Grim901or with the economies of scale in our favour order a third QE…..
I doubt it, they can’t alter the design to make it a cheap and cheerful LPH like they did with Ocean.
On the Scout thing, I think the idea is that the light scout role is filled by vehicles like Panther, with the ASCOD providing a heavier, more protected scout.
It’s all very well talking about the examples where CVR(T) was the right sort of weight, but there are also examples of it being used where it was too light and under-protected. That means we’re asking one vehicle to do too many things, so I think the mentality (rightly) is to split it and do it with 2 different vehicles, but because only one came under the FRES programme that has been seen as the ONLY CVRT replacement.
Grim901The Swedish seem to have a pretty good set up for defending their own littoral, but that is very different to acting in the littoral of another nation somewhere else on the planet.
The USN route of buying Littoral combat ships was a fairly good idea but as always they gold plated what should have been a low end ship and ended up spending an insane amount. They need to look more carefully at what the want/need to act sufficiently in the littoral. I never saw the need for that incredibly high speed that they have for example, or the need for all those stealth features, if you’re in close to shore then reducing RCS makes little difference, a Mk1 eyeball can see you anyway.
Grim901They’ll probably be scrapped, Invincible is supposed to go this year. I doubt there is much of a market for them now, they’ll be too small to operate the F35 and most Harrier nations don’t need them. There are also few spare parts left for them, Invincible has already been stripped out to supply the others.
It would be a shame to see them go though, maybe we could turn one into a museum. Or better yet, if spares can be found, keep them going longer in the LPH role to supplement Ocean, but that’d never happen.
Grim901The hull might do, but fit out is very different. The RN wants commonality in equipment (weapons, sensors, etc) across the fleet, as far as possible. Much of the equipment is either in inventory now, or ordered. That would have to be integrated on FREMM. Propulsion would probably also fall foul of commonality.
If anything the commonality there is more important than hull commonality. That’s where the real costs of ships lie.
Grim901Apparently NG has been aggressivley pursuing a Global Hawk sale to the UK for its Scavenger requirement, perhaps whatever airframe (Global Hawk or preferrably one of the many British developed UAVs) is picked for that could also be used in the SIGINT role if the RC135 is cancelled.
It’d create more airframe commonality at least.
Grim901Well then lets just hope no one ever tries to sink the CVF’s with a submarine since you both just suggested replacing our future ASW escorts with AAW ships.
@Witcha: These is no need for those coastal ships either.
Grim901How close is the FREMM to the UKs C1 or C2 requirements? Also are there any current European maritime programmes that could be used to fill the RNs needs with little alteration and excepting that they would not be 100% fits?
I doubt it. FREMM GP would probably be the closest thing to C2, but equipment fits are quite different. And for C1 the systems would probably be far too different compared to other European ships.
The best bet would probably be to continue with our program and discuss with others who may buy them what they’d like to see so that we can make our vessel more exportable.
Grim901Or what if in some hypothetical future someone lays claim to St. Helena?
We have 9 inhabited (not counting military personnel, workers on military bases, & their dependants) overseas territories. France has 11. The Netherlands has two, but one of them is about to split into 5. One might assume a certain commonality of interest.
Spain also has some sort-of overseas territories, but there’s a complicating factor.
Lets cooperate with Spain on defending our overseas territories, then they can provide the garrison on the rock. Oh wait…
This is probably the key area where US and UK/Europe diverge in interests. The French and British both have numerous territories around the globe that need defending for no other reason than that they want to be part of our nations. If it just so happens that we were lucky enough to be sitting on a massive oil reserve, all the better.
And as long as you have an entire nation that believes one of our territories should be their territory, we must maintain the ability to defend it.
Grim901But that is the point. Of the western powers only he US is capable of medium or large scale independant operations. We can still conduct small scale operation like Sierra Leon but for anything else we need to be part of a coalition be it UN or NATO. We simply no longer have either the budget of public will to conduct anything else.
However we already have very capable ECM/ECCM capabilities and the ALARM is rated as top of the class in SEAD missions. We have never gone done the road of dedicated ECM and SEAD platforms but what we have now is good ans more than capable of defeating soviat era single digit SAMs and their western equivilents.
I’d argue that we can still perform medium operations alone if we push it and that CVF and F35B will make it a lot easier to do this. I also believe it is a capability we still need. There is only so long we can rely on the US to look after our interests before the interests diverge or they simply get sick of us relying on them. It is an attitude that is growing in the states, they no longer see Europe as useful and so see no reason to look after us. It’ll only continue as the power shifts to the East.
Since we can’t find a niche that the US doesn’t already fill (they can fill every niche on their own – not an intentional fat joke btw) it might be better to find a niche amongst our other allies (the reliable ones). That means being able to compliment forces from Europe or the Commonwealth. And when it comes to that, the best areas for us to fill are the high end ones such as carrier ops, as none of our other allies (barring France) do it.
Grim901You can make the beam coloured, but it’d serve no purpose to. In fact it might help the enemy.
What did interest me about the story is that they say the laser could be stored anywhere on the ship, with fibre cabling sending the beam. That would certianly be a useful trick, store the bulky part of your CIWS in whatever space you like.
Grim901Hasn’t the ROKAF shown any interest in the F-35, or why would they want to try anything like this? Well, I hope they go ahead with the project, it would sure be nice to see some increased competition on the future fighter market!
And if the Israelis still are pissed off for not beeing given the source codes etc to the F-35, this might actually be an interesting programme for them to join in on. (Well, ok I know the Indonesians are muslims and might not be very thrilled with this so)..
Or try and hook up Taiwan instread, if you’d need a third parter? (A country with a pretty good high tech industry and a not too small wallet).
Every UN resolution on NK has to be somehow wrangled out of the Chinese. Would it really be wise for SK to annoy them more by supplying Taiwan with a new fighter?
Grim901A rather unexciting article but it does have a newer picture of the Superblock in construction at Govan:
I laughed at the comments. Idiots comparing it to cruise ships and saying that because it takes longer to build and is smaller that is therefore only a medium sized ship and must be procurement **** up.
Grim901SAAB appears to be one you’ve avoided. What are your vies on them as a fighter company.
And BAE for that matter?
Grim901Your list of 8 top companies (stopping short of the full 10) didn’t include any company from a nation outside the US, Russia or France.
I’d assume that if any other company had produced a good/ or multiple good fighters then they’d have at least filled the blank 9 or 10 positions.
Grim901The F16 you ramble about aren’t Uk related to start with. It is a contract in place between Pakistan and USA that dates back to 2006 and builds on even older “Peace Gate III” and IV agreements in the late 80′ and in the 90′ that saw Pakistan ordering F16 fighter planes but never got them because US embargoed the country because of its nuclear program.
Even assuming they pay the F16 now with the same money the US give them in military aid (and it is higly unlikely that the US are SO stupid to seek no evidence of the use that Pakistan makes of its aid), the UK has nothing to say about it. The UK is not giving them Typhoons.
If you are trying to say that UK paid those F16, you are most likely wrong. If the government is stupid enough to hand them money without checking how it is indeed used, it is its own stupidity it must tackle.And ultimately, Pakistan fights the talibans in the border region. It does what we need it to do, and this justifies the aid.
India could very well CUT A FEW OF ITS OWN PLANES and sustain its own people, instead of requiring the UK to cut its own investments to help indian villagers.End.
Right, just shut up now. Others in the thread had finally managed to move on. I’m sick of having to sift through this argument to find posts on topic. If you want to carry on take it to PMs or another forum.
Jesus this board needs more moderators.
Back to topic: Interesting on the armour front. Are all our front line warships armoured to some degree still?
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