Yes, but if you want to be able to doploy that size force in an emergency, you need that many active airframes that are assigned to flying squadrons so that pilots can be assigned and kept current.

You can’t have 12 active airframes in a squadron, plus six in an OCU and keep enough pilots current to fillout to 36 aircraft in an emergency unless you have your 12 aircraft flying 24/7.

Fairly sure you’ll find that you have multiple pilots assigned to each aircraft as well.

For example.

Australia has 71 F/A-18A/B’s (54A+’s & 17 B’s)

These 71 airframes are spread over 3 Active squadrons plus an OCU.

Now. You (and Lord Jim) are suggesting buying 60-80 aircraft for an active force of at minimum 3 squadrons plus and OCU (minimum ~48 aircraft).

You then plan on operating these aircraft in an environment where accidents are more likely result in the loss of an aircraft then it is for land based aircraft. Plus because of corrosion, wear on the airframe is likely to be higher then for land based assets.

Plus, even though F-35 will stay in production for a long time, there is the problem that any attrition replacement order will have to wait until the next free spot on the production line, potentially a couple of years after the order is placed.

Seeing some issues?

Exactly! You have to go by the rule of three to maintain credability. The RAAF have maintained a 3 sqn force by hook and crook and their active fleet is actually more like 36 aircraft from the 71, discounting the OCU. For expeditionary work they could only deploy 1 sqn credibly, any more and they would struggle.

If you want a proper 3-4 sqn force that can be deployed regularly at 3-4sqn (36-48 aircraft) strength you will need 9-12 sqns (108-144 aircraft) To ensure that those sqns are at full strength and you can equip OCU and OEU etc you will need even more aircraft. All of which is beyond the defence budget.

A purchase of 80 aircraft will get you a sustainable force of 2-3 frontline sqns (24-36), an OCU (12) and OEU (2-4) ie around 50 active airframes and 30 for engineering and attrition. That will give you a long term deployment force of 1 sqn.

Heads on the F-35 is rugged in a Clint Eastwood pushing 80 sort of way from the side it looks like someone has botched a nose job on a ugly lass. Still from the videos I have seen of its sensor fusion, the cockpit and the STOL capabilities the F-35 is definitely one of the planes you might describe as having a “great personality” 🙂

I thought it looks like a YAK141 crashed into an F22 just as a Harrier fell from the sky.

The F35b when it is all gear and doors out looks great, add on pylons full of stuff under the wings and I think it will look the dogs in the warplane stakes.

The word useful is key here. Of course LO is useful but is it a necessity?

Regarding the 3 highly defended targets, I accept GW1 fall into this criteria but although we did lose some aircraft the Coalition had air dominance after a very short time.

In the Balkans I would not call the Serbian air space highly defended and it was not very effective except for when rumours of S-300s appeared and NATO had a minor panic attack. Again the air defence were neutralised on the whole.

I assume the 3rd is GW2, in which cannot Iraq cannot be called highly defended.

But in all cases the coalition relied on US assests like Prowler to get the job done. The RAF facing any of those threats alone would have had a much harder time. We must be careful of building a defence policy built on reliance of others. You need some, its the nature of alliances, but you can have too much and then you are limited to pursuing somebody elses foriegn policy.

In all cases the air defence were destroyed or eliminated and we were working with the US. As I have repeatedly stated I cannot see a single conflict where we would face a High Tech threat alone. We would be part of a coalition. We have to think what we can contribute not on the grounds of matching the US but on complimenting. 4th Gen platforms with top line avionics and ordonnance will do the job 98% of the time. The Typhoon, F-18E, Rafale can handle any expected air opposition especially with F-22 top cover and AWACS support. US F-35s and UCAVs would cover SEAD and LR Missiles will deal with radar and comms.

But this route makes you reliant on the US, the UK becomes by necessity an adjunct to the US forces rather than a partner capable of independent action. I agree there appears to be no obvious need for independent action on the visible horizon, but the procurement route you are suggesting rules out the possibility and therefore limits the UKs ability to respond to a given crisis – if the US disagrees with UK foreign policy at that particular point then we don’t have access to all the nice toys like Growlers and F22….or worse we have another Suez.

My point would be you can afford to have a less capable platform if you have specialised aircraft supporting it (ie Growler etc) and have the numbers to allow for attrition. If you are small then you need a much greater capability built into the equipment you have to improve the survival chances and therefore the long time exsistence of your forces in a scrap.

Mind you all my arguements hinge on the MoD building the CVFs as something other than STOVL. IF they stick to this then the F-35 is the only choice and I hope it lives up to its billing ans if the F-16 story is anything to go by I might begin to be more optimistic heaven forbid.

Its going to be a cracking piece of kit, orders of magnitude over current airframes.

A quick reply to the thread would be: (As I’ve held for around the past 3 yrs): Unfortunately the UK is proceeding ahead with a QE super Carrier which can only operate the STOVL ‘B’ variant F-35B at best.

They are big enough to operate F35A or other conventional alternatives, it would just need the outlay for Cats and wires (and training etc) but the ships are more than capable of operating other types, they are bigger than the French CdG.

While I’ve personally promoted an entirely different strategic vision for RN over the past 3 yrs or so, I could not object enough to sticking with the current plan, as tragic and costly as it is.

Ask, and I’ll be happy to provide an alternative emergency contingency view.

Respects to UK –

Go ahead! We are all ears!:)

Thanks Swerve so that means that 80 F-35B would cost around £6.8 billion rather than just over £7 billion I mentioned earlier – that has certainly cheered me up 😀 – now if only the F-35B was prettier I would be a happy man!

Oh I don’t know, it has a certain rugged appeal.

Right, just shut up now. Others in the thread had finally managed to move on. I’m sick of having to sift through this argument to find posts on topic. If you want to carry on take it to PMs or another forum.

Jesus this board needs more moderators.

Back to topic: Interesting on the armour front. Are all our front line warships armoured to some degree still?

As it happens I think that only HMS SAbre and Scimitar are armoured.

I’m not saying that we should never commission UK-specific equipment, but that we do it too much, & that we tend to make our equipment undesirable for export customers.

Sometimes, our UK-specific solutions don’t even work, or are clearly inferior to generic alternatives, e.g. the Chinook HC3, or the Phoenix UAV.

Phoenix was a right stinker. I was talking to a couple of guys from 32 Regiment RA in Gib back in April, there was not a good word they could say about it other than it flew. they worship Hermes though.

SA80 must be right up there in this list, and on the aircraft front…where do you start? Belvedere, Argos, Scimitar, Andover, VC10…. all too UK specific and in many cases inferior because of it.

Joining the ASCOD debate late….I have no idea why we are buying a recce tank this big? I can’t see the sense of it at all. The beauty of UK recce vehicles has always been their small size. The CVRT was/is a fantastic piece of kit. ASCOD will not be able to cross half the small bridges in the UK and certainly not drive into my mother-in-laws garden due to a map reading error (it was a biggy, she lives ten miles from the edge of the Plain) I think we have been seduced by the US view of recce- big, loud and armed.

Impression given is that he is in favour of using development aid to influence certain situations before they become threats, reduce heavy armour, fast jets and large ships in favour of more small ships, helicopters and UAV’s. The speech also hints heavily at increased use of special forces, more focus on Peace Keeping and Counter-insurgency, amphibious and strategic air lift – and there is some mention of how you do not need a 100% gold-plated solution if a 80% solution will do the job most of the time.

see we could do that job! Just what we were talking about… 😉