RiiMaybe on purpose?
I think it was more political-strategic factors that weighed in favour of Rafale. Or maybe even just that it was cheaper as the official line goes; stranger things have happened. :p
Riihttp://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier1.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier2.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier3.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier4.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier5.jpgBetter?
Nope. I think Photobucket must be shrinking them down automatically. 🙁
Are you able to upload them here as attachments?
The Ultracarrier: A 400m Post-Nimitz Concept ship proposed by Donald Fort in the December 1978 issue of Naval Proceedings. The ship would have had a loaded displacement roughly five times that of a Nimitz class carrier.
http://www.shapeways.com/model/323382/ultracarrier-1-3000-x1.html
Awesome. 😎
Riii was not at all criticizing A2G capabilities of MKI. Just saying it’s not leaned towards A2G more then towards A2A (imo)
Is a relative judgement between two things, not a property of the aircraft itself. Rafale is good A2A platform and Typhoon could be good A2G platform with full integration, but nevertheless in considering both platforms together we can say that Rafale leans A2G and Typhoon A2A.
In the case of Su-30MKI the most relevant feature is the dual seat which is useful for strike but reduces performance compared to single-seat Flankers. If Typhoon was acquired we would see an A2A/A2G polarity between the two platforms emerge. With Rafale chosen no such polarity emerges.
RiiWrong. IAF mig-21 crash rate was affected by USING mig-21s as trainers by rookie pilots.
I remember Bollywood film with Aamir Khan where they blame it on poor quality Russian parts sourced by corrupt official, like Russia has had anything to do with Indian MiG-21s for decades. :p
Good film tho.
RiiSorry, Dassault has no replacement for Indian contract. It will not break Dassault, as they have the FALCON line, but it will seriously damage Rafale without doubt.
Failure would be a disaster for both parties, which is why it will not happen. But for this very reason that each cannot afford to let deal fail, each party feels it has a lot of room to push the other, which makes for breathless news stories in the interim. :p
RiiI assume this is relating to MMRCA and difficulties with Rafale negotiations. Actually I always thought Typhoon was a slightly better fit for IAF orbat in providing an A2A-leaning balance to A2G-leaning Su-30MKI. But other factors prevailed.
Why spend money developing exotic ground attack capabilities for Typhoon when Lightning II will provide them?
Same reasoning is why Rafale has better A2G capabilities today as well: no Tornado to pick up the slack.
I think it would also be fair to say that this lack of partner nation commitment to Typhoon is one of aircraft’s weaknesses in the export market. French roadmap is reliable; Typhoon roadmap… ?
RiiBut……..although it makes perfect military sense the statement ” not getting into a war of attrition with an enemy who’s logistics base is close at hand while yours stretches back thousands of miles” is kind of exactly what the US Navy did to Japan in WW2. Just a thought.
And if Japan had anything like the productive capacity of the United States and wasn’t so vulnerable to supply disruption it would’ve been a very different story.
The WW2 experience in both Pacific and European theatres demonstrates the pre-eminent role of industry and logistics and here you propose to ignore it. Learning the wrong lessons from history seems to be American hobby. :p
RiiAdditional Su-30s would be tacked on to existing production order and so wouldn’t do anything this decade to address the issue of squadron numbers. It would probably mean continuing to run Su-30 production line even as FGFA line is set up.
In the vanishingly unlikely event that MMRCA actually fell apart (i.e. not only Rafale, but Typhoon also) I expect Su-35 imported directly from Russia would be amongst the strongest contenders to fill the immediate IAF vacuum. The strategic/ToT side of things is another matter that would have to be addressed separately. Would probably require radical rethink of AMCA even, although I’m sure Russia wouldn’t mind the chance to drop in with LMFS. :p
But is all academic as it’s not going to happen. India will fly Rafale.
RiiDec. 1978 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings contain a 5-page article on the proposed “ultra-carrier” of some 500,000 t. full load.
James L. George (1992) The U.S. Navy in the 1990s: Alternatives for Action contains reference to a CNA study of proposed carrier alternatives, which includes a 200,000 ton super Nimitz, the Ultra Large STOAL CVX.
The 16th edition of Norman Polmars’ Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet (pp89-90) also mentions a number of unusual carrier proposals considered by the bottom up review at the time of publishing (1997).
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a328353.pdf
Ultracarrier files:
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/?action=view¤t=Ultracarrier1.jpg
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/?action=view¤t=Ultracarrier2.jpg
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/?action=view¤t=Ultracarrier3.jpg
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/?action=view¤t=Ultracarrier4.jpg
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/?action=view¤t=Ultracarrier5.jpg
Consider the ramifications of passing through Suez and Panama canals, using port facilities (where can you park VLCC – ULCC sized carriers?)… and how to attain sufficient speeds with these large vessels?
Thanks for these interesting documents. The PDF works fine, but I can’t seem to get full resolution versions of the images; the low resolution versions are ofc. unreadable. Could be I’m missing something, but maybe not. 😮
RiiSo, are you saying Small Carriers are better or Carriers themselves are ineffective???
Not necessarily. It could be that they should be even bigger! And it could be that the carriers are the ideal platform to meet future challenges. What I argue against is complacency and resistance to exploring alternatives. Badger‘s post above illustrate classic inflexible thinking by assuming same deployment/escort model for a mixed Ford/65k carrier fleet as for existing fleet, as opposed to e.g. surge model.
Re: 100k ton as ideal size both past and future. How can this be so when today’s airwing is so much smaller than yesteryear? Apparently much of the extra space is today taken up with additional “ship’s kit”. If this kit is needed, or if today’s airwing needs all the space it has to operate at full efficiency, then doesn’t this suggest that carriers of yesteryear should’ve been even larger than they were to accommodate said kit and operate their larger air wing at full efficiency also?
RiiReally, this debate on Small Carriers vs Large Carriers has been exhausted many many times over. With the latter winning the debate hands down.
There’s only one debate that matters and it isn’t settled with words. When the supercarriers prove themselves in a high-end conflict scenario, let me know. :rolleyes:
RiiBoeing unveils updated F/A-XX sixth-gen fighter concept
Someone should let Boeing know that canards are incompatible with VLO; they clearly haven’t got the memo.
RiiOnly Soviets could invent the anti-tank dog. :p
RiiApologies for my previous tone. I agree that institutions and societies can be structured so as to encourage innovation or discourage it; however I do not believe one can simply reduce this to a comparison of ‘free’ vs. ‘unfree’ societies. The most significant complicating factor is the role of state capital, which in turn leverages off the wealth of the society. It is American wealth (which is not exceptional on per-person basis, America simply has more people than other advanced nations) that propelled it to the forefront of global science and industry, not American values or ideas.
Consider the signature technologies of the 20th century: aircraft, space technology, nuclear technology, even computer technology extending to the internet — all involved massive state intervention and funding. The trend for future technologies appears little different: today governments all over the world are pouring money into e.g. new energy storage mechanisms such as fuel cells. The prospects are murky, but without this state support (driven in part by competition between states) they would be almost non-existent. Private industry simply won’t invest needed funds for so uncertain return. Advances in civil aviation have slowed to a crawl precisely because civil aviation has diverged from the military (i.e. state-funded) path that it was able to piggyback until the 1960s. The age of the backyard tinkerer is well and truly over.
Regarding the Soviet system, I have no doubt that it often acted to suppress innovation. But on the other hand, without the Soviet state-led industrialisation programs the matter of blended wing design would not have arisen in the first place and the relevant personages would be disagreeing over approaches to crop rotation! I am not endorsing the human costs of those industrialisation programs — although one can understand the impetus for them in the context of the international system esp. a reviving Germany — merely presenting the point.
Irrespective of governmental system I think the increasingly capital-intensive nature of major R&D is acting to dampen innovation compared to previous eras. The more money is involved, the less risk folks — state, corporate, private investor — are willing to take. The only way to bypass this is with a radical vision from the top divorced from strict risk assessment grounds, akin to the 1960s space program commitment. Neither contemporary American or Chinese systems seem particularly amenable to this kind of thing, although competition with one another can promote it. For better or worse, when Stalin or Hitler has an idea everyone gets on board. :p
RiiJames L. George (1992) The U.S. Navy in the 1990s: Alternatives for Action
contains reference to a CNA study of proposed carrier alternatives including a 200,000 ton super Nimitz, the Ultra Large STOAL CVX.Dec. 1978 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings contain a 5-page article on the proposed “ultra-carrier” of some 500,000 t. full load.
Such a large carrier might actually be able to operate the F-111+ class aircraft needed for future scenarios. 😮
In any case the idea that the 100k ton carrier is simply optimal is clearly nonsense when considering it has spanned a reduction in number of aircraft operated of near 50% and will span (over the lifespan of Ford-class vessels) even more radical evolutions in the nature of warfare.
The truth is that the magical 100k ton figure is one of tradition. And tradition gets you killed. The successful power is the one that is most successful in adapting to the moment; that dominant powers are generally not very good at this is part of the reason we see swings in the balance of power at all: the dominant power becomes complacent in its success, increasingly bound to vested interests and institutions, whereas the challenging powers operate under no such (or at least lesser) hindrances and are more able and willing to experiment in order to generate some kind of asymmetric advantage. America leading up to WW2 was in the advantageous position of having less attachment to the battleship than the older powers and benefitted accordingly. In future it will be others who benefit from the fact that America operates basically the same ships it did more than a half-century ago.
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