Please recommission Ark Royal we were lucky to still have Invincible and any large scale attack on the main land would have dragged Brazil and Peru in. Peru were already to come in if asked.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Their loss if they did join in and you might want to check out some distances with respect to Peru and Brazil. We had by far the better attack subs to foil any naval approach.

5th is what WB says by PPP http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP_PPP.pdf

Although their Public Debt is at 15 % of GDP in 2015 and as per FM it will be 15.6 % by end of 2016 so not small either and sharp rise from from 11.4 % in 2013

http://www.vedomosti.ru/newsline/economics/news/2015/10/27/614486-rossiya-gosdolga

5th doesn’t surprise me because I know Eurozone economies took a big hit due to the weakened Euro. Honestly, increasing from 11.4% to 16.6% in 3 years really isn’t an issue, Spain’s debt increased by 13.3%, (almost the entire size of Russia’s debt) in just 2 years. Add Portugal, Greece and Italy and hence the weakened Euro.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/spain/government-debt-to-gdp

Of course it comes down to what you want the UCAV to be…

If you want to put an F-35-like sensor suite into it, and F-35-like stealth, and F-35-like range and carrying capacity… then you will end up with something F-35-like in price.

Now the F-35 isn’t nearly as expensive relative to its peers as people make it out to be, but very few forces could afford to buy meaningful numbers of UCAVs at $80+ million each.

Now imagine a more basic UCAV. It would need to be stealthy and might benefit from a supersonic dash capability if air to air combat was a missile, but would have only a basic sensor suite. Its job would be to act as a compliment to the F-35. Such an aircraft should be cheaper to buy and operate and a lot less technologically ambitious in general.

Not necessarily, by omitting a pilot you save a lot on cockpits, displays, instruments, OBOGS, HMD, ergonomics testing, training, training material development, simulators etc. Pilot salaries even. And it just makes it easier to design a small VLO fighter. Advanced in computing power and software plus knowledge and LFE will also make it easier to design something F-35-like as time goes by. By 2025, there’ll probably be a single CPU with more power than the current ICP architecture in the F-35.

Datalinks can’t be relied on 100% though and having a package capable of delivering PGMs and coming home will save on cruise missiles. By the time it’s dropped 80 PGMs instead of cruise missiles, it’s paid for itself and it can return home with all manner of intelligence on IADS sites, troop positions, artillery, enemy comms etc.

No question operating with an F-35 would make a Eurofighter a lot more lethal. The point in saying that a UCAV could act as the mule is that the UCAV wouldn’t need an exquisite sensor suite. A fairly basic, albeit stealthy, UCAV airframe would be substantially cheaper to procure and operate than a Eurofighter.

Maybe but I see the UCAV, when it comes, as operating at similar ranges to the F-35 to designate targets and if anything, the manned platform should be the thing that holds back out of harm’s way. I’m also not completely keen on full-out replacement of the Typhoon with a UCAV because I’m not totally comfortable in getting rid of the Typhoon’s dog-fighting ability, just in case. I agree that dog-fighting is probably going to be a rarity, if at all, but you never know, **** happens etc. There’s also the issue of carrying cruise missiles, the F-35 can carry them externally but then that compromises the stealth and it’s a waste of an stealth asset to conduct a stand-off attack, so the Typhoon is better used in that role, whilst the F-35s do the close-in work. If we were talking about something more manoeuvrable like the F/A-XX probably will be, then that has potential to replace the Typhoon and by then (2030s) we may well have a Storm Shadow/PGM carrying stealth UCAV as an interdiction platform against fixed targets, but also with an ISR and potential SEAD role, whilst the F-35B and F/A-XX or FCAS air superiority element conduct strike against mobile targets, CAP and CAS. Until then the F-35 will be a great asset to Typhoons and the RAF. It makes since to use the UCAV for strike and ISR because, as an unmanned platform, the fuel fraction and range are likely to be considerably greater than manned/optionally manned platforms. And it makes since to send unmanned platforms at double-digit SAMs on day one, rather than manned ones. While ideally you want a manned platform for moving vehicles and CAS, where a higher level of intelligence and situational understanding is required to avoid friendly fire and collateral damage, apply RoEs and liaise with ground forces. The UCAV could potentially also become involved in CAP and CAS, but only with control and target selection from manned platforms or ground troops. Not keen for it to select its own targets.

2030-2035 is the timeline you would expect for an all-new manned platform. If they kept the scope of the project under control a stealthy UCAV could be ready in around 10 years. Aircraft like the X-47 have already demonstrated most of the key technologies.

But it would be a limited ability UCAV with an invisible wire attached and I see a different role for the UCAV. I see it as being something that can conduct pre-programmed strikes on fixed targets and enemy SAM radars independently. I.e. groundcrew receive target data from command, they feed the co-ordinates in and it flies to within launch range via a fixed route but with some scope to change path to avoid threats, then it either drops a PGM or fires a cruise missile. Or groundcrew feed in intelligence about enemy radar locations and types, and it goes off, finds them and fires a SPEAR/HARM, or whatever they’re using in 2035, at them. Or it drops 4 Fire Shadows off to find them or other specific targets. This would save a fortune on long-range cruise missiles and today it seems kind of senseless crashing what’s essentially an aircraft with a warhead into fixed target, when it could drop the warhead off and come home with marginally more intelligence (in more ways than one).

The other thing with the limited capability UCAV is that it’s entirely reliant on the datalink. Sure MADL is a great datalink, but just maybe it could one day be jammed, even if it’s with very crude noise jamming at very high power completely blocking everything.

The thing is that the mother ship do no require a level of stealth as extreme as its unmanned child, especially if sensor are deported on those unmanned. What is the point of unmanned if you need to expose a manned asset anyway to provide the sensor coverage, to blind unmanned assets. Would be a better investment to develop longer range standoff weapons instead. I see the role of the mother ship essentially as a remote command and control system with reduced latency in communication and the computer power to collect and process remote sensors information to build the tactical picture

If a UCAV was currently available which provided F-35 sensor capabilities then you’d be right, except some level of intelligence will be required for RoE-adherence and target ID/tactics. As for the datalink aspect, well MADL is supposed to be highly jam resistant but it’s unwise to bank on such things.

An F-35 can share its situational awareness, but not its stealth obviously. The comment about operating costs wasn’t between the F-35 and the Eurofighter, but the Eurofighter and a UCAV.

Obviously stealth isn’t transferable but with this ‘wormholing’ ability and the ability of F-35 to designate targets whilst a Typhoon sits outside enemy engagement range with Meteor, it makes 4th gen aircraft non-engageable, which effectively means the same survivability as 5th gen but only when operated together. Yes, the UCAV would also provide a missile carrying platform, but then it could also be used to bring a similar capability to an F-35 and highlight targets for other fighters. I think it’s more likely a Typhoon will be replaced with F/A-XX or an equivalent joint European 5th gen project of some description.

So long as you are going to fly a non-stealthy platform Meteor is exactly what you want, but of course you can put Meteor on a stealthy UCAV as well. Being able to launch a little higher and/or faster is an advantage, but any sophisticated adversary will see the Eurofighter coming, more than erasing any incremental advantage it might have due to better launch conditions. A stealthy UCAV might be lower and slower… but it would also likely be quite a bit closer.

Exactly but an alternative platform isn’t likely to be available or affordable until around 2030-2035. At say 200km, the enemy may or may not detect the Typhoon through the jamming, but being able to actually target the Typhoon at that range with a radar lock is unlikely and there are few missiles capable of making that journey at 30-40kft even if they did (R-37M?). Meanwhile F-35s at 100km range can happily target the aggressor all day long and guide the Typhoon’s Meteors to their targets, whilst also launching missiles of their own. And if there’s one thing a Typhoon can do well it’s accelerate and climb, to provide the missile with the maximum kinematic advantage. I also believe MBDA and Mitsubishi are involved in work on an AESA equipped Meteor for the F-35 and Typhoon/others.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/07/03/us-japan-defence-mitsubishi-elec-idINKBN0F82HX20140703

The British army, added to the locals, chased the French out of Portugal & Spain, had captured Bordeaux & Toulouse & were steadily advancing when the French capitulated in 1814. The British, Spanish & Portuguese in SW France were less numerous than the allied armies in the NE, faced about as many French soldiers, & were beating them.

I think when you put Trafalgar (1805), The War of 1812 (1812-1815), Defeat of Napolean (1814) and Waterloo (1815) together the British gave a good account of themselves at the time and indeed it was followed by a century of relative peace known as the Pax Britannica.

:very_drunk::D – Not for the easily offended: