JonesyTo the best of my knowledge the MK3 gear was an Oropesa sweep. This used a single line tensioned and depth regulated by an Oropesa float and kite arrangement. The cutters, mechanical or explosive, were attached to the wire. There was no separately streamed paravane-equipped cutting line I have ever seen detailed on UK Tons.
JonesyIf I can follow up on the earlier UAV point then (to keep some tenuous linkage to Military Aviation) with Talarion cancelled already and France’s commitment to Telemos already, apparently, somewhat nebulous is there enough workshare projected for Dassault to keep interest alive?.
JonesyThat is not an accurate representation of the original requirement for the design of the carrier, nor of the reasons for it…There has never been a time when the requirement was solely for a purely STOVL design.
Yes it is and I never said there was a time when STOVL was selected without a nod given to CATOBAR. I said that the actual requirement driving the ship design was no more ambitious than Carrier Strike for the very clearly considered and appreciated reason, at the time, that that it did not need to be anything more.
That call was obviously the correct one as here we are, in 2012, nearing the point where, had original schedules been adhered to, the first ship would be nearing her commissioning date. There is, right now, no blue-water threat, and none very far along development anywhere in the world, that we could not deal with using our SSN’s. I said that, for our Carrier Strike requirement – the way we would be trying to make it work, that the operational advantages of STOVL made it a clear and obvious choice. Even 30% increase on range didnt get near making up for the training complexities inherent in CATOBAR .
When the new time came they asked for a STOVL design that could be converted at any time before, during or after the build to an EM based CATOBAR. However as there was no design for EMALS at that point (or even a selection of which EM catapult) the industrial designers could not really do any more than leave space (an amount guessed at).
Agreed.
The option for conversion was not for future proofing. CATOBAR was always preferred, but steam cats were too expensive and EM catapults were not mature enough. Hence the ‘fudge’ to allow us to convert when they matured – a decision which the MoD/govt made at the appropriate time before working out the cost
Nope. CATOBAR was always viewed as the most capable….not preferred. We can see why there was such resistance from the RN with the outcome of the determination to shift to single-carrier CATOBAR with CEPP. 100 sorties per day, pretty much straight off the bat as soon as the full airwing becomes deployable with STOVL. CEPP brought a maximum commitment initially of the NSW alone. I didnt appreciate this but MoD reported that single deck time at sea, with CATOBAR, was anticipated to be able to support the training and continuation requirements for 12 aircraft only in the near term to support sustained ops of about 20 sorties per day. The RAF never gave, as far as I can see, a commitment to maintaining a readiness squadron with swing-role deck rated pilots. Carrier Strike the way we were going to do it, as it was understood to be then and still is now, incompatible with CATOBAR. STOVL wasnt selected because it gave us a cheap carrier, though that was obviously important, but because it was key to making the whole thing work.
JonesyIt all comes down to a clack of clear direction and any sort of competence in the UK defense procurement process. They should have designed the adaptable design to be more adaptable than going the cheap way out. They not have the choice between spending a ton of money to partially rebuild ships or going with a plane which may be to heavy and maintenance intensive to actually work right.
You do have to accept that the ship was designed to the requirement that drove the acquisition of the ship in the first place.
Seeing that requirement was ‘Carrier Strike’, nothing more ambitious, and it was conceived to be a mostly RAF run operation on the air side the choice of the ship and operating technique was an obvious one. The design was adaptable for reasons of future proofing and STOVL failure insurance. A decade later STOVL still hasn’t failed despite continual predictions of precisely that.
Quite apart from a lack of clear direction the issue is that the excellent work that set out the, clear and appropriate, original requirement has been lost sight of and the result, following the CATOBAR shift, is a god awful mess with a carrier and airgroup that do not match.
JonesyDoes appear that the redoubtable Ms Kirchner is trying the Galtieri-esque technique of using the Falklands to distract the public from certain uncomfortable issues.
I’m not quite certain how much the very strong anglo-centric imagery of the pub, red phone box etc is going to underscore their contention that its Argentine soil nor the fact that they had to sneak a sportsman and film crew on to the island, and shoot when no-one else was around, to get their task completed. Both would seem to highlight the fact that its not theirs and they hold no influence there.
Quite a strange piece of work.
JonesyDoes appear that the redoubtable Ms Kirchner is trying the Galtieri-esque technique of using the Falklands to distract the public from certain uncomfortable issues.
I’m not quite certain how much the very strong anglo-centric imagery of the pub, red phone box etc is going to underscore their contention that its Argentine soil nor the fact that they had to sneak a sportsman and film crew on to the island, and shoot when no-one else was around, to get their task completed. Both would seem to highlight the fact that its not theirs and they hold no influence there.
Quite a strange piece of work.
JonesyYou’d still have the bring back weight problem if you want to VL.
Which would be peanuts compared to the problems a CATOBAR type would have if the, perhaps inexperienced, driver was singularly unable to trap back aboard that day and had no diversion field in range. :diablo:
JonesyHow do you do air to air tanking for a F35B fleet without the Osprey?
You use a land based tanker same as all the CATOBAR carrier planes do for support tanking :).
Seriously deck-launched tanking is pretty much recovery-tanking only and with STOVL or SRL there is no real requirement for it. It really should be very hard indeed to miss the deck from a hover or have to bolter when you are coming in with barely a 30knt overtake on the ship!
I agree that without the E2 you do your AEW differently, but do the benefits of the Osprey outweigh the inability to land on a frigate (I assume that is the case having not checked it).
The only real benefit of Osprey over rotary is in the reduced transit-time-to-station provided by the higher cruise speed. It is a real benefit as being able to rapidly offset your active radar emitter from the immediate fleet location can be very useful for deceptive manoeuvre games. USN used to lead the Soviets a real merry dance with active E-2 emissions and platform performance was definitely a key factor. That is offset by having the AEW able to disperse and operate from virtually any platform in the group with a chopper pad though. You need more aircraft to achieve the same kind of effect but the aircraft, and the overheads to operate them (i.e you dont need a 45k ton CATOBAR carrier at minimum!), are very much cheaper.
JonesyReasonably fast & long range a/c will continue require long runway OR catapult
Much would depend on what is considered fast enough and long range enough for the requirement. Looking at the ramifications of F-35B failing after we had completed the CVF’s as STOVL led me to look closely at the Sea Gripen in STOBAR mode as to see what may be deliverable if we didnt simply opt for cat/trap.
Taking the comments made by SAAB that a STOBAR Gripen would be operating at a 33% reduction in payload, against its catapult equivalent, that puts Sea Gripen notionally at a MTOW somewhere near 13700kg. Assuming an upper limit on empty weight of 8000kg and 3300kg full internal fuel it still leaves some very practical and useable payload options. 4 Meteor, tip AAM’s and a centreline 450gal tank for example would provide offensive anti-air at ranges comparable to CATOBAR types. Swapping the centreline tank for a Storm Shadow and the Meteors for MALD’s and you have precision hardened target strike at, what, a good 650-700nm from the ship.
Smaller, lighter and cheaper PGM’s will increase the amount of target effect that can be packed into that restricted MTOW going forwards. If you couple in engines that are getting more powerful and air vehicles that will progressively require fewer humans on board with all the attendent weight savings it doesnt necessarily follow that the catapult will be the only practical option for naval air. Likely it will be the best and will provide the best scope of capability….but that will always come at a price.
Prom
Plus for AEW you are going to want fixed wing, large payload and long endurance – so for the top spec AEW you will need the bigger catapults
Or you do your AEW different. Perhaps with smaller dispersed sensors for the same effect as the monolithic ‘large AEW type’. This is where V-22 as AEW falls down. It ties you to a mother platform that has the deck footprint to deploy it. AEW rotary’s can be deployed by anything with the ability to operate a Sea King sized chopper.
JonesyIts hardly surprising that Glenn Torpy wanted that photo suppressed, Nimrod MRA4, Stormshadow and A330 MRTT would of given the RAF a true quick reaction global strike capability. The First Sea Lords of the Royal navy would of had a supreme hissy fit as it offers a faster reaction time to a situation then the Tomahawk equipped SSN. There was also talk of putting Paveway IV on Nimrod MRA4 as well…
Anyhow such is life!
Torpy having a twitchy fit when he saw that I can believe!. There is his deep and persistent strike budget gone in a second!. Fill the front of the weapons bay with a cluster of MALD-J’s (as I believe we have interest in) to hide behind and you’ve got the reach, endurance, commo kit and space to stage out taking an onboard strike planning cell along for the ride. The more perfect CASOM platform is hard to conceive of!
I’m not sure their lordships in the admiralty would have been all that vexed by Nimrod/CASOM as the two capability sets would have been more complementary than exclusive. You arent going to get a Nimrod to stay on station permanently for a week for instance!. Plus an LO CASOM like Storm Shadow could have had use ‘shooting in’ RN TLAM’s by hitting hardened air defence SOC’s or fixed AD targets etc along the early phases of a plotted TLAM ingress path. You could also see potential interaction between the two platforms – should Nimrods strike planning software, for instance, carry a more up to date threat database along a specific ingress corridor than the SSNs the aircraft could either downlink the data or update and refine the TLAM strike plan before firing….or, with TacTom, even when the weapon was flying!.
The SSN, in return, could upload operational intel on observed patrol patterns, the opfors actual EOB profiled over time etc, etc. The kind of intel that can be best collected by a covert and persistent platform like a fleet boat.
The more you think about it the greater the sheer stupidity of the decision to bin Nimrod becomes apparent.
Jonesy1. Give or take 1000m yes. That is the point where the inbound crosses the horizon detection and track forming would be some seconds later.
2. I/J band does direct line of sight only. E/F bands can curve over the horizon in a limited fashion but do not have the resolution for the kind of endgame illumination APAR can provide.
3. Definition of low altitude being all important!
JonesyHaving AEW in the fleet and having it emitting are two entirely seperate things. The onus is on the searcher to be active as passive means, unless you have some pretty good passive sonar capabilities and a very handy dropoff of the continental shelf off your coast, you are reliant on the opposition giving you his position by emitting. If you have intel that a fleet is on the way, but, dont hold it and arent getting the passive hit of a militarily recognisable set you are left little option but to go active if you want to cover the territory.
We did provide our position to the Argentines in 82 with grim regularity, plus they were aided by some very innovative tactics from the Argentine Neptune force, and paid the price for it principally as we didnt know about their AAR capability and thought they’d have to stay high to stage out to get at us. At the time we were not really in the expeditionary warfare game though being a blue-water ASW force with the ability to land ground forces in Norway if called on to do it!.
Since then deceptive manoeuver has been a key component of Carrier Strike and practiced as seriously as everything else. The permutations are many and deceptive manoever is a book in itself, but suffice it to say, the ability to effect strikes whilst standing off 100nm behind the coastal patrol altitude radar horizon gives an experienced group commander lots of interesting options whether he only has rotary airborne radar capacity or not.
JonesyWhat do you guys think of the whole austere basing thing, just finished a post on the San Carlos Harrier FOB in 1982 if you fancy a read.
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2012/04/harrier-forward-operating-base-falkland-islands/
Some relevant stuff for the discussion perhaps
Good article. I’m not entirely certain of F-35B’s efficacy in circumstances quite as austere as Sheathbill. Rather, to keep the Falklands context, I’d view the value of 35B as being able to deploy to Stanley airport should the Argentinians be able to neutralise MPA, in some fashion, as would have to be a pre-requisite for their landing operatiins in first place. Typhoon likely facing challenges operating from the short 900m max length strip.
A short hard surface strip able to take supply flights in from RAF C130’s and A400’s, similar to the way Kanadahar was when we first took up residence, would be about as austere as you’d want it to get I’d expect, but, seeing as there are thousands of these dotted about the place I’d say thats still a very valuable capability.
Not relevent to us of course, but, in similar vein to the reasoning behind the original Harrier dispersed operations concept you could see highway/small airport-type dispersal operations in a user country who knew that their big-strip airbases would be priority targets. Here thinking of the Taiwan style scenario. Mobile ‘pit crew’ teams, able to take a feed off the aircrafts onboard test and fault reporting system, leading fuel and ordnance convoys able to divert to motorway service areas etc to meet up with and turn-round a returning F-35B group then move on would provide an extremely surviveable method of generating combat sorties.
JonesyKev,
I dont believe you are being stubborn you have a considered view and you are comfortable its the right one. If you look back in the archives you’ll see up til about 6 years ago my views were very similar to yours. I argued long and hard for the merits of CATOBAR against all comers. After that though I spent some time at RAF Cottesmore and had something of an education in the difference between on-paper capabilities and real world operational limits between STOVL and CATOBAR. It is something of that rather painful learning experience I’m trying to get across with all that I’ve posted on here.
The most basic point I’m making distills to this:
even if there wasn’t I believe the disadvantages of F35b now outweigh the single advantage in training required for getting pilots to sea.
Without trained operational pilots the rest of it i.e payload/range, sortie rate, endurance is meaningless. If you cant deploy enough deck qualified pilots there is no carrier capability at all. Going CATOBAR puts the supply of deck qualified pilots in the RAF’s hands and subject to their training prorities. It makes no difference whether F-35C can loiter an hour more than -35B if there arent enough aircraft in the group to fill the flying programme. Remember that the basic Naval Strike Wing establishment was intended to be 12 aircraft. Keeping your single CASCAP slot covered solidly for just 12hrs took 14 aircraft. There is no clearer illustration than that.
I said it before CATOBAR is fine if we use it the way everyone else does. Aeronavale has its fastjet squadrons, USN has its fastjet squadrons, RAF will have ours though, save for a basic establishment that will be FAA, and the RN cant easily afford the costs of going the same route the others do. While that is the case CATOBAR is always going to be unrealistic regardless of any other consideration.
JonesyOkay I got my ranges wrong but regardless are you happy only being able to use weapons at that range which is what you seem to be advocating? If carrier strike is only doing that then the whole concept it a complete failure, look at the weapons used in Libya, Paveway II and IV were the weapons most used by the RAF.
Libya didnt need 500nm standoff ranges though Kev. If we can close in, as happened with French, Italian and US through decks there we could use the kinds of weapons you list. The ones above just show options for strike effect keeping the deck 500nm or so back if so required.
I still can’t get my head around this 200nm offshore that you keep using, I can’t help but reason this is because of CDG’s presence off the coast of Libya, if we go up against anyone with even a half decent air force and a few MPAs then you’re taking a massive risk there.
As stated earlier Kev 200nm offshore isnt a random figure and the CO of the Charles de Gaulle would have been well aware of it. From a 20,000ft airborne radar the radar horizon, against a 100ft masthead, is about 185nm. At 200nm then the carrier is quite undetectable. The MPA trying to target though is running around emitting on his search set and will likely gain a little attention for his efforts. It would take a very decent airforce indeed to generate that risk.
If the carrier capable MALE UAV you are advocating is necessary to make UK’s carrier strike capability work then you better tell the MOD because at the moment it doesn’t even exist as a concept, let alone as a production system.
Its already well recognised that the requirement for carrier strike is ISTAR and not just AEW. No-one is talking about E-2 despite the fact that, as of right now, we are still officially building CATOBAR. That is because of the understanding that a monolithic solution like Hawkeye does not address the requirement however nice it may be to have.
If future proofing the carriers isn’t affordable now it never will be, and the threat that requires CATOBAR in your eyes will never give 2 years advance warning to convert the carriers, plus however long it takes to buy the aircraft, retrain crews, work up logistics, and find the money to do all this.
No?. So when weve taken our pound of flesh back out of the bankers and the financial crisis is yesterdays news things arent going to get better?. Who’s to say what will be justifiable in the middle distance future?. I say justifiable because, obviously, CATOBAR is affordable now it would just cause uncomfortable decisions to have to be taken.
I’ve already covered why the threat, that needs us to go CATOBAR, will give us the necessary warning to DJ a page or so back. Just to reiterate it no-one else, barring India and China, is building up a force capable of challenging us in blue water and we arent going after either of those powers on our own!. Anyone else who is a likely threat will take years to build up an entry denial capability and get it operational. That build up will provide the political justification for the spend to counter it as well.
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