John KI am not querying the existence of the so-called carrier killing missile, but I am very sceptical that it can do what the Chinese claim. Have they got the ability to find and track a carrier in real time, launch a ballistic missile hundreds or thousands of miles away, continue to track the carrier, and relay the information to the missile as it re-enters the atmosphere, guiding on to a target which will have moved several miles during the time the missile has been in flight?
As far as I am aware, the USA and Russians developed ICBMS with a CEP measured in a few hundred feet, but that is firing from a static silo against another static target, with a thermonuclear weapon. The Chinese missile will, I presume, be conventional, and so will have to hit its target, a miss by half a mile won’t count. How many of these missiles will China make, because I can guarantee they won’t be cheap. I really don’t buy it, and as I said, I find it rather jarring that China is launching a carrier at the same time it is claiming to have an infallible anti-carrier weapon. The carrier I believe, the carrier killer I don’t.
John KBlitzo:
I’m not convinced. Can anyone else see the disconnect of announcing some sort of super carrier killing missile at the same time as launching your first carrier? If the anti-carrier ballistic missile is so feasible, the USA would surely develop one so as to take out China’s carrier, so why waste money on a seemingly obsolete weapon? My guess is that the carrier killer is mostly hype, the difficulties of finding and tracking a carrier in real time, and then guiding a ballistic missile on to it sound daunting to say the least, and are, I would wager, beyond China at this time.
John KThat’s like saying the RN shouldn’t buy submarines because they have ASW frigates.
Not really. Any navy needs to have frigates, they are the workhorse of any fleet. Most navies of decent sized countries have submarines too, but most navies don’t have carriers, they can’t afford them. Why spend billions on a carrier if they are so vulnerable? If the Chinese could wipe out US carriers so easily, the US could surely do it to China’s one carrier. I don’t buy it. China has every incentive to hype up its ability to take out US carriers, but that doesn’t mean they can do it.
John KPersonally I don’t buy the hype the Chinese are putting out about their anti-carrier ballistic missiles. This is something the USSR never achieved, and I’m sure they would have liked to. The time between launching such a missile and it reaching the target area would, depending on range, have to be several minutes, during which the carrier will have moved two or three miles. Assuming the misile is not nuclear tipped, how would you solve the problem of terminal guidance? All of this presupposes that you can locate the carrier in the first place. I think the fact that China is so keen to develop a carrier force tells you something about the real status of anti-carrier ballistic missiles.
John KI find it interesting that China is completing its first carrier at the same time as it is boasting about its “anti-carrier” ballistic missile. You would think they would want one or the other. If carriers are so vulnerable, why build one? I have a feeling that the problems of targeting an anti-carrier ballistic missile might be a bit harder than the Chinese are admitting. Having a carrier, on the othet hand, gives China a blue water capability it has never had before. It will be very interesting to see how long it takes to work the ship up, I would put it at a couple of years at least.
John KWasp prepares for Joint Strike Fighter
Wot, no ski jump?
John KGood point, CdG looks pretty shabby, though at least the Frogs have got a carrier. Looks they tried to save money by buying their paint from B&Q.
John KJohn, i don’t know where you get this idea that the RAF is a strategic air force it hasn’t been such since the V bombers were retired. In fact they are very much focused tactical strikes and close air support. With weaponry like brimstone and pave way. The only weapon they have which could be marginally called “strategic” would be the stormshadow. The UK hasn’t had a strategic capability like the USA and Russia for a long time.
Red:
I agree the RAF no longer has full strategic capablity. Nonetheless, “deep strike” seems to be what gets the Air Staff going. The Tornado was designed to hit Poland from Britain, which was the nearest thing to strategic bombing they had after the V Force was retired, and they will do anything to keep it. In a way, “deep strike” is their version of carriers for the Navy. Without “deep strike”, the RAF would be akin to a Britaish air defence force, a concept which you seem to view with distaste, just as, without carriers, the Royal Navy is a British coast guard, a similarly unpleasant prospect. Anyway, Jock Stirrup made damned sure that the RAF kept its Tornados at the expense of the Harriers. The fact that this also sunk the Fleet Air Arm was no doubt a bonus in his eyes.
John KRed:
The RAF is getting 100+ Typhoons, thanks to its mastery of the political/industrial process. The Harriers were a joint asset, and of course vital to the Royal Navy. The RAF was quite happy to lose two aircraft types, the Nimrod MRA4 and the Harrier GR9, both of which were important to the Navy, but not to the RAF. The RAF has always defined itself as a strategic bombing force, hence it wanted to keep the Tornado, whatever the cost/benefit analysis as compared to the Harrier. I don’t think it was at all hard for Jock Stirrup to stab the Harrier force in the back, he is a fully paid up member of the Tornado Mafia. My argument is with the Navy staff who are too gutless to work out what the RAF is doing and play them at their own game.
John KJonesy:
I’m not sure what was wrong about my calling Ark Royal a strike carrier. In her final configuration, that is what she was. She had also been used as an ASW carrier, light fleet carrier and commando carrier. Quite some flexibility there.
As to the options facing the Royal Navy in the early 90s, you keep telling me why things didn’t happen. I agree they didn’t, I am saying they should have, if there had been a staff with the balls and foresight to make it happen. When the Cold War ended, the Air Staff didn’t curl up into a ball and let Eurofighter be cancelled, as really should have happened. They fought for it tooth and nail. The Royal Navy should have got in on the programme, and defined their future then. The RAF never give up the political battle, the way Stirrup ensured the Harrier was axed to save the Tornado is the last and most cynical in a very long line. It seems to me the last senior Royal Navy officer with that sort of self-confidence and chutzpah was Lord Mountbatten. He was a rogue in many ways, but he’d have eaten Stirrup for breakfast if he’d tried to pull a stunt like that.
John KJonesy:
Sorry to hear you were a victim of the Peace Dividend. Strange that we seem to have been constantly at war ever since.
As to Fleet v Strike carriers, I do think your distinctions are more about role than the ship. The CVF is not going to be restricted to 20 knots, and could do either job. Obviously, the late Ark Royal with Harrier GR9s on board was a strike carrier, not a fleet carrier, but that’s not true of the CVF.
With regard to the Navy in the early 90s, the Peace Dividend did not mean the RAF lost its Typhoon programme, the most expensive piece of defence procurement there has ever been. That’s why I said the Royal Navy should have lobbied to get a piece of the action with a Sea Typhoon. The RAF might even have supported it, as it would have meant another advocate for the Typhoon. It needed the sort of self confidence showed by a Fisher, not the sort of defeatism that the RN seems to exhibit. I repeat, the RAF managed to keep the Typhoon, a fighter designed with the Cold War in mind, even though the Cold War ended in 1990. They know how to do it, the Royal Navy really does not.
John KThey can the problem is that you are putting the Navy’s needs above there’s. I have several friends in the army you asked them where they feel new strike aircraft should go and i can promise you they will not say the navy. They will say we need more air support. Which i say again is the RAF specialty not the navies.
.
Red:
I don’t think the RAF is really focused on providing strike aircraft to support the army. If they were, they’d have kept the Harriers. The first and last dedicated ground support aircraft the RAF fielded was the Sopwith Snipe in 1918.
The RAF has always been dedicated to strategic bombing. That is why Stirrup was so determined to keep Tornados at the expense of Harriers. Using Tornados in Afghanistan is much like using Lancasters would have been in WWII, when the army needed Typhoons for CAS.
Even your outrage at the suggestion that the RAF would become the Royal Air Defence Force speaks volumes. What is so bad about using the 100+ Typhoon fighters to provide air defence? What the RAF never was and never will be is a globally mobile force. It can only operate where it has air bases, and since we no longer have a global network of colonies to hand, it means the RAF can only ever operate when a local country allows it to. If Italy decides to pull out of the Libya operation, that’s it for the RAF, end of story. That’s why, if you want to be able to operate globally, you need carriers, and, as everybody has pointed out to you, but you refuse to accept, all history and experience, from every country which has ever operated a carrier, shows that the only way to do it is with a dedicated naval air force. You can argue against it as much as you like, but insisting the earth is flat doesn’t make it so.
John KJonesy:
I am quite surprised that you do indeed think that shuttling RAF planes from one air base to another is a good use of an aircraft carrier. I see it as a complete negation of the inherent flexibility of naval air power. Likewise, I find your distinction between a strike carrier and a fleet carrier a bit artificial. A carrier with, say, 36 F35s on board, whether B or C type, could oerform either role. It’s all about flexibility.
As things stand, we are in a dreadful place. Naval aviation was abandoned overnight like an old sock. Would the government have scrapped the submarine force with quite such casual disdain? My argument is that this should never have happened, and would not if only the Royal Navy had shown the sort of commitment to its carrier force that the French Navy did. At the time of the Eurofighter consortium they should have lobbied for a naval version, with a long term plan to replace the Invincibles with a new generation of conventional carriers, which would be in service now. But that would require foresight and self confidence, qualities which seem lacking at the top of the Royal Navy.
The RAF have never lacked the political ability to win wars in Whitehall, sadly the Navy never seems to get it right. The axing of the Harrier force is just the latest example. All the news stories I have read say that the Harriers were going to be kept under the SDSR until the last few days before publication, when Jock Stirrup had a private meeting with Cameron and convinced him to keep the Tornados. Cameron knows nothing at all about defence, so bought it. Would any Royal Navy officer have used his position as CGS to have embarked on such a naked piece of single service lobbying? Why did the Navy take it? They just don’t get it, everything is political, and the RAF know how to play the game.
John KRed:
Have you ever wondered why every nation which operates a carrier has found it necessary to operate a naval air force? Is the experience of all carrier operations by every country in all periods not of any interest? The idea of the RAF operating aircraft from Royal Navy carriers was tried between 1918 and 1937 and found wanting. How often do you have to go back to this baleful period before concluding that it really does not work?
John KJonesy:
What naval air capabilty? We don’t have any do we? We may get some sort of capabilty back in 10 years, but I can’t be optimistic. Jock Stirrup played a blinder on behalf of the Tornado Mafia, and prevailed upon Cameron to axe the Harriers and therefore naval air overnight. That is what comes of losing control of your own assets. The Navy played fair over Joint Force Harrier and has been left, literally, with nothing. If, in 10 years, a CVF is ever actually finished and joins the fleet, I have no doubt that the RAF will see it, as you give the impression of doing, as a means os moving RAF aircarft from one air base to another. They have no understanding of the use of naval air, and they don’t want to learn. The leson I draw is that unless the Navy owns and operates its own air assets from its own carriers, then talk of strike carriers v fleet carriers is meaningless, as we simply end up with no carriers. You can see the pattern can’t you?
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