Neither Brazil nor India can afford CVF. Both have have carriers, but their carriers were used and bought very much on the cheap, like much of their equipment.

I sincerely hope they just mothball the Nimrods and eventually Sentinel R1. Taking them out of service is one thing, to scrap band new aircraft is perverse.

All my sympathy to the British military.:(

As happen often, the worst dangers to armed forces
stem from their government rather than the enemy.:mad:

At least, i now understand Obama/America’s reaction earlier.
Heartfelt grief to all British mates here, ppp in particular.

True!

And much appreciated Tay 🙂

Not in the RAF –

Shadow R.1

Yea I know which plane you mean, one of mates was telling me about it on FB last night! I’m used to thinking in terms of UAVs, so my first thought was RQ-7!

Some disappointments, ofcourse, but overall I’m glad most of us predicted the worst. I actually found myself relieved after reading this review!

There were some decisions that left me extremely confused or angry. Namely Nimrod, Sentinel and an unnamed landing ship (I assume an Albion) being put into extended readiness.

However, a return to real naval aviation after a thirty year hiatus is nothing to be upset about. I also get the impression that the wording used may be a sort of insurance scheme, putting a carrier and an amphib into extended readiness to save costs now but then putting them back into service when the economy is a bit rosier perhaps? We can hope. From what I can gather, the RN will have at least one active squadron of its own to operate off of one of the carriers and then much the same sort of set up as we have now with JFH to allow for RAF owned F-35Cs to transfer to and operate off the carrier if situations demand. Seven Astutes announced, no cuts to Eurofighter mentioned, the valuable surface ship types – Type 45 and 23 – retained, not that Type 22 won’t be missed though, only small wounds to the amphibious force and at least one active CATOBAR carrier with a possibility of two in better fiscal times.

How many F-35Cs do we think will be ordered then? The document reveals it will be less than the 138 previously predicted, but then again who was expecting it to remain as such?

Also, how many active Tornado GR4s are there currently in RAF service? The fleet size may be 137, but how many are actually active?

I thought we had around 140 including spare aircraft. As for F35C it will be in batches, probably 40, followed by 30 or 40 more depending how it fits in with everything else at the time. Also, Type 26 to go ahead.

As an interested layman it is fascinating to read the range of opinion amongst knowledgable posters in this thread. But it proves one thing that no one has the answer or at least objectively no one does, although each might think he has, so the government of the day has made its decision and we will all have to live with it for good or ill. The ramifications and volume of words will grow over the years to come and we will eventually see, with hindsight, who was right and who was wrong.

But for now it’s a done deed!

Nobody is claiming to know the answer, only to give their best guess. Some are clearly biased though, which is great too really as it brings more perspective, so long as we know they are biased.

so…

Ark Royal -> Scrap
Invencible->Scrap?
Illustrious – > Operational
Ocean–>Mouthballed/Sold?(Brazil?)

:confused:

Ark Royal -> Scrapped
Illustrious OR Ocean -> Scrapped
The other one of those two -> Operational
Invincible -> Operational

But, it should be noted that the OSD for Ocean is 2018 or thereabout IIRC.

right, so this confirms in my mind that the most important thing about the carriers is that they are now being built and only CATOBAR. The government are waiting for the dust to settle i guess before things get too detailed.

Typhoon wasn’t mentioned at all then?

Yes, it was mentioned, he said “Typhoon”. Very helpful info huh? Nothing on numbers or upgrades though. Ditto F35 numbers.

Routinely…..? yes its twelve. The carriers routinely carried 5 Shars before the Falklands, not what they went to war with now was it…

The interesting figure is the total number of F35 ordered, where they are deployed is really irrelevant to the discussion as it will be highly variable depending on the needs at that point in time. Its like quoting how many fighters are in the sky at any one point, wholely irrelevant!

As for 12 being deployed routinely, I could have told you that 7 years ago, that was always the plan. Flexible airwing was also planned from the outset, this was seen in action in the Iraq war.

Im in favour of any one willing to actually build up numbers rather than cut

So you’d have helped the Nazis in WW2 than 😮