JonesyThis is going to sound flippant, Phantom, but Tom Cruise never flew an F-4!.
I doubt the ‘household name’ you think the F-4 became was actually discussed in all that many households.
The Tomcat though was Mavericks need-for-speed ride and Top Gun gave it the sort of legend that, perhaps, the Spitfire had in an earlier era.
There is your answer for the ‘hoopla’, as you put it, over the exit of the F-14.
JonesyFunny enough Scot and Hawk you are both answering the question. There is a minimum size for operating a specific airgroup at a specific sortie rate and that doesnt equate to a small carrier.
At 65-74k tons CVF in either incarnation is no-ones description of a small carrier. Indeed, as has been pointed out, CVF’s will be close cousins size-wise of a Forrestal….the first of the USN ‘supercarriers’.
Does that validate the fact that a 100,000ton CVN is necessary to operate four strike fighter squadrons and a couple of support dets. Not for one second.
Its funny in a way…..this branch of the thread resulted from the comment that the British build big carriers and (tongue-in-cheek) ‘never’ put a decent airgroup on them. A point I accepted with the caveat of our preferrence for being able to strike the whole group below.
It does seem, with hindsight, though we might not be the only ones guilty of this!!!:dev2:
JonesyThat is your opinion and at the moment the USN disagrees with you……..believing that larger CVN’s offer greater flexibility and can project more power over sustained periods…….Remember, a CVF at 65,000 tons with ~ 40-50 aircraft is about half the size of a USN CVW. So, really I don’t see any economical advantage? As it would take two CVF’s to equal one CVN…….:eek:
Scot,
The issue of fewer aircraft, in current CVW’s, deploying greater firepower effect on target is undeniable fact. We’ve seen it on operations in the Persian Gulf time and again.
How many aircraft comprise a USN strike fighter squadron today?. 12 is usually the yardstick for maximum efficiency so I am making an assumption that a CVW fastjet complement is about 48 aircraft. The French CVF-FR should be able to surge to about that and, once again, look at the difference in running costs. 1400 crew complement of CVF-FR against 4600 on CVN-77. Even if you want to add the complement of two CVF-FR’s you’re only just over half the crew requirement of the CVN and for a LOT more capability!. You know as well as I do how much of a factor crewing is in operational cost terms.
I agree that the USN made its choice for its own reasons, but, I think that they were more to do with historical capability and keeping up the ‘big-stick’ impression than for real mission flexibility. If you are getting two CVF-US’s for every CVN which, with USN build no.s and whole-life costs factored in you certainly would, then your flexibility is in where to put your decks.
Think of it this way. You have at your disposal either two CVN77’s or four ‘CVF-US’. The airgroup of each CVN is current USN CVW and the airgroup of the CVF-US is current US CVW less one strikefighter sqdn. You are tasked with keeping a carrier on Taiwan and in the Gulf in support of WoT. You can either have one CVN on each station with no ability to reinforce without gapping the other station. Alternatively you can have two decks on each station, rotating deployments, and, in a pinch, chop one carrier from one station to the other for a short-term augment.
One way you are fixed with 4 strike fighter squadrons on one deck on each station, possibly adding in another 2 squadrons as an emergency surge as the CVN has room for them. The other way you have 6 sqdns on 2 decks permanently on station with the capability to ramp up to 9 sqdns, with the third carrier, whilst still leaving a deck on the other station. Thats called flexibility.
One for one the CVF makes no sense stacked against the CVN. The question is how many notional CVF-US’s they could’ve gotten for the same money as they’ll spend on the CVN’s?.
JonesyEric is on the money here in every way.
We now talk about targets per sortie rather than sorties per target. You dont necessarily have to assemble force packages anymore as a single strike-fighter squadron is tooled-up for A-A, SEAD/DEAD and strike against virtually any kind of target imagineable. The smaller airgroups on today’s carriers, in concert with long-reach cruise missiles, are more deadly and flexible instruments than a carrier deck has ever seen period.
A USN CVW these days comprises, what, 4 Hornet sqdns plus a det of Hawkeyes, another of Prowlers and some choppers. That is not going to be an impossible fit on 75k ton CVF-FR. This being a boat with literally one third of the crew requirement of a late mark CVN. GT/Diesel/IEP propulsion that requires no extensive and expensive nuclear refueling, no gearboxes or conventional engine spaces inline with lengthy shafts with all the associated design impact and maintenance overhead. In short a cheaper boat to run year on year by a large margin.
CVF is designed with a requirement to undertake 7 days of combat operations, for three tacair sqdns, unsupported and is stored as such. It gives way to a CVN in this regard but thats about it and, lets face it, the USN budget wouldve run to a LOT more CVF-US’s than it will CNV21’s. The pain in keeping hulls out on station that the USN is suffering now would be very much lessened…even if the price for that was more frequent replenishment!.
Simply put there is scant justification for 100,000ton, 4600 complement, CVN’s to carry circa 50 Bugs of varying size and a couple of fourships of support fixed-wingers. Especially when the pressure on deployed decks is tangible.
JonesyGuys,
You are missing a very vital point though. The operational concept of naval aviation has changed with the increase in efficacy of PGM’s, the greater deployment of conventional stand-off missiles and the re-roling away from SIOP.
In the 70’s you needed 80 aircraft in a CVN airgroup to assemble an alpha-strike force package of bombers, SEAD shooters and top-cover plus support elements. With todays weapons and swingrole aircraft the target effect of the 70’s 30-plane Alpha Strike is the work of a single squadron of strike fighters.
Today there is no requirement to have an A-6 style long-range interdictor as TLAM from the ships, JASSM from conventional naval tacair or CALCM from heavy bombers can be tasked to perform the long-shots just as effectively as the manned approach and a lot more efficiently. RATTLRS type weapons will take that long-range strike capability and advance it far beyond what a manned platform could ever achieve.
The accusation is on the British for building large carriers then embarking only a fraction of the aircraft on that they could pratically operate. I agree that is what we have historically done – and for the reasons listed. Now though it is my opinion only that the USN is building great big CVN’s that naval warfare now has no requirement for.
When you look at a CVF or PA2 having all the destructive potential that a Cold War Nimitz could deploy, on a vastly more economical hull, isn’t the question one of why the USN are building expensive CVN’s when a suitably effective airgroup doesnt require them.
Ed,
As for the question of whether CTOL is worthwhile in the days of Storm Shadow type standoff missiles, this ignores the fact that the F-35B in STOVL mode will only ever carry one missile (plus a fuel tank on the other wing). In contrast, the F-35C should be capable of carrying two Storm Shadows.
What is the source you have for this?. AFAIK this was true for the Harrier GR9, but, not the F-35B. As I understand it bringback is still an issue but it is so for the USMC as well and a short-roll landing option is being examined to obviate this. The documentation I’ve seen suggests two Stormshadows on wing points for STOVL JSF.
JonesyIt would seem to me, 3 or 4 torpedoes, if they could be carried with an adaquate supply of sono-bouys, would be ideal, given the limitations of ADT’s vs. thier tube launched cousins.
A truer sentence never uttered!.
Air dropped homing torpedoes have been known to do some remarkably unexpected things on deployment. There is the famous ‘legend’ of the Mk46 that allegedly leapt back out of the water in the attempt to ‘get’ the chopper that had just dropped it. This event, at last count, has befallen aircrew of the RN, USN and RAN and is often received with scepticism when told over and over again.
It is, however, indicative of the fact that ADT’s are not always exactly one-shot-kill weapons and they frequently go dead-fish on immersion or clear off in whatever direction they please rather than where you would like them to go off and search for a submarine!.
Carrying one or two more torpedoes than one needs is always infinitely preferable to carrying one or two fewer torpedoes than one needs – naturally!. 😉
JonesyTouching on what Stingray has brought up it IS ingrained RN practise not to use permanent deck parks in peacetime. Simple logic behind that is, as stated, that we have historically worked a lot in the North Atlantic….a body of water that can be uncharitable to exposed, delicate, equipment. Being able, therefore, to strike your entire airgroup down into the hangar to keep it out of the nasty stuff has certain advantages!.
Cant wait til GarryB reads this but you know what….in my advancing years I’m starting to doubt the necessity for CATOBAR for RN needs.
Consequently I’m not sure that your optimised airgroup there, Hawk, is what the RN needs for the next couple of decades as much as it would have been good for perhaps the last couple of decades?.
CATOBAR aircraft obviously have payload/range advantage, but, that comes at the cost of very expensive support gear on the carrier, extensive training support to keep a pool of deck-qual’d pilots and airframe lives governed by cat-shot/wire-trap fatigue. Is the payload/range advantage worth that today when a Storm Shadow CASOM can add 100nm range to any tactical fighter and, with the advent of SDB type weapons, the payload carried on any one mission can be way down on the days when an A-6 would launch with two dozen Snakeye’s strapped on.
CATOBAR is obviously crucial for E-2 ops and Hawkeye is indeed nice to have, to be sure, but if it is all you can do to keep two or three in the airgroup what happens if one breaks? Is that your taskgroup heading out of the fight?.
Against this, with STOVL, you have cheap carrier, you have cheap(er) training and you have easier flight operations. I heard recently that on exercise we were able to launch 12 Harriers from a CVS in 7 minutes……not an easy feat to duplicate with a pair of cats and a steam budget to manage!. Whats more is that the CVS could have completed its launch evolution swinging at anchor…with absolutely no wind-over-deck!. Thats impressive whoever you are!.
The ISTAR needn’t suffer necessarily either, as a BAE chappie at Filton recently pointed out over some fairly god-awful food in their canteen. UAV’s are about even today that can loft a radar like Seaspray 7000/7500 and comprehensive ESM/COMINT kit and keep it up on-station for hours. In the next 10 years a MALE/HALE platform with the right balance of performance, endurance, onboard power generation and network-capacity is almost a given.
These are assets that could be used, in volume, for AEW on distant picket-line stations. They can be deployed entirely passively adding to the force ELINT potential and they can be retasked in flight to, perhaps, grab SAR snapshots of a ‘popup’ ground target in support of fleet strike planning/troops ashore.
Even better they are ‘relatively’ cheap and can probably be stowed folded in racks in the hangar – depending on type. So you could conceivably have a multirole ISTAR fleet of, wild example, 16 MALE/HALE UAV’s embarked to perform your outer sensor screen and strike coverage with a handful of rotary ASaC’s for local area ‘high mast’ overwatch and cueing for the fleet SAM shooters. All for the price of the Hawkeyes with probably lower year-on-year expense!.
I’m now starting to look to a surge airgroup like the following as optimal for 2015 onwards:
3 x 12 plane F-35B squadrons
1 x 4 Merlin AEW.MkX det
1 x 8 Merlin HMA ASW sqdn
1 x 16 ISTAR UAV sqdn
Gotta stop hanging around with these STOVL types! 😎
JonesyThing is Phil its not necessarily venom on his part…….he could be, tragically, quite accurate.
The term ‘Joint Farce Harrier’ I’ve heard from 800sqdn lads too. Its taken for granted that JFH, at the moment, is a method of applying a light-blue gloss to dark-blue sqdns!. The success they had binning FA2 virtually as soon as it entered 1 Group and the incipient delay in getting 801NAS stood-up again at Cotts are being seen as indicative of the real nature of the jointness thats been inspired by JFH.
Strangely enough though there are now mutterings of the RAF sowing the seeds of Joint Force Harriers demise and that they might even be willing to forgo the usual crabby cry, that they should be the only ones allowed to play with fastjet aircraft, to get their way!.
Its seems that our light-blue friends are getting a bit twitchy over the whole FOAS deal. With BAE making impressive strides in the LO UCAV arena the RAF are getting nervy that the GR4 force may not look like being replaced with a manned system, rather, the future for them is CASOM’s from Typhoon/JSF and UCAV ‘bombers’ for the long reach.
This does not, obviously, sit well with the latter-day Trenchards in the junior service so there are moves being made to have the RAF variant of JSF switched to a land-optimised F-35C ‘big-wing’ design. This obviously allowing for the retention of a notional manned ‘long-range strike’ capability that could be used to forestall the advent of truly long-range UCAV’s.
The irony being of course that the RN, originally, were very much in favour of CATOBAR and F-35C and it was the RAF who were the great advocates of the F-35B for its ease of pilot deck-qualification and its ability to be pushed into austere basing ashore fairly early in an attack scenario. The problem they had with F-35C naturally being that, in order to achieve deep strike missions globally, they’d probably have to fly off an RN carrier. This raising the question of why the F-35C’s were RAF in the first place!.
The other irony also, naturally, being that if the RAF do hang out for de-marinised F-35C’s and we keep on with STOVL 35B’s then the Joint Force Harrier structure is right out of the window and the traditional Fleet Air Arm squadrons will have to be reconstituted!.
Long live the RAF and its many eccentricities I say!:diablo:
JonesyDJJ
I’ve got mates who, for their sins, walk with the odd sideways gait. I was only up at Cottesmore last week. I think they have a damned easy life compared to what I had in the senior service, a sentiment echoed by some of the RN lads at Cotts with JFH, that is largely irrelevent though.
I have no issue with individual RAF personnel, last year I was dating a girl who was an RAF chopper pilot for chrissakes, what I have issue with is the strokes that the brass in the RAF will pull to get funding.
Redrawing the map to place Australia in a more convenient location ring any bells?.
The Typhoon gun issue was the least cost item that could be deleted from the aircraft that would cause the most public outcry. Had they accepted a reduced spec DASS or knocked off the voice system would anyone in the media have cared or even understood what was happening – no. It would have saved a lot more cash as well. Instead though we have the hand-wringing headlines that the RAF’s new fighter wont have any guns and theres a furore in the press (as much as the UK press does furore’s about defence issues). Mysteriously, some years later, (as I predicted at the time) the gun is quitely reintroduced when the Typhoon buy is a lot more secure.
You can claim innocence on the RAF’s part all you like but its track record on slinking, sulking and squirming to get more than its share of the budget is manifest and this, Red Arrows, issue is no different.
Phil,
As I’ve answered to DJJ above I know what you’re saying BUT the RAF have been guilty of stabbing the other services in the back time after time. Most recently the remarkably short time the SHAR FA2 survived after Joint Force Harrier came under Strike Command’s aegis!.
Its a bit much for them to expect others to rally round them when they have such a proven track record of manipulation and self-promotion. The Red Arrows issue is shameless playing to the audience!. Just about what you’d expect from the junior service unfortunately!
JonesyCynical Rot
Please dont be duped by the the latest attempt at a funds grab by the Light Blue PR machine!.
They are never going to scrap the Red Arrows. The Reds are the best recruiting tool the RAF has and they know it.
This is a cynical attempt by them to say ‘look how poor we are….we cant even keep the Red Arrows going….send us more money’. Its even more blatant than when they ‘leaked’ the fact that the Typhoon cannon was being deleted so they could cry poverty over the fact that their new fighters wouldnt even have a gun ‘boo-hoo’!.
This is all while the light blue are sending SAC’s on Expeds here, there and everywhere and putting them up in 5-star hotels!. Dont fall for the crocodile tears ladies and gents!.
JonesyOtherwise known as the Surface Effect Ship or SES concept. Check out the Russian Dergach missile boats for an indication of how long the idea has been knocking around.
Good idea for a landing craft though!.
JonesyIt’s not so much the unrefueled range as the amount of fuel required to get you there and back. A Bucc would need to do more prods but would have used less fuel than a Vulcan. There were also bomb-bay fuel tanks available for the Buccs which with internals, slippers and bomb-door tank would have given them a fair range. The biggest problem would have been scheduling the tanker sorties, a number of Victors would have had to take off first to get into position with the Bucc catching them up. Not impossible though.
It was the more prods that was the entire point Rob. I take your point that the fuel offload could be proportionately less, but, the scheduling was nightmarish as it was so introducing a type with a greater demand for tanker availability….would be something I think the Victor boys might have had something to say about!!!
JonesyDoubtful Rob. The Buccs would have had a much harder time staging that far having 2/3rds the unrefueled range of the Vulcan.
Also disagree that the beaching of the Belgrano wouldve been a viable defensive tactic as we had 1000lb LGB’s available at the time. Sneaky Beaky chappie in a coastal LUP with a designator to pick off the main turrets plus a few GR3’s toss bombing Paveways just out of Bofors range would turn a former major fleet unit into, possibly, the only breakwater in the world with its own triple-A battery!. Pointless. The opplan Anaya had – to break the Belgrano SAG into guns range of the TF in the confusion created after a full alpha strike from the 25deMayo was by far the higher percentage strategy.
Had the redoubtable Cpt Bonzo been up to speed on his tactical ASW steaming procedures and the 25deMayo found just a little more wind across the deck the plan would have at least been a valid one. Woodward himself stated that he was nervous of the Belgrano as, in his words, he only had two weapons systems guaranteed to hurt her…..the 21″ torps on the SSN’s and the Harriers 1000lb’ers.
JonesyIts interesting that the USCG Hamiltons where brought up on this as they are a great indication of what we DONT want as a ‘Global OPV’ because the WHEC’s have proven the distinction, very starkly, between a high endurance cutter (what they were designed for!) and a Global OPV capable of dual-role warfighting.
No disrespect to the US Coasties here as many who are or have been ‘in the trade’ know sailing some of the waters they patrol demand the highest standards of seamanship imagineable and their role in the antidrugs war puts them in harms way as routine. That the USN chose to fit WHEC’s into their battlegroups is also proof of the faith.
Unfortunately its a known fact that the WHEC’s were not a perfect fit trying to keep up with the battlegroups. Basically their raision d’etre is tooling around a patrol station on one diesel and, that way, they can get fantastic endurance performance. Unfortunately the 12knts optimistically offered by the solo diesel doesnt allow you to keep up with 25knt warships. Turning the turbines the WHEC’s proved to be far from high endurance cutters.
At first observation here SteveO’s point about building a bare-bones Type45 hull without sensors or much in the way of weapons seems sensible. Follow the production run of full-bore T45’s and make the rest that little bit cheaper by virtue of numbers.
Tinwing’s got it nailed though that building the bigger ship with is full-size ship propulsion plant and crewing costs, plus the need for the redesign to accomodate the larger aviation group etc, would probably end up nearly at the same cost (in whole life terms) as building a fully fitted-out, more capable, light frigate design. The issue that must be remembered that its not necessarily acquisition costs that are the problem. We do have a funding crunch in progress with lots of big-tickets due at once, but, its the pressure on the O&M budget thats driving this kind of requirement.
Simply put the RN need a lean-manned, fuel-efficient, extended range vessel that can keep up with a CVF group. It must be capable of mounting a modest 3D search set as high up a mast as possible and offer enhanced aviation capabilities over that currently found in the escort fleet and thats about it!. Unfortunately no platform has been offered off-the-shelf yet that meets those criteria.
JonesyDont know about the Govt. response but the 1SL and the rest of the Admiralty would do somersaults with glee.
A tangible threat we could use to keep hold of our O&M budget and, if it ever came to it, a wonderful kill opportunity for a T or A class SSN skipper looking at the existing state of Argentine Navy ASW!!.
Oh yes we’d like that!!!!
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