nocutstoRAFTejas N is a high risk option technically. If we fit catapult to the carriers & abandon F-35, I would expect F-18E to be bought, as the lowest risk option, compatible with the largest number of weapons.
Actually, this is one of two types of ship the RN does not need any more of, the other one being amphibious ships. The current 7 amphibs & 6 Point-class ro-ros give an excellent sea lift capacity, with a bit of slack in it (though not as much as planned – the Iraq & Afghanistan deployments have kept the fleet busy), taken up by the leasing out of spare Points.
I don’t think we really need more replenishment ships, but we will need some replacements for current ships before very long.
I was being flippant with the Tejas N by suggesting the cheapest fighter – I think Rafale or F-18E are realistic options dependent upon certain political realities – I guess both will require development work to integrate all the weapon systems the RAF want to use.
I will need to look more carefully at the Royal Navy – I had seen a couple of “reports” written by various academics who have ex-Navy backgrounds (so quite biased) – one author strongly suggested that the Royal Marines need to be expanded and the amount of sea life increased (along with the air lift of the army) to give the UK the ability to deploy troops anywhere rapidly.
I kinda meant replacements of the existing replenishment ships – honest
nocutstoRAFWell it’s certainly the case that a large number of RFA ships are definitely in need of replacement, hopefully the MARS programme doesn’t get cut to far because the vessels that are due for replacement are getting a little long in the tooth.
MARS is one of the areas IMHO that the UK can cooperate with France as France also needs to replace their replenishment ships.
I seriously hope that the UK thrashes out some sort of military offset programme with France (I think it is what it called) where we buy £x billion worth of French defence equipment and in turn they buy €y billion worth of British defence equipment – I can see us buying Rafale’s and a Mistral and them buying replenishment ships and an aircraft carrier.
nocutstoRAFTo my mind it’s a case of fewer fast jets for RAF and more airlift, ISTAR and other recon.
I certainly endorse more airlift, both tactical and strategic, and something a lot better than the Airtankers deal to provide mid air refuelling, and I think they definitely have cut the Nimrod fleet by far to much.
In terms of the Navy, I agree with Liam Fox they have cut the Navy to far, they need more ships – more air defence destroyers, and escorts definitely – but they also need the less sexy ships such as more replenishment ships, more heavy sea lift, and other support ships.
nocutstoRAFFox said –
“Have we cut the surface fleets too much in order to buy high-end capability? In terms of the air force, have we previously concentrated too much on fast jets compared to lift capability?”, and “We’re going to have an increased maritime role because if you look at issues like energy security and piracy, that’s already pushing us in one direction,”That suggests no T3B, rather than abandoning carrier aviation.
Given that the F-35 is possibly still considered overkill would it be carrier aviation with a lower price tag, with a 4th generation fighter rather than the F-35? Taking the idea to the maximum extreme – would the FAA end up with 70 – 80 Tejas N fitted with Eurojet engine, as the fly away costs would be lower than even the Superhornet?
nocutstoRAFQuite frankly the Iranians can’t get hit too hard or you create a vaccuum that’s far worse than the remedy.
Personally I think the Iranians want Israel to attack, have already made contingencies for this, and they are hoping that if Israel attacks it will create the political situation where the attack drives a wedge between USA and the Gulf states, Egypt and Turkey. Even better (but I guess unlikely, unless Russia has already delivered the S-300’s to Iran) would be for Israel to attack and suffer a high number of losses along the way as it would weaken Israel financially as they would have to shell out money to buy new aircraft – and they would also loose the propaganda war.
I also think that despite Israel’s fear’s (and Iran’s inflammatory rhetoric) the main drive to get nukes in Iran is so they can neutralise any US carrier group that is in range of their missile batteries. This would seriously limit US responses – they could not launch an attack if Iran had nukes, without a UN resolution (which they would not get) and the US without a UN resolution could not escalate the war to use their own nukes if they lost a carrier group as Iran would only be defending themselves against an aggressive act of “illegal” war.
Edited “By the way I am aware that several comments I have made are quite controversial (and opinionated) and as they are personally opinions I have no evidence to back them up”.
nocutstoRAFIf you read the Sunday Times interview with Liam Fox he does use some very pro-navy language.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7149004.ece
Thanks Kev 99 for the link – I read it the interview and my thoughts are that RAF is going to struggle to get any new fast jets (does that mean no F-35 purchases and that they will cancel Tranche 3B of Eurofighter?), and the Navy is going to be configured towards frigates and ocean going patrol vessels/corvettes. Makes you wonder if they think the UK has too many fast jets what they are going to fly of the carriers or if the carriers are going to be converted to commando carriers?
nocutstoRAFIf Brazil already has rejected the all world beater Su-35 we’re talking about the best of best of them all I’d see no reason why they would go for downgraded knock off Chinese Flanker. And these are the guys with the only Navy capable of still fielding a carrier in South America.
What about Venezuela? They are oil rich, brought a fair amount of military hard ware recently from Russia. While their Navy has some where to go to build up the numbers of personnel and ships to operate a carrier group, I bet good money that once China has built a few carriers they will be keen to export them, and the current Venezuela Government seems keen to be recognised as a regional power.
nocutstoRAF– in answer to my own question South American countries where China has been making friendly overtures and Pakistan if they decide to build/buy their own carrier – does that sound correct?
nocutstoRAFChinese J-15 carrier aircraft with Russian-made Su-33 technology
Reported that Russia had sold China to enter the Chinese market, Su-27SK, but then appeared in the Chinese J-11 and conduct a series of production. Russian experts are concerned that China may be crowding out the Russian market from a third party. China is now producing the J-10, J-11 and FC-1 imitation of a Russian Su and MiG -29 -27/30.
– In your opinion who would China sell Su-33’s to? I thought the only carrier fighter sales that Russia made is Mig-29k to India who for poltical reasons would not likely be inclined to buy Chinese air craft while Pakistan has such a close relationship with China.
nocutstoRAFHave a look at the radar tower and look at it’s angle, no shipbourne radar I can think of would be able to get a significant return on that due to the deflection, an aircraft would have a chance of spotting it but sending an aircraft to look for a Type 45 is like sending a very unattentive mouse to look for a very hungry cat.
Taking the whole ship and not just the radar tower though and as swerve said you get enough waves back to fool the radar into thinking it’s picked up a small coastal vessel as opposed to a large warship. These ships aren’t meant to be invisible (making a 150m long ship completely invisible would be almost impossible and very expensive), they’re meant to be sneaky and cunning.
What sort RCS will the QE have? If the RCS still on the scale of an aircraft carrier then surely the enemy attack planes are going to guess the flotilla of small ships around the carrier are the escorting Type-45 and Type-26 destroyers (I assume the Type 26 will have a massively reduced radar cross section)
nocutstoRAFYoure thread asks how to “Westernize” the Su-33, and by that I take to mean that you want to increase range and load carrying ability of this jet, as well of course to add to its weapons and sensors capability. If youre happy with the range and load carrying ability that the Su-33 already has, then you can ignore everything Ive said and just concentrate on new weapons and sensors for this aircraft. All Im saying is that increasing wing are of this jet wont work, so if you want a jet with more range and payload you have to start from scratch and design a new jet.
Well I do belong to the more is better club 🙂 – but I already conceded that a greater range and the capacity to carry more munitions was beyond anything you could do easily with the Su-33 – and if you were going to all that effort you would design it to operate of CATOBAR and likely tweak the airframe to reduce the radar cross section – thanks for clarifying your point!
nocutstoRAFThe Mig-29/Su-30 series of aircraft are the most agile dogfighting jets in existence because of their high wing loading. If you were to increase their wing area they lose their ultra-agility. The F-22 has a low wing loading but maintains maneuverability by having very large elevator tail surfaces in relation to its wing size. This trick only works because the F-22 is FBW, as illogical as it sounds, the F-22’s huge barn door size elevator provides lift in level flight even when its providing down force in counter of wing lift. So increasing wing area to the Su-33 is out of the question, the only option for the UK is to start with a clean sheet of paper and design a naval jet like the F-22.
I am a bit puzzled – are you saying that the Su-33 needs further development to operate from a carrier? Or are trying to get at what would be needed to turn the Su-33 in to a plane designed to operate of a CATOBAR carrier?
I suggested the Su-33 as it is already operating off Russian carriers set up for STOBAR operations and converting a large STOL carrier to STOBAR has got to be easier that CATOBAR. If the Royal Navy went with CATOBAR (likely using EMALS) then they would be more likely to look at the Super Hornet, F-35c or the Rafale. The only logic in the Su-33 in my suggestion is that it is an in-service but not in production STOBAR fighter so there would be less issue over the license than say the UK asking for a licence for the Mig-29K
nocutstoRAFAs far as the topic goes it is quite interesting a NATO enhanced Sea Flanker it is possible.
Captor-E AESA Radar
Rebuilt airframe to integrate L-Band Radar
AL-31FN engine
Thales Communications system
Thales Damocles Laser Designation pod
Integrate MBDA MICA Missiles, Exocet, & Irist-T AAM.
How about integrating ASRAAM, AMRAAM, Meteor, ALARM, Bristone, Storm Shadow, CRV-7 missile pods, Paveway & General Purpose Bombs? Would your replace the Su-33’s current electro-optical system with PIRATE? I am thinking that the RAF in an alternative reality operate a westernized Su-33 on STOBAR variant of the Queen Elizabeth carrier so I imagined that weapon systems integrated would be those used by the RAF (though politically France has a better chance of acquiring a licence to build the Su-33 currently).
nocutstoRAFI could not find any pictures (so if someone has one) but how about the P.1228 the Hawker project (or maybe BAE by then) for a Vectored thrust, supersonic canard naval V/STOL strike fighter for those countries who need supersonic V/STOL but not to worried about first day of war strike capabilities.
http://www.harrier.org.uk/history/projects.htm
PS if anyone has a picture could you please share!
nocutstoRAFThats it in a nut shell, different philosophy and different navy. In the end America can afford huge Carrier battle groups with multiple Arleigh Burke, Tico’s and E2 all talking with each other over Link-16 and networked with CEC. With 56 Arleigh Burke (70 planned) and 22 Tico active the American navy operates under different circumstances.
I do take issue with the quiet dropping of CEC for the Royal Navy as it would of done some to make up for the loss of six planned Type 45 in AAW. CAAM on the Type 23 and future Type 26 networked via CEC with the Type 45 and its superior radar would of been very handy.
Is the National Audit Office report incorrect then – they state that:
” It was always planned that several other equipments that contribute to providing the full capability envisaged for the Type 45 destroyers would be installed incrementally after Daring enters service. These equipments include communications and the United States’ developed Co-operative Engagement Capability (CEC) which can provide a clearer picture of the battle space and improve the ability of a task force to undertake anti-air warfare operations, particularly in coalition with the United States. The current target date to install CEC is 2014 – five years after Daring enters service but before the new Carriers, which Type 45 destroyer will protect, are planned to be ready.”
Has CEC been ruled out?
For information the link is:
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0809/the_type_45_destroyer.aspx
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