 years service and I’m not sure VL MICA would offer that significant a performance advantage over Sea Wolf.

I can certainly see the VL Seawolf container being used for CAAM.

Supposedly Ukraine supplied SAMS and they have large numbers of soviet era fighters in storage so wouldnt be that suprising if a few found their way to georgia, it would be the most likely source i would imagine.China would not want to supply fighters in fear of annoying the russians and the USA would be unlikely for fear of perhaps escalating the situation any further.Gripen would be too expensive to buy in sufficent numbers to fend off another air attack of this size.Perhaps some Turkish F-5’s could be bought??

I don’t think China would care one iota about annoying the Russians, who they sell to is their concern.

I think its far too early to wonder too much about re-equipment for Georgia, what I can say is they will have been entirely pushed into the Western sphere when it comes to arms procurement.

Guess this can only be good news for RR and teh F-136 team, any delays will mean their project will be more advanced when the aircraft comes of age, hopefully they will have a much clearer run.

Yeah I was going to say the same thing. As far as I’m aware the F136 team are not facing the same problems anyway.

Initially the Scottish airforce would be agreement recieve a percentage of each type currently in or on order for the RAF.

However there would be room for negotiation regarding what and how many.

For example, a Scottish Airforce might not have a use for GR4s so could perhaps take more than it’s percentage of Typhoons.
Likewise it might trade of it’s share of E3s for something else.

Your right Potagee that Scotland could rightly take a share of each type in service but I don’t think it would work out that way. Scotland just wouldn’t have the tax revenue to support all those types and I don’t think an independant Scotish government would be interested in the expeditionary nature of the current forces. I think Scotland would be looking towards something similar to the Irish air corp whilst demanding a financial reparation for the share of the types that were not transferred. Its a figure that could be worked out fairly easily considering 83.8% of the population are English and 8.5% is Scottish. Frankly Scotland isn’t entitled to that large a share anyway unless you throw in the oil and gas money argument which I can guarantee Westminster will say no to. For example the Scottish are entitled to a percentage share of Trident but an independent Scottish government probably wouldn’t want it. Far easier to transfer the infrastructure to Davenport and pay Scotland a financial reparation.

It might make most sense to simply pursue the elusive final two Type 45s (i.e. hulls 7 & 8), and then build at least eight general purpose T-45 derivatives. The general purpose version would ideally be about the same size, but not as AAW oriented – perhaps still have Aster 30 capability, but not as primary AAW ships.

The best thing, though, would be to pursue numbers, as long as they don’t sacrifice capability too much. I think something like the FREMM might be best, ideally in two versions – one with a full ASW and limited AAW fitout (i.e. the RN’s C-1 concept), and one with a much more limited fitout (the C-2). Ideally, at least eight of each would be needed to properly replace the current Type 22B3s and Type 23s. The C-2 type should ideally have the ability to be upgraded later to more like the C-1 spec, should the need arise. Both classes would have a suitable VLS, but with the C-1 carrying a mix of Aster 30 and Aster 15 (unless someone pays attention to my suggestion of a quad-packed VL-Meteor! :diablo:). The C-2s would then carry a mix of Aster 15 (or the VL-Meteor) plus some cruise missiles, either Tomahawk or Scalp Naval. The C-2s would be forward deployed to, say, Cyprus, to support ops in the Med and Gulf. This is, of course, why they would want some limited land-attack capability!

So, to actually vote, not just waffle on about how things should be:

A – 10 x 5000 ton ‘frigates’
B – 8 x 7000 ton ‘destroyers’
C – 6 x 8000 ton ‘super destroyers’

If this is to form the sole RN frontline surface combattant fleet, i.e. no extra ‘C-2s’ or equivalent, then a mere six to eight Type 45s and six to eight of these Type 4Xs is simply not going to cut it! You need a total of at least twenty, preferably more than 24. 🙂

I think the C-1/C-2 idea is the best solution. Also the lack of powerful sensors might not be the hindrance that they once would of been in a high intensity war. With data linking there is no reason why our C1/C2 tier combatants could effectively be spare missile platforms with targeting and control being handled by the Type 45. The Americans have had thoughts much down the same line with the CEC capability (something which the RN is joining) where an AEGIS ship uses the ASW escorts as extra missile platforms.

That way we get the best of both worlds with the costs being kept down for world policing but the ability to punch above their weight being retained for true high intensity wars.

As for missiles I would argue Aster 15 but it appears the MOD is set on a new generation Sea Wolf/ Rapier replacement so we shall see.

On a side note I don’t know why people bring up the idea of a naval Meteor, its performance would cross over with Aster making it a rather pointless development when investment has gone into that system.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

I want to hear more about the Spanish made bombs alluded to my one of our Argentine Air force members. It has always been the case in the UK that the use of British made bombs has been highly reported. It would be interesting to hear about the other munitions used.