JonesyI’m afraid I’m just old enough to be a believer that form should follow function.
If your vessel may find itself, as the Mighty Sausage currently is, sat off a potentially hostile coast then the very visible impact of having a big gun, on the pointy end, to aim at people and give them food for thought is worth the price of embarkation all by itself.
The sudden and dramatic appearance of very large shell splashes in front of druggy go-fast boats and other unfriendly sea-users has been proven, repeatedly, to have the most galvanising effect at promoting meaningful peaceable discourse.
Should the main gun be the most expensive weapon system on a principle combattant in this day and age?. No certainly not. Is it a huge enabling system for a whole raft of sub-warfighting roles….very much yes. Does the main gun need to be 100mm+ to accomplish the desired results?. In my view yes…you have the ship impact of mounting a ‘big gun’ so why not get the most capability out of that gun possible?.
A good MANPADS team will offer as much AAW potential as your standard issue light-MCG mount (57mm/76mm). Davide-style guided ammo on uprated OTO76’s may shift this slightly, but, its a strange warship, designed to face an air-threat, that is configured with a MCG as its primary AAW system. Generally then, today, the principle roles for MCG’s are anti-surface and, put simply, for anti-surface work size matters.
For the RN we have a mount in service that offers a good balance of range and throw weight, is finally generally reliable, and can be fit down to vessels as light as 1500tons. Give that mount a 3000ton hull to sit on, properly designed, and stability is no issue. Ship impact may well be an issue but, again, the mount itself is a key enabling system to service a wide swath of roles that make for a more deployable, effective and responsive hull.
To answer the posed question….where do the big guns go?. The answer to me is any combattant hull that can embark one.
JonesyNice ship, but you might want to replace the steam turbines too?
I had thought of that Flanker, but, decided against. Two reasons – first is the obvious one – cost. Ripping out the steam gear will save a shedload in O&M costs no two ways about it, but, putting in a diesel/turbine IEP fit for ten-fifteen years max service?. I dont know?.
The other, to me, equally important reason is the vessels principle tasking – littoral ASW. How many ASW escorts are there left with a steam plant aboard?. Less than a handful!. To an opposing SSK, holding only a passive contact, what is a 12knt steam powered plant signature going to be classed as?. Anything other than a warship being the answer!!!. A good fighting skipper should be able to use that.
Wanshan,
Cap is doffed sir….do think that vessel would make a hell of a ‘destroyer leader’/Fleet ASWCS!
JonesyShirane class.
Landed: OPS-12, WM-25, TACTASS, Mk42 x 2, ASROC, Mk29, Phalanx x2.
Installed:
– FCS-3
– SONAR2087
– OTO127LW ‘A’ Position.
– ‘B’ position Mk42 deckhouse retained. Modified for 6 x Sylver A35 (24 VL Mica)
– Raised deckhouse created on foredeck directly aft of B position for 4 x Mk41 Tactical modules (8 VLA, 24 SM-2blkIV/SM-3)
– Millenium mounts x 4 situated on Phalanx pedestals and port and starboard beam on hangar roof. Individual director elements.
Airgroup 3 x NH90 FFH with FLASH, LWT and NSM capability.
JonesyArtillery?. Are you people serious?.
You are unaware of the most fundamental limits imposed by the laws of physics?. Artillery requires clear arc’s of fire to target or its useless. How do you drop 6 inch shells on a hardened fighting position in a built up area masked with office blocks in the way?. Call down fire in 30 seconds when you need to find a clear site, secure it and relocate your battery?. 30 seconds you reckon?.
Why wouldn’t STOVL be present in theatre 24/7?. The CSG is the element that needs to be free to exploit its theatre mobility not the ESG!. You place an LHA with the ESG and you have persistent presence complete with organic logistic support.
Do we even have to talk about the variation in target effects between artillery and tacair?. Or the fact that tacair isn’t limited to just CAS but can also do BAI, recon, SEAD/DEAD and can even provide airspace denial over the fighting front if not true fleet air defence.
Artillery is no replacement for tacair by any description.
JonesyJonesy, one of the points I was trying to make was that the F35B as i understand it is not welcome on a CVN due to take off and recovery issues. The USMC wanted to replace all its fixed wing combat aircraft with F35Bs as far as I know, according to Wikipedia there are 17 squadrons of Fighter attack or electronic warfare aircraft, that fly off the CVNs as I understand it and there are 7 squadrons of AV-8B Harriers. So ignoring training aircraft etc, with 24 squadrons to replace with F35Bs the USMC wanted 480, 20 a squadron. Now if there is only a need for say 7 squadrons to replace the AV-8Bs there would be a need for 7*20=140, call it 150 aircraft, sorry I was 50% out to begin with…
So the question remains are the billions that are being spent on the procurement of the F35B, with knock on delays to the A and C worth it if there is only a need for and capacity to deploy on LHAs and LHDs about 100 aircraft?
Of course it would be a different story of the USMC wanted to comission some more CVFs from the UK another 6 units to have one available at all times on each coast, it would be a different story. I understand that the USMC did want CVF size vessels but were refused them.
What will happen to all the USMC fighter squadrons when the USN has F35Cs? Transfer to the USN?
The answer is yes it is worth it as it addresses the requirement that the USMC have identified. Its worth remembering that the USMC Harrier force deploys seperate to the current LHD’s and has been able to exploit the same restricted-use basing that RAF/RN Harriers have been able to. This may be a model for future deployment patterns for F-35B….it certainly fits the model that UK MoD had for expeditionary ops.
There are currently 12 fighter/attack squadrons that the USMC has deployed with USN CAW’s because, historically, equipment has been such that the the capability set required by the USMC has forced them to use a CATOBAR jet. this, naturally, forcing them to deploy as subordinate units to the USN and keeping the USN CSG tied to the task of supporting the beachhead. That restriction is now planned to be lifted with benefits for both the USMC and USN in operational terms.
What will happen to all the USMC fighter squadrons when the USN has F35Cs?
As I understand it the plan was to create 10 squadrons of 20 aircraft nominal strength plus two OCU’s?. Perhaps Bager can confirm that. I’d imagine the remaining squadrons would disband.
JonesyPoint of note Lads LHA USS America is optomised to carry more CV-22 Ospreys not F-35B’s, along with the likes of Sea Stallion, Sea Cobra & Super Huey (Landing Helicopter Assault !) its role is ferry marines ashore in line with the new offshore over the horizon assault model they were looking at.
Its designed for higher intensity air operations than an LHD. Whether that be Osprey or F35B is irrelevant. Its capable of both dependent on requirement.
JonesyThe logical method for Marine B operations is to etablish secure FOLs (it will take several days to do this), then fly the Bs in from nearby land bases where they were staged. Even then, high sortie rates are tough to achieve at a FOL due to logistics requirement of fuel, munitions, spare parts, support equipment and maintenance personnel.
Contradictory statement. The LHA (note LHA not LHD) is purpose designed to operate F-35B and has all the stores, workshops and manpower to back up a FOL and provide a second operating location. Sorties can also be far shorter allowing for shorter turnaround.
Its logical to have the dedicated Marine Air as close to the fighting front as the support infrastructure allows and a ship will always offer the best combination of mobility, availability and organic support. Its right that the LHD should only ever embark a token fastjet group and concentrate on its principle task. The LHA though, as mentioned, has the deployment of STOVL tacair as a principle task. Adding the F-35B/LHA combination to the existing LHD-based ESG allows for greater flexibility in CSG deployment. Its worth the expenditure for that alone. No-one is suggesting LHA/F35B can replace the CSG for theatre-entry, but, it can do the sustained support, after the door has been kicked, even against an advanced opponent. When so few CSG’s are actively deployed, as they are now, that can only be a good thing.
Philip,
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4-6 fighters on each LHD or LHA for how many billions, surely the maximum the USMC can need with 11 LHDs and LHAs of the F35Bs is say 100. Allowing for the present 8 squadrons and an attrition reserve. The initial headline order figure was for 480 that included replacing all the USMC legacy F18s, as we know the B cannot operate off a CVN so the stupid question is how is the USMC going to get the rest of its fleet of F35Bs to somewhere that they can provide CAS?
The other thing your missing is that all the aircraft are not going to be delivered at once!. They will be fed through in batches going to OCU’s, frontline squadrons, attrition reserve and will be cycled through as new airframes are delivered to spread flight hours across the fleet. There will never be ‘380’ F-35B’s sat at AMARC because the USMC dont have deck space to operate them!.
JonesyFor an Egyptian evacuation mission, do you need AV-8B’s? (The article suggests the AV-8B’s may not be aboard anyway.) If you needed tacair, you could bring up the CVN probably operating in or in transit to the Arabian Sea.
So you are suggesting that they rely for air cover on rotary assets?. How much evidence do you need that putting attack choppers over built up hostile areas is a REALLY bad idea?
Wasn’t it the claim that the F35B was too costly and not affordable in these budget sensitive times?. You are proposing retasking a whole carrier strike group to cover the job a modest embarked STOVL jet capability could handle easily though?. You dont see the contradiction there?.
JonesyVERY good post! Completely agree.:)
…and you would both be wrong!.
Official Key User Requirement 9 of the CVF programme as follows:
KUR 9, Versatility: CVF shall be able to operate in the widest possible range of roles.
After the awkward experiences we had originally trying to use our CVS’s in an LPH role lessons were dragged through to CVF to allow for uncluttered assault routes from austere accomodation areas to the hangar/flight deck for fully loaded troops. Not designed for 2000 Marines…..but CVF very definitely WAS designed to embark and deploy several hundred!
Scooter
After many Air Forces procure there Land Based F-35A’s. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a number of them to purchase a small number of F-35B’s. As the STOVL Lightning II’s does offer some advantagous benefits.
Advantageous for what though?. STOVL lends itself to expeditionary ops and very few states are interested in that anymore……fewer still since the Afghan engagement!. Other than that the only real benefit offered, apart from the obvious Naval one, would be dispersed ops capability. RoCAF would have to be giddy at the prospect of acquiring F-35B….doubtful that would be permitted politically though….much to the annoyance of the Chinese aviation industry I’d imagine! 😀
JonesyIf you don’t ever put them in the yard its not an issue. Of course the ships wear out twice as fast.
The Enterprise CSG deployed in Jan with a cruiser and three destroyers as her consorts. There are, what, 80 CG/DDG’s in the active USN escort fleet?. Lets not get carried away with the wails of how near the bottom of the barrel you are hey Ben?.
Except for during sustained round the clock combat operations which your grand visions of harrier carriers could not do.
An LHA, configured as a strike carrier, attached to a normal ESG complete with its own LHD would be adding additional strike capability to the group so I’m not sure why you are contending that an LHA would diminish “the aviation assets for the the Marines they are supposed to protect”. You do seem to have a major hang up about the word ‘additional’?. Why would an LHA replace an LHD when its a complementary capability?.
As to sustained ’round the clock’ combat operations I’m not sure you quite get the model here?!. The STOVL jet can sit on a deck actually in the amphib assembly area….its never out of the immediate theatre of combat operations!!!. Setting an alert 5 pair on deck will provide as fast a response as calling in airborne jets on an orbitting SURCAP slot and the STOVL jet isnt burning through its airframe and engine fatigue life doing it!. STOVL close to the action is absolutely the BEST way to keep a capability on station!!!.
Jonesy4. There are currently 11 carrier strike groups, each of which has six (?) escorts. Surely the US Navy has a lot more than 66 cruisers, destroyers and frigates?
There are only six duty CSG’s though, if memory serves, three per coast with another one on each coast at extended readiness. A shortage of escorts shouldn’t really be an issue.
I’m all in favour of distributing naval tacair away from the big-deck CVN – after all there is no need for the massive force-packages that had to be assembled to mount 70’s style alpha-strikes. That, along with the study Ben noted, is a generation or more out of date now. That is a massively seperate issue to what is being discussed here though.
Here we are talking about an already-developed (and building) through deck hull design using a (potentially) nearly developed aircraft type to offload existing capability. Maximum bang for buck….on the proviso the plane gets to squadron service of course.
JonesyBut if F-35B turn out to be a failure, then i’d have to agree with @Distiller it was a huge mistake to take it’s need into consideration when designing F-35 in the first instance .
Hindsight being a wonderful thing to have! 😀
JonesyObligatory,
Probably not……until that first time a CSG is free’d up to undertake more pressing operational matters by the ability of USMC air to look after itself and accomplish the mission that the CSG wasn’t really required for in the first place. Then it, the enhanced Marine air capability, will be barely tolerated whilst (if its anything like HM forces) enduring a barrage of abuse and scorn about how they are doing everything all base over apex!.
Kilo
Not saying its a good capability to have, I’m saying it MAY be unaffordable. There are going to be cuts in defence. Both repubs and dems are saying that. so I hope the Marines are making contigencies(sp) for a worst case scenario
So can we say that a consensus has been reached, that the concept, at least, is a valid one and we can have an end to the incessant noise about how poor the hobbled little STOVL-bird is against its majestic, soaring, land and catapult adapted bretheren?!. I’ll settle for that and climb back into my box if thats the case!
Politics is only called politics because the term ‘mindless, moronic gibberish’ was considered likely to put people off the endeavour and someone has to do it. Servicing the pool of vested interests in the average political infrastructure guarantees that nothing approaching good common sense will ever result – whichever country you find yourself supporting. Scrapping STOVL at this point only works if they cant get the weight issue under control.
IF they fix the weight thing, and its still cancelled, the money dropped in to developing STOVL is flushed down the heads. Moreso its flushed at a time when the aircrafts’ deployment could see considerable operational savings for all the CSG deployment preservation reasons detailed above. That, of course, is meaningless to a politician who really wants to swing an axe so who knows?.
JonesyPhillip
and the F35B does not have the capacity or capability that it was initially proposed to have. A lower than its cousins weapons load, particullarly in stealth mode, lower operating radius than its cousins, problems as I understand it with take off weight without a ski jump and issues about how it can land back on with a full weapons load.
Weapons load is a marginal issue. F-35B will carry SDB’s just as easily as the other variants. None of the JSF variants have exactly a lot of combat persistence based on internal ordnance alone and, it should be remembered, that the point of STOVL is to be based close to the fight where fast recovery and turnaround are the order.
Radius is an equally marginal issue, STOVL is meant to be forward deployed, so realistically losing a couple of hundred miles to the conventional types who may find themselves based a couple of hundred miles back from the action is swings and roundabouts. Also, it must be remembered, that the radius of the F-35B is still comparable to a legacy Hornet or MiG-29 so hardly a warmed-over Harrier as some seem to have the perception.
That self contained force contains 4-6 planes and no AEW capability unless they want to leave the super stallions at home. The F-35B also has no Reconnaissance capability. When the F/A-18D is retired, the Corps will be completely dependent on the Navy for that. Despite the fanastes of the pro-STOVL crowd, these are not aircraft carriers. The Navy does not see them as such, the ground marines don’t see them as such, and Marine helicopter pilots don’t see them as such. The purpose of Marine is not to duplicate the capabilities of a carrier battlegroup, its to cover the Marines on the ground while the Navy worries about recon, CAP, suppression of air defenses, destruction of high value targets, etc. In fact, the LHDs don’t have adequate sized magazines for that.
No. The concept of the LHA is to bring in additional aviation capability – including enhanced air stores. The operative word there is additional. The LHA cannot replace the capability provided by the LHD or LPD’s. The concept is flexible response. You have a CSG already tasked to the group you dont absolutely need the F-35B’s. You can use the LHA, with its additional aviation capability, to bring in more Ospreys or CH-53’s….you will have both already on an LHD if there is one with the group….or…..as previously discussed you can deploy an expanded squadron of STOVL jets actually to the assembly area, offload CAS/BAI tasks from the CSG and force multiply the CSG’s combat potential.
F-35B’s onboard sensor suite was considered, by the RN, to be fully capable of developing ISTAR product and recon was and is VERY definitely a tasking for JSF in UK service.
The only people saying that an LHA/F-35B combination could try to replace a carrier battlegroup are the anti-STOVL mob. I’ve no idea why, repeatedly, people make such unfathomable statements?. Of course the job of Marine air isnt to fully duplicate a carrier air wing. What it can do though, with F-35B, and the TOSS V-22 that the USMC expressed interest in, is provide enough tactical air power to make a CSG deployment unnecessary in scenario’s that DO NOT absolutely warrant a CSG. The USMC’s intent is and was, with F-35B, to distance itself, to an extent, from absolute dependence on the CSG.
JonesyWhile Independence was overkill for Urgent Fury, there was no Air threat that couldn’t be handled by attack helos. In any situation that needs it, I’m sure a carrier will be there- so wheres the need? the Marines, some of the smartest, should be working on a contingency
Problem there though F-111 is that even in that near-zero threat scenario the USMC were losing attack choppers to trashfire. Same geographical scenario – now say that the locals are reinforced by a battalion of Venezuelan regulars with the piece de resistance of a stackload of Igla’s and a Tor battery. Still going in there with rotary only air?.
No, in your setup you are going to have to send a full CSG, 33% of your readiness capability on each coast, to put down a single SHORADS battery and a battalion of troops?. Thats efficient use of resources is it?.
Seems to me that a second-tier carrier capability, like the LHA/F-35B combination, gives surviveable recon, precision strike/DEAD and coercion all in a self-contained force package. One that comes without the costs of dispatching a full CSG. Force multipliers are always good news. One that allows CSG’s to be kept for the tasks they are appropriate for is especially good news.
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