It certainly shouldn’t be forgotten that the -C version now has so many advantages, i.e. range, weapons capability (including extra AMRAAMs for the fighter role, as was recently revealed by Lockheed), and general performance.

Why is the range and additional weapons carriage capability really all that advantageous Ed?.

We will not be getting the kind of surveillance assets that will let us identify time-critical targets at 800nm standoff anyway so the use of having deep strike capacity, that can engage those kinds of short-duration targets, is marginal at best. If the targets are fixed then they can be serviced with TLAM, Storm Shadows extending the F-35B strike radius, or eventually with UCAV’s.

Seeings, as I understand it, the F-35B weapons bay is simply just shorter than that of the other models there would appear to be no real reason why it couldnt accept the same number of AIM-120’s as the others. At very least it seems feasible that 2 AIM-120’s could be carried per bay. 4 AIM-120’s internally in a maximum LO configuration would seem an adequate combat load to me.

Scoot,

In short the RN would prefer F-35C’s and Hawkeyes to F-35B’s and possibly AWAC/C-22’s…………….Yet, to find the money for the CVF’s and include the RAF they had to compromise! Nothing wrong with that just politics.

There is a strong movement within the RN to harken back to the CATOBAR days and to see an approximation of a USN supercarrier join the fleet that cannot be denied. There is also, however, a core of true believers in STOVL within the Navy too. Its seen as ‘our’ technology seeings as we made it successful in 1982 and, as I’ve alluded to in other posts, STOVL has also allowed us to pull some ‘unconventional’ strokes on opposition forces in various exercises. Retention, and development, of the technology wouldnt necessarily be viewed all that dimly in the service.

So, are the F-35B’s just a smoke screen to get the CVF’s and a way to include the RAF?;)

Not a chance of F-35C’s or E-2’s unless F-35B flops OR the RAF try and shimmy a few in for their FOAS-eque role…in which case they’ll never see a carrier landing.

In reality this isn’t a big problem as the only thing it really precludes is the kind of deep strike that we havent the ISTAR assets (now or projected) to leverage anyway!. Against fixed psuedo-strategic targets we have TLAM already, the stovies will have Storm Shadow and UCAV’s will round out the deep penetration capability. Who wants to be sending manned aircraft out of friendly radar coverage anyway!?.

The sortie generation, operational envelope and training overheads advantages of the STOVL variant over the CATOBAR are manifest and trotted out every time this topic is broached. With smaller PGM’s being the order of the day in modern, CNN-monitored, conflicts for their minimisation of collaterol damage there is no immense handicap from suffering a payload handicap compared to the more onventional variants.

With the increasing capability of, potentially carrier-capable, high-endurance UAV’s to loft surveillance radars for far longer periods than manned types it may be that, in a decade or two, the E-2’s could start to look a bit dated regardless.

The more this is studied in terms of enabling, emerging, technologies the more and more sense the STOVL layout makes.

The issue is CVulnerableF. Jonesy has it as “secure”

The whole reason the RAF went gippy-fit over STOVL being the life-expectancy of most, tactically-relevent, hard-surface runways in the European theatre being about 36hrs. Carriers are distinctly more surviveable than the average airbase because they move and have to be localised and tracked long enough for a strike – a difficult prospect that few could achieve reliably. Given the proliferation of TBM technology its a brave, foolish or sickeningly naieve individual who banks on the availability of secure local basing.

Phelgan has modern defences as better than 1960s’. So is modern offense.

To which Phelgan is quite correct and you suprisingly wrong. Cutting edge defensive systems, in the naval arena, have outstripped offensive. Offense systems predominantly have improved little in the last 20 years. The only AShM that offers any revolutionary improvement over designs around since the mid-80’s is the Kongsberg NSM and that is still vulnerable to look-down detection from ASaC radar.

How did CVF win support from the Party of Nott, scrappers of the Reserve Fleet and RNVR? How did Admiralty convert the Party that briefly kept just 1 Illustrious active after 1945, sold off Majestics, cancelled CVA-01, did not repair the mess fire in Victorious, or try to put F-4K on Eagle? They chose the land, not sea, for their spend on an East of Suez role. Now we seem to be buying both. What has changed?

Enabling technology old boy….pray do some bloody reading!. The CVF’s are being designed to operate on the same budget as the three CVS’s. This is achieveable as the CVF’s will use Integrated Electric Propulsion amongst other automation features required to reduce the main recurring cost of any large warship – its crew!.

If Galtieri had waited some weeks, even days, ’till Hermes was off to IN and an Invincible to RAN, Falklands today would be Malvinas.

…and if the RAF hadn’t redrawn the map to place the Australian continent a little more to its wishes the RN would have had the CVA-01 follow on carriers and the Falklands War would never have happened.

We can’t put up £Bn.N for the explicit purpose of holding (was it) “a bunch of rock”.

We can though put up £Bn.N for the RAF to pretend that one day it might have to refight the Battle of Britain with Typhoon?. Are we that scared that the French are going to pull on the jackboots and surge the Leclercs through the Channel Tunnel?.:rolleyes:

UK’s 2005 SDR took Jonesy’s logic, of cohesion, to display CVF as cost-beneficial intervention solution. It did not brandish a name for a target – evidently littoral, as any regime ready to let our F-35s overfly onto a troublesome neighbour would let us transit their soil (See Uzbek and Talib-Afghan).

Alternately see Turkey – Operation Iraqi Freedom or France – Operation Eldorado Canyon. Sometimes even friends may not allow for overflight rights!.

We’re buying CVF…to do just what? It’s not, again, that we think that only a big stick puts us at the policy-making top table…is it?

We’re buying them, as stated, because the RAF is limited in what it can achieve in expeditionary warfare terms. Those capability gaps and lack of theatre persistence are most efficiently addressed with Carrier Strike.

As Peter states 909 can provide elevation data as necessary for the engagement cycle. I dont think that Rick was asking that question though.

TI is provided by the 996, a 3D set, that feeds range, bearing and altitude into ADAWS. GWS30 gets its initial steer from ADAWS and the operator lays the 909 to target track based on that data. The 996 is therefore the height finder in the system.

The issue is that if the WE177s didn’t have PALs, then it stands to reason none of the UK’s other nukes have them either. That is the issue.

Make no mistake, good security has played the overwhelming part in keeping Britian’s nukes safe, but it is also very likely that those seeking nukes assume the UK to have a similar level of security for its warheads as the Americans and Russians, thus they did not even try to breach the security of British facilities. But now that is changed, and ‘bad’ people are going to start taking long hard looks at the current UK security regime and I think you simply can’t be too careful when nukes are concerned.

Wolf,

Why do you persist in doing this?. You’ve been ‘advised’ twice now by two seperate posters that you are commenting on something that, not only, do you not know anything about, but, you arent willing to do the most fundamental research on?.

The UK has NO OTHER nuclear weapon type of which the type of PAL discussed here could be applied. The system used for Trident missiles is completely different and the warheads for those will only function as a component of the Trident system anyway. There are no UK nuclear shells, torpedoes, freefall bombs, TLAM warheads or any kind of nuclear ordnance.

As for challenging of British nuclear weapons security, well, the location of the warhead depot and loading facilities for the Vanguard force is a poorly kept secret, especially in the face of SNP ‘righteous fury’, I’d not advise anyone to try and capitalise on that knowledge though. It would be a one of life’s more unpleasant experiences for anyone attempting the feat without, probably, an armoured brigade behind them!.

I know you are simply attempting to save face with the ‘I think you simply can’t be too careful when nukes are concerned’ empty rhetoric, but, you really have little to be concerned about!

Wolf

every terrorist nutjob and underworld arms dealer is going to be actively seeking out cracks in the system to try and get their hands on these ‘unsafe’ weapons

If you are going to get all hysterical and ranty about these things do yourself a favour….check whether or not the weapons are still in service before raising an outcry?. The weapon discussed here is the WE177 freefall nuclear bomb/depth charge – google it.

Lastly, please do not insult the intellegence of people here by suggesting that the true reason for the MoD’s decision not to employ PALs as anything other then petty penny pinching from politicians who have a damning record of underinvestment in the military.

The decision of not adding PAL’s was, in rare instance, absolutely nothing to do with resources. No more than about 200 WE177 weapons were built in total and the numbers deployed to service units was a fraction of that total. All in all the RN had the massive total of 43 of the NDC variant of the weapon and they werent all deployable at one time. The need for hideously complex PAL’s just simply was not there when correct procedures and some fairly simple and effective technical steps could accomplish the same task.

At which point airborne AESAs might well be able to return the favour to incoming SAMs, though

True!. I think I’d bet on the ground-based system – plugged in to the power generation capacity of the local grid – getting there first over the aircraft mounted set though!!! 😀

Keyboard excavations can be quite instructive I’ve found – in a previous job as accolyte to a very large IBM mainframe I, during a fit of unaccustomed boredom, started cleaning the crud out of the keyboard controlling the diagnostics terminal in the main equipment suite. By the time I’d finished I’d produced a ball of carpet tile fibres 2 inches across – no word of a lie!.

Amidst my disbelief that the keyboard could still function in such a state a dawning realisation struck that, if the keyboard could be so affected, so could a lot of other things!. Hard drive units, tape units, fan trays etc, etc – sure enough all showed signs, when we stripped ’em down, of fibre ingestion and several were close to fail point with drive motors heating through shaft resistance. Smiles all round that we’d dodged the bullet.

Moral of the story. Keep an eye on your keyboard!