Liger

Why worry about SAM then? Why the US is so touchy when S300 batteries get exported? Why the military planners (that hopefully know more than me and you combined) take the presence of SAMs in extremely high regard?

I dont think you have quite the right idea about SAMs there?. A capable SAM system increases the forces needed to service your target list in a strike plan. They are therefore not welcome things to see in any potential opponents inventory. They are not things that are especially worrisome or disproportionately regarded by anyone.

Mine is a totally different argument, against always undervaluing the capabilities of the others and thus playing always down the limits of equipment and tactics

Underestimating capabilities is dangerous, but, over-estimating them is plain stupidity. The completion of a thorough threat-reduction exercise is the first step in any offensive move and a few batteries of SAM’s will feature in that exercise, but, nothing more than that.

The general point is whether an opponent could use the perceived ‘weakness’ of British military capability, caused by the lack of a radar/BVR fighter on the CVF’s to take advantage!. To say this, when the UK military for several years has been stretched near to an absurd degree by concurrent deployments in Afghanstan and Iraq and no opponent has taken advantage of the situation is simply ignorant of reality. The idea that the opponent could wait til CVF was deployed in order to ‘bag’ a cheap supercarrier kill is just simply a bizarre comment!.

Distller

The question of “fleet carrier” vs. “strike carrier” is really artificial. With only two carriers available they will do any job a carrier is needed for. Politics will not make the fine distinction of what job they carriers have originally been “thought for”. The will say we spent x billion on the stuff, now go and perform.

You can always try to misuse a weapon, but, you cant ask a carrier incapable of a task to try and do it. Lesson 1 that came out of the Falklands. People try and say ‘ah but the CVS did a strike job down south’ which was hardly the true story. The CVS acted as AAWCS flying off SHAR CAP pairs and Hermes did most of the high sortie rate strike work.

Carrier Strike has no blue water sea control element – its that simple. If it did we’d be building PA2 now. The definition is specific. Frankly its one of the best pieces of original thought I can recall coming out of Whitehall. Build a ship to the requirement of the day with the clear margin left for development as the threat environment develops. I cant see a blue water threat anywhere for a decade that our SSN’s cant cope with…why spend the extra for Fleet Carrier capability?.

Technically, Venezuela has russian air defence systems claimed to be able to intercept cruise missiles. And 5 billion dollars in contracts for other russian gear, included, i think, the feared S300 SAM.
So, yeah. Let’s not downplay capabilities too happily. Realism work in both directions.

What is with this forum these days?.

Liger I hate to break this to you but having a few SAM batteries doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t an IADS feeding them!. A couple of batteries of even excellent SAM’s are just going to buy a little extra time for the targets further down the list ok.

The problem is that the Marines want supersonic STOVL. Do they really need it? Is it worth what it’s costing?

When the reliability issues are solved – yes. Very simply there is no other airframe planned that gives the kind of operational flexibility that STOVL does to deploy afloat or ashore on the receipt of the tasking order. That is a massive force multiplier. All the more significant at a time when the number of airframes achievable is under close scrutiny.

I never said it was a show stopper jonesey,but it cannot simply be ignored!

Equally mate I didn’t say it could be ignored. What I said was that it was hardly an insoluble problem!.

You said you used to wear Dark Blue…were you a ‘Fishead’ or Aircrew? Just interested by some of your comments on here!!

Back when we still had them I was a Tiff – Engineering Branch. Was trying for air engineering at Daedalus, when we still had that, but got caught by ‘Options for Change’ and ended up on weapons.

The acronym you are looking for used by us ‘fishheads’ to describe our aviation dept brethren is, by the way, WAFU’s. Out of politeness and a concern for younger readers I wont expand that further!.

Realistically nothing at all. We’d remove the Carrier Strike requirement from the Navy. Perhaps, if we were lucky, Barrow might get a couple of extra Astutes to tide them over until Trident can be bottomed out. SSN and TLAM would give us a notional coercion capability at least.

Talk about small carriers or LHD’s Spanish or otherwise is nonsensical.

There is major concern in the UK over the cost of the F-35B and if it can meet the JCA requirement.

No there isnt. There are questions over the reliability and costs of an airframe that is still in flight testing. The ONLY concern I have ever seen regarding F-35B’s operational suitability was regarding bringback weight and that has been addressed.

Geoff look at what you’ve written above in terms of the snaglist and you can understand why those of us who appreciate the difficulties of CATOBAR…in our specific circumstances…are so incredulous with this.

We DONT know the full extent of the F-35B’s issues to date….but its standard practice not to know everything until the end of the flight test programme. We aren’t there yet but its not stopping the pontification. Its not uncommon for naval fighters to have difficult gestations….look at the F-14 for example or the SHAR. It didn’t stop either of those types turning in very respectable service lives.

The issues you have raised there are either resolved (weight) or are component-level and not design-level issues. That means that the parts, in some cases new spec parts related to weight reductions, need to be re-specced and changed….and thats it!. Its not a fundamental defect in the aircraft. Change the part for one that is accurately specced, from the empirical testing, and you have no problem.

The more you think about it the more it appears they relied too much on computer modelling and not enough actual testing as many of these should have been found during testing of both components, test rigs, engine runs and teathered flights over the test pits.

Cant have this both ways Geoff if you want the detailed empirical testing, as we do and are seeing, that means a lengthy process. You cant decry the slippage in the flight testing while saying that they should be doing more of it at the same time!.

The heat/noise blast issues are simple operational ones and are not causing any official concern here that I have been able to discern. The hot gasses are lower temps than traditional JBD’s would be exposed to, by an aircraft like an F-14 on full reheat, and simple water cooling seems to stop them melting!. The VL fan actually diminishes the risks of hot gas ingestion and precipitous power dropoff’s that cost us a couple of Harriers. It is, fundamentally, a safer STOVL system than that the RR Pegasus employed.

Against this we do KNOW what the penalties of CATOBAR are and they are noteworthy. Expensive ships, expensive training, restricted operational flexibility, airframe cycle lives, new basing requirements and discontinuation of the Joint Force structure. Those are real and unavoidable costs that we will have to cope with. IF STOVL falls flat, which isn’t looking likely at this time, then we have no option but to incur all those costs. While we have an option that meets the UK requirement and avoids those costs, and brings huge operational flexibility advantages, we have to consider that as the first and best choice…as the official appraisals have already done.

LOL folks. Face it! With the individual European nation state defence & security budgets alone you will not achieve a satisfactory solution any more!

You cant replicate a superpowers capability set true, but, you can have enough for independent power projection.

Talking about the CVF: With only two surface groups an opponent just has to rattle his sabres every few month and the RN sends a group – for how long? What’s that called? Strategic attrition? Of course you can always keep them at home – call it “Home Fleet” 😀 – so both are available if the SHTF somewhere in a strange faraway land and you have to take back an island or something. Not what I call “power projection”, btw. Philbob is right with his 5 carriers, as 5 is the absolute minimum overall number necessary to keep a “Yankee Station” style presence over a longer period of time.

To which I would respectfully point out that the last time a carrier presence had to be sustained indefinitely probably was yankee station in the vietnam war!.

War is not the same now as then. Carriers were the only, significant, source of tacair at the start of the afghan campaign. The carrier only phase only lasted a few weeks though and then forward basing was established.

CVF is designed along that principle. The ability to generate 1500 sorties over the course of a month, with precision weapons, is anticipated to be sufficient to service the heaviest target list we would run up against alone!. If we haven’t done enough to secure an air-head ashore or attrited the hell out of the opposition after that sortie volume we are probably in the mire already!

…or how ‘purple’ our carriers suddenly become when we want the crabs to pay for half of the airgroup!!!.