GlendoraOn a side note, the first C-27 for Royal Australian Air Force has been completed in the factory of Torino – Caselle.
http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/impresa-e-territori/2013-10-09/spartan-assemblaggio-173645.shtml?uuid=AbIb2YrI for those of you intersted in the story could google-translate the text from Italian.
GlendoraMaybe it’s not of general knowledge that while the USAF is dismissing/trying to resell to other services (in USA or abroad) 21 C-27, they could buy even more C-27!
In fact, in May 2013, the US Department of Defense published a request for information about the possible production of the C-27J.
The Air Force Life-Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio is conducting market research to identify potential sources that possess the expertise, capabilities, and experience to manufacture and deliver C-27J aircraft. Responses to this survey will be used to influence the program’s acquisition strategy.
As Alenia CEO declared:
The sale of C-27J aircraft to the US, which was set to be canceled, faces a possible reprieve after the inserting of a provision in the US fiscal 2014 budget plan making its way through the approval process on Capitol Hill. The measure would oblige the US Air Force to use funding from 2011-2013 to buy the aircraft.
“Suppliers were then invited to apply and we responded at the end of May,” Giordo said. “This means new C-27Js, more than the 21 already ordered by the US, with $880 million available, minus 7 percent for sequestration.”
The price of a new batch of C-27Js, should Alenia receive a contract, has not been decided, he said. “They would not be the same price as the previous, JCA program of C-27Js sold to the US,” he said.
http://www.defensenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013306160009
Also:
the US Department of Defense recently published an open request for information, to which we responded, about the possible production of the C-27J, based on the 2012 US Congressional language, which required to spend the remaining $818 million of funding allocated to the programme and already subjected to sequestration.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/paris-interview-with-alenia-chief-giuseppe-giordo-387092/
So in the future we could see even more madness in the managing of the program by the US Department of Defense!
Glendorai think you may need to post some examples of nice Italian ships to jog my memory.
Only Cavour strikes me as visually impressive.
I think aesthetics is debatable and a very personal parameter even for modern military ships.
Methinks aesthetics derived from the number of guns installed on a ship is rather silly vs. e.g. the use of intelligent systems like the Aster 30 the Vulcano guided ammunitions: http://www.difesa.it/SGD-DNA/Staff/DT/NAVARM/Vulcano-EN/Pagine/Configuration2.aspx http://www.difesa.it/SGD-DNA/Staff/DT/NAVARM/Vulcano-EN/Pagine/Configuration3.aspx
In the future the guns will be more and more concealed and vanishing for low obesrvaibility purposes, so noramlly you will see less guns on the deck, whithout this implying a lesser fire power.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]221388[/ATTACH]
Anyway, here there comes a link to a recent pix gallery of the official MM website of the first 3 Italian FREMM delivered to Italian Navy together: http://www.marina.difesa.it/_Layouts/MMIV2-Layouts/pages/MMI.GalleriaFullscreen.aspx?PageId=b1e9238b-f981-41fe-bf41-712784ea8af8&Guid=c12a32fb-bf42-476e-81c6-a4c92fd074c1
MM will have from 8 of 10 of these frigates in service in the next years. Of course you are entitled to evaluate them as ugly or baddass.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]221387[/ATTACH]
GlendoraI don’t think that the retirement of the EA-6B means that the USMC is giving up the EW capabilities.
That’s jut the personal point of view of the Marines pilot quoted in the linked article.
The USMC has a very different point of view on the matter, and btw the Service is not retiring the Prowlers without having an organic vision on EW, please read this text on the MAGT-EW: http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/ground-and-aviation-ew-integration
The text also points out some limitations of the EA-6 vs. the future EW approach.
Far from a compromise plan for the retirement of the EA-6B, the MAGTF EW strategy will unite air, land, and sea-based EMS-dependent technologies to ensure collaborative, efficient, and effective control of the EMS.
Of course the abobve veteran pilot could disagree with this concept, but I am not sure he’s right.
GlendoraNothing to watch here! Move away :):
Lennart Sindahl, vice president of SAAB, denied any hypotesis of a dual seat, LIFT or similiar version for the latest Gripens, he denied also any bid to the T-X contest: http://www.bullstreet.se/direkt_artiklar/saab-usa-inte-aktuellt-for-gripen-ao-chef/
The text is in Swedish, but you can use Google translate to acknowledge that AW hypotesis of the Gripen partecipation to the T-X contest was groundless and SAAB distrusts such spreading of false news.
Even AW had to upgrade the original article with this insert available here
Update: On Sept. 12, Lennart Sindahl, Saab´s execuctive vice president and head of Saab’s Business Area Aeronautics, sought to clarify the company’s position regarding a potential teaming arrangement with Boeing on the T-X program using a Gripen derivative.
“With the new development of the Gripen E version we expect it to remain in that position for many years to come. But a great fighter aircraft does not necessarily make a good trainer. We remain focused on the continued development of the Gripen E and the fighter will never be a trainer,” Sindahl says.
“As we stated previously, Saab always keeps its doors open to new business opportunities and if any of those should be further realized, they would be announced at the appropriate time.”Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add comment from Saab.
GlendoraLennart Sindahl, vice president of SAAB, denied any hypotesis of a dual seat, LIFT or similiar version for the latest Gripens, he denied also any bid to the T-X contest: http://www.bullstreet.se/direkt_artiklar/saab-usa-inte-aktuellt-for-gripen-ao-chef/
The text is in Swedish, but you can use Google translate to acknowledge that AW hypotesis of the Gripen partecipation to the T-X contest was groundless and SAAB distrusts such spreading of false news.
Even AW had to upgrade the original article with this insert available here
Update: On Sept. 12, Lennart Sindahl, Saab´s execuctive vice president and head of Saab’s Business Area Aeronautics, sought to clarify the company’s position regarding a potential teaming arrangement with Boeing on the T-X program using a Gripen derivative.
“With the new development of the Gripen E version we expect it to remain in that position for many years to come. But a great fighter aircraft does not necessarily make a good trainer. We remain focused on the continued development of the Gripen E and the fighter will never be a trainer,” Sindahl says.
“As we stated previously, Saab always keeps its doors open to new business opportunities and if any of those should be further realized, they would be announced at the appropriate time.”Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add comment from Saab.
I hope that just once in a while, the “professional” updaters of this thread will have care to have a look at this piece of information, before posting any supposed news on this thread in the next few days.”
GlendoraJust an observation really but didn’t Japan enter WWII with the largest most formidable and experienced carrier force in the world at that time. Or was Pearl Harbour just a myth 😉
What I mean is that the Countries that lost the war (and that were ruled by fascist dicators that used a lot miliutary rethoric) had to undergo a difficult psycological process. In a first phase there were objections toward everything related to the military.
Also other Countries kept an eye that the militaries of germany, Japan and Italy were strictly defensive.
OFC, things have changed in 70 years but putting fixed wings a/c on a ship is a thing exquisitely related to “power projection”, a concept which still frowns many eyebrows in Italy, and according to what some Japanese friends of mine say, also in Japan.
GlendoraExcuse me thobbes,
but suddenly I have a question:
Are you sure that this “bright spot” will have in the next years enough personnel to fulfill the needs of Navy, Aviation and Army?
I remember that in the past months I read a few reports on possibilities of not reaching the minimum for the people who have to serve on the upcoming systems.
Can you reasure us a bit that also the numbers of the personell involved in the aussie military are bright?
GlendoraAny comment here about this article of Osporne on AW:
Parliamentary Report Says U.K. JSF Buy Remains ‘High Risk’
High risk programme
5. Carrier Strike remains a high risk programme as the Department has little control over the technical risks and costs involved in acquiring the aircraft.
Despite assurances from the Department, we are not convinced that it has the aircraft contract under control.
Although Carrier Strike is over five years from planned operation, significant technical issues, costs and delivery dates for the aircraft are not resolved.
There are also significant cost risks associated with in-service contracts for maintenance which have yet to be resolved.
(eventually we are in the Naval Aviation section and I think it’s worth discussing the issue here)
and on this other issue:
UK Trying To Renegotiate Aircraft Carrier Contract, Report Says
The British lawmakers said that as things stood, the “contractors will continue to make a profit until the 5.24 billion pound target cost has been exceeded by 2.5 billion pounds.”
At one point, the original contract negotiations — which led to the signing of the construction deal for the Royal Navy’s largest-ever warships in 2008 — were targeting a cost of 3.65 billion pounds.
Not just my 2 pences.
GlendoraSome day on this forum we will see a thread like:
What if the Martians fought Argentina over Falklands. Could they have done it faster?
Or
What if the South Africa fought USA over Ceylon,
What is the purpose of all this useless speculation?
@ thobbes: I like your new signature.
GlendoraYou can delete for sure the “it seems”, from your last sentence.
I repost here part of an older message of mine in: http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?108418-Global-list-of-all-flat-tops-in-service/page3
These shots were taken at a recent exercise of last January:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]220442[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]220443[/ATTACH]
Obviously this was well after the Cavour was cleared for fixed wing operations, and was not the latest or the last deployment of this ship, busy in a number of exercises since 2011.
The Cavour was designed keeping in mind requirements for the F-35B. Further works to accommodate the transition between AV8B and F-35B will be carried out by 2016.
I could not post any significant contribution about the Izumo, but that my view the Japan Navy will probably have to face still for long the same number of difficulties faced by the Navy of my country – we both lost WWII – before putting in service a naval fixed wing component.
For Italy the Garibaldi (a carrier involved with the embarked jets in Kosovo war, Operation Enduring Freedom and that gave a significant contribution also to the Libyan operations, although many still believe that the only carrier involved was the French CDG) was the way to carry out this process, after having been suffering opposition both external and internal (i.e., the antimilitarist italian political parties and the Italian Air Force which for a long time strongly opposed any try by the navy of re-establishing a naval fixed wing aviation: the AMI even succeeded to seize a batch of Curtiss SB2C Helldiver just delivered to the Italian Navy in September 1950).
I think that the Japan Navy will have to undergo a similiar process wich will take more then a few years.
GlendoraTo be honest only C-27 doesn’t seem to really fit with modern Australian ops – it seems to be a hangover from Vietnam.
Like other users pointed out in this thread, I have to disagree on this, my friend.
The C-27 is quite a versatile platform, and all the services which operate the bird are quite satisfied with it.
Even the US Air National Guard pilots love it, too bad the USAF and LM decided to cut its wings, because are scared that it could demonstrate to be competitivie also against the bigger Herc.
Anyway, you will see in the next years, how useful will be the Spartan.
On different note, could you please update me on the Growler acquisition by RAAF? It’s not clear to me how many of these will be acquired and how many SH will be upgraded to EW, if any.
GlendoraBecause there are major natural ressources in the area, including offshore oil. Why do you think the UK are so keen to retaining the falklands in the first place?
Nic
The future trends for costs of crude oil and for its strategic importance are debatable. Also is debatable if it is worth trying extracting oil from the off-shore reserves in that part of the world.
The reason for the previous invasion was trying to win the national consensus while Argentina was facing a devastating economic crisis and large-scale civil unrest against the military junta that had been governing the country since 1976.
Inflation was at 90%.
Oil or fishery resources were far to be the real reason for the conflict. And as explained by Jonsey, the costs for such a kind of future military enterprise would probably be much more substantial then any eventual economical benefit – consider the expenses for implementing, training and mantaining a military instrument capable of having at least the 66% of possibilities of winning such a hypothetic conflict almost from scratch: it is not just a matter of buying some a/c or vessels.
And you can be sure every future Argentine government will carefully consider the risk of losing every popular consensus after having good chances of losing another war.
And as for the UK side, even if there are no mineral resources in the 6 counties of the Ulster on which they refused to pass the sovereignty to Eire, still they persevered their politics.
And by the way, I still consider silly the title of this thread: Invade the Falklands and I cannot see the reason for trying to develop a very hypothetic wargame on these pages about such an unrealistic conflict.
GlendoraMay I ask why any Argentinean government would ever consider a new invasion of the Falkland/Malvinas?
I am not sure at all that any Argentinean Government or the Argentinean people would consider entering in another conflict. For what? Trying to affabulate the people?
The previous experience to use the islands to win the national consent was not healthy for the dictator Galtieri, not to mention for the Argentinean people.
Every Argentinean government will obviously consider the risks of a military defeat, and now they have evidence that the UK will not sit down and watch (maybe Galtieri inorrectly ruled this obvious possibility out).
Also, I cannot understand the title of this thread: Invade the Falklands, with the verb in the imperative form.
GlendoraInstead of shooting from the hip try thinking of the context it was meant the picture gives you a clue if you want to know why send me a PM and I will explain further ?
No. you don’t have a clue, nor can offer a clue or explain anything to me or anybody else by private message or public discussion, since the attitude you showed here. Nor you can give suggestions to me
Go doin your researches on military crashes elsewhere and don’t try to justify your silly and fanciful attitude about accidents that to you sound cool, but for many mean the loss of a loved one. Although you seem to think that this kind of stuff :highly_amused: :very_drunk::stupid::D:cool: :applause: makes you less disturbing for the memory of the ones who died.
Sign In
