What has this got to do with anything? Do I detect hints of paranoia & xenophobia?

Because it makes the forces easier to integrate into a single force, and there has been no referendum on this. If there is a desire to go that route, then lets just all go Rafale.

If I’m Xenaphobic, then you are traitor to your own country, so are we doing to go with sensible names or silly names? Your choice.

Not much in favour of a joint operation of F35 with other European countries, makes it easier to integrate the forces into a single force, which IMO (as I believe in democracy) requires a certain in or out referendum first 😉

Stan:

yes, you could do it to Cavour, but I doubt it’d be worth such an extensive rebuild. I think a slightly larger new build would be more sensible.

Jonesy:

yes, pie in the sky, unfortunately – but still interesting. What about a joint carrier flying school (in the Canaries? Sardinia?) with navalised M346 trainers? 😀

BTW, does anyone else think that ‘Maestro’ would be a better name for the M346 than ‘Master’?

Yes, Maestro would be good, it would remind them of the national debt 😉

It is just not possible to save everything and museum ships are very expensive to maintain, there are existing historic ships which need funds so whats the point of carrier being saved at their expense.

Because we don’t have one as a museum. Nobody is suggesting saving ALL ships, just one of each type. We should have saved a battleship too. We spent £15 million on the world cup bid I hear, so £2 million on a carrier is a bargain.

Which ever way you put it, it’s still mad to have carriers and sell/scrap the aircraft which fly from them.

Paul

As Russell said though, there a bit of a difference between “aircraft without carriers” and “no aircraft or the required carrier until both are delivered, around the same time”. And if you want to be REALLY pedantic, the first aircraft arrived for structural testing earlier this year IIRC, and we still have “aircraft” in the form of Apache.

The Islander/Defender with the large bulbous nose, ZG989 has been flying out of Waddington again last week and this week. It has spent hours orbiting the Lincoln area at around 10.000ft, must be doing some sort of AEW trial. Maybe they are going to replace Astor/Sentinals with the cheaper competitor from all those years ago afterall!

Rick

Might just be using it for trialing some system and that just happened to be an available airframe, rather than being selected because it can mount a nose radar housing?

Besides, if they wanted to mount an AEW it would probably go in a canoe pod on the top… Be interesting to see how it compared to V22 in the role (range/speed), assuming an increased weight for the BN for its strenthening and CATOBAR kit.

Not if they can save money (the only thing that matters to Osborne) by refurbishing old Mk 8s & transferring them to the new ships.

IIRC the upgrade is based on a Mk8 modified to the new calibre, rather than a new gun.

The problem I see with a mini-strike UAV from a frigate is that the frigate is designed to support a helicopter, not a strike UAV, so will need lots more munitions and fuel and presumably a significantly larger crew too, which the frigate can’t efficiently provide. Also, 1000km isn’t too suitable against land targets when it has to fly back and you have to allow a distance from the shore.

I can certainly see the utility in a ship being able to reach out and lay in a few blows at a surface target, but is this the best way to go about it? In an anti-shipping role it can only take one shot per sortie, whereas ASuW missiles you can take 8 shots at the same time. Yes, the UCAV could fly 8 sorties (over a day or two), but equally it could be shot down on the first sortie! ASuW missiles have their own drawbacks too though, since they are going to need a helo to spot their targets, so a stealth mini-UCAV could probably do the same role better.

Ultimately, we would get more from sticking bigger UCAVs on QE than sticking these things on frigates.

Lets hope it doesn’t turn into some expensive niche weapon bought for no real reason instead of a much cheaper generic weapon that would do a similar mission almost as effectively.

Figures, i had never seen it either, and it was very interesting. It was a pleasure to share.

And thanks, i had a good weeked, hope you had it good too.

I’ve been haunted by the thought of what will happen to the Fleet Air Arm, however… The loss of the Sea King HC4 by 2016 without a replacement plan at all in the air horrifies me.
A little less worrysome is the loss of the ASaC Sea Kings… so long as the MASC is resurrected in time to equip the carrier in 2020, of course.

But the Commando Helicopter Force… to save at least the Junglies, the Navy will better look under the carpets and dig up for pennies to send its 12 unused Merlin HM1 not upgraded to Westland to remove radar and sonar and fit seats into them. It is the only viable option…

And i was also disappointed by the NATO missile shield agreement…

It had been suggested that the UK would contribute with the Type 45 (SM3 missiles on Daring, yeah!), but the agreement has no sign at all of it. Even Greece and Spain step ahead of the Uk in that regard… Hell, it is starting to get really, really embarassing. The UK will contribute two locations, and nearly nothing else, since Flyingdales and Mewitt Hill will be updated and run mostly by the US, so even that is little collaboration at all…

But Greece wasn’t broke…???

What different policy priorities makes possible these days! The sixth global economy lagging behind a “broke” country like Greece…:(

Or we just aren’t wasting our money on a missile shield to defend against missiles that can’t reach us anyway. Also, the Europeans are between us and the ME countries, so any attack will have to go past their defences first. I’m liking how the MoD is playing this, there’s much more useful deterrents to spend the money on, like Trident 😎