Chox: Yes we need to learn from the lessons of history: But history didn’t stop in the ’70s. Perhaps if you studied a little history from that point until now you might see how useful carriers have proven themselves to be in this era – and extrapolate from there, not the ’70s.

This also addresses Alertken’s point: in the ’70s it was easy to construct an argument that practically every weapon was pretty useless: if it all kicked off against the Warsaw Pact then it was all over – what use is a carrier with nukes flying towards it? Additionally, most of the countries that we would have liked to kick the cack out of were Soviet client states, so launching contested amphibious assaults (covered by the carriers that you need for such things) seemed pretty unlikely.

’82 taught that you never know, and we were lucky there that we hadn’t yet got rid of everything that wiser and less hubristic people had built. Berlin Wall came down, removing the protection from many countries around the world, which we’ve been systematically stomping ever since – with plenty more of ’em on the list (some of which will need carriers to take down).

Compared to the ’70s, the weapons we’re building are built with the practical certainty that they will be used and used and used, and are unlikely to simply be ludicrously expensive targets for a few nukes.

‘You never know’ is not open-ended, realistically. You learn from history and weight the probabilities as best you can. We’re talking the rather proven military platforms called aircraft carriers – not single stage to orbit custard pie launchers, or whatever.

As a writer you will have a passion and high respect for fact and research. It won’t take much research to demonstrate that carriers aren’t quite as useless militarily as you claim (re-reading some of the posts on this thread attentively would be a useful and convenient start); nor will it take much research to demonstrate that your ‘carrier with (at best) a dozen operational aircraft’ is also incorrect: At best is… the numbers are really easily available.

Happy research.

Chox: Of course the carriers are being built for the wrong reasons – largely political BS – but that doesn’t mean that they can’t therefore be useful or necessary for the right reasons at some point (baby, bathwater).

If you take your global Sea Control, Sea Denial, Airpower Projection and Amphibious Assault capabilities seriously, you need carriers – and that’s that.

If you’re advocating pulling back to purely national defence (presumably with some ability to safeguard our distant and necessary import routes, unless you’re also advocating complete austerity) then fair enough.

So we’ve ‘wasted billions on our carriers, which has compromised our defence’, but we pull every remaining military asset back to defend our islands… not being all jingoistic here but seriously who could conquer us?

Our defence is fine: I wasn’t talking nonsense when I pointed out that the real problem wasn’t compromised defence of the homeland but compromised power projection/presence/policing due to funding CVF and everything that goes with it. Eg, the CBG does all of that in spades but can only be in one place at one time; but our widespread commitments require more surface combatants and SSNs etc than we’ll have. But you’re advocating home-defence anyway, so this shouldn’t concern you.

And you know that if SDSR could have found a way to get around the CVF contract and cancel, that money would have been thrown straight at debt reduction and the intensive chav breeding programme right? That money wouldn’t have bought a single extra Typhoon – you know that, right?

On the other hand, funding of CVF makes it far more likely that the RAF will get the F-35s it wants, so maybe you should be glad of CVF….

Yes carriers are important strategically as symbols – and once again the procurement clock won’t stop at 2020, with CVF doomed to forever only ever have six planes on board, to be laughed at. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if QE 2020 has no operational planes on board, due to another F-35 programme glitch or two – they’re all brand new units with half a century in front of them at that point: give ’em a minute eh?

Politics: just from recent events: RAF gets MPA, which are usually naval assets in most countries. RAF sacrifices MPA, which is causing the RN a hell of a lot of problems. SHar gets canned for Joint Harrier, RAF sacrifices Harrier to keep Tornado, RN therefore loses Harrier and carriers. RAF will (most likely) get the F-35s, thus will have a disproportionate influence upon how many F-35s get anywhere near the carriers and when, not RN/FAA. RN gets the poo-end of the defence budget. If the RN are the slick political players in the above, their game must be so deep and mysterious as to be godlike. As ever, you judge by results – RN is cack at this stuff (just check its website…).

AutoStick: Yup the carriers will be impervious to all harm, as is only realistic for any weapons system – I think that the expensive Tranche 3F Typhoon will use the same tech to be AAM proof.

[No I’m not anti-RAF… no I’m not anti-Typhoon… yes I know that the RAF got stomped by SDSR too, nor does it have the budget that it should etc….]

Not at all. It simply illustrates the almost hysterical fear that some people have, when it comes to dealing with such issues.

‘Hysterical’?! OMG, that’s, like soooo misogynistic!:p Sigh; onto more interesting and relevant (to an aviation forum) things – a few quick points, since ‘do we need carriers?’ has been debated to death:-

I would guess that you’re not too into the EU either? If we’re to remain as members, our (the UK’s) primary thing that we bring to the table is our military strength. The carriers give us more influence in coercing the EU rather than merely being coerced by it;

None of us are prescient so none of us can definitively proove whether we’ll ever need (and I mean need) a carrier over the next few decades. Since most of don’t dictate policy, our opinions don’t functionally matter; they won’t change anything and the future will do what the future does whatever we might feel or think about it. But better to have and not need than need and not have, and all that;

The investment in QE has not eroded our ability to defend ourselves at all – it’s traded power projection options for others. If we decided to pull everything back to the UK and its waters, defensively, there’s more than enough to be able to fend off pretty much anybody;

What’s so significant about 2020, that you’re so hung up on? You know that these ships will be in service for a few decades, right? I doubt that there will be many countries on Earth who will laugh at QE/PoW 2040, assuming continued decent investment;

All highly debatable (on and on and on) I know but there’s one thing that you’ve suggested that I think may be simply untrue: the political skill that the RN possesses compared to the other forces. Really? Everything I’ve ever come across is that the RN is notoriously, appallingly dire at both politics and self-promotion (inasmuch as those two things are different…).

Does anyone have any detailed info on the intake/exhaust system, and any associated pros and cons of that layout? How similar is it to Valour‘s?

I guess that there must be a considerable penalty to that layout, to offset the sweet advantages, since most folks don’t use it?

Do you end up with noisy bubbles, or gassed fish all around you or something?

Seriously any and all info greatly appreciated, cheers.

Snow Monkey: Yes it will be a new thread [I mentioned it only to give weight to my genuineness/not-Rafale-bashing in asking for clarification of claims made; and I profoundly hope that it will not be discussed further here]; but the claims made here, relevant to here (MMRCA), should be made to cohere here. The answers will determine whether another thread is necessary on this forum (I hope not, frankly…:mad:).

Snow Monkey: It was taken at face value – and used as evidence – up the thread somewhere (this one or the last one…). I agree that it’s self-evidently ludicrous, but I’m not the one making any ludicrous and incoherent claims (though having read plenty and plenty and plenty and plenty of them, I now have a right to reply; and will do so).

By the way:-

I haven’t said it yet but I’m also absolutely delighted and extraordinarily proud that two European aircraft got ahead of everyone else in this competition: either winning will make me extremely happy – Go Europe!:D;

[(Bit ‘off-topic’, for those with too-narrow definitions, too-easily upset by such things) I really am hoping that someone can help make the pro-Rafale claims cohere a bit better since my near-future RN in a story I’m writing needs to decide whether to ditch F-35 for Rafale for its CVFs pretty soon… my ‘too good to be true’ BS-detector re Rafale claims is shrieking like a banshee… and a bit of considered realism (having quietly waded through a lot of hyperbole here to try to get some useable information) would be most welcome and useful.:)]

Confused but Genuine Questions re: Rafale RCS Claims

Well have you looked at the pdf? A 25% difference in detection range already means a reduction of the RCS by 70%. 50% diffrence means a reduction by 90%.

So if Typhoon would be 1m², Rafale would need to be <0,1m². :rolleyes:

Counter intuitive or not, that’s close to what is asserted by those who are in the know. Many clues have already been published here or there on this very topic, but the dispute persists no matter what. Counter intuitive clues are dismissed, embarrassing clues are twisted to paint a brighter picture (Tornado RCS, for one), and so on…
How boring.

It’s about physics and logic, not counter-intuition.

We’ve also seen another source that claims that Rafale has (full load vs full load) 1% RCS (IIRC) of SH too, upthread*.

Assuming that approximations for Typhoon and SH RCSs are correct to within an order of magnitude, and for the statements to cohere, then Rafale + (external, non-LO) load has an RCS < the (external, non-LO) load alone, were that load simply hovering without pylons and plane, forward facing, in mid air: Rafale has an enormous negative-RCS! that extends out over its load.

So, at this point, it’s not worth being too concerned with passive-LO (shaping, materials and Emcon), since that can only take you down to zero RCS (if even that’s theoretically possible), and Rafale’s RCS-reduction is much, much better than a mere zero RCS (though the passive stuff supplements).

So we’re talking SPECTRA must use extremely mature and advanced active cancellation then? It must be so far advanced that the other major European tech and industrial giants (even combined, back when there was money) can’t compete… but there are no problems in giving this awe-inspiring technological edge to India, UAE etc….:confused:

Why isn’t everybody (including the RN and Japan, say) queueing up to buy the bare minimum number of Rafales that they can get away with to gain the tech-transfer of this uber-tech?:confused:

[All genuine questions, not being snide – I’ve been a bit out of touch re aerospace for a while….]

*So a full load SH has 10x the RCS of an AtA loaded Typhoon, and a Rafale with AtA load has a total RCS of about the same as, or less than, one of the smaller AAMs it’s carrying….:confused:

[I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere, but I’d imagine it has been (at length), but:-]

Has the conical mast enclosing the Herakles been discarded as an idea, or will it be fitted later? It seemed like such an icon of the newer French warship programmes, and a good idea.

If this is one of those ‘yawn, not again…’ subjects, could someone please point me towards where it has already been discussed, cheers?

Also, does anyone know if the FREMM Herakles is ‘an upgraded Herakles’ (as it was stated it would be), or is it the same as the lovely Formidables’?

Would the French increased automation (compared to Italian) have anything to do with stuff learned by the French for the lovely Formidable programme?

Witcha’s comms mast question has been bugging me for a while too – an answer would be a thing of beauty… are longer wavelengths being used these days for comms (thus needing longer antennae)?

There are obvious advantages to the taller mast, but if it’s considered necessary then how will ships designed with a single Thales Integrated-Mast (I-MAST) get on?