verbatimDo you have personal knowledge of the amount of accommodation aboard? The official information is that as well as two loading ramps for heavy vehicles (which qualify her as an amphibious transport, though obviously can’t be used for assault operations), she has room for up to 416 marines in addition to her normal crew, in accommodation of a lower standard than that for the crew (‘alloggi collettivi tipo “camerata”‘), intended only to be used for short periods. That would make her useful in the LPH role.
As I said, a secondary amphibious role. Ark Royal & Illustrious are less suited to amphibious operations, but have been routinely tasked as LPHs by the RN.
As long as it goes for openly available data, Cavour is able to accomodate properly a little less than one hundred CO and NCO getting rid of some technical and air crews, and is able to host a little more than two hundred enlisted men of naval infantry.
It is still a little short of more than four hundreds men, but it depends upon living standards and whether the amphibious task force HQ is counted or not within that amount.
“Alloggi collettivi tipo camerata” means field beds placed in any available space whitin the ship, nothing more nor less.
It’s actually the same capabilities available on the HMS Illustrious or any other STOVL CV on the same displacement class.
The only peculair capability is to embark/desembrak heavy vehicles, but it is possibile only when good mooring facilities are available, nothing to do with actual amphibious tasks.
Anyway, Cavour could be usefully exploited as a LPH, but it has no specific arrangements to perform that role, everything is designed around her primary task as a STOVL CV, and it will be overly expensive when used as LPH.
Just for reference, she crossed Atlantic Ocean, going to Haiti on disaster relief mission, at an average speed in excess of 27 knots, and there is no amphibious ship around the world that can accomplish such performance, just because no amphibious ship needs a COGAG power plant developing more than 80 MW for the sole propulsion purposes.
It would be a plain waste of money to design an amphibious ship with such machinery, and the same goes for many other technical details.
verbatimCavour is just a STOVL carrier, it doesn’t have any facilities for amphibious tasks.
The most she can accomplish as amphibious ship, is to swap some of the technical crew for a couple of companies of Navy’s infantrymen and send them ashore with helos.
The farce about her secondary role as amphibious ship come from the very beginning of its development, when Italian Navy was looking for a multirole ship along the Wasp Class, and because in its stern there is a small ramp able to load/unload heavy vehicles up to a MBT.
About the chance to get a CATOBAR carrier, the main problems don’t come from money in itself.
Italy spend around just 1% of its GDP in Defence, and is planning to build three LHD with a target unitary cost between 400 and 500 millions Euro.
Upon this planning, one of the three should actually be more fixed wing oriented and act as a replacement for Cavour when she is no available.
What it means is not clear, most likely it involve better command and control facilities, better technical facilities to operate fixed wing aircrafts and so on, anyway it could push up its price a little more.
Getting rid of the third planned LHD, scaling back the other two as for their a/c facilities and raising Defence’s budget just a little make available quite a good amount of money to build and operate a CATOBAR carrier.
The real problem is about interservice feuds, seeing Italian Navy getting extra money to buid a brand new CATOBAR carrier would ignite a real war with Italian Air Force and Italian Army.
verbatimTrue , the new Tu-204SM order will be 44 Red Wings and likely 15 for Moscow Airlines plus there is good number of orders for Special Operations variant of Tu-204 ( 12 + 12 )
Tu-204 is a great platform for next next gen MPA if it ever sees the light of day.
Rumors (or talks, if somebody likes to call them that way) about Red Wings willing to purchase a good amount of Tu204 are already quite old, still Red Wings is allegedly asking for an heavily State-subsidized contract.
It is not like a commercial operator believing Tu-204 has a viable future as commercial aircraft, it is like a scavenger smelling the chance for an almost free lunch.
And under those conditions, there would be no guarantee at all that Red Wings would operate the type in the long term, an heavily subsidized aircraft is quickly disposable because of the negligible investment the company put on it.
This in turn leave intact the problem, for RuAF o Russian Navy, to get a commercial aircraft with no commercial supporto in the long term.
Even replacing a wing stringer would require the hand crafting of any part required when no more TU-204 will fly in the civil aviation world.
This is the reason, IMHO, neither Il96 nor TU204 are viable options for Russia.
Because in the long term, they would become a logistic nightmare without any of the plus related with a military aircraft.
If they should pay a lot in the support, they will be better spending to support types like the Il76 and Il476.
verbatimOK, I’m making some assumptions, given the lack og details.
I’m supposing PRB is a huge country, and Durango is quite a tiny country in comparison.
I’m supposing PRB is going to develop a credible naval force (no naval force, no threat to an island…)
I’m supposing Durango has 2 billions dollars budget for a whole generation procurement (i.e., from day one you have 2 billions to spend, then whatever you procure has to last until a whole new generation of equipment is required).
Because of the really puny budget, I would say Durango has to give up any credible naval force.
Only diplomatic ties can provide a good defence at sea for Durango, and its armed forces are tasked to provide a credible defence until international blowback stops PRB.
So the strategic goal should be first to assure PRB will pay heavy losses, and second but most important, Durango could sustain a long fight.
Savings giving away any serious naval assets, should be put in the air force.
So, Navy should be restricted only to Coast Guard duties, and have almost no tasks in war.
The Army, should be equipped to stand high intensity fights while preserving (if terrain allow it) guerrilla like capabilities.
Being high tactical mobility a must, an almost all tracked force should be mandatory.
As for IFV, I would buy all german Marder I can afford, upgrading them removing the turrent and using instead the OWS turret from OTO Melara, armed with the 30mm gun, modern sight unit, and ATGM.
If the turrets are too expensive, I would still provide every platoon with only one additional Marder upgraded with the OWS turret.
If price is being competitive and production would not be an issue, instead of Marder I would buy the whole family of the argentinan TAM, actually being a Marder derivative, providing standardization, with the esception of the MBT of choice.
As for the MBT, Leopard 2A4, if affordable, would be my choice, with any upgrade restricted to the sight unit.
I will buy the LeFlaSys as SHORAD system, armed with the Bofors RBS90.
The mechanized infantry should be supplemented with a large number of small light infantry units, fully autonomous and trained to hit and run tactics, equipped only with cheap hich mobility wheeled veihicles.
Tactical communications gear should be very good, both in the mechanized units and the light ones.
As for the Air Force, the main assets should be a capable air defence fighter, and an affordable AEW platform.
Because of the need of quick dispersion, both platforms should have suitable STOL performances.
My preferred choice would be Gripen and E-2C, but I suppose if political constraints are not an issue, F-16s could be far cheaper to buy.
Instead of helicopters, expensive to operate and really vulnerable, a good armed advanced trainer, as Yak-130, T-50 or M346 would be a quite good options, providing a CAS assett.
Marder should come at around 600.000 US$ each, around 400 Marder plus upgrades should cost less than 300 millions US$ (enough to form 8 mechanized battaillions plus a training unit and specail vehicles).
A full complement of around 130 Leopard 2A4, plus special vehicles, should cost around 400 millions US$ (obviously without any upgrade) enough to form 4 armoured battailions.
The last 300 millions US$ should provide funds for the SHORAD system and the light infantry units, plus some specialized assets like an MLRS system to deploy alongside mechanized units.
The Air Force, should be able to equip itself with 4 second hand E-2C (around 200 millions US$), 24 second hand F-16C or Gripen (slighty more than 700 millions US$), a dozen Yak130 for advanced training and CAS (slighty more than 100 millions US$) and a bunch of PZL-28 or Do228 for SF insertion, liason duties and utilities tasks.
verbatimApart form the Germans.
No, Br.1150 Atlantic, the original aircraft, was procured by France, Italy, Netherland and Germany.
While Italy and Germany got stuck with it, until Germany replaced it with former dutch P-3s and Italy is going to phase them out just now replacing them with ATR72 ASW, and Netherlands replaced it with P-3 quite early, France developed the “Atlantique” alias ATL2, and France only inducted it in service.
So Atlantic and Atlantique are actually two different models, more precisely named ATL1 and ATL2.
verbatimThe An-70 has a larger cargo bay cross section, but this is what you have the An-124 also, the very same way you can put An-124 range against An-70 range shortcomings.
The missing point about this debate around Il-76/476 vs. An-70 is that in this very moment, there are some two hundreds Il-76 flying around in the world.
One big problem for every russian armed force is the country is posed to be a technologically advanced one, with its armed forces equipped and trained accordingly.
Because of economical contraints, Russia should not pay by itself alone the related costs.
But nowadays, the russian industries, both civilian and military, are steadily pushed out of the real technologically advanced market.
Russia at the moment has as a top priority the so called “customer fidelization”.
In the military cargo market, it means retaining most if not all of the market share owned by the Il76.
This is a market spanning from underdeveloped countries to developing ones willing to step up and weighting carefully both technical capabilities, technological and economic benefits and cost effectiveness.
If you are putting the An70 as the only future cargo aircraft available, you will drive away users plainly not able to cope with the related costs and technical burden, and you will make yourself your more wealthy users conceiving the idea that, being mandatory the switch to a whole different aircraft with a whole different support structure and the related costs, it could be worth the cost to switch to some western type, benefiting from a hugely better support network and proven technical qualities and capabilities.
On the other hand, Il-476 development process will bore, as a side product, a good range of upgrade options for the legacy airframes, giving the option to any present user to opt for a refurbishment tailored on its needs/funds, a mix of refurbished Il-76 and brand new Il-476, or a full switch to Il-476, still retaining most of the training and support structure and saving huge amounts of money.
And the same will be true for RuAF itself.
At the same very time, Russia will save lots of its own money and will keep its western competitors far away from most of its market quota, giving better future chances to its airframers.
And because Il-476 will find its way to RuAF, and most of the old Il-76 will be likely refurbished, it will save lots of money using them as tanker and AEWs, compared with the sums they should spend to develop the support and training for a brand new type.
If the Il96 had found a larger civilian market in the past, it would have been opted to develop new tankers and AEWs, but pending the foreseeable phasing out with few years of the type, it would actually cost more to RuAF to adopt it than to pay for fuel and maintenance of existing A-50 and Il-78.
And still the “vanilla” Il-96 could not operate in severe meteorological conditions without a full fledged airport at hand, that was what I wanted to mean talking about operating 24/365 from some austere airfield in the far north or far east of Russia, menaing more expenses to actually deploy in service the type, either to give it the required capability, or to upgrade the airfields.
verbatim@Trident
The rationale behind adapting a commercial aircraft to perform missions like mid-air refueling, AEW, SAR and ASW is not only to avoid the costs related to the developing from scratxh of a new airframe, nor because commercial aircraft are more fuel efficient and less demanding on maintenance.
It is about exploiting the commercial, long term demand for support, upgrades and training, all factors almost not existing both with Il96 and Tu204.
Even if some dozens are commercially flying around right now, within few years they will fade away, leaving RuAF and or Russian Navy like the only users.
If it is true the few airframes procured by the russian government for presidential trips and some special missions are sustainable in the long term expliting the little commercial base lying aound in Russia, the same is no longer true if the military/government numbers grow to the dozens required to fulfill requirements like ASW, AEW and tankers.
There would be far more military airframes than commercial ones, leaving de facto the few commercial ones exploiting the support and upgrades payed for by the military users, instead to be ideally exactly the opposite.
About the austere airfields requirement, in a country spanning from the North Sea to the Okhotsk sea, there will be always the need to deploy either permanently or just for contingenties numbers of tankers and AEW aircrafts, meaning several air bases in need of deep upgrades to enable a civilian aircraft like the Il96 to operate 24/365.
It’s a big expense, to sum upon those required to transform and adapt the type, and those needed for the long term support.
Being the Il76 well suited and already supported in most if not all of the russian air bases, it will save huge sums continuing to use it until a successfull commercial long haul aircraft will be developed from the russian airframers in the future.
The same goes for Tu204, being MS-21 slated to perform its maiden flight around 2015, and already having a quite good appeal by commercial operators, it’s more likely to see it looked at around 2020 as the platform for a brand new medium range ASW/MPA aircraft, and to retain upgrade and rebuild a-la-B52, the surviving Tu142s for the extreme long range patrols requirement.
verbatimExactly for the reason you have mentioned lower operating cost and lower logistics overhead due to commercial operations of these types .
IL-76 is a rugged transport aircraft built for military needs and you really do not need a hammer to hit a fly.
Which makes me wonder why is Russian not putting across IL-96 based Refuller for this competition , it was certainly proposed as an option for US refulling aircraft ( KC-X ).
IL-96 is a cheaper aircraft compared to A-330 ( should be cheaper then IL-476 ) and it can carry 92 Tons of load to ~ 5200 km.
Because not being suited to land on austere airfields, Il96 production line is already closed and the little numbers built until now are a promise it would be in no way a “commercial platform”, due to the no existence of a civil aviation market paying the support infrastructure.
The same goes for the Tu204 proposed a s MPA: Tu204 is almost dead, and there is no point for either RuAF or Russian Navy to put on service a type with little or no civilian use and built in little numbers.
Even if they are weighting the idea of adopting a totally new type, they will wait for MS-21 as a viable civilian aircraft able to provide the platform for a medium range ASW/MPA aircraft, while as AEW or tanker, given the lack of a suitable russian long haul aircraft, I would bet they will stuck with the Il-76 family.
verbatimI have yet to hear IAF official view on IL-76 having all the problem you have mentioned , i think all these problems are being spread by “blogs” through “sources” just to make C-17 purchase look better.
ACM Major Fali mentioned in Force interview that IL-78 were performing satisfactorily , so all this technical problems , spares , expensive to operate are just made up stories.
Well we all heard good things of Gajraj for most part of its operation specially during Operation Pawan and Cactus.
The standard Il76 is a classical military aircraft from the 70ies, very demanding and manpower intensive in maintenance.
AFAIK, the main goal behind Il-476 is not a boost in performances, instead a almost whole reengineering of the aircraft’s systems, to ease the maintenance burden.
verbatimI would say he/they compared Cunard and UK’s MoD just to point out a company, forced to aim at his business day by day, doesn’t judge investments as pure expenses.
I don’t believe it meaning exactly that as Cunard order and purchase big cruise ships, it should be as easy for a country to order and purchase a big carrier.
The comparison should be about tge terms under the two value and weight thier options, pointing out an alleged short sighted and mistakenly cheap MoD’s analisys.
verbatimNo, I can’t! 😀
Anyway, I will give it a try through an on line translator…
Thank you very much!
verbatimBeing the second time such Balancer’s forum is cited, is it possible, by forum’s rules, to get the link?
I would like it very much.
Thanks in advance!
verbatimMe?
I would say, but actually I have not a clue, russians are just exploiting their tests performed for the chinese requirement to find a way to boost and SLEP their A-50.
A fixed radome AESA radar has its pros and cons, I’m still fond that a rotating array, provided you can afford a good enough RPM speed, is by far better than any fixed multiple array.
It is about putting all the allowed weight and power to scan the same sector, against having tipically three smaller arrays each scanning its own 120 degrees sector.
If attainable RPM speed is an issue,two rotating arrays arranged back to back, I would say are still better than three fixed arrays.
verbatimThe two main problems with MRA4, IMHO, have been first and foremost the costs of keeping them up to date, i.e. within 15 to 20 years from now UK would have faced a huge expense to upgrade an highly advanced asset by itself alone, and the quite mad choice to keep the Nimrod airframe.
It is not the same about the 707s, they were built in the hundreds, against the Comets coming in the dozens.
The point of scrapping MRA4 has been likely on the basis of both the short term savings of no operating and mantaining them, and in the long run to avoid any huge future cost to continue to service them.
At least scrapping the airframe and opting for a true modern liner, as for the A320 family, would have eased a lot the cost of airframes supporting and manteinance, and looking for some convergence with foreigner ASW electronics, would have eased a lot future upgrade programs.
I would bet that past 2015 SDR, finances and RAF allowing it, P-8 could find its way in the UK’s inventory.
verbatimAccordingly to an new released at Euronaval’s News, the export derivative of Project 22350, referred to as Project 22356, has an hull 135 meters long and a standard dislpacement of 4,550 tons, meaning a full load displacement around 5.000 tons.
Provided the two versions share the very same hull, Gorshkov class is going to be a lot larger than the Krivak family and still remarkably larger than Talwar class.
Maybe they used the very same arrangement for machinery used in both Krivak and Talwar classes, but there should have been a huge redesign effort and at 15 days endurance it seems to be a little bit short legged for such an hull.
Maybe after the launch could some more comprehensive spec be released about it?
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