The irony is that the JSF could well see more nations becoming carrier operators, by virtue of being able to buy a mix of F-35 -As and -Bs. It could well see nations like the Netherlands becoming carrier operators again, and in particular the Australians. The same could be true of the South Koreans, and perhaps even the Japanese!

To be honest, the best bet would be to simply build a catamaran hull, and park a GMLRS on it, delivering accurate fire, out to a decent distance. If you go with a flat topped Cat, as has been mooted by Austal et al, then you could add in UAVs like the Hermes 900 or even Predator, and have the ability to park a few helos as well, as needed. A 125m Cat, with a flat deck, would be able to carry two dozen light UAVs, a pair of light helos (e.g. Eurocopter Squirrels), and carry a pair of MLRS launchers. Ammunition wise, it should be able to carry, say, 12 ATACMS (12 pods), 288 GMLRS (48 pods), a few hundred Hellfire or Viper Strike, and enough fuel for all of these, for a few days ops. This would be ideally suited to a lot of peace enforcement operations, e.g. British forces in Iraq. You could park a couple of these near wherever you’re operating, and they would be able to keep an eye on things. They would actually be very useful for naval interdiction missions, e.g. the anti-piracy and counter-terror operations in the Horn of Africa.

It would seem that the Rafale M wasn’t the limiting factor in the size of the CdeG. I have no doubt that the Rafale could operate from a somewhat smaller CATOBAR carrier than the CdeG, but I doubt that the E-2C could.

It is fair to say that 25,000 to 35,000 ton carrier might be able to accomodate one, or two, 75 meter catapults, and perhaps even a full squadron, or two, of Rafale M fighters.

Even the Foch could launch the Rafale M, although at a reduced weight of 16,500kg MTOW compared to the current maxium of 22,200 MTOW, so it is wrong to think that even a 50 meter catapult couldn’t launch a modern fighter, within certain severe limitations.

The restrictions really are in terms of the angle on the deck, and where to put the catapults. If you adopt a shallower angle of angled deck, then it will be longer on the same length of hull, with the side benefit of less overhang, improving stability, though at the cost of deck space. If you are happy to accept restrictions in flight ops, then you can run the cats all the way back from the bow to the angled deck. This isn’t as big a problem as some might think, since such a small carrier would always be in either launch or recovery mode, and few carriers can do both simultaneously anyway. The alternative, depending on the ability to put both cat runs close together (staggered), is to have two cats, both on the angled deck. In this model, you actually always use the bow as a plane parking area, using the angled deck only for flight ops. To launch a strike package, you would sit up to six aircraft aft, and then the rest on the bow, bringing them aft as soon as the previous aircraft are off the deck. Equally, for landing, you would put as many aircraft in the hangar as possible, and then as they land, the aircraft would just taxi straight to the bow.

As for the CVFs, a lot of the growth seems to be to boost capacity, not really capability (i.e. there is not a particular aircraft they are trying to fit, hence needing to enlarge, as happened with the CdG and E-2 Hawkeye). Rather, it is simply the result of wanting the best cost vs capability mix, which pretty much goes as large as you can bear. I suspect that if the UK was willing to pay another half billion for each carrier, they would be 80,000 tons, not 65,000. Its really just a matter of how high you’re willing to go!

I have to agree with Scooter, there is no realistic prospect of a carrier in Argentina’s future, and wasting money pretending there is makes little sense. I suspect the best thing for Argentina’s future naval aviation capability, they would be better canning the final Super Etendards, and just trying to get their hands on a small squadron of Mirage 2000s or similar. They would at least have the range, and self defence capability, to actually do useful things with Exocet. If they could get, say, ten Mirage 2000s, and another ten or so of the radar-equipped (APG-67 if memory serves) AT-63 Pampas. The Pampa would be good enough for coastal anti-shipping, and close support of their Marine units, and yet cheap enough to be affordable.

As for practical carriers, the realistic bare minimum nowadays would be somewhere around 35,000 tons. Any smaller, and it can’t operate modern fighters, and would struggle to carry an adequate carrier air wing. A good target size would be the CdG – yes, she’s got problems, but she’s a fully functioning aircraft carrier, and at that size, still potentially affordable. Much bigger than the CdG, and there would only be a tiny handful of states that could afford to buy and run her.

Actually, there were proposals for a CTOL version of the Italian Conti di Cavour, and there were the Bazan CTOL carrier designs. All these ships were around the 25-30,000 ton mark, and would probably have been able to operate a reasonable airwing. The main problem would be finding a suitable fighter, since the only carrierborne aircraft on the market (in the west, so not counting Mig-29K and Su-33) are the F/A-18E/F, Rafale, and in the future F-35s and LCAs. The LCA might be a good choice in a few years, but there’s a lot to be proven before then, and assuming it’ll become available risks ending up with a carrier too small to operate anything else. The Rafale could probably operate off a ship around the 30,000 tons mark, especially if the angled deck is long enough.

There is no real likelihood of safe S-3 Viking operations off such a small carrier, as far as I can remember, they never operated off anything like the Oriskany. If you really need a fixed wing ASW platform, possibly for AEW as well, the best bet would be to rebuild S-2 Trackers. You could basically build a new S-2, with a zero timed airframe, and modern cockpit and sensors, and do ASW or AEW versions, and possibly a COD type as well.

I would actually look more at UAVs, which could be operated off such a small carrier, in good numbers. Something like the Israeli Hermes 900, or Heron UAVs, which could carry not only a surface search radar, but probably some ASW sensors as well. You could also add in AEW versions as well, having them carry a suitable radar, like the Searchwater, or the Italian one used on their EH-101 AEWs.

The airwing on such a 25-30,000 ton carrier would likely be:

– 16 fighters, probably Rafale, LCA or navalised Gripen (which would be costly)
– 8 UAVs, like the Heron, for surveillance, both ASW and AEW
– 4 ASW helicopters

This is a relatively good airwing, and gives you a good enough balance of types, without taking up all the space. The UAVs should be capable of being folded up, with the wings removed completely, and stored along the fuselage sides. They shouldn’t take up much hangar space, and could even be stored elsewhere.

The trick would be to abandon the stupid FSTA project, and simply do what Australia did, and just buy the actual aircraft. You then get a power by the hour deal, and outsource major maintenance. Plain and simple.

The real problem is that the whole tanker fleet, which up until recently was around 32 aircraft, is supposed to be replaced by about nine full time A-330s, with five more available for extra cost. This is patently absurd, and needs redressed. It may be too expensive to buy more A-330s, but we could certainly add more A-400Ms to the current order, since they have a similar tanker capacity to the VC-10s we currently use. A final batch of eight C-17s, sixteen A-330s, and 48 A-400Ms would be a great step forward!

Actually, drugs do great harm to society as a whole, with lost productivity, increased probability of psychiatric problems, and all the associated crime that goes with drugs. Just legalising it because it is easier is to give in to criminals. Drugs are illegal for good reason, perhaps one day tobacco will be, but comparing the two is a matter of apples and oranges. Society should not just allow people to buy anything they like, just because they want to. Have a headache? Why not go out any buy some diacetylmorphine, after all, heroin is perfectly legal. The problem is quite simple – legally produced narcotics would be expensive anyway, because they would have to be produced to clinical standards. People with chronic drug abuse problems would still abuse legal drugs, and would still support their drug habit by crime.

Also, where do you stop? Legalise lower level drugs like marijuana only? Or go to the next level, and legalise extasy or amphetamines? Heroin? The list goes on and on, but being against opening a massively dangerous can of worms does not make me a “hawkish bible-thumping” member of this forum!

The possibilities I could think of would be:

Chile – an upgrade for their F-5s, to keep them up to date, to work alongside their new F-16s.

India – either Air Force (maybe for Tejas, or for Mirage or Mig upgrades, or the Indian Navy, for the Sea Harriers?)

Singapore – either for their F-16s or for F-5s.

Maybe Australia could look at getting some, as part of the Hornet upgrades? :diablo: