pppIf the UK tommorow said they intended to procure a new SSG design would they go foreign or design their own?
If going foreign who would they go with?
Spain S-80
France Scopens
German U212/214maybe joint with Australia?
and am i missing anyone?
Design their own, BMT even did a concept of a AIP sub. UK has most, if not all, of the technology required, so there’s no real need to import a foreign design. That said, there is no use for such a system with the RN.
There are some pics on Tango’s Navies News thread which illustrate some of the problems facing an SSN in the littorals. Here’s one of them:
If the RN’s going to be operating subs that close to the shore, they’d be better off buying a few SSKs from the Germans or the Swedes. Even if it’s just to save money on training, (and the embarassment :dev2:).
Oh you’re so funny.
Which is a good illustration of what is being stated here. If we take the abstract value of an additional A class boat as £1bn and look at a ‘cheap but comprehensive’ SSK design as an alternate we arrive at something like the 209PN that the Portuguese are inducting. Perhaps we get 3 of those plus support costs for the price of building the extra Astute. What gives us more capability in contrast to our taskings – the A class or the 3 patrol subs?.
The only good thing would be using an SSK as a cheap training submarine, though another simulator might arguably be a better investment.
pppSuch a list would be a Glossary, not a Library. Oh, and you spelt Library wrong. Finally, it might be a good idea to just copy it from other lists, but make sure you cite their contributions. A citation can be made like this:
AMRAAM – AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM (pronounced am-ram), is a modern Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air-to-air missile (AAM) [1]
[1] Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM
pppSo, as the blue leader, you cannot think of a workable conventional solution for this situation and admit defeat by using nuclear weapons, effectively terminating the scenario. Interesting.
While you’re at it, go inform the military that there is no need for them to continue doing drills, since everything can be solved with nuclear deterrence.
Or, as a Blue leader, I realise your scenario is about as realistic as alien invasion or dolphins declaring war. A stupid question demands only a stupid answer, which is what you got 🙂
pppLet me restate my scenario so that we won’t get confused.
REDina captures an island belonging to BLUE Kingdom. In order to defend it, REDina places an S-300 system and some Su-30 along with the regular troops. Can BLUE Kingdom successfully reclaim the island, having the exact capabilities the UK will have at 2015? What are your plans as the blue leader?
Interesting scenario since it probably denies air support on both sides (S-300 and Type 45). What happens if I give the reds some land deployed anti ship missile?
Ah well if we can warp reality then Blue kingdom nukes red kingdom, then Blue kingdom starts spraying nerve gas over all Red cities to be sure the job is done, Red kingdom is gone, as is the problem. Other kingdoms discuss sanctions on Blue kingdom, but these plans are soon dropped after 6 months when Blue Kingdom proves Red Kingdom had weapons of mass destruction and was about to launch them, however Blue Kingdom found out only 45 minutes beforehand and launched the preemptive strike using aforementioned nuclear strike and several months of nerve gas spraying.
pppIn a 2015 time frame? would the Falklands be up for the taking?
To be honest even now all they would needs are 2nd hand Chinese knock off s-300s and the Chinese knock off Su-30.
But you’ve just invented a bunch of weapons Argentina does not have, nor does it plan to have. How is that a realistic comparison?
TLAM will send the Argies running off crying.
pppThe second pairs of Horizons were canned in favour of improving the AD capability of FREMM precisely because Horizon is much more expensive.
So . . .we should throw in for free the nearly new ship which we have several potential customers for, & which we should be able to sell for a good price, as a sweetener for a deal which isn’t going to happen, if at all, for a few years? Doesn’t sound like good business to me.
Indeed, there are many countries that would pay good money for one of those Bay LPD(A)s!
pppIf we were selling, we’d sell for less, just to cut our losses, & Brazil has the money – if it chooses to spend it on carriers.
Russia has the money, but remember the fuss that has been made over the sale of Mistral LHDs. Can you imagine what a stink selling an aircraft carrier would provoke? She’d have to be sold with no catapults, as well.
Sure, even India could find the money, but then so could the UK. In fact, the UK could find the money by simply not giving aid to India! The Indians would I suggest have much better things to spend their money on.
Russians sould be fine not having cats, just arresters they would want and they could probably fit them themselves anyway. I’m not sure if they would want a carrier from us though, as I get the impression the Mistals are as much a thanks for cooperation in economic areas as they are about military capabilities.
pppI don’t think that’s correct. there are a few gaps, sure, but given the UK’s conventional threat perception, namely nil, a substantial portion of the forces can be sent abroad. what they have is still more than most nations.
Oh don’t worry, he is just trying to get his own back by provoking an angry reaction by attempting to paint a negative image of the British forces as he feels insecure due to my comment about India being unable to afford a CVF. To me though, his comments just highlights the fact that India can’t afford a CVF and he knows it. The fact that he has resorted to trying to anger me, just shows how insecure he really is! I’m not bothered in the slightest by his comments 🙂
Generally, when the Indians make such comments, it typically leads to them trying to stack themselves up against Britain, and eventually the only things they want to debate are medium range ballistic missiles, as technologically on almost every field Britain is ahead.
Because no one usually sells a brand new carrier and they are hard to come by. The ex-Gorshkov for example will be like a brand new ship with state of the art equipmetns and a very capable carrier-borne fighter in the Mig 29K.
As for India not being able to afford a new carrier, one is already being built in Cochin with technical assistance from Fincantieri, a second IAC is also in the drawing board which will have higher displacement and EMALs. For the fighters on IAC 2 the IN has sent RFI to the likes of Lockheed Martin.
I do not see the Indian navy buying the QE class but only becasue IN has traditionally been supportive of the native ship building industry and not because we cannot afford it. With the proposed budget cuts the UK will be a much inferior second rung power when it comes to conventional weapons and capabilities.
I know one is under construction, which further proves my point, that they don’t have the money, they simply cannot afford a CVF. As for the Indian carrier under construction, its a much smaller ship.
timmed to reduce quote length
Nope, my point still stands
Gorshkov was very much a bargain basement deal that went very badly wrong.
Badly wrong for India, looks like a fantastic deal for the Russians and their yard. Much the same with the Sukhois when the Indians screwed up local assembly. All in all, the Russians are making an absolute killing off the Indians, giving credit where its due.
ppp
pppWithout getting too political all those people who said that HM Armed Forces would fare better under a conservative Government have got what they asked for!
I very much doubt we would have had such nonsensical strategic cuts had Labour remained in power.
All these savings will achieve is to permit the ConDem’s to balance the books such that they can offer huge tax cuts on the eve of the 2015 General Election, thus ensuring re-election.
U_Fokker,
Labour would have had to have made some cuts regardless, even they couldn’t have kept on spending how they were. The Conservatives want to reduce the deficit, and I agree with them, they should. All that money going on interest is not a good thing, that could pay for the defence budget, or nearly the education budget. If anything should be stopped, its having parties like Labour get elected on the back of big public spending, at a future governments financial expense. Now if Labour made big public spending on the back of massive economic growth, great, but its not, its on the back of a credit card.
I do agree with you on where the cuts fell, they do seem quite ill thought out, and certainly not based on making efficient use of capital already invested (looking at Nimrod and Sentinel R1 here in particular). Its hard to find any other things to cut that either don’t have worse effects (e.g Carriers, SSNs) or which don’t have their costs spread over long periods (e.g FSTA). Shareholders of defence companies like BAE should be made to suffer though.
pppNot to denigrate the ASCC too harshly, but sometimes I do wonder whether they created the reporting names for Soviet aircraft and missiles without thinking about the context in which they would be used.
The worst example must be Shipwreck; certainly descriptive, but in a naval environment rather confusing. “A KIROV was sighted with two SHIPWRECKS”.
Some others that appeared to me to be less than wise:
- Sniper, a common military term
- Goa and Kent, geographic names
- Serb, a demonym ( admittedly less common in that era due to the unified Yugoslavia )
- Sturgeon, also being a class of US Navy SSN
- Stallion, also being Sikorsky’s S-65
- Skiff, a type of small vessel
- Halo, easily confused with helo
It’s not as if they had to generate thousands of reporting names, so i wonder why they alighted upon such examples.
Agreed, should have named them after fast food.
pppAn enviable contract..The competitors (France,Britain Russia ) must have been consumed by jealousy…
Oh I doubt it, Britain has a contract for 72 Typhoon + upgrading of the Saudi Tornado strike fleet + munitions including Storm Shadow + supply of a fleet of air refueling tankers + maintenance and support. No, I suspect they are more than content 🙂
pppI very much believe that Harrier has been a victim of government stalling tactics.
The Navy probably had price and performance concerns about the B and decided to wait it out and hedge their bets.
Building an EMALS from scratch takes time while with the B the pressure was on to commit.
Now if the B proceeds smoothly and the cost is reasonable the Navy can point to problems with EMALS and revert to the B on the already configured QE.
If the B busts proceeds with C on PoW.
Either way they delay first payment and hopefully get cheaper aft down the line.
Industry gets paid for the carriers plus the recent Harrier upgrades and support contracts but Harrier must take the fall because the main argument for the shift is interoperability.
I may be just a cynic but can anyone explain why the pilots in the States are going to train on both F-18 AND AV-8 if the C is a done deal?
Well defence review came out a couple days ago, and they were already training in the USA. They are also Harrier pilots, training with a force that has Harriers, so there is experience they can share.
I guess I don’t have a good understanding of the real problems facing the U.K. these days (granted, I’m an American and I don’t live in the U.K. so please pardon my ignorance), as I’m rather surprised at the number of folks seemingly glad to see the Harrier get the axe.
I feel like it has been a solid, if not perfect, airplane over the years that has provided good service to the U.K….perhaps I was wrong?
The only issue I have with the RAF’s current Harrier fleet is the lack of guns, which wasn’t really due to any fault of the airframe, but rather to the guns themselves. (Why weren’t the cannons from the original GR.1/3 & Sea Harrier used again?)
In the grand scheme of things, if a force of jets has to be cut the Harrier probably makes more sense than the Tornado, but fixed-wing naval aviation effectively will cease to exist for several years with the retirement of the Harrier fleet….that seems to be a questionable choice to me.
With all of this having been said, I must admit that I’m not happy with a lot of the cuts going on over on this side of the Atlantic and thus defense cuts of any kind aren’t something I usually agree with…depending of course on the cut or cuts in question.
I suppose I’m biased, but I just think the Harrier is being phased out too early from U.K. service.
I must also admit that I have my doubts about the Royal Navy getting two brand-new aircraft carriers and CATOBAR aircraft for them into service in any time frame inside of 10 years from now…perhaps I’m a pessimist, but defense programs are so slow these days and this seems to be a case of starting from the ground-up seeing as the U.K. hasn’t had a conventional aircraft carrier since what……….1978 I think?
I doubt carrier construction will slip further. Any problems that do occur could easily be accomodated as work has been slowed down to extend production time, so essentially they would just pick up the pace against to what it was before to correct the issue so the ISD wouldn’t be effected.
pppIf one of the carriers has to go. How about operating them jointly with Australia? Australia is part of the Commonwealth and operates F18 and F18 Superbugs.
Distance would be a major problem, plus their pilots aren’t carrier qualified, and any such deal would essentialy come at the expense of the assault ships.
PA2 hasn’t been axed yet AFAIK, they just put the decision back to either the end of this year or the start of next so they know if they have to include it in their next 5 year defence budget or not. Charles De Gaulle had a couple of these before it was eventually ordered.
Its effectively axed, the French MoD is desparately short of money.
The only way this could get any more interesting is if the Russian Navy decided to buy it.:D
They do actually have the money for it, as does China.
Yes we can 🙂 but rigth now Brazil is foccused in New Escorts/Support vessels and the Nuclear Sub.
The São Paulo will be used till 2025, and in the meantime Brazil has plans to build and incorporate 2 aircraft carriers till 2032.
These are planneb to have between 40.000 and 44.000 tons
But as i have post Brazil wanna BUILD then with TOT, not only an on the shelf aquisiton.
I cant see Brazil searching or buying a new one before 2020.
Hence they don’t have the money for a £3 billion carrier.
you mean the CVF is overpriced for the value it brings to the table ?
I don’t know about Brazil but which equipment of the Indian Navy carriers was bought on the cheap ?
Name us a carrier in Indian service of which India was the first user, i.e not bought used from another country 🙂
pppAttached is a quick and crude photoshop of this original deck layout which I believe is representative in its overall dimensions of the ship as it is actually being built:
http://navy-matters.beedall.com/cvfimages/cvf-delta-av1.jpg
As you can see, it should be possible (if only just) to reposition the bow catapult in such a way that:
– Hawkeyes can be launched from it, although this precludes landing operations
– F-35Cs can take off without impeding simultaneous recoveries.
Since E-2 launches will be relatively few and far between this may be an acceptable compromise, a bigger issue could be that you lose most or all of the 7 parking positions on the bow. If you were prepared to accept that Hawkeye ops can only be conducted from the waist cat, the latter could perhaps be shifted even further starboard which would restore some of the parking capacity.
We need to consider the UCAVs or UAVs that may also fly off them at some point too, and these are more likely to have long wings. Again though, a single catapult would be sufficient for such aircraft, particularly the UAVs, as they may be in the air for quite long periods (12+ hours).
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