Wilk,

All I said there was that a torpedo could be outrun so ranges of 50-100km were to be taken in the context of purely academic values and not reflective of a range that a warship would be engaged at. I assume you would agree with that. I made no claim that circumstances couldnt exist that favour the submarine. The same could go for any submarine with any torpedo though.

Reliable detection of incoming torpedoes is a highly questionable claim. Historically, non-visual detection of torpedoes by ships in actual combat is basically non-existent.

Not so. In 82 a lot of RN warships detected ‘torpedoes’ and began evasion procedures – its possible some of those contacts were even torpedoes!. Reliable detection is not a precise science admittedly but using Cheonan (who’s circumstances we dont know yet – not hard to torpedo a ship with no sonar watch set is it?!) or Belgrano who’s ASW equipment was, IIRC, inoperable anyway, and had to deal with torpedoes fired from a couple of thousand yards off, isnt really a true indicator of how a competent and alert US Carrier group would cope with a torpedo attack from an SSN deploying Russian 650mm weapons.

Most modern torpedoes feature pumpjets and can be launched at low speed and deep depth to further reduce noise/cavitation.

650mm torpedoes, IIRC, dont use swim out discharge do they?. Russian torpedoes use the same kind of water impulse discharge that ours and the American boats do. So there will be a launch transient…even if the torpedo is a ‘discrete’ one underway.

But you say that your CSG is already moving at high speed? Well, if that’s the case, then your probability of detecting a torpedo attack is dramatically reduced

..and the cutoff solution harder for the attacking SSN in the first place…unless he’s lucky enough to watch the carrier steaming into his face!. There is also the issue that, facing a submarine threat, ASW pickets will alternate between sprints and drifts to clear up its subsurface plot and pinger choppers/sonobuoys have no issue with flow noise masking. ASW drills for a group on a speed run are very, very well developed in most NATO navies.

There’s no physical reason that prevents a 50 km ranged torpedo from being fired and hitting a target that is initially even beyond 50 km, on the condition that the target arrives within that range by the time the torpedo gets there.

Agreed. I think I said that if you wanted to shoot an oil rig the 650mm weapon was perfectly capable of doing this at a huge range!. Likewise if you know that your target cannot run fast….amphib group or merchies etc you can, of course, take advantage of that handicap and fire from farther out with a slower/long range profile.

What I am saying, simply, is that against a representative CSG, facing an advanced submarine threat, launching 650mm torpedoes at 50km etc is wasting the torpedoes. I’d doubt you’d find many operators who would disagree with that statement.

We have exactly the same requirements from our Carriers that the French, US navy have and you wont see them operating the Strike Carriers. Part of the reason the Argies did the damage they did was because of our switch to Stike Carriers.

1, We do not have the same REQUIREMENT for carriers as the French or Americans. Their carriers were designed relative to the Cold War. We are in a post-Cold War world where we do not need to do blue water sea control which is the only mission that the Fleet Carrier performs better than a Strike Carrier.

Read the MoD REQUIREMENT for the Carrier Strike capability. It is not a Fleet Carrier by any stretch of the imagination. CVF offers the capability to be re-roled to Fleet Carrier operation, albeit on the low-performance side, but until the threat board reflects the need for a Fleet Carrier why spend the money on capability we dont need?. Just for the ‘we can do it too’ factor with the Yanks and the French?. Poor reasoning at best.

2, The Argentinians did the damage because we had ASW and Commando carriers. A Strike Carrier like CVF in a Fleet that was optimised for expeditionary warfare and not bluewater ASW would have made the difference as much as anything else.

I am sorry if you feel victimised, but, too many people are fundamentally misunderstanding what CVF and the MoD Carrier Strike requirement are actually about…….just because CVF ‘looks like’ it should be a fleet carrier. That, to me, is simple ignorance and should be challenged.

“or that EMCAT works and they will switch to catapult based fighter, in either scenario the high cost of keeping the Harrier’s running is just not worth the extra cost.”

Can we put this one to bed now?. The ONLY criteria that will see a CATOBAR conversion for CVF-01 as completed is a total cancellation of F-35B. Returning to catapult operation throws away the whole operational concept of UK Carrier Strike as currently defined.

We will not put ourselves back in the situation of tying ourselves down to the need to maintain deck qualified pools of pilots, with reduced sortie rates, reduced airframe lives and higher shipboard operational costs just on a whim to say a few million quid per airframe.

Figures; the USN is the first to finally operationalise this much-discussed technology. 😎

But I’m not convinced of the merits, though. Aren’t these essentially just larger, more expensive, recoverable sonobuoys? What can USVs do to aid in submarine detection that a pair of ASW helos couldn’t?

Stay on datum for 6 hours uninterrupted at a time!. Cue in the pair of embarked ASW choppers to maximise their effectiveness. Reduce loading on the ships flight helping to ensure that the bird isnt in kit form, or low on embarked stores, that one time when a target presents itself.

The French were meant to be looking at something similar with a towed CAPTAS Nano IIRC. That looked pretty useful too!.

Navantia is a Spanish firm, right? Interesting that the US isn’t protesting one of its allies supplying its enemy.

These are patrol vessels not principle combattants and, while the Venezuelans are directing the defence spend at the Spanish on their vessels (with systems with known capabilities), they aren’t buying vessels from Russia or further afield with unknown capabilities!.

Cant imagine the US threat planning teams being upset at this purchase in the slightest.

What I meant was: which subs actually have 650mm torps and to the extent they might be considered belonging to a hostile navy, how likely are these types of subs to get within launching range, given carrier group ASW potential. And even then, if you managed it, how likely are you to get a hit if you fired at max range?

Its worth mentioning here that the max firing (solution) range of a torpedo has little really to do with the limit of its maximum run. The point of the 650mm torpedo is its chasedown factor….in missile terms it would be termed its ‘no escape zone’. It would not be fired at a target 50km distant unless that target was an oil rig or something else conveniently stationary.

To explain you have to remember that a torpedo doesn’t have a massive overtake performance edge on its target like, for example, an antiship missile does. At 50knts the 650mm weapon only has about 20knts overtake on a ‘standard’ warship (for round figures).

IF the 50km @ 50knts stat was accurate, which I’d doubt, it means that the weapon has a runtime of about 30 minutes at that setting. The weapon has, therefore, got 27 nautical miles to tailchase and catch the target. A 30knt vessel will cover 15nm in 30 minutes, so, the torpedo has to be fired from a position within about 12nm (24k yards) in order to ensure that the target cant turn on a reciprocal bearing from the launch transient and simply outrun the fish!. Remember that this is 24k yds from the target too and, if the target is a HVU like a carrier, there will be an ASW screen several thousand yards radially outfrom the carrier.

Torpedoes aren’t long range weapons – not even the really big ones!.

Sod strike carrier I want fleet carrier with the ability to cross deck with US and French Carriers.

Why?. There isn’t a credible blue water threat out there and none visible on the horizon for a more than a decade beyond the ships in service date?!. The decision to have the ships flexible and able to be updated with EMALS and a CATOBAR airgroup is inherently wise, but, really is all thats needed.

Lets let the Yanks get a few years of operational experience with EMCAT technology before we go for a solution, and an airgroup, that we have no credible need for!.

If the Chinese decide that mere economic hegemony is boring them and start shipbuilding for conquest we would have plenty of time to refit the carriers with the proven (by then) EM technology, pass the jumpjets to the light blue, get the stovies going through the USN deck quals course and get back into blue water sea control with appropriate air groups.

If the global threat scenario is that serious it’s even possible that the mandarins would have funded such activities!. Right now its money that can be put to better use!.