Why is another u-turn unlikely? Because you prefer the “B” over the “C”? I’m sorry but guys in this forum were saying the exact same thing when the switch went from “B” to “C”. As much of a joke as the whole CVF/JSF fiasco has been to date, it would probably be much wiser to be very very flexible in your expectations. Really, at this point, even switching to MIG-29Ks would not surprise me! 😀

Well…..I just hope that at the next press conference announcing yet another change in aircraft for these ships, the MOD has the decency to open with a naked man playing an organ and then cutting to John Cleese saying: “And now for something completely different”.

Well…..in my mind…..your dismisal of Sea Wolf’s performance in the Falklands War ( a brand new system with tech guys still on board tweeking the system) has shot down any credibility you might have had. That you have failed to grasp the fact that Sea Wolf was one of the bright spots of that conflict really says something.

I may be lost here…..but are you actually sugesting a large gun on a conventional sub? You do understand that (if the target nation has pretty much any military at all) as soon as it surfaces and fires a couple rounds it is dead. You do understand that right?

19K11

Which is the point many have been making about STOVL for the USMC for years. With reliance solely on USN CV’s for organic air support they are at the tender mercies of those who direct the carriers movements for the deployment of MARINE tacair. Libya had an ARG with 400 troops deployed yet they were not important enough to get their own squadrons there covering them?.

STOVL gave them a small measure of organic air which was used to good effect by all accounts. Without F35B they lose that when Harrier goes. I expect that will cause a fair bit more grievance than Ben suggests within the USMC brass.

The Marines are part of the Navy. It could be very successfuly argued that their “organic” air cover would be the Navy a/c on the CVN. All those Amphib ships that people have been (of late) saying “belong” to the Marines, are NAVY ships. They are commanded by NAVAL officers. The Marines are not (no mater how much people would wish it so) a seperate branch of the US Armed Forces…….They are part of the Navy. Again, the reason the US didnt have a CV deployed was because, for some reason, the administration wanted Europe to take the lead on the Lybia mission, Had we really wanted, we could have had a CVN there with very few problems.

Yeah Ben’s kind of, deliberately, forgetting that JSF was initially configured to the USMC requirement for a STOVL F-18C!. The USMC have pandered to an anxious USN to leave some of their fixed wing squadrons on the CVN’s otherwise USN airgroups would start to look a bit lightweight. The impression is there that the USN dont give a toss what the USMC fly off their decks provided its not STOVL!. If they stay with Super Hornet alls fine and well with that!. The -35C does look by far the least issue to get shut of and it could well turn out to be the one with the most difficult problems to solve.

I’m not entirely sure the USMC will be as happy as Ben tries to make out that they would be losing the ability to operate independently of a US CVN. In Libya there was no CVN and yet there were 400 Marines in the Kearsage ARG just offshore. So much for the oft heralded view that there would naturally be a CVN around anywhere the Marines were tasked – sounding ever more like the RAF’s promise to cover the fleet whenever and wherever required that one isnt it?!. Anyway without the Harrier detachment on Kearsage the USMC would have been operational without any of their own fastjet tacair support. I suspect the issue would be brought up quite quickly if the F-35B were to actually be in real danger of cancellation.

What if there had been a CVN but no Marines?