You should ask military people those questions.

Right now we have a new operational aircraft, Typhoon, for these roles. I think we have a breathing space and do not need to commit to anything…. YET.

I think the F-35B is to replace the Sea Harrier FA2, and it was a mistake to get rid of them when Hoon did. I think this forces UK to look at least at the F-35B now, and perhaps affects interest in other F35 variants. Will the RAF get the B too?

I think the current UK government have never shown competence in these matters, and make unsafe decisions.

The UK F-35B acquisition is under the banner of the Future Joint Combat Aircraft programme, or at least once was called that…who knows what it is this week, with the Joint designation being the nod to the continuation of the existing Joint Force Harrier structure.

The RAF and RN will both operate 2 frontline squadrons each – notionally no.s 1 & 4 sqdn RAF and 800 & 801sqdn RN and a shared OCU drawn off of a pool of 130-odd airframes at the end of the buy. The concept is that all squadrons would be deployable at minimal notice to the carriers or shore basing as the situation warrants. STOVL being the enabler for this as carrier deck quals could be considered an administrative formality instead of a real operational issue.

Wow . . . just . . . wow. So now you finally give up putting words in my mouth and twisting what I said into something that didn’t make sense, and now you are trying to make ME look bad for doing it. That’s just weak! :rolleyes:

OK…once again then…and even slower this time. The point was raised that the Russian Fleet deployment was a poor one. You leapt in with a point about the alleged efficacy of one of the weapons systems deployed with that fleet. Now you are trying to make out that your point was really unrelated and just a general comment?. So you are either lying to cover up an obvious lame statement or you are just given to making unrelated commentry of minimal value. Thats not twisting your words either its just holding up a mirror so you can see how you are perceived, hopefully, its salutory.

No. Who says the Russian Navy is supposed to be like the US Navy? Or any other navy? No one. In terms of anti-shipping and SSBN defense it’s probably RELATIVELY (not taking size into account) the MOST capable. (Harpoons and Tomahawks aren’t in the least impressive, sorry). Then the Naval and standard aviation assets come in.

A Navy cannot be considered powerful, in any kind of traditional frame of reference, if it has no ability to project power. Is the Russian Navy capable of covering the Russian coastline….yes….more than adequately. Does it need Kirov/Slava cruisers to do that?. No of course not. Where those RK’s built to defend the Russian coastline….equally no – of course not. They were built to carry Russian combat power into the oceans in line with the prevailing naval doctrine. Are those units viable today…no they arent.

Unless you were a high ranking officer in the Russian Navy or armed forces – I don’t want to hear it!

Do I care whether you want to hear what I write or not?. I’d suggest you put me on your ‘ignore list’. Failing that you might want to stop making stupid comments on forums populated by people who know a lot more about the topics you involve yourself in than you do. The third option is one that I hesitate to mention as its so unlikely – get out there and find out the truth about the systems you idolise so much. I’m telling you what I learned whilst wearing my countries uniform and, since then, by talking intelligently to those who still wear theirs. You wish to be taken seriously by me, and those like me, you do the same.

There’s arguably 7-8 Sovremennys around right now.

2 Baltic, 3-4 North, 3-4 Pacific

OK list them. My information has one operational in the Northern fleet, one operational in the Pac Fleet and a pair in the Baltic.

Even then, it matters little – as the Tor close in defenses are highly reliable.

Agreed but thats a short-range point defence missile and not AAW capability. I’ll say again there are precisely 5 AAW ships available in the Russian fleet and not all of those are deployable at any one time!.

It’s the BLACK SEA FLEET – and you know what it comprises of? A cruiser and LOTS of nasty little corvettes armed with Sunburns. So no, that Slava isn’t sailing to Somalia, and neither are the corvette.

There’s a Kashin Mod and a Krivak listed on strength down there too I believe. Not exactly cutting edge warfighters but should be capable enough against, as you put it, 30 Somalian pirates!. Unless they are undeployable for operational reasons it stands to reason that they would be off the Somalian coast faster than a unit that has to steam from the bloody Baltic!.

What makes you so special? If you’re such a genius, I want a list of all those satellites with full details. Thanks.

I’m touched that you think I’m special. I’ll reiterate my earlier comment though. I have provided hard facts about Russian satellite launch capability and platforms actually in orbit. You have provided bluster and flashy, inaccurate, twaddle. The ball is in your court to start providing credibility to your own arguments.

Echo,

Ahh denial again….so you weren’t in fact talking about SS-N-19’s hitting aircraft carriers in response to Scooters comment about the Russian Fleet deployment to Venezuela. You just happened to make a random comment about those missiles just after someone commented on a Russian deployment that included an SS-N-19 shooter. Isnt that a wild coincidence.:rolleyes:

You love to pretend the Russians have no assets similar to the E-2 (A-50 in this case, much more powerful in general). Atlantic recon here isn’t even in question, because for the third time, you don’t even realize I’m not discussing the Atlantic now am I?

They now have an asset the same as E-2 do they?. The Yak-44 got built and no-one told me…..how remiss I am!. We are talking about the Russian Navy old boy…you’re trying to talk up its might because Scooter stung your pride. You’ve just admitted to everyone its powerful only so long as an A-50 can be overhead. So what you’ve got is in no way a transoceanic force and, in fact, about one-step removed from being a coastal navy. Keep going Echo….I’d not be as critical as you seem to want to be!.

Star,

U have to also agree that Russia has vast amount of antiship missiles that are faster and longer range than any other country.

I’d agree that the USSR built lots of big, fast and long range antiship missiles. I’d not agree that that necessarily means that they still have them all in a serviceable condition. Nor that they would necessarily constitute a significant threat outside of a strip depth of a couple of hundred miles round the Russian coast.

More over the platforms to launch them are vastly superior than any other country. Moreover the land mass of Russia is such that it can practically launch missions any where in the world.

No I’d more say that their missile technology forced them to expend significant resources developing aircraft, like Backfire, that were deeply flawed in operational concept. No-one else ever needed to build the type of aircraft that the Soviets were obliged to build. That they got a capable platform like Backfire on the back of the missile tech is about the only saving grace to the whole sorry mess IMO!.

So more naval blockades coming up

With what assets. There are precisely 5 reasonably competent AAW ships spread out over three Russian fleets – the 2 working Kirovs and 3 Slava’s how many are deployable simultaneously?. Neustrashimy has had to transit from the Baltic to get a vessel deployed on anti-piracy in the IO – such is the parlous state of the Black Sea Fleet. If there are 25 deployable blue-water surface combattants in the whole Russian Fleet I’d be stunned!.

Build the ships….then rattle the sabre!.

U live in bygone era where u need large ships to carry missiles and long range radar. Now the same can be done with Airpower and bombers. Things have decisively shifted against large ships and aircraft carriers just like Tanks. Tanks are used when other weopons clean up the area.

Aircraft have no strategic persistence. Never have and never will. Bombers spend a couple of hours in theatre at most – great for point strikes, but, valueless for anything else. If you need to sustain combat power in theatre on the other side of the planet you need a carrier. Local base-in is never guaranteed and even if it is granted is vulnerable, in security terms, to the same extent as the host nation is. Remember long fixed runways are very easy things to interdict – likewise logistics – when your in someone elses country!.

Echo,

This link suggests a variety of radar and electronic recon satellites are up – but since Jonesy doesn’t have the details of this – because it’s not public info – he assumes they don’t exist! Laughable!

Erm…if I were you I’d check your link before posting it a bit more thoroughly. The Svobodny launch site listed hasnt launched anything from its own infrastructure since Feb 20, 2001. There was a launch in 2006, but, that was a converted ICBM on a mobile launcher and little, in fact, to do with Svobodny.

As to details and ‘secret satellites’ we’ve covered that one. With a little reading, a clear night and a decent pair of binoculars you can go out satellite spotting yourself!. They are not difficult to observe from the ground. What makes you think that there are LEO satellites up there that are not very widely known…I’ve already put up a list of launches going back 18 months or so on an earlier thread…all military birds. Show me any I missed if you can?.

Ahh a new tactic….outright denial!!!. Lets examine shall we:

——————————————————————
Scooter: Just look at the Grand Fleet Russia is sending to Venezuela. Talk about a joke….

Echo: As much of a joke as a carrier that’s been hit by even ONE SS-N-19?

Scooter (after a very pertinent point by Stevo): Its likely the Russian Cruiser would be tracked a destroyed by Carrier Aircraft before it could even fire a SS-N-19. Regardless, USN Carrier Battle Groups have a every effective aerial defense.

Echo: Russian ships don’t have any defenses of course, and the Russian aircraft are just a myth too I assume.

Scooter: Russian ships of course have defenses. Yet, they haven’t had the resources nor does it have nearly the numbers of the once mighty Soviet Fleet. Sorry, a hand full of old ships don’t make a fleet……..

Echo: Enough to defend itself in combination with the rest of armed forces from any kind of attack.
———————————————————————–

Nothing wrong with the way I’m reading this I dont think. It looks fairly straight forward to me. You resorting to your usual vague commentry, bluster and hyperbole to attempt to cover an inherently weak position.

You offer no quantifiable measure as to how, or even, whether the Russian naval group could withstand an attack from a USN CAW essentially because you know that it couldn’t. How can a USN group avoid contact with searching forces and the Russian group not manage the same?.

Simple. E-2, SURTASS, SOSUS. The Russians have no equivalents available in the Atlantic – the USN commander has all three available at his request.

Any specific argument or are you just going to come back with more generic gibberings like what I am saying is ‘crap’?. 😎

A difficult thread to follow closely for many reasons.

One question would be whether any analysis has been generated/published on the amount that BAE will make back off its involvement and what percentage of that will channel back into HM Govt’s coffers directly and indirectly through skilled manufacturing employment sustained in the UK?.

Obviously such figures would be far from definitive but a rough value for what BAE’s involvement with the project, building the initially specified airframe numbers, should be neither impossible to derive or unduly sensitive in corporate terms to release. Presumably BAE would have arrived at a figure to justify their involvement in the first place. Anyone know what sort of values would be involved here?.

Again I’m not sure if the point has been made but the value of STOVL in the UK model of rapid deployment air power cannot be overstated or easily replaced. With the advent of Joint Force Harrier the obligation is on the RAF and RN to interoperate on an ever closer basis and STOVL is the key enabler to this.

Its plainly absurd for a ‘Joint Force Typhoon’, or similar, squadron on a 6 month land-based deployment to have to periodically cycle their pilots back through CATOBAR/STOBAR carrier quals to keep their people deck-capable and it defeats the object of JFH to have squadrons preserved solely for carrier ops. Essentially then if the mandarins at the ministry want to carry on the JFH structure then F-35B is the critical enabler and there is no alternative.

Depends in what sense you mean.

Podded propulsors driven by electric motors would not care where the electricity came from to turn the motors. So from that aspect whether it was a gas turbine prime mover turning the alternator set or a steam turbine fed off a nuclear reactor would make little difference.

The issue is whether, by changing the propulsion fit, you change the displacement and trim of the vessel. If adding a reactor, shielding, miles of pipework, steam turbine/alternator sets etc adds 500 tons to the displacement then your propulsors may not e powerful enough to maintain the previously achieveable performance range etc.

So basically the answer, I’d say, is yes if you have a vessel with sufficient displacement to start with and then….carefully!

If you wanted to go down that route, you would probably be better off deriving it from something like VL-ASROC or MILAS, i.e. a torpedo-carrying rocket/missile. That way it can be launched quite a distance, before entering the water, and would also allow it to be fired from a modest distance inland. Using just a torpedo, it would need to be in the water the whole time, and swim out, giving a lot more warning to the enemy. A ‘lofted’ torpedo system allows it to enter the water almost on top of the target.

Even easier to just sow a decent sized field of CAPTOR mines in your chokepoint and not give the opposition any warning whatsoever!.