JonesyWitcha
Why exactly is it so important for the Russian Navy to have a solid-fuelled missile anyway? Liquid propellants are naturally superior to solid propellants in performance.
See below comment to Swerve – liquid fuelled missiles are stored in the sub fuelled. Allegedly they actually leave the factory fuelled and sealed. The risks are, again, that liquid fuels are a very unstable element in the closed confines of a submarine. Solid fuels are much less reactive if mistreated or mishandled.
Nobody stores liquid fuel for ballistic missiles on board submarines if they can avoid it, & nobody fuels ballistic missiles on board a submarine if they can avoid it.
Nobody fuels the missiles aboard at all as far as I know!. Liquid fuels are very unpleasant in their reaction with salt water. The unhappy coincidence of a leaking silo hatch cover and a leaking RSM-25 missile aboard K-219 led to an explosion and a cloud of nitric acid spreading through the hull spaces!.
JonesySomeone has an active sense of humour over there. In keeping with the finest traditions of seeing the 3M80 Moskit dubbed the ‘AEGIS-killer’ etc.
JonesySoon enough hopefully we’ll find out if the “small high-seas OPV” concept actually works…
Will be interesting to see. Accepted wisdom is that you need 90m for acceptable pitch behaviour out in deep water. 87m might seem close enough but its still 10ft short coupled to an apparently low freeboard. Cant help but think she’s going to be very wet over the bows and it does look like she’s been designed with that in mind.
JonesyEXACTLY!!!!!!!:D Why try to reinvent the wheel?! The USN CVNs are perfect!
Save for the fact that they are overmanned by at least a factor of two!
JonesyThe USN AN/SPN-46 PALS system uses dual arrays to be able to handle two aircraft in an approach pattern. So you could imagine this system being similar. Presumably the inboard array handling the closer inbound at some range threshold. Obviously just supposition but the pieces do seem to fit!?.
JonesyThat after bridge deck would be their equivalent of Flyco i’d presume?.
I dont like the inboard array for a fire control set – what good is it there when you could site a director anywhere along the port deck edge extensions and get better arc’s.
Sited atop flyco, highly directional, modest output (going by array size) indicating short-ish range. How does some kind of precision approach radar system, possibly bistatic, grab you?.
JonesyObi
I haven’t said otherwise. In fact I have explicitly said that there will be precious little in the way of manouevre warfare for it to be an issue operationally. I actually approved of a design optimised towards real-world requirements. Until the Labour back-squadding of the build added hugely to the cost making mockery of the economy measures taken in design.
If you track back I also noted that the CVS’s were fast ships….better than their published specs. Again, as I said, there was a reason for that as they were originally designed as principle Fleet ASW ships.
I heard that the French had moved away from the Thales design for PA2 because the hullform wasn’t considered especially refined and they believed, for the same installed power, they could get better performance of a design closer to their original hull.
I dont claim any real in depth awareness of propulsion, not my trade, but the installed power….on raw figures alone….appears unimpressive. 50% more than a CVS for 300% increase on the displacement?. To me that reinforces the view that this will not be a fast ship. I do accept the wisdom of ‘lets wait and see’ but its been a long time since I viewed a project with that kind of optimism.
Kilo,
But getting back to the definitions “fleet” and “strike”………I dont know of any navy that uses those definitions any more………
Little surprise….its a very specialised hull….few enough carrier operating states in total and, of those, its only really the western Euro nations that would have similar requirements. You do hear other terms for other mission-optimised carriers though – India’s Air Defence Ship being the most oft heard I imagine. Russia’s Kuznetsov similar.
JonesyHK one wonders how much of your position is based on the equally performance limited carrier the MN deploys?.
The USN is the absolute master of fleet manoeuvre warfare. They set the standard in this field and it is an objective standard. We haven’t properly practiced carrier on carrier since the late 80’s as far as I know!.
How relevant is speed in the missile age. Every bit as much as it ever was. If you detect a superior naval force just outside of its SSGW engagement radius being faster means he never gets his firing solution. Being slower means, simplistically, you are going to get caught up and fired upon.
We can debate speed values of where fleet capability starts – your suggestion seems to be mid 20 knots – but to me thats academic. The difference is tangible slow ship against faster ship and the latter has the advantages.
I’ll say it again for those having trouble with this. CVF is designed to sail with the amphibs it is NOT a fleet unit.
JonesyBut if the need were to arise would it really stop the RN from using a CVF as a fleet carrier? Granted it may not be able to move about quite as quickly but it would certainly be able to offer everything else depending on the aircraft. Could this lack of speed while manoeuvring not is countered with clever tactics?
There’s a reason why CVF isnt being built as a Fleet unit…there’s no call for it now. So, personally, I dont see this as a big problem. The question was asked whether there was any real, substantive, difference between the types of carrier though. Hopefully thats clearer now.
With a full fastjet airgroup and a wide-area surveillance platform embarked CVF will be able to fly sea control missions. It just wont get to an oparea ahead of a fast carrier and it will be hard pressed to chase down, or escape from, an opposing fleet group. So, bottom line, against a proper carrier battle group an RN CVF group would be at a genuine disadvantage….seeings as there will be relatively few of those knocking about in the forseeable though…..so what eh?!!
JonesyApparently you have no clue how carriers (including CVNs) are used in the real world.
So lets educate you.
1. The battle group meets supply ships at pre-designated spots… but in the mean-time the CVN and its escorts are on their own.
The escorts frequently “top off” from the CVN, but they still have to maintain at least a set percentage of their fuel “in the tanks” to insure they can function in an emergency, where they will be moving at top speed.
2. Ships use far more fuel per mile at “near-top speed” than they do at cruise speed… at least twice as much.
In order to operate the way you want, the USN would need to use at least twice as many fuel supply ships to keep those escorts operating at virtually their top speed… meaning the USN would need to own at least twice as many of those ships as they actually do!
3. Operating the way you fantasize, the GTs in those escorts would see 1/3 or less the operating time before they break down or require major overhaul… massively increasing the USN repair & maintenance budget.
The higher hull impacts from hitting waves at high speed would also severely increase wear on the hulls… requiring costly repairs in drydock, and shortening the overall life of the ship.
This would mean reduced availability of escorts, and thus require more escorts in the Navy, and more frequent replacement of those escorts.
4. The only possible time that any USN carrier group might make such a fast transit would be in case of unexpected all-out war… and even then it is 90% probable that the support ships to enable that transit would simply not be available, making that transit impossible.
USN carrier groups make much slower transits than you claim to be “the Fleet model”… a model which only exists in your imagination.
Funny that Bager, my ‘education’ on what constitutes USN fleet ops largely come from a long association with a USN E-2 guy who knew more about Fleet manouevre warfare than anyone I’ve encountered in my own former service.
1. Yes….I did mention a rendez-vous myself if you look back carefully. It being fairly obvious you dont take a 20knt oiler on a damned speed run.
2. Hmmm owned motor boats for twenty years, rated Motor Coxswain on various classes and have a civvy Power Boat rating and I never noticed that the things drain the tanks faster with the taps all the way open. You complete a 2000nm transit at cruise your escorts still need UNREP to top off the bunkers. If you dont have available, friendly, UNREP in theatre you are screwed whether you came in at 20 or 30knts…aren’t you?!.
My point is that a fast carrier CAN undertake the 30knt+ speed run for Fleet operations where a carrier that answering Flank is doing 27knt, perhaps sustainable closer to 25, is not. You can frame this anyway you like but, in context, CVF is NOT a fast carrier because its design did not call for Fleet operations. Its intended to sail with the slower amphib group, something you should know about Bager, and provide air support to forces ashore…NOT manoeuvre warfare. Get it now?.
USN carrier groups make much slower transits than you claim to be “the Fleet model”… a model which only exists in your imagination.
I’ve read back over what I wrote and nowhere do I say that US CVSG’s go everywhere at 30knts?. I said for Fleet Ops i.e speed-runs and manoever warfare….you know FLEET OPERATIONS….that higher sustainable speeds are needed than available from a ship likely to cruise at 20knts give or take.
JonesyErr, no. The cruise speed of a CVN is the cruising speed of its slowest escort or support ship.
The escorts aren’t relevent here because, in the Fleet model, the carriers rate of advance dictates the transit. Who cares if the escorts are at full speed and have to UNREP at a specific rendez-vous or, in a pinch, off the carriers bunkers…they would have to after a decent transit regardless. The point being made is that a conventional carrier that tops out at 27knts is not a Fleet carrier and it isnt if it cant maintain Fleet transit speeds.
JonesyI’m not sure what was wrong about my calling Ark Royal a strike carrier. In her final configuration, that is what she was. She had also been used as an ASW carrier, light fleet carrier and commando carrier. Quite some flexibility there.
John, its the fundamental difference in what constitutes a Fleet unit and a non-Fleet unit that is important to get across here. The CVS’s were used as Strike Carriers, but, their performance characteristics meant that they always were Fleet units. A Fleet carrier can act as a strike carrier, but, a ‘slow’ ship can never be a true Fleet unit.
As to the options facing the Royal Navy in the early 90s, you keep telling me why things didn’t happen. I agree they didn’t, I am saying they should have, if there had been a staff with the balls and foresight to make it happen.
I’m telling you that its not a case of balls and foresight as to why interest in a Sea Typhoon didnt start until CVF got kicked off. The RN brass could hardly look at a fighter they had no carrier, even in concept form, to deploy from could they?. There was no RN CV programme to cancel in the same vein that Typhoon was there for the RAF. Until 90-94ish the thinking was very much Cold War dominated and the primary concern was keeping the Duke class boats churning off the slips to recapitalise the frigate force. As I said we were an active participant in ASTOVL at the time and that fit with what we had been doing for the past couple of decades.
The lead-up to 98SDR changed things and kicked off the paradigm shift to dedicated expeditionary warfare and the RN contribution, to this, was CVF…..exactly the foresight you were looking for. If anyone, with serious rank on his uniform, had have claimed, in 1990, that we needed a 60k ton CV with Sea Typhoon he’d have been checked for misuse of the old recreational pharmaceuticals…thats the point!.
YF,
CVNs being nuclear powered means that their top speed is also their cruising speed. Aren’t you the one comparing the CVF’s max speed to the CVNs cruising speed then? At around 20 knots cruising speed, isn’t the CVF around10 knots short of the cruising speed of the CVN?
Precisely!
JonesyAs to Fleet v Strike carriers, I do think your distinctions are more about role than the ship. The CVF is not going to be restricted to 20 knots, and could do either job.
CVF is going to be a modest performer of a ship – the view is 27knts knots topped out. Thats no real surprise as any naval architect will tell you its the last few knots of speed that really requires the engine power to achieve. Installed power costs money and CVF was being built on the cheap…at the time!. Top out of 27knts means she’s cruising at about 20……a good 10knts short of a real fleet carrier.
Obviously, the late Ark Royal with Harrier GR9s on board was a strike carrier, not a fleet carrier, but that’s not true of the CVF.
Couldn’t be more wrong. The Invincibles were designed to undertake Fleet ASW and as such were fitted with 4 Olympus turbines to drive a 20k ton hull!. The CVS’s, published figures be damned, were fast ships. Close to light fleet carrier in size, but, you could never get away from the basic point that these were CVH’s dressed up in ‘proper’ carriers clothing.
With regard to the Navy in the early 90s, the Peace Dividend did not mean the RAF lost its Typhoon programme, the most expensive piece of defence procurement there has ever been. That’s why I said the Royal Navy should have lobbied to get a piece of the action with a Sea Typhoon.
Again though John you are revising history to ignore the reality that in the early 90’s we didn’t have a plan for a carrier that would need a Sea Typhoon in the first place. Options for Change was 93/94 and at that time ASTOVL was still the fashionable programme about town. Hawker/BAE had been tinkering with the Pr1216 design since the middle of the previous decade and the operational benefits of STOVL pulled through from the Falklands were still fresh in the consciousness. It wasn’t for a few years, until CVF appeared on the table, that this changed. The RN simply could not have lobbied for Sea Typhoon in the early 90’s as it fitted nowhere in the planning of the time.
JonesyHow you cannot see that it is easier to teach aircraft mechanics to fix a plane on a ship rather than a sailor to fix a plane, or to teach a mission planner to plan on a ship rather than a sailor to plan air missions. Is beyond me and frankly it doesn’t matter!
The problem you are, somewhat spectacularly, missing Red is that we already HAVE trained aircraft engineers and technicians in the Navy who are taught, from day1 of basic, how to be sailors as well as their technical specialisation. Why duplicate their skillset training RAF support personnel up who, like as not, don’t want to be going to sea in the first place!!!.
Mission planning etc is also another good, similar, case in point. Air ops in the RAF is relatively simple as the airbase is most commonly found exactly where you left it when you set out and its fairly simple to predict weather and divert runways etc. All that changes at sea. RN air ops staff train on the basis of decades of experience of keeping carrier movement, aircraft movement, metoc conditions etc balanced. Why discard that in favour of RAF staff who dont have a clue?.
Not making a lot of sense there Red other than to reinforce the reasons why the specialised teams of people, who know the job already, should be the ones left to do the job!.
JonesyFact is nobody does aircraft better than the RAF in the British military but it doesn’t matter because they all work together under orders anyway! They will do what they are told to do.
Red the RAF know sierra foxtrot alpha about operating fastjets from ships because they dont know how a ship functions. Why should they?.
Also RAF personnel join the RAF because, usually, they want to be in the RAF. If they wanted to spend 3 months or more on a ship they’d have sat at the RN desk in the careers office!. They will do what they are told, for a time, then if they are not happy they will leave the service. Retention of experienced personnel is a problem for the RAF as much as anyone else.
You want to fly planes off ships you give the people who understand the naval operational environment the job of doing it. Fine to restrict that to a modest cadre and augment with ‘green’ RAF pilots when necessary, but, te core naval aviation skills have to be maintained to be available to be spread to the uninitiated when they join a ship.
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