Whatever reasons for delays exist, a customer does not care. He wants to have the thing delivered in price and on time. Whether you blame incompetent developers, lack of skilled welders or aurora borealis is unimportant. Boeing’s case with Wedgetail is no better than Russian shipbuilding, it is the same story.

Still trolling, if you want to open a thread about wedgetail feel free but this one is about the Russian Navy.

Not Xenophobic at all. Diseases like TB had been wiped out in the UK decades ago, but now are on the rise again because basic health checks are not carried out at the borders. The NHS is losing millions of pounds every year thanks to ‘health tourism’, ie people from other countries who have no right to free NHS health care coming here and getting treatent without paying. Eastern European criminal gangs making the UK their new base of operations because the authorities won’t lift a finger against them for fear of being branded racist. I have friends of many nationalites and ethnic groups and they are far ore vociferous than I could ever be on this subject. They or their parents came to the UK with next to nothing, worked damned hard and built a new life for themselves, and now they are appalled that people are allowed in without a second glance and handed ‘everything on a plate’ (their words not mine) after claiming asylum even though they are under no threat in their own country. There was a recent case of a muslim family being allowed to rent a mansion for herself and her seven children at public expense because her seven kids simply had to have a bedroom each. An extreme example, but by no means isolated. Controlled immigration is not about slamming the borders shut, but about only letting in those who can contribute to society and excluding those who seek only to be a burden.

No coincidence:

http://bnp.org.uk/2008/04/bnp-leader-marks-enoch-powell’s-40th-anniversary-speech-–-video-to-follow/

http://bnp.org.uk/2008/07/enoch-powell-t-shirts/

FYI Enoch Powell’s constituency included a very large number of Asians, who were generally in favour of his policies. Probably because they had bothered to read his speeches and not just the media edited soundbites. Enoch predicted uncontrolled immigration wold be a disaster, and he was proven right. Unfortunately the media twisted what he said to make him appear racist, which was a long way from the truth. The Asian Community in Britain was also against uncontrolled immigration mainly because they had for the ost part had to work hard to prove themselves worthy of a British Passport and were concerned if the borders were ‘thrown open’ the influx of cheap labour would threaten their livelihoods. Hence the widespread support for Powell amongst his racially varied constituents. Enoch Powell is definately in the running for the title of ‘Best leader we never had’.

How exactly has uncontrolled immigration been a disaster?:rolleyes: Nice to see the xenopohobes out in force here.:mad:

While I will not dig deeper into the tenets of Enoch Powell, branding him as a mere racist is about as shallow as Mount Everest. While I don’t think The Doc’s remark shows a lot of in-depth knowledge of Powell’s political standpoints either, it doesn’t mention racism anywhere.

So quit your whining.

Maybe not, but the specific mention of that individual and the overwhelming negative association he has with the race and immigraion debate in Post War britain makes the intention of the reference glaringly obvious and offensive.:mad:

What context is there that can justify the inclusion of a maintenance heavy extraneous steam generating plant and 90m C-13 catapults on a design wholly optimised for economy and lean-manning?. Its patently absurd. Check out the crew assigned, on a US CVN, for catapult ops and maintenance. Even divided by two for the smaller CVF fit (with a few dozen extra added on to support the high-pressure steam plant) you are still looking at 150-odd extra bodies. On a US CVN with 5000 souls no-one cares, but, for a lean manned CVF thats about a 10% manning uplift. Plus, apart from the limited numbers that lurk in the submarine community, the RN hasn’t used high pressure steam, from memory, since HMS Intrepid left the fleet in 99 and hasn’t a training pipeline for working with it.

On no level could you even begin to imagine that acquisition, hull modification and whole-life support costs would be anywhere below the £hundred million mark. Then we look at what that spend delivers -> F-35C and Hawkeye. For what?. In what context in the reasonably forseeable future would we absolutely HAVE to have the extra 150nm that 35C brings over 35B. What is the context that sees the absolute need for the kind of sea control mission that E-2 supports (as its naff all use for forward ISTAR!)?.

I’ll state on here right now Lawrence that steam cats will never be installed on CVF and I am so confident of that I will, genuinely, give you £50 if they are. I’d not advise you to make the same wager back!.

I never said they would be installed. My dispute is with the notion that to do so would be some impossbily expensive and bank breaking task and at no point has any real evidence been supplied to suggest that it would. Especially given that most of the design work has already been done for PA2 and airframe for airframe the B is significantly more expensive than the C. I agree that it will not and should not be done and that some cost increase would be incurred but my issue is with the grandiosity of the language being used here to describe that increase.

Would you term being participatory to numerous security agreements ‘ego’.

Yes. In no case is the existance or even well being of the UK threatened as the 1998 SDR points out.

Would you term the meeting of those obligations as beyond our capability or contrary to our national interest?.

Now you are confusing interest with neccessity, the two are very different things and post cold war the UK does not need fleet carriers (or LPH’s etc etc) for the latter. Again this is all underlined in the 1998 SDR that is the current foundation of UK military doctrine and defence procurement.

The whole-life costs dont need to be researched to the last pound Lawrence – they are too much for what they deliver before you get started on the cost-benefit analysis!.

No but they do need the correct context and that has yet to be provided, the grandiose language being used here to suggest cost increases of epic proportions is unfounded without such context.

Is the UK going to occupied and subjugated if it has half a dozen Sentry’s, a few Typhoon sqdns, a dozen SSK’s plus a smattering of frigates and destroyers and about half the current regular force strength of the standing British Army?. Answer – no. Is the UK’s military stance defined by these carriers – equally no!. The carriers are enablers for the rest of our force potential not the force potential in and of itself.

There you go, but the force potential level selected is optional and not determined by any threat to the nation state but by the ego inspired desire of British politicians to undertake liberal interventionism. How many times does the 1998 SDR use the phrase ‘force for good’?

EMALS really IS a necessity for CVF CATOBAR where we to go down that route eventually though. CdeG can use conventional steam catapults because it has very effective onboard steam generators powering the ship – the reactors. CVF has no such steam producing capacity. So adding C13-type cats would mean adding auxilliary boilers and hundreds of miles of steam pipery onto a ship designed to be highly automated and lean-manned. It is NOT a credible option.

The actual costs have still not been quantified and it is entiely possible to do.

I’d dispute the ‘critical to national security’ element in my book they are exactly that as it impossible to meet certain security requirements, with assuredness, without Carrier Strike of some description. Also support your foreign policy goals, as earlier described, otherwise you accept the position of having no options when the jaw-jaw fails. To the UK this is unacceptable.

Is the UK going to be occupied and subjugated without CVF? The carriers were mandated by the 1998 SDR to undertake missions that the paper explicitly stated did not affect the national survival of the UK. These ships are for an optional foreign policy.

I don’t say that EMALS have no advantages, only that the CdG operates a catapult at the same time as being smaller than the CVF, so was wondering why the CVF would NEED EMALS to operate the F35C. Sure it would be more efficient. No debate about that.

I have already explained that CVF would not NEED EMALS.

Rafale on the CVF would generate higher sortie rates than Rafale on CdG. Why are you comparing what isn’t comparable? And while F35B would probably be on par or superior to most naval types. F35C would still be superior, which is all that matters.

No cost is what matters, especially when you are building ships that are not critical to your national security and the B will have at least a minor cost advantage.