first of all, at no point was the NLCA compared to the sea gripen, at least by me. the point was ENTIRELY about NLCA’s role in the Indian Navy, a point that I believe has some bearing on whether India is interested in the sea gripen or not (as some have claimed).

oh, and a aircraft alraedy rolled out, 40 specimen ordered and expected to fly next month is a wee bit more than ‘notional’ isn’t it ? perhaps if you had bothered to read the thread in stead of glibly assuming that I am at fault, you might have known whose ‘insistence’ this ‘trivial’ exchange is continuing. but then your countryman can’t be at fault can he ?

No the whole point was you bristling that someone had the temerity to rate the aircraft as a modest performer going on assumed specs. Your argument is very clear and its nothing to do with the suitability of the Sea Gripen for the IN. You can try spinning this any way you like but the fact remains you are arguing performance specs between LCA and Gripen. Do so by all means….on a thread for that purpose.

Likewise your ‘rolled out’ comment. Another attempt at spin and one not belonging on this thread. There is nothing glib about being told three times that this isnt an LCA thread by two posters but insisting on trying to make it so….thats called sheer ignorance.

seems like someone is suffering from delusions that he (or she ?) is a mod. you have no right to ‘ask’ anyone to do anything. the LCA discussion was relevant from the viewpoint if India was interested in gripen-naval and hence relevant to this thread.

No he is stating that your insistence on pursuing a trivial, and please believe it is trivial, side issue is distracting from the purpose of this thread. He is correct.

You very clearly have no position on Gripen, but, solely wish to address the perceived slight to the LCA’s good name made earlier. Starting a new thread about a ‘notional LCA-N compared to notional Sea Gripen’ would be the way to pursue this within site etiquette. My view would be such a thread would be best avoided as its not likely to contain much in the way of hard fact….its your call though.

It’s a third less payload, not a third less max TO weight. i.e. a max T/O weight of about 13500kg, with empty weight of maybe 7500kg.

….and thats what I was missing thankyou Swerve.

On the MTOW figures I had before I was scratching my head as to why they were bothering….STOBAR wasn’t looking much better as a capability set than SHAR FA2. That correction of yours pushes the STOBAR cab much closer to F-35B numbers. External load of a nibble over 2000kgs is nowt to shout about and precludes dual CASOM carry etc….though bringback limits for both CATOBAR and STOBAR versions might be a bit close for comfort on that anyway.

I think there is merit in the idea of CATOBAR Sea Gripen for CVF as it seems to be more in line with the stated requirement for the ships than F-35C as it, the aircraft, is at least designed for short-field, fast turnaround and austere basing. If we want to push squadrons ashore off the carrier Gripen would seem to give us the most flexibility to do so short of STOVL.

Seriously doesnt fit in with the RAF’s concept of using the -35C’s ashore to replace the GR4’s and using Typhoon to replace the Jags at all though. Sea Gripen would have to take over the mantle of rapid deployable Jag/GR9 light strike and the RAF would, presumably, have to go whistle for its Tonka replacement until a LO UCAV can be brought through. To be honest I have no problem with that though!. A simple expedient of adding SCALP-N or TacTom to the new frigate force, and backfitted to the T45’s, can offset the loss of much of the Tonka’s deep strike mission with far lesser risk.

You’ll transfer the price difference between aircraft (remembering all development costs for Sea Gripen will have to be spread over a likely modest build run) to the price difference between ships in wholelife terms. The catapult ship will be many times the price of a STOVL equivalent that could be no more expensive than a Juan Carlos/BPE.

Distiller,
Your auxiliary carrier isn’t sounding very cheap at the moment in return for limited fleet air defence and punitive light strike. Still going to need screening like a proper CV and will likely be more dependent on the fleet train than a proper purpose build design. Whats the ship actually delivering as a capability package?

Yes, the Harrier/Skyhawk market. It makes that market a great deal more capable than it ever was before.

….but it also makes the ships, to get into that market in the first place, a good deal more expensive and inaccessible than ever before. Unless you believe that Sea Gripen will be able to STOBAR hop from a short deck carrier with any more than the ability to carry a matchbox the length of a football pitch!

Lot more to navalisation than just strengthening the undercart and welding a hook on the back. We do have experience in materials science from mixing saltwater and fastjet airframe components, plus, we also have quite a bit of experience from the deck handling side that could drive the design from a maintenance and supportability standpoint. So establishing in UK does make some degree of sense.

Bit of a waste using a 60k ton hull for an aircraft that can operate safely in less than half of that displacement.

Not when that 60k ton carrier is expected to do other things as well as operate fighters. Remember that CVF isnt a carrier as in the USN or French model.

However, if the Varyag stayed close to the Chinese mainland, say to the North of Taiwan, that would present the USN would be bit of a headache.

Absolutely, it would cause all sorts of issues as to which SSN skipper, at which end of the Taiwan Strait, would get to sink one bottled up aircraft carrier thats under permanent track from the Taiwan mainland!.

The Varyag, as you say, is no match for a USN CSG, so sending it out against several is pointless. The job of causing disruption to the fleet support train will be left to the Subs, which have a far greater survivability rate.

In any Taiwan scenario, the fighter wing will likely be operating from land bases and the Varyag will serve almost like a LHD, and provide helo ASW support for PLAN tasks groups operating nearby. If they have a fixed wing carrier AWACS operational, that will also be useful.

But a handful of J15s are not going to pose enough to a threat to the USN to justify using the carrier and escorts as a sacrifice to keep the USN busy for a while.

The one thing that PLAN cant do is surviveable targeting at theatre range. The type of carrier Varyag is is specifically designed to create a bubble of well defended air/sea space to enable ongoing operations. The radar fit suggests that PLAN are planning to use the carrier the same way that the Soviets were….active, emitting and hard to sink. That isn’t necessary for a ship that will sit under friendly air flying off pinger choppers.

The Chinese dont have to be able to refight Midway for the carrier to be hugely dangerous. A high-endurance long range fighter with capable multimode radar fit able to take on a CAP in a fighter sweep and get a positive fix on the USN group offers huge potential for cueing legacy shooters. That will not be wasted tooling around shallow water doing a job a 20k ton CVS could do just as easily.