nocutstoRAFBasically, it comes down to two possible interpretations:
Good case: Puma, Gazelle and reduced Chinook buy and Sea King HC4 phasing out total a billion saving by themselves. Which is possible if you think that only the upgrade to Puma was to cost in the region of the 300 millions, and 10 Chinooks also cost quite a lot.
All together, it should sum up to a billion, i think.
Finger’s crossed that when calculating a cut of £1 billion they are factoring in not purchasing 10 Chinooks (though personally I expect them to pay the same for the 12 Chinooks as the original plan to buy 22 Chinooks and place the order via AugustaWestland here in the UK).
However you slice it though there is going to be a big reduction in helicopter lift, which points to either – large force reductions in the Army post-Afghanistan or more likely that we are going to see stories for the next 15 years bemoaning the lack of helicopters.
I know we are broke but this is one area that keeps being under-invested in 🙁
nocutstoRAFC2 is the most necessary new type of escort certainly. It needs to be ‘cheap’ and numerous. There are a few notions running around at the moment – the one I like is for a latter day Leander class but with propulsion more optimised for economical cruising than outright performance.
+1 on C2 being most urgent (personally I think it is needed now not in the next decade).
Just one thing to check, would a modern day Leander class be in the same weight class as the original Leander ~ 3,000 tonnes or would you expect to be heavier and if so how much heavier?
nocutstoRAFTo switch this thread back to aviation – How bad is the scenario (as per story in the Evening Standard, David Cameron ‘rules out slash and burn defence cuts’) which says… “However, the helicopter budget is expected to be reduced by as much as £1 billion.”
What is the current size of the helicopter budget, and how would you exactly go about cutting a billion from the helicopter budget?
nocutstoRAFAlso found a good financial times story on the carriers which suggest any cuts to the RN if they keep the two carriers will be down to the level of cuts required by the Treasury. It also sugests PoW will be put back to fit Cat and Trap and that the future of the F-35 buy is still in the air.
Google “Cameron poised to approve £5bn carriers”
nocutstoRAF+1 with regard to properly used international aid is part of defence spending.
I am starting to suspect that the admirals would really decimate the RN to get the carriers which I think is the stupidest plan ever.
In an alternative universe, if I was PM I would suggest an Anglo-French agreement where we swapped QE for an equal value of new built French ships, say 1 of the new Mistrals currently being built and some new built FREMM’s when they are completed – there job done I have sorted the RN, can we talk about the impact on SDSR on the RAF now 😀
nocutstoRAFSorry – I will go google Lewis Page’s web-site. I take it that if you locked Sir Richard Dannatt and Lewis Page in a room together things would be bloody 😀
nocutstoRAFWhile I will not disagree that it would be good if they actually increased defence spending by 10% instead of cutting it, which would at least allow the RN to get both carriers and new frigates, I tend to think there is no smoke without fire – and all these stories of smaller carriers and building something else instead of carriers are clearly reflecting a real discussion on how to attempt to transform the second carrier into something else. I will hesitate to say more useable, but I personally think two carriers without decent number of F-35B and enough frigates is a waste of resources, and this is what they are heading towards.
nocutstoRAFAre we sure that the issue is not if they get both carriers then they have to cut to much of the rest of the RN – the amphibious units, the existing frigate fleet, the purchase of the new fleet? It could be that they are all agreed that they could live with one carrier but cannot find any way to turn that decision into a good one as they have failed to find alternative work for the ship yards that they would be in a position to build.
nocutstoRAFIn many ways the design is secondary. What do you want to achieve? What is the most cost (not necessarily just money) effective way to get there?
In terms of warfare itself effects based ideas are about looking at the simplist way to achieve your goal with the least treasure/blood/damage.
1) I imagine that what the RN wants is a multi-role ship which does everything including major warfighting and as cheap as possible – they are wed to the combination of high tech surface vessel carrying one, possibly two helicopters. Personally I think that a more cost effective ways but the stories in the press have made it clear that the RN is reluctant to spend money on ships that are good for all the non-warfighting bits but not major surface combatants – one article called them “snatch frigates”, and I am not sure at the other end of the spectrum how cheap a through-deck “cruiser” would be with say 4 helicopter landing spots, half decent self-defence capabilities and two divets for combat boats.
I think Liger is hinting in his post that we should not be swayed by the Think Defence article that what was recently posted which suggested minor surface combatants based on modified Platform Supply Vessels http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2010/06/fdr-littoral-4/
2) Technically are we not doing this already to some extent with the aid? – we already target and condition our aid, such as insisting on good governance. On top of this we are now involving NSC in decisions on where we spend aid.
nocutstoRAFWe are skating around territory we have navigated before…effects based warfare.
I going to jump here as it seems to me that my limited understanding of naval design is a lot less of hindrance to having a vaguely useful opinion than say may lack of knowledge on aircraft design would have of discussing fighter design.
Presuming that the ideal platform for discussion of effect based design should be able to provide a single hull design capable of major warfighting (anti-surface, anti-submarine, self-defence from multiple threats, shore bombardment), capable of deploying in the littoral and in blue seas, capable of supporting non-warfighting roles, such as routine patrols, evacuation, marine lift and disaster relief then IMO the ideal ship would be a large trimaran like design, likely with a CODAG power system, with an open systems architecture to allow plug and play of weapons and sensor systems, with lots of spare electrical power, and processing power, with a large control room with lots of multi-function displays, and loads of space for missions modules, a large re-configurable roll on/roll of capacity, divets for two large boats and aviation facilities.
Then I would basically have the ship go into port before any deployment for a week or two to integrate plug and play weapon and sensors, and load on the correct mission systems in ISO containers.
For example say the RN has commissioned a new multi-role Cruiser, HMS Neptune, and the ship has just come in from 3 month patrol in Gulf, where she was configured to deal with missile corvettes and small boats, and now she is being deployed as an escort to HMS Ocean for a major amphibious exercise. They lay HMS Neptune up in dock, and then in a couple of weeks, using specialist cranes they remove the Harpoon launchers, the large number of remote controlled 20 mm gun turrets, and unload Aster 15 from the VLS system and then they reconfigure Neptune to carry NMRLS system, and load Tomahawk’s into the VLS system, add a CAMM module, and reconfigure the RO/RO facilities to house a company of marines.
Is this a valid example of effects based design, you look at what you want it to do, decide how to do it, and then build the ship?
nocutstoRAFThen we should get a licence for the La Fayette really cheap 😀
nocutstoRAFTotally agree, Dannatt understanding of anything the flys or floats is very limited.
nocutstoRAFI do not want to argue with you Liger, but personally I see it differently.
If they are going to be able to, at no appreciable extra cost, interrupt the build of PoW and build a run of light frigates (in the same class as the La Fayette – I certainly would not be happy with a less capable hull) that keeps the yards busy, avoids the loss of skilled personnel and provides enough extra hulls to keep the RN from disappearing then I am happy.
Hell I would even be happy if this occurred, and PoW transformed magically into a LHD that bears no resemblance to QE (and it turned out to be the real reason for the delay, the desire to carry out an LHD study, and we ending up scrapping the what we have built of PoW so far) as the way things sounded like they where going last week the scenario of keeping the amphibious capabilities, operating 1 carrier, new light frigates, new frigates and a new LHD post 2020 sounds like a dream come true.
So until it is ruled out officially I am going to keep hoping there is some sense in all the newspaper articles.
PS I know it is impossible but if BAE licensed the La Fayette design, then by 2020 we would have a light frigate which had a range of 9000 nm at 12 knots, crew of 130, had a reasonable sensor and counter-measure fit, could carry a Lynx/Wildcat, operate a Merlin if need be, carry two RIB’s, armed with medium gun, 2 x 20 mm guns, fitted with CAMM, possibly Aster 15 (the French are planning to install Aster 15), and 2 x quad Harpoon.
nocutstoRAFIt seems the original helicopter strategy was sound – more Chinooks now and then replace the Puma’s with 8 Chinooks which carry the same number of soldiers as 35 Puma’s plus buy a few small helicopters for the SAS to insert a small team.
The flaw is that they are now signalling that they do not need 30 extra Chinooks (22 + 8) but it is very much looking just 12 more Chinooks and that’s it!
PS Even Dannatt is now saying keep the number of helicopter the same and reduce the size of the standing army and transfer assets to the TA once out of Afghanistan
nocutstoRAFWhat the UK doesn’t need is a manpower intensive small assault helicopter.
So why is there so much apparant (i.e. reported in the press) “pressure” from the troops on the ground for UK to get Blackhawks – they are not exactly in the Chinook’s class when it comes to moving troops?
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