nocutstoRAFThanks!
Sadly I have a feeling that in the post Haddon-Cave world the RAF would never accept anything as simple as you describe and I am not sure it would be possible to buy Kazan Mi-17’s and I bet good money that even if we could persuade Eurocopter to make a new version of the Puma they would trick it out with full glass cockpit and all advanced flight controls, you only have to look at the Cougar to see this. I think the best we could hope for would be a stripped version of an existing design.
nocutstoRAFReally interesting post, I knew we did no have enough Merlin’s but not why. What helicopter would you recommend MSphere – a stripped down bog standard Merlin without the helmet mounted sights and the defence aids or would we have to introduce a new type, if so what?
nocutstoRAFRE: Kev 99
I think I may misunderstood the points on Think Defence, I believe the discussion was on ships smaller that FAC. I cannot see them building a monitor, but I could see either a modified LCU Mk10 with the space used for the troops faired over and fitted with NEMO or MLRS, or alternatively a stretched Bay or similar with one or two Mk 8’s mounted of the front for naval gunfire support.
RE: Lindermyer
While I agree with you (and I think the Wildcat is going to excel in this role) I note that recent FAC’s seem to have taller radar masts, and reasonable point defence A2A missiles so I would guess that the learnt the lesson of 1991, still is seems to me that once you get open water a FAC is mincemeat. Plus most FAC seem to lack any sonar, torpedoes or counter-measures to deal with torpedoes which means even out of date SSK would eat them for breakfast in coastal waters.
nocutstoRAFThanks Swerve,
There have been some discussions on ARRSE, Think Defence and couple of other sites when I have googled the subject suggesting that FAC’s where a good way of cheaply deploying force. The most realistic suggestion was from Think Defence, which if I understood correctly, it was suggested that FAC’s might provide naval fire support during amphibious assault’s. I think the FAC’s they where discussing were a lot smaller than the Roussen’s, which seem to be at the upper limit of a FAC, and I may have confused the idea with large combat boats equipped with NEMO.
However I generally could not see a need for FAC’s, but I assumed it was simply my personal distaste for ships which lack full spectrum capabilities, so I had a long hard think and in the end the only environment I could see them be useful is the Falkland Islands and as you say they would need to be covered by RAF to be useful.
A separate discussion might be what is going to replace HMS Clyde when it goes into refit next year.
nocutstoRAFI have been reading nasty rumours that the RAF are fighting any transfer of Merlin’s to the FAA on the grounds that the cost of retraining the RAF pilots currently flying Merlin’s to fly Chinook’s is too high, especially as the FAA would have to re-train their pilots to fly Merlin’s after flying Sea King’s, does anyone know if this is true. Instead they are suggesting the Merlin’s stay with them, which would be a disaster as then you very likely rarely see any marinised HC3’s at sea.
I have also read that it takes a lot more to marinise a Merlin than a folding rotor head, that you need different construction techniques and materials if you are building a Merlin designed to operate for long periods at sea, again is this true?
Finally, I know it is never happening, even if the MoD was floating in cash, but I think the ideal solution to all the ongoing problems with helicopters would be to replace the Puma’ and Sea King’s with suitable new build Merlin’s (you would need 1:1 replacement for the Sea King’s but only need half the number of Merlin’s to replace the Puma’s), and then alter the PFI contract so that they had to buy Merlin’s for the SAR role.
nocutstoRAFAren’t the French planning on life extending their Atlantiques so that they can operate until 2030? Also don’t the French have 6 spare Atlantique II’s?
nocutstoRAFThanks Trident and Flanker_Man that’s great.
nocutstoRAFThanks,
I spent considerably longer than two minutes googling it (actually Yahoo search but it is powered by Google) and came up with nothing – I guess it is all in the key words.
nocutstoRAFI find the whole 4/4.5/5th Generation Aircraft business rather confusing, unhelpful and in some cases silly. After all apparently the JF-17 is meant to be a 3rd Generation aircraft, but surely it is a more survivable platform that say an F-4 Phantom which is also a 3rd Generation aircraft?
nocutstoRAFOkay this is only my analysis:
The problem is that if Israel launches the scale of attack required to totally neutralise Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran would have every justification to respond. We are not talking about one strike, we would be talking days of strikes, first neutralising the air defences and fighters, then destroying dedicated militarised nuclear research facilities, then the dual use facilities which house both civilian and military programmes, likely killing hundreds if not thousands of people, all right 90% will be military personnel but you can guarantee lots of civilian deaths as well.
Anything less will only result in short term impact on the programme and cement the Iranian government’s power base.
Full scale strike would result in the general population of the Gulf states baying for Israel blood, if countries like Saudia Arabia did not react in the right way there would be a real chance of their Government’s being overthrown and the Middle East become less secure due to Israel’s reaction and very certainly the US relations with the Gulf states would be very difficult.
nocutstoRAFConfirmation from a speech given by General Sir David Richards that the QE will be the carrier that receives the modification for “cat and traps”:
The short delay to the first carrier, to allow it to be fitted with ‘cats and traps’, means that when it comes into service in 2019 it will be equipped with the hugely capable carrier variant of Joint Strike Fighter
nocutstoRAFFollowing on from Snow Monkey’s comments I read it the same way as mrmalaya – when you emphasise ship based rather carrier based then it does sound like they are going for something that can fly from the helo deck of a T45, so I guess that they are looking at some sort of STOL platform, either based on a unmanned helicopter or possibly using the lift-fan from a F-35B in a new air frame, of course I know there are other UVAC’s in the prototype stage which are designed for VTOL/STOL operations but UVAC derived from the F-35B would be pretty sweet.
nocutstoRAFFor Iran if it is threatened with attacked by Israel an asymmetric response is by far the most effective deterrent! Israel can’t possibly hope to take out all those launchers targeted at their cities and the Persian gulf can be shut down for transit. Add to that Iraq will be stirred back up into a blood bath and a number of other Islamic countries would probably be pushed over the edge.
While I agree with this point, Iran shows every intention of trying to improve its air defences, the two reasons I can think of are 1) it intends to improve its fast jet fleet in the future with modern types and it wants to make sure the Republican Guard can shot down any Iranian Air force jets in case of a military coup or 2) Iran seriously thinks it can put up a credible air defence against an attack by Israel. Not sure given the current political situation 1) is possible, even if China was doing the selling, so I am leaning to reason 2).
nocutstoRAFI am a little puzzled by the worry over the MASC programme – the SDSR says that the RN will have “maritime intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities based on network enabled warships, submarines and aircraft;” – presuming they do not mean F-35C when referring to network enabled aircraft then the implication is that they will replace Sea King ASaC with a new platform.
nocutstoRAFWhile Chinese contractors inside Iran might give the U.S. pause, Israel will not be deterd. Once they get F-35s nothing will stop them.
This is obviously based on the assumption, that a) no-one is going to be able to defeat the F-35’s stealth, and that after Israel uses its 20 F-35’s in SEAD/DEAD missions that it can launch an all out air war for 3 -5 days to destroy every single part of the Iranian nuclear programme and survive the economic, military and political consequences.
Personally I think networked SAM sites, ground radars, passive sensor arrays and AWACs systems will mean that Israel will lose one or more F-35’s and if even one pilot is captured then Israel is playing a loosing hand due to the political capital it gives Iran. Does anyone know if the Geneva Convention holds if you are captured during a surprise attack without first declaring war?
I think that basically Iran has worked out that Israel is in a loose-loose position, the Iranian nuclear programme is too big to destroy without totally demolishing their armed forces. As a consequence Israel will either start to see net emigration from Israel due to fact that Iran has nukes, or if they carry-out the massive scale of air strike required to demolish the Iran nuclear programme completely they will turn the entire middle east hostile, and I doubt very much Europe is going to be pleased and the resultant mess (oil shortages, instability in the middle east, possibly several governments collapsing) will cause an economic crisis, which likely will result in the net emigration from Israel due to the economic dire straits of the country.
That’s way too large an investment. They only need to provide just enough support to Iran to keep the country in the game, as a drain on US resources.
It will be “interesting” to see how a more assertive China plays things over the next decade, as they have been quietly extending their economic reach in Africa, are a lot more assertive in the Pacific, and have stated they want to expand their economic interests to South America.
Sign In
