I agree with what Swerve pointed out the CVF design is a British design so if anyone wanted it they would have to talk to the UK and not the French and keeping the French out of any deal would be wise.

Scooter it would be nice to see the UK, France and India in partnership to produce a few CVF class vessels for respective navies. I however think the chances are very slim with India atm as they seem quite content to build-up the expertise to design and build their own carriers however if things don’t go well we may have a good chance of offering an almost off the shelf design. For India to join their own project would need to go off the rails and even then it would take some convincing to buy a foreign design. I would hope the UK Government would lobby hard for this to happen as it would bring some benefit to the UK industry but mainly in equipment orders such as propulsion etc although I suspect work in these areas as well as ToT would be needed.

Stevo 3.52GMT in the morning:) makes it what in Australia?, what would they stand to gain by keeping success quiet? vs what they would gain/protect by keeping failure quiet.

If you design and build something that works then you tell people you try and sell your product, if you design and build something that is having trouble you don’t broadcast that fact that you have failed. Why would you not broadcast failure well it’s simple, you would not want to show prospective customers that your project has failed and will take longer than planned. It seems logical to me that if it worked they would be telling people in an effort to gain support for a sale to the UK MoD, people should know that the MoD will need something to replace and complement reapers obtained via UOR.

Some armed hawks would be ideal for CAS/COIN duties and could maybe still do the Advanced Trainer role. I think that it could be done for a decent price and it uses an existing airframe that the RAF know everything about so should know the costs of deploying and maintaining it. Furthermore the RAF should have no problems with deploying it to places as the Red Arrows travel around quite a bit so they would know what would need to be taken along to keep it flying. Just my thoughts.

I’ve heard many stories about the spares supplies to the forces, a member of my family used to tell me about chunks of the Tornado Gr4 fleet being grounded essentially for a couple of washers that could be bought from a local diy store. The spares problem is really something that is causing problems disproportionate to the cost of the parts and the simplicity of the possible solution. I know what you mean about the IT systems andthe IT equipment on most bases is quite outdated. The last time i visited they still had the old beige box sitting in the hangar running god knows what and they used that to check parts availability and order them.

CADMID is basically the gates that it has to pass through, if i remember groups of MP’s or civil servants in Government somewhere have to vote to let it pass through the gates, Initial gate etc. No idea if im on the right lines, interesting to hear what goes on in the MoD.

Swerve the AW139 might seem like an ideal solution and it’s just the right size but it offers nothing that the battle proven UH-60 does not have. It would also need some work to fit defensive aids etc and would have no commonality with the UK helo fleet so would be another type to support. The main reasons for me wanting the UH-60 is that it can be brought into service pretty damn fast, is proven in the role, common engines with UK helo fleet, common with the US our biggest ally, relatively cheap.

The AW149 would be the ideal long-medium term solution, i’ve been following the program and a modified AW139 is due to fly next year and the actuall AW149 is due to be flying in 2012. Im thinking more in the short term to fill the gap so more people don’t have to lose their lives because of political posturing. If a decision was taken on the UH-60 we could have them in service by the end of next year, the US has already said they would train our blokes to use them and allow us to get some M’s off the line asap. When you look at what has been done recently it’s utter madness £300mln to re-engine the Puma and more to re-engine the Lynx, that money could buy the more capable and proven UH-60 and even have them in service sooner. Oh! and most of the Puma work will be done in Romania so not even much of a UK solution, even people in the RAF from what i’ve heard want the plastic pig to go.

There are other options such as more merlin, but any idea how long they would take to build in numbers? and then it would cost more than the UH-60. I would rather bin the Puma and Lynx upgrades and buy more merlin or buy the UH-60. Doing some math then you could get maybe 13-14 merlins or 40 odd blackhawk.

Al nice rant:) Oh! and Swerve i suggest you have a look at a blog called Think Defence it’s had a good discussion on helo’s

Teer we have a massive budget when viewed in Dollar terms but as we are discussing we like to spend most of it on UK projects that cost lots of £’s. The £ is also quite strong against the Dollar most of the time which compounds the problem. Although this would be an advantage of buying US kit. Furthermore we buy things in very small numbers further pushing up unit costs.

For people in the UK that think we spend enough on defense we spend about the same paying interest on debt maintenance and defence spending is a fraction of NHS spending and of Social Protection spending. Ahhh! political rant over:)

My opinion of why Sweden seems to do ok is that they are neutral small country and everyone has done time in the services so the people in the defence companies know that their own children will be using and rely on what they are making. I would imagine that this would focus the minds of many people to do a good job and after all in a way it is their own money they are saving by doing a better job. There is also a much stronger sense of national pride and a desire to remain independant.

People im not saying just buy everything off the shelf but i would rather buy select bit’s of kit off the shelf where they are tried and tested and already bought in numbers. I would rather see UK production facilities as just that production facilities rather than building the sh*te that BAE or AW come up with we should in places buy and build what we need.

Stevo, The Australian Army may have had problems with them but they work and are cheap to acquire although operating costs are a tad higher but coming down with newer M models. They are also common with our biggest ally who we operate with the most so in areas it makes sense. What are the specific problems the Aussies had with them??

Zero you may not see the point and many don’t, Isolationism is a path that we could follow but i would say it is very very unlikely as it would mean losing our UN security council seat which im suprised we still have. In some aspects i would rather the UK did not get involved on the ground but that is different from not being able to get involved. I think we should still have powerfull force projection power but i do not think it should be used all that often, getting involved on the ground is very messy but sometimes it needs to be done. The things i don’t mind getting involved in are op’s like GW1 where the UN is fully behind it and op’s that directly affect the UK sovereignty e.g Falklands.

J Boyle, Im a nutter in some respects and i would much rather the RN was given far more autonomy to spend it’s money how it wishes and run itself. That means that the RAF, Army and politicians etc have no say or very little say in RN matters. They should also get a fair share of the defence budget to by what they need without worrying about the RAF or Army talking about an area where they know very little. Remember the Army and RAF publically saying the carriers were designed for the cold war which is far from the truth, then the navy could also ask what is more cold war than tanks and fighter jet’s? The FAA has already been chopped away it exists really as a small helicopter force operating Merlin HM1 and the 2 marks of Lynx. The Junglies, Baggers and fixed wing have all been moved to be essentially under RAF control.

His site is the best source for information on the RN, he’s devoting his time to real work and family atm although i hope he does appear again when he has time and there is more information for him to work with. There has not been much happening for him to write about but with any luck that will change.

The T45 does have many great modern technolgies incorporated and many nations have not yet done that hence why i think the design should still be sound in future although you are very much correct alot can happen in 11 years. Many new warship designs have huge amounts of space for updates hence why hull sizes have increased so much. I hope we are all still here in 5-7 years time as well to talk about it but who knows. Your opinion is as important as anybody else’s opinion especially here on the Internet for all i know you are somebody with a great depth of knowledge about warship technologies.