FedaykinIf I was holding the purse strings in Canada I wouldn’t be shopping for ships and submarines in Japan, they have pretty much zero experience of exporting combat vessels and no knowledge of running international program offices to support what they have sold.
I know people love to fantasy fleet but Canada is in a dire situation when it comes to their current fleet, support infrastructure and manning. Going on a wild global shopping spree is not going to help them one iota!
Operating multiple frigate and destroyer classes from multiple international suppliers is crazy! They need to get the Halifax upgrade finished and the next generation frigate program going! They need to pick a design and then stick to it without prevarication and political interference. The nation/company that supplies the design and program support need experience supporting that kind of program especially when it comes to project management.
They need to get the Protecteur class finished and into service, retaining the interim IOR seems sensible to me.
Buying Soryu class from Japan?! NO NO NO! Brilliant submarine, one of the best SSK in the world but it failed to get what everybody assumed was a shoe in with Australia losing to a paper design! Not to Labour the point too much but Japan has no experience building and selling submarines to other nations. By all accounts the companies in Japan associated with building the Soryu were luke warm to building submarines for export and hostile to the idea of making any changes. If Canada decides to replace the Victoria class it needs to come from somebody who is used to exporting submarines and dealing with foreign navies when it comes to supporting them. HDW, DCNS, Navantia, SAAB and even Daewoo have more experience doing that and all have submarines available that are a far more realistic supportable proposition for Canada. (If you asked my personal opinion Canada should be running a contest then buy something off HDW, they are the most credible and successful submarine exporter in the world. A Type 214 variant is going to be significantly better than their current Victoria class and when you look at the spec sheet for the Dolphin 2 variant I would be biting their arm off!)
FedaykinAgreed Deino, we have been here all before haven’t we.
To be fair our resident Argentine Buitreaux who appears to be pretty switched on to the real state of affairs within their Airforce has noted that the KAI FA-50 is favoured by their president.
In a purely practical sense it is arguably a good fit for their needs and I can see KAI being keen on getting a South American sale. The sticking point as mentioned in this article is the loan needed at a poor interest rate to buy the Jets off South Korea.
Remain sceptical but it would be an interesting development. The UK Tabloid press will of course pro-lapse in response and various retired senior sources from the three UK armed services will be quick to spin words of doom to support their preferred cause in the face of upcoming defence cuts.
FedaykinNo US Destroyer was disabled by a Russian Su24, the story is 100% debunked and was the result of a satirical article from the Russian blogosphere that went viral.
FedaykinThe Austrian defence ministry describes the Tranche 1 Typhoons, which it received between 2005-2008, as possessing “limited equipment and significant cost uncertainty”.
That statement by the Austrians is almost breathtaking! They were the ones who ran a contest that had an almost absurd list of required features for the winner. They were the ones who decided to down grade the order from Tranche 2 to 1 and then asked for all the defensive aids plus other major avionics from GPS through to radio systems to be stripped out and they have the gall to say that the aircraft has limited equipment!
Now they are acting all shocked that a twin engine multi role air superiority fighter is expensive to run when all they needed was a supersonic WVR point defence fighter!
They certainly don’t have any particular need for a BVR missile considering they are mainly used to intercept and identify other aircraft. Pretty much every supersonic fighter available on the western market is overkill for their needs. Part of me says the KAI F-50 is spiritually the best fit matched with something like the L-59 as a SAAB-105 replacement but on balance they are probably best going for Gripen C/D as the high end choice. Farm out support and training to Sweden or the other European Gripen operators and carry over their IRIS-T. The Gripen even has the BK27 like Typhoon so they can carry over the ammunition.
To be honest I don’t think the Eurofighter partners should kick up a fuss, Austria always was an awkward customer!
FedaykinM-346 is low supersonic, from brakes off in a QRA situation it might well struggle to get up to an unresponsive airliner at cruise altitude. Then again it will be a darn sight more effective than the Saab-105 they are currently using for air policing. Their Typhoon are only available during business hours and their Saab-105 are doing more flight time in the role currently.
FedaykinYama: Nobody. They’re Tranche 1 aircraft which Germans scammed on them, existing Eurofighter operators have no use for them and nobody else wants them for same reasons why they’re not a success in Austria.
If you take a look at what happened you will find Germany did not scam them into buying Tranche 1 aircraft! Typhoon won the contest with an offering of Tranche 2 aircraft but there was a change of Government in Austria. The new government had campaigned on cancelling the order on taking office only to find the contract was too tightly tied up to do that so instead arm twisted EADS and the Eurofighter partners into selling them a stripped out variant of the Tranche 1 aircraft as a face saving exercise. For all the almost absurd amount of capabilities the Austrians stated they needed in the contest they ended up with a BVR air superiority fighter with short range air to air missiles and no defensive avionics. Defensive avionics that were discretely added later anyway, they didn’t really save any money but ended up with a less capable and more expensive to run Typhoon variant.
There is blame to be laid at the Eurofighter partners door for being so obsessed about getting a first export order (when Saudi Arabia was almost certainly in the bag sooner or later) that they put forward an almost un-refusable offer that even included some work share when the customer clearly had expectations beyond their actual needs!
The Austrian airforce also need to accept some blame for not matching their expectations against their actual experience,their wish list of must have capabilities were almost comical especially when their Draken and F-5 didn’t have those features. Considering up to that point they had operated 1950’s vintage point defence fighters and hadn’t even operated with a basic IR air to air missile until fairly recently one might consider that there might be issues cost and operationally taking on a late generation multi role twin engine air superiority fighter with the latest avionics!
Of the final short list Gripen was the better choice but here is the rub I actually don’t think any of the final options were suitable to their actual needs. They would have been better off looking for some low mileage F-5 and having them upgraded by the Swiss. There were still examples around that were available with plenty of hours on them!
As for now, a sad end to a silly story really! Personally I think a variant of the M-346 FA with Grifo radar or the F/A-50 with EL/M2032 are a far better and affordable fit. Luckily the Tranche 1 Typhoon will have many thousands of airframe hours left so it isn’t as if they would have to face a gap in capability…lets hope they don’t mess it up!
FedaykinTejas is suggested for yet another fighter replacement program…
FedaykinSo the 055 is not as radical a departure from previous designs as some thought it was going to be, for example no 3D L band rotating long range radar. It looks to be in effect a scaled up 052D.
FedaykinTo gut for the SEM stuff and spares or to increase fleet size? That is the question! If the Argentines have any sense they need to be gutting the Aeronavale of every spare part they can for the SuE if they intend to keep it in service!
F-1 would be a sensible fit for Argentina albeit not exactly exciting, it wouldn’t be a huge jump maintenance wise and there are upgrades available.
FedaykinErr what have I got wrong?
I plainly stated that this sounded like confused reporting by the journolist!
FedaykinIn the end developing advanced jet engines is the most difficult area of fighter aircraft development requiring decades of research and very deep pockets. Even China and India both with the will and pockets deep enough to fund RnD have struggled. There are areas like Avionics and electronics where Iran can make indigenous leaps in capability far easier as enabling technologies can be obtained with less trouble from abroad. The materials and fluid sciences that go into jet engine development is an order of magnitude more difficult.
It should be remembered that nations proficient in high end fighter engine production burnt out a lot of metal in the early days and even more recently to get to where they are now.
The Chinese with their VERY deep pockets are making a fighter turbo fan that is reverse engineered from a US design that performance and reliability wise at best similar to a unit made in the mid 80’s.
FedaykinYes very similar & the US it’s self plans to keep using the J-85 through 2040. The most important thing though is that Iran can manufacture all the parts locally.
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The reason for my scepticism is it has been shown more than once in recent years that a number of their fully indigenous programs actual incorporate a large amount of refurbished parts.
At best they have reverse engineered 1950s turbojet that could be used to keep their F-5 fleet going a bit longer. Then again the IRIAF have not shown much interest in the various F-5 reverse engineering programs preferring overhauled examples from their current fleet. The Saeqeh had to make use of the worse surplus Vietnamese F-5 airframes rather than any from the active Iranian fleet.
In the end this is for the benefit of a domestic audience.
FedaykinSmall intakes and small engines?
It is amazing that those Iranian Scientists have completely by accident indigenously developed a Turbojet engine that happens to look like an overhauled J-85…
FedaykinHas the record breaking technology used in the special Lynx been used a anywhere else…or is it the helicopter equivalent of the ME-209?
Yes, BERP III was used on production Lynx and the technology further developed into BERP IV used on the EH-101.
FedaykinAn ARM capacity is very important for DEAD from stand-off and is a capability gap that exists with quite a few western air-forces. The USN and the Italians have kept it relevant through the AARGM program and this will only be further enhanced with the ER effort which is effectively a new weapon given the AARGM was rebuild program for the most part. The USAF chose to pursue a less ambitious and lower risk path to their HARM upgrade but even they are now looking for a new ARM or similar capability as part of their next generation developmental efforts.
In case a totally new weapon is cost prohibitive many European F-35 customers would be well served by adopting the AARGM-ER for their F-35 A or Bs and it does make a good bit of sense for its (or the standard AARGM) integration on the Typhoon to be pursued at some point once the Tornado fleet is retired. Also, the AARGM with its multi-mode capability is no longer purely an anti radar weapon. It is useful for other strike missions as well.
I have no doubt that AARGM-ER being integrated onto the F-35 out of the USN/Italians pocket has not been lost on the UK MOD and RAF. We are very much in the world of ‘Built for but not with’ when it comes to UK defence procurement. AARGM-ER integrated onto F-35 by our allies means if a situation crops up where we need the capability quickly we are a UOR and a crash acceptance program at Boscombe Down away from having the capability. Same goes for weapons like NSM.
Whilst I would rather the weapons are in inventory I regard it as an acceptable compromise and leads me to conclude that future UK defence procurement must ensure we buy weapon systems that offer easy integration of future capabilities. In a similar vein putting Strike length MK.41 on Type 26 even if there will be no missiles procured to go in them initially is fine with me considering all the options that offers the MOD and RN down the line to get a slew of capabilities onto the frigate. Just compare that to previous classes like Type 42 or Type 22 and even Type 23 where adding capabilities was difficult and even impossible in some cases.
I don’t see Typhoon or Lightning as single role types I want them to be fully swing role and their pilots trained as such. I even want the F-35B crews to train and even stand in for UK QRA on occasion.
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