What a remarkably odd concept. It seems to throw away the entire premise of the advantages offered by a submarine platform in an attempt to compete with air-launched cruise on the time-to-station footrace that it will never have a hope of winning!.

A submarines value is in its ability to be on station before its missiles are needed and, in the lead up to a launch phase, to contribute to the strategic and tactical ISTAR picture. The whole point is for a boat which can be on the opposition doorstep and, if not immune to counter-detection and prosecution, be at least very difficult for an adversary to localise and tackle. This concept boat appears to try and throw away those advantages by decreasing the size of hull in pursuit of a speed edge which appears almost entirely valueless.

Clearly the diagram supplied is intended for general layout only. More would have to be presented before a comprehensive appraisal could be made of the value of the design. The lack of details like crew berthing, consumables stowage and the general operations spaces is noteworthy though….especially while, at the same time, the trim tank positions are detailed!. Trimming the boat is significant of course. My view would be that habitability and endurance of the platform, at concept stage, is likely a bit more significant though!!.

Bottom line, for me, I dont quite see what this concept offers when compared with the far more practical and deliverable concept of conventional VPM hull-plugged Virginia class boats. It would be interesting to try and understand the driving ideology behind the concept though….just as its so distant from conventional wisdom.

It would appear that the Navy requirements would force these two vendors to remove capability form their proposals thereby making their proposals “developmental” articles.

Is it a case of actually removing capability though?. I read it more as a case of them not getting ‘bonus points’ for extra capabilities over the stipulated minimum requirement – a minimum requirement that NSM meets. I also understood it that LRASM is still going to have its development cycle completed as a surface launched system (VLS and angled-tube) even if the USN doesn’t go for it.

He was first advisorfor national security to government in uk from 2010 to 2013 then ambassador in France. As UK ambassador he participated to the livre blanc de la défense there. And sorry i wrote too fast i meant STOVL. it was a purely financial choice dictated by the cost of installing and maintaining catapults.

The costs extended far beyond catapults and catapults weren’t required for Carrier Strike. You could say that costs were a factor in the RN not getting Fleet Carriers. There was never a Fleet Carrier requirement though.

It’s not just payload. It is sea state, WOD, and takeoff distance. A cat allows aircraft to operate at a high tempo even when the carrier is in a tropical climate with little wind while still carrying a significant load. Add to that, the shorter distance needed for takeoff run. The flexibility is undeniable. Even the F-18 E/F could take off from a ski jump at MTOW with enough WOD according to simulations. But that would be a limiting factor considering the commonplace deployment to th Persian gulf or South china seas with their high temp and lack of winds at certain times of the year.

The addition of EMALS will add UCAV ops, and higher MTOW. Not an insignificant difference.

True enough comparing to STOBAR operations. The same doesnt quite apply to STOVL though. Deck pitching of the CVS and Hermes and visibility at times in the south atlantic in 1982 have been often commented on as severe enough to have prevented CATOBAR ops and the Harriers kept on flying. The was a notable exercise up north also where one CVS skipper hid in a fjord and launched a Harrier strike with zero wind over deck….to surprise the hostile force who believed he’d need to be offshore to get the room to generate his strike.

KGB,

Like most things I think there are angles and angles from which you can view something and see a different thing!. Here:

…is case in point. Myself I think there is a certain functional art deco look to it and I like it a lot. I would accept accusations of bias of course!

i hear you, and AEW swarm is tempting,
but i wonder what they will cost a piece if you build them with enough coverage not to get plinked down
because they were too close sighted to stay out of reach of latest long range missiles,
or equally disastrous had to stay too far away to be of use

Well the radars that the USN are buying for Firescout trials are a touch over $1mn a panel for 5 panels. The UAV will depend on what road you go down and what platform you want to operate from. Myself, as noted, I’d say something like Orka1200/VSR700 low end and something like TERN high end. Costs being equal to capabilities.

Not disposable by any means….but more attrition tolerant than a manned system. It being noteworthy that, if you believe the advertising, the latest long-range missiles are a threat at E-2 sensor range as well.

If a radar-Orka were to take a very expensive long-range missile perhaps the operator gets an angry-face in his next performance appraisal and a telling-off for carelessness. A replacement is vertrep’d and uncrated on the ops platform and the enemy OOB is updated to reflect the missile threat. If thats an E-2 that takes the missile the results dont need further expansion.

To my mind giving the opposition multiple sensor plots over a wider sector makes his job of siting airspace denial weapons that much more complex and increases either his chance to be in the wrong place….or forces his defence expenditure on that specific countering system to be higher….potentially creating a shortage elsewhere….if in fact he can even afford it.

If by controlling airspace you mean tracking airliners I’m not particularily impressed. It’s not better than a good fighter radar. Then they should have gone with a cheaper carrier design to have the money to fund a good AEW system.

AEW is changing.

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Pictured is the SW4 UAS with a Leonardo Osprey panel shown flank mounted. Thats a light chopper with an x00km ranged AESA set with comprehensive air-air modes. You then look at something like an Orka1200 being able to lift a 3 panel fit or a Seaspray 7000 type rotator array (of the type now fitted to RN Wildcats….also being used to supply the air picture) on an airframe good for 8hrs on station and sized to allow perhaps 3 to fit into the hangar spot of a single MH60 or Wildcat. You suddenly have any hull capable of operating a pair of Lynxes being able to deploy a single medium chopper and 24hr AEW and ISTAR capability.

If you look at DARPA TERN its easy to conceive of a podded type arrangement similar to LM Vigilance for Leonardo Osprey on the TERN outboard stores stations. You get 20 mile racetrack AEW patrols off a pair of fixed wing UAVs at range and with E-2 type time-to-station numbers. You can fly that off an LPD or a DDG. The radar is already going on the new Firescout system for USN and as an X-band AESA offers interesting potential for SM-6 update.

E-2D is a great capability package but its a capability that needs a lot to deploy it. If you can get 70-75% of its capability with a STOVL deck or even an LPD pad and 20-30% of the cost-to-deploy the argument for E-2 as a deck-layout driver drops a very long way back.

Bit of a difficult one to go fast on. If there are a pair of cats operational and you’re launching 4 or 6 cabs 2 at a time the difference is probably a bit academic compared to a sequential STOVL launch.

The difference will be the deck reconfiguration that may be necessary before the launch evolution for CATOBAR I’d imagine. Again it depends on whats spotted on deck really, but, it can be the case, if you have a lot of aircraft on deck, that they need to be pushed to the back for takeoffs and then pushed to the front for the subsequent landing phase. Concurrent launch and recovery capability is the, seldom reached, nirvana for arrested recovery operations!.

I think the expectation is that the turnaround time for -35B will be greater than for -35C owing to the increased amount of spinning bits that it contains that will need checking and/or a quick squirt of WD40. I’d expect the odds would even out between the two when it comes to the number of sorties that could be generated in, for example, a 24hr period.

So basically, RAF needs STOVL variant because FAA has it, and vice versa. Sounds to me like circular reasoning. Harrier in RAF service was modest success at best, as evidenced by the way it was dumped so I’m not sure that is much of an endorsement for STOVL operations.

Dont mistake RAF factional feuding for any lack of faith in the technology Yama. Sea Harrier was culled as soon as a Light Blue CO got his hands on Joint Force Harrier. The SHAR air combat record out of the Falklands and the fact it was the first UK type to deploy fully integrated AMRAAM capability was an open sore to the RAF. GR9 was offered up, years later, only as a way to preserve their precious GR4 force for a few more years. GR9 had a lot of useful life left in it when it went.

Hmm..doesn’t Argentine naval aviation have carrier qualified pilots, and they don’t even have a carrier anymore?

A handful yes….but following the recent news out of Brazil not for very long it seems. Thats the problem when you are dependent on someone else for the preservation of your military capability. You are rather vulnerable to them pulling the plug. A question may now be asked whether, at time of severe budgetary pressure, it was worth the money spent keeping those CATOBAR skills in the Armada?. All credit to them for doing it, but, if the funding could have gone towards a few more exercise hours for the submarine fleet or for the basic maintenance to keep that T42 from capsizing at her berth…..????.

Hallowene,

Consecutive question : what is the use of so huge carriers without CATOBAR?

Sortie rate generation. You need a large airgroup to generate sorties at the level we require…..you need a big deck, big hangar and lots of fuel, spares, munitions and people storage space to support a large airgroup.