pppDamn, if you want to go that way, rafale as paveway too so they can use “cheap” weapon if they want. They (the marine) used them in the last campaign in afganistan (the damocles is integrated now, so they can designate the target without help from another aircraft, in fact, the use they damocles on rafale over lybia to trak and identifie the target… for AASM :rolleyes:).
They use AASM when they can because the bomb if more effective with less collateral domages (why ? better angle of impact, we pay the for a reason)
Whether Rafale can use Paveway too or not is completely irrelevant. The original implication by one of the French was that Typhoon could not do the same strikes as Rafale, but since it has Paveway that is clearly not the case as it can perform a precision strike. Then the French started trying to change the subject and tried to compare AASM to Paveway, a completely pointless comparison. Clearly many of the French on here have no interest in fair comparison, but rather are just searching for ways in which they can justify their “Rafale is better than Typhoon, French is better than British” argument, which is fairly pathetic.
pppIt is much more cost effective and as effective in terms of results to go with one rafale for both strike and AtA than a typhoon+tornado or a mirage 2000D+mirage 2000-5.
You are paying billions of pounds for an aircrafts that has no real use.
Besides you can’t compare an AASM to paveways. With AASM you can fire at 6 different targets in one pass at stand off distance (+ over the shoulder capability). With paveways your are much more vulnerable. That is quite a significant capability gap.
Don’t forget about Recce which plays a significant role in this conflict.
In the end you dodge the rafale and typhoon comparison by saying the RAF has the capability overall (with tornadoes). Try to explain that to an export customer…He is buying an aircraft, not the RAF.
So you think the RAF should have bought Rafale instead of Tornado? Priceless :rolleyes: Well in response I think France should have bought Rafale instead of the Mirage 5, I mean Rafale is much more effective right 😀
We can compare to Paveway, because Typhoon has its air to ground PGM and Rafale has its one (nice try to shift the goal posts there BTW :rolleyes:). The fact that the Rafale’s AASM has better capabilities is completely irrelevant. As for AASM, you can buy about 10 Paveways for the price of an AASM, so your capability comparison is fairly disingenuous.
As for the export customers, which export customers does Rafale have again? I can’t see the Libya sale going through TBH 😎
pppYes, though one thing is that no Western power has really seen effective opposition in air-air combat since the Falklands.
I would class myself as a bit of a Tiffie fan, but the Rafale is definitely looking the more capable and confident aircraft in the current conflict.
Not really, they are just better placed to take advantage of the situation. As said, the UK is using Tornado for strike.
The Russians were going to sell Su 35 to Libya after Rafale deal came to an impasse.
Would have made things interesting indeed.
If Libya has SU-3x, they would have been the first target for ground strikes.
Indeed, the current capability gap between Rafale and Typhoon is rather astounding. How did they get all these weapons integrated so fast?
The only significant difference is Rafale has Storm Shadow integrated and I don’t think Typhoon has that yet, so its hardly astounding. Typhoon has Paveway, the closest RAF type to AASM, since latter block Tranche 1. The UK, Germany and Italy also have fleets of extremely capable strikers (relative to the Mirage 2000D), so its less important in the near term.
Typhoon is so 5th gen aircrft, acording to the comercial PDF! :p
The troll has arrived I see.
pppI have to agree with the others, if men and women are equal they don’t deserve special praise either.
Also, in all fairness, from the picture it does seem to support the idea that women cannot park, and so she stacked the Typhoon on a field. Park on the hardstanding in future please, makes it easier to recover the aircraft for repair on the wings when she clips the control tower 😉
I can’t believe that nobody has praised this lady on a great achievement. :rolleyes .
Well between the first post (yours) and the fourth post (yours), they only really had 2 posts in which to praise, hardly a fighting chance you gave them really was it? 😉
Is her Typhoon sinking in the grass ?
Indeed, another Typhoon lost. Not looking good, is it?
pppYes that is what I am thinking as well Geoff_B, there just isn’t something available for sale or lease that has the features required. The main issue is lack of hanger on anything available! I have spent significant time looking myself and aside from the less then ideal Polarbjorn there just isn’t anything even close to suitable.
So I think lease Polarbjorn without a name change for three years and go without a helicopter flight. Then look at a deep (as in totally gut her) refit of Endurance. That means they can install systems and plant more in keeping with the training of the crew, sort out the accomodation that was always a problem and install some decent air conditioning so she can transit south far easier.
Apparently according to comments on Rumration the process of sending her back to the UK through warmer climes was causing serious wear to her machinary not to say deep uncomfort for her crew!
How much hull life is left with Endurance though? It might be the case that it would be a better use of money to just new build.
pppIt is surprising to see that France used its fighter directly in the Lybian airspace while the british and US used massively Cruise missiles (tomahawk and storm shadows) or stealth bomber for the initial days of wars.
I wonder if there is a reason for that ?
You’ve just made the assumption that the Tornadoes didn’t enter Libyan airspace, but there is nothing to suggest this is the case. The French and British have both been reported to be using Storm Shadow cruise missiles. The French didn’t use submarine launched cruise missiles because they don’t have any submarine launched cruise missiles.
who is conducting this multinational air attacks?
..and why Tornado instead of Eurofighter from Royal Airforce?
The RAF has sent Tornado and Typhoon. Why? Because it has more Tornado than it does Typhoon, and the Typhoon have a lot of existing tasks (air defence north, south and Falklands).
pppWhat, and put a hard limit of ~25 years on their service life? The Astute reactor design does NOT include provisions for being refueled!
What happens to the RN’s plans to keep them around for 40-50 years?
Instead of a costly mid-life refueling, using Astute reactors will require a immensely budget-breaking mid-life reactor replacement!
http://www.armedforces.co.uk/navy/listings/l0011.html
http://www.navalshipbuilding.co.uk/navalship_warships.asp?ID=WAR1&catID=5
That doesn’t mean that they cannot be refueled. In fact, given that Core H is being retrofitted to the Vanguard SSBNs during refueling, and the Astutes use PWR2 as well, we can conclude that they almost certainly can be refueled. But even so, nuclear is definately not the way to go for CVF.
pppRe: Seawolf’s suggestion about tooling the carriers up a bit (but not the nuclear reactors) – a few questions:-
1 Given that there’ll be only two (hopefully), with a maximum of one deployed, would the cost of the missiles be that great?
They could be transferred from ship to ship as needed?
2 Given the shortage of top-class escorts, would it not be best to give the carriers more defensive capability?
I can imagine a time when there’ll only be one Type 45 available, and if she has a failure it’s all over (I assume that the Type 26s won’t get Aster 30s?). This isn’t the USN, after all….
3 Since she’s – by definition – at the centre of her BG, shouldn’t she be carrying longer ranged SAMs (Aster 30s), for BG mutual support?
4 Any definitive source on the difference in cost between CAMMs, Aster 15s and Aster 30s?
5 How much impact would the increased length of the A-50 (over the A-43) launcher have on the deck below, in a ship that big with thick decks?
6 How much more expensive is Sampson than Artisan?
Artisan can direct Aster 30s, right?
7 (Sorry if this has already been gone into, but I’m doing my best in my mountain of research, and want it right) Is she intended to be armed at all, already?
8 So if we didn’t upgrade Artisan to Sampson, but fitted a modest SAM nest to both carriers, the cost is: a bit of lost deck space (say a plane’s worth, allowing for the Aster exhaust), but it’ll probably never operate with a full airwing anyway, due to costs; some space lost in the deck below, with some complexity for the Aster exhaust; two VLS nests (or could one be transferred over?); one lot of Aster 30s (say 16) and CAMMs (say around 24, depending upon dimensions/geometry)?
I suppose the real cost would be the beancounters deciding that since ‘she can now look after herself’, we could pare the escorts down even further (a replacement rather than augmentation)?
9 By the way, her GTs will follow the very efficient model of the Type 45’s, right? So a bit more than 50% efficient at best. How does that compare to diesels? [I’m having a hell of a time getting straight numbers on that one, but the sources I’ve found have the Type 23’s DGs only a sliver more efficient than the Type 45’s GTs, which are much lighter.]
[Sorry for the question-salvo, but the answers can be hard to come by, and the product of the questions is one that you will all enjoy… I hope.]
Its a carrier, not a DDG. Some CAAM or a better CIWS would be good, but there is no money. You also need to consider extra crew to run AAW radars and missiles in that cost. Also I’m pretty sure the RN isn’t buying Aster 15s. The RN needs more hulls and more aircraft, not more weapons to make the CVs tougher targets.
pppWould it not also make them much more vulnerable to damage from an attack, compared to the traditional engine position low down in the hull?
They are in two locations.
pppWhy not just stick a few Astute type reactors in each carrier and be done with it. Get rid of all that weight and space required for fuel, exhaust pipes and that damn silly second island superstructure. Whilst they are at it attach a sampson radar instead of the artisan and install 32 Aster 15 silo’s for proper self defence.
So you’d rather have one aircraft carrier at that specification than two at the current specification?
What :eek:?
They are there for a reason, they are not direct drive engines anymore but generate electricity so they don’t need to be buried in the bowels of the ship, located under the Islands means there is is less complex ducting that feed the air they need and exhaust their gasses with greatly impeding into the valuable hanger area. Also their location in the sponsons allows for an easy change of the engines without having to have access panels into the heart of the ship to gain access.
We learnt alot after designing and building the Invincibles and the CVF has been designed to avoid many of these pitfalls. Obviously some of members have no clue about the design process of the CVF. BTW hows your first GT powered avaiation vessel doing ?
Some of the Americans seem to approach the topic with the view that anything different to what the US does is automatically wrong 😎
pppIt seems to me that the Goverment is dead set in stripping Scotland of Mod jobs etc . Is it the case that the tories got kicked out of scotland ?? It seems like its political to me.
Don’t get me wrong , i realise we do need to make cuts, but not as severe as it its going to be. The Moray area has / did have to major bases , loosing 1 was a body blow, but its future was sealed due to the cancelation of the MRA4,but to loose the other is the sucker punch in my view
The Mod obviously hasn’t thought of the effects on this, amd just recently 14 Sqd and VII squadrons are going to be disband not over a year , but months.
Come on whats the sense behind that
England has faced cuts too, but we don’t regard England as having special rights to be free from cuts. You can’t have it both ways, you either want to consider the UK as a whole, or you want to consider whats best for Scotland, and have England consider what is best for England. As I’ve already said, Scotland has MORE than it fair share, so I don’t see a problem with big cuts in Scotland, or with moving forces from Scotland to England.
pppWhile I suspect you are right, simply because leaving the decision to 2012 about which catapult system to use is simply to late to make the changes needed, is it too late to make some modifications to QE to make her a better assault carrier (remove the ski jump, add a well deck, possibly add some additional weapons as she will be expected to operate closer to shore than PoW would)?
EDIT: Also would it not make sense to reverse the names, just in case they do dispose of the first carrier, so we do not have the embarrassment of selling QE and keeping PoW, when from a naming point of view it would be more acceptable to sell a ship called PoW than it would be QE.
Very true. In fact, why not scrap the PoW name completely 😀
PoW will need a substantial redesign to increase electrical power generation to operate EMALS and AAG. The increased electrical power requirements precludes EMALS/AAG retrofit to older ships due to costs of electrical system upgrades. Too bad a retrofit cannot be accomplished, because sortie rates and maintenance suffers due to old steam and hydraulic systems.
You’ve got the info the wrong way around. CVF cannot use steam cats efficiently because it is all-electric, and isn’t nuclear, and so if it were to use steam cats it would require steam generators. There is space allocated for the steam generators IIRC, but it would make more sense to use EMCATS and put additional generators in the space instead.
pppThe negligent government will no doubt sell of the Bay Class for a fraction of its worth.
pppToo expensive for my liking. Just another example of paying out vast sums for very little in return, all the while we cut out forces down:
“The MoD announced on 6 June 2007 that AirTanker had been given the approval it needed to continue with the project, allowing the company to seek the £2 billion private financing required to begin funding the aircraft.
On 27 March 2008, a PFI deal was agreed with AirTanker, worth £10.5 billion over the course of the contract, and will involve 14 converted A330 aircraft being delivered from 2011 and being operated until at least 2035.[7] As of October 2010, AirTanker had already built hangars and support buildings, and started recruitment.
The contract will be paid for at £390 million per annum. Of this running costs are £80 million and the remainder covers the consortium’s financing and profit [8] and the capital cost of the project, including aircraft and infrastructure.[9]” (1)
And yes I know the price has gone up! (2)
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Strategic_Tanker_Aircraft
(2)http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/03/27/222521/uk-signs-13-billion-tanker-deal.html
pppAlso, less scrapping of combat aircraft such as Harrier and Nimrod before their OSD 😉
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