None of the Eurocanards have really been a huge success in the export markets so far: What would you suggest to improve this?

L

Bribe the Americans to cancel the F-35.

nhampton

I guess your comments were aimed at me. I agree that Wikipedia isn’t particularly reliable, however countless other sources discuss the possible role of the US Atlantic Fleet in a hot war, including the eight carrier groups assigned to it. Whilst carrier embarked ASW assets may have been intended largely for defending the carrier, the fact remains that they would have contributed to overall NATO ASW capability.

They would have done no such thing. The Vikings and Sea Kings where tasked with protecting the carrier battle group. Nothing else.

When did I say they would be defending convoys directly? Offensive ASW would have still been ASW.

There is no such thing as offensive ASW and the carriers where not going to be deployed to go hunt submarines.

The Tomcat’s Pheonix missile system was designed for open ocean warfare against multiple bombers with cruise missiles. Likewise, the Viking was designed with blue water operations in mind. These days, likely conflicts are likely to be of a littoral nature, and the Super Hornet and Seahawk and better suited to this environment.

The Super Hornet of today is much more capable than it’s predecessors and they are equally well suited for blue water operations or operations in the littoral. The Super is head and shoulders above the Tomcat. It carries the far more effective AIM-120D and it has a much better radar that would be even more effective in dealing with Backfires and ASMs.

While the Seahawk lacks the speed, range ans payload of the Viking, it’s sensors are far more capable. Couple this with the fact that there is no longer a need to detect, track and attack dozens of Victor III in the third CZ and you have a perfectly suitable ASW asset for blue Waters operations.

The CBGs had Aegis, AWG-9/Phoenix, Viking, Intruders and Fast Combat Support Ships to enable them to sweep the North Atlantic of all three (air, surface, submerged) threats by allowing them to fight their way through the North Sea and conduct offensive operations against the Northern fleet, the submarine anchorages and bomber bases on the Kola peninsula. In short the CBGs mision was to attain and maintain control of the North Atlantic and bring the war to the USSR.

You’d be surprised. SSNs may be more complex, but they’re also different to SSKs and in most fields of engineering experience counts. As an example the UK has had major snags getting the Astute class sorted despite having extensive experience of SSN design, if only because of the decade long gap in design experience.
As another example the US can design fighter jets but they have yet to produce a decent sports car.

Corvette Z06, Viper SRT10, F40GT and the golden oldie Shelby Cobra. All world beater sports cars.

That said I agree building an SSK is not the same as an SSN. Some of the design parameters that are not constrained with an SSN are constrained with an SSK. It is however ludicrous to think that Electric Boat or NG shipbuilding with all their experience building both nuclear and in the past literally hundreds of conventional submarines could not come up with a decent SSK given enough money. The Germans had a long hiatus and they managed okay.

Why bother taking money away from the nuclear program when the SSNs can perform all of the SSKs missions but not vice versa.

Thirty fathoms is 180 feet. It won’t make any difference whether you have a boat that is 55 feet from keel to mast or 40 feet.

This Wikipedia article may interest you: Carrier battle group

During the Cold War, the main role of the CVBG in case of conflict with the Soviet Union would have been to protect Atlantic supply routes between the United States and Europe, while the role of the Soviet Navy would have been to interrupt these sea lanes, a fundamentally easier task. Because the Soviet Union had no large carriers of its own, a situation of dueling aircraft carriers would have been unlikely. However, a primary mission of the Soviet Navy’s attack submarines was to shadow every CVBG and, on the outbreak of hostilities, sink the carriers. Understanding this threat, the CVBG expended enormous resources in its own anti-submarine warfare mission.

Judging from the comments many of you where not alive during the cold war. Quoting an article from Wiki, much less one without sources and taking it as fact is pretty funny. There where 14-15 carrier battle groups in the 80’s. The ASW mission (aside from self defense) was secondary to the main mission which was to ensure that Iceland would stay in allied hands, take out the Northern, Black Sea and Pacific fleet, take the war to the Russian Kola peninsula in order to suppress airborne attacks on the convoys and suppress the number of submarines that do transit the GIUK gap. While the latter could be considered ASW it was not direct ASW in defense of the convoys rather it was the application of the carriers as an offensive force that indirectly was supposed to suppress the ASW threat. The 100 or so Garcias, Knox’s and Perrys would be used by the USN for direct ASW work, not the carriers.

Bill’s status as an award winning defence writer are demonstrable, as is the fact that McGraw Hill saw fit to poach him from Jane’s.

That’s not “my assessment”, it’s simple fact.

His charm (and the quality of his thinking) is my opinion, though I don’t think you’d find many industry insiders disagreeing.

I’m a tad upset to hear anyone say that they “don’t like the man”, as he’s a thoroughly decent chap, self effacing and generous, always ready to take the time to show interest in his fellow writers, when someone of his calibre might be expected to be an arrogant twit. Disagree with him by all means, of course, but expressing dislike will upset his many friends.

And the size of his ‘following’ is irrelevant.

Though why I’m arguing with someone who can’t punctuate or spell;), I do not know. :rolleyes:

“Haven’t you heard there buddy’s!”

Please write:

Haven’t you heard they’re buddies.

200 times! Like Bart at the beginning of the Simpsons. :diablo:

I hope there are enough smilies to give you a clue that this is gentle teasing rather than deadly insult.

Yes, Bill Sweetman is a journalist. Not exactly a group of professionals known for their accuracy or analytical prowess.

For someone who is supposed to be a top journalist in his field his continuing crusade against the F-35, contrary to what others in the field know is starting to become laughable. People are noticing that he is losing it. He like Kopp has no clue as to the true extent of the F-35s LO treatment. He along with Kopp repeatedly fail to recognize the fact that the F-35 is “heavy” because all of its fuel and (not according to him) a very robust combat load out are carried internally which in turn greatly increases the F-35s real world performance compared to aircraft that carry all their stores externally. Scooter is entitled to his opinions Jacko. Get upset, but get over it. I may not dislike Sweetman but, like you, due to the inaccuracies of your writings I d not take him seriously. Sweetman has about as much credibility as Kopp.

BTW, someone should tell him that his “cruisers” on pg 5 of his presentation are Spraunce class destroyers. I wonder what other details he got wrong?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli…cle%2FShowFull

A very intersting article:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL32109.pdf

Indeed. Keep in mind it was a report by the Congressional Research Service (the government) and not an article per say. That said, good find. Very interesting reading.

As a design for series production, I think the problem with the DDG-1000 is two fold. First, it really is a one dimensional ship. It is meant to provide gunfire support for beach landings. Never mind the Marines have not had an opposed landing since the Korean war, no one is going to confuse AGS with the 16/50 Mk 7 guns on the Iowas. The second problem is that the Navy had hoped to be able to use the hull and some of the machinery for the CG-21. It appears the Navy is having second thoughts about fitting a nuclear power plant in the hull, and the viability of the the hull form is being questioned as well.

The Navy has some other initiatives that they want to try out with the DDG-1000 such as reduced manning, lower radar profile, and turbo electric drive. All things that can either be retro fitted to existing ships or designed into new ones. It is also big enough to fit an energy weapon or rail gun. Both of which are near to the point where they could go to sea for real world testing. Rather than battle force (fleet) units, it appears that these ships will be technology demonstrators with the secondary mission of providing gunfire support for the Marines.

I think the production run stays at two or three hulls and they continue to build DDG-51s of some sort for the next few years until they are ready to start building the next generation cruiser sometime in the 2017-2020 time period when the Ticos start to approach their end of life.

There isn’t any sort of classification as has been pointed out by numerous posters, on either side of the argument. The Navies of the world have screwed up the “classifying” strategy to the point that there is no point in arguing over it….there is no standard…. I remember reading this problem of classification when I was younger (10+ years) when I bought a book about Naval Warfare (it was part of a series, Air, Land etc etc…..BTW Sferrin, this is where I read the overhaul of the Iowa BBs was cheaper per ship than a new Perry Frigate).

Ship tonnage/capability have so far outstripped the original classification strategy that there is no longer any point in basing a classification purely on hull form.

True bringing New Jersey out of mothballs and modernizing it in 1982 cost about $450 million. About the same as buying a new OHP frigate.

As for cruiser, I think our friend Lawrence is getting confused with the old USN WWII standard for a cruiser hull. This standard was relevant in the time when guns where the paramount weapon on a ship. Back in the day the things that separated a USN cruiser from a destroyer where as follows. Twin screw, single rudder, an armored hull and deck, main armament greater than 5 inch guns. It had nothing to do with anything else.

The rise of missiles and electronics made this “standard” superfluous and the USN for a time started calling its cruisers (by virtue of displacement, magazine capacity and number of missile illuminators) destroyers and frigates because those labels had a more “budget friendly” sound to them.

With the Ticos and Burkes, who knows. The Ticos have a bit more missile capacity and an extra illuminator but other than that I would think that the later Burkes are every bit as capable and in some cases more capable than a Tico. Perhaps the Ticos have greater range?

Dont forget that F-16IN is quite different from Blk 60..

Also, from gripen C of 25m to 50-60M of NG is BIG Jump….

Annyone care to add F-35 prices(real ones, not norwegian ones)

Feel free to argue with Janes about the Gripen NG. Janes in turn go ttheir numbers from the Dutch.
http://www.janes.com/news/defence/air/jdi/jdi081106_1_n.shtml

The average unit flyaway cost of the F-35C over the life of the program is 83.1 million dollars. I know that this number does not agree with some people’s view but that number has been the official number for a while now. The Norwegians (I know, either they are lying or those damned Americans are bribing them)believe the number becuae they where told that if a certain number (about 350) of export F-35s are bought that would be the price. Again, sorry of you don’t like it but no one to date with any knowledge of the program has said otherwise.