Grim901What’s the energy density? How does it scale?
The TRIGA small reactor design Freeman Dyson was involved in many years ago was relatively cheap, simple, reliable & very safe, but not suitable for powering ships, for several reasons. One was that it didn’t produce enough power in relation to its size & weight. IIRC it didn’t scale up very well, either. Successful in its niche (dozens built), but that niche was limited.
It is unclear what size would produce the sufficient power for CVF, whilst still being small enough. My main concern here is where they say they are competing with diesel generators not industrial plants, so they run at a lower efficiency. That low efficiency might make a plant of necessary output too big. It might be possible though to take the concept and try and do something similar with a PWR2, so it can be slotted into the CVFs more easily.
Grim901No idea, where did you get the information on it in the first place?
Grim901Agreed, except for the fact that in today’s internet world, zero media coverage is easier said than done…
You sure don’t, but then again, D-Day did occur during wartime, right??
Well any attacvk post 9/11 could be considered “in wartime” thanks to George W.
Grim901Or end up in Taliban hands…
Ha that’d be funny to see, the Taliban capturing an F16, then learning how to fly and maintain it, then putting in place a maintenance and logistics chain to support it, then buying and integrating weapons for it, then sending it to attack coalition troops, then watching it take on the combined power of the NATO air forces present in Afghanistan.
Grim901what is going on in the UK? have your politicians all lost there national pride? where does all the money continuously being saved by cutting defence spending going? soon Australia will be more powerful then the UK if these cuts continue! I would be constantly embarrassed by these cuts.
Australia’s formula- growing population+world troubles= gradually increasing defence spending.
UK- cut slash burn everything to fund MPs pockets.
there is going to come a time when the ability to do more with less will crash and burn.
Funding isn’t actually being cut, it just isn’t being increased, so it isn’t high enough to keep all our current capabilities in place. (And the MPs expenses thing was blown so far out of proportion, the Moon could have left orbit for a month and no one would have noticed, they were all to busy getting angry for something that wasn’t against the rules and most people would probably have done too).
That’s not to say the state of the UK defences isn’t a mess, but we are still in the top 5 for defence spending in the world, so it can’t be all bad.
Grim901So you either give them publicity and deter them or don’t give them publicity (until they pull of an attack and get it anyway) and wait for the attack? I know which I’d prefer. I’d also show a lot of dead terrorists but I suppose that wouldn’t be PC.
I wasn’t advocating the strategy, simply highlighting the problems of dealing with modern terrorism.
Obviously a strong defence is necessary, but the more successful that defence is, the harder it is to keep it up. The majority of the populace is too stupid to understand that a working strategy might not yield a result that they can see, so a lack of terrorist attacks isn’t linked to the expensive counter terror systems in place and people start to call for the money to be reallocated.
Grim901Hmm. Surely the best way to deny them publicity is to deter attacks with strong defences? Ignoring the threat means two things, firstly that people get killed needlesly, and secondly that the terrorists gain a huge amount of publicity when they atack.
The price of peace is eternal vigilence.
And to justify having these strong, and therefore expensive, defences, is to keep public support, which means you have to acknowledge and hype up the threat, which defeats the point of denying them publicity. It means they can get publicity without actually having to do anything, compared to gaining publicity for an actual attack.
Grim901Maybe because it’s a current capability?
I wonder at what point he’d stop upgrading equipment before it is retired, as it stands he seems to advocate 8 years, that suggests about a third to a half of the way through a modern fighters life to me.
Grim901Completely ignoring the fact that one european nation is involved with the design and manufacturing of the F-35…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Wrong.
The nations which will buy the F-35 won’t even have access to the most advanced parts of the aircraft, which will have to be sent back to the USA for servicing or if a repair is needed.Basically, if a nation get an advanced system from another nation, this nation cannot be strategically independent.
The F-35 is so a very clever and very expensive trap for the countries which will get it.
You seem to ignore the thing you quoted there. The British have been deeply involved in design and manufacture of the F35. They manufacture parts of the aircraft for EVERYONE, US included. Technically that means no nation is entirely “strategically independent” as you put it.
Yes there are parts the UK won’t be able to service on it’s own thanks to the source code being withheld, hence the uproar when everyone found out they’d been screwed over.
But please don’t come over so evil empire on us. Almost all nations that are buying the F35 are already reliant on the US to some degree, this won’t suddenly make the leash any tighter.
Grim901It is good, although there aren’t many alternatives. The downside is obviously cost, as you see in the very incremental purchases from the RAF, and the relatively small numbers ordered by other nations. As for export customers, in the cases of UK, Canada and Australia (all very close coalition allies – note that it wasn’t exported at all, other than the 4 aircraft initial stop-gap temporary lease, pre-9/11, to the UK), they need its capability – and nothing else offers it, the NATO force and its procurement is unique, and largely political. The Qatari order on the other hand I have no doubt that politics and the continued permission to use and massively expand Al Udeid AB just outside Doha may have had some influence in the appearance of C-17s in Qatari colours!
In short, without 9/11 and its aftermath, I doubt it would have been exported at all, and like many large US projects, been in USAF service only (which is often a shame).
Are you suggesting the US wouldn’t have exported it out of fear/protectionism (similar to F22)? It is infinitely more likely that no one else saw the need for the C17 pre-9/11. Britain had 4 which were enough, it liked them and suddenly became committed to 2 large scale expeditionary conflicts that had not been predicted pre 9/11, so it increased the buy, as it has just done again.
Maybe it’s because it looks like an international make work scheme.
Government controlled banks loaning billions (at very favorable rates) to a firm…which some governments own shares of…and the products are then sold to the same governments that loaned the money.
And when a program gets into trouble, it’s time to redo the fixed price contract so everyone pays more…or else face dire warnings of the “big bad Americans” taking over the world and huge unemplyment at home.
Does anyone really expect EADS to face any consequences in this matter?
No politician is going to admit to throwing people out of work, and the governments don’t want the banks to take a huge loss.Just admit that for most Europeans, it’s oaky for their airlines and air forces to buy Euro-made products to keep money and jobs at home, but when Boeing fans say the same about the KC-X competition, Europe suddenly becomes the last bastion of capitolism and free enterprise.
I’m not sure I’d be willing to trust the European airport authorities that let the Brit on board a US-bound aircraft with a shoe bomb, or the Nigerian with a bomb in his underware…:diablo:
As usual…as long as terrorists are only trying to kill Americans, some people see any reaction as an over reaction.:rolleyes:
That was incredibly hypocritical.
Yes, protectionism is still a factor in procurement, but the scale that Europe performs it at is dwarfed by the US. I’m not saying there is no reason for it, in general I have nothing against using homegrown industry. What annoys me is pretending to be open and fair, in other words holding a competition with a foreign plane involved and going to great lengths to pretend that it has a chance. You want the 767, fine, don’t issue an RFP to a European company. None of the A400M countries issued RFPs to Boeing did they? No, because they wanted a European alternative to US products, nothing wrong with that.
Oh and don’t jump on the “Europe is unfairly supporting its industry” and point at EADs, it’s equally hypocritical.
Grim901anybody know why MOD is still handing out juicy Harrier GR9 upgrade contracts if the fleet will start being withdrawn soon ? Or is it just another budget black hole?
I’d guess to stop them falling out of the sky. They still aren’t all scheduled to go before 2018 mind.
Grim901There’s no reason why Wildcat shouldn’t be an export sucess.
I made this point elsewhere, it is assumed these days that because the UK is launch customer, we will be the only customer, therefore we shouldn’t bother trying to export it or even build it in some cases, which means other nations can’t buy it if they wanted to. It’s a vicious cycle.
Grim901Well, one example I noticed was when they wrote “….Nor will the STOVL capability, a Marine Corps do-or-die requirement, ever let the F-35B operate impromptu close to the grunts in the foxholes. It can fly only from prepared concrete landing pads; a landing in the dirt close to the troops is sure to destroy the engine every time. Even flying off Marine/Navy ships may never happen: right now, the heat of the lift fan exhaust buckles the deck of any existing carrier or amphibious warfare ship….”
Anyone know if that’s true? The whole STOVL thing seems to be pretty useless if that’s the case. And isn’t this the version the UK is getting?
Well that point about landing on dirt wrecking the engine sounds exaggerated to me. Deck melting is apparently an issue (mostly if you’re using it VTOL), not sure how it’d affect a normal STOVL take off. And yes it is the RN version.
Grim901Super Nimrod – France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have already ordered the NH90 as their shipboard helicopter and the German Navy has a requirement for 38 of this type so who are the potential export customers for the Wildcat?
As Swerve said, nations may want a 2 type naval helo force. Britain certainly is, it might not be as useful with the NH90 sitting in between Merlin and Wildcat, but an NH90 still isn’t ideal for some of the missions Wildcat will excel at. And of course there are other navies in the world. There are quite a few with ex-RN ships for example that the Wildcat could operate off.
Grim901In response to Arthur’s post I think he has a very valid point. I once saw a poster in one of my class rooms at school which said something like, “I long for the day that the education system is given as much money as it needs and armies have to hold jumble sales to fund their wars” so true me thinks!!
As for what I would do with my £5 billion, probably not much, maybe modernise any weapons the army are using or whatever the rank and file soldiers feel they need to do their job. The rest can go to charities such as RAFBF and similar organisations!!!
If I had to choose i’d rather not learn the difference between a colon and a semi-colon if it means not getting blown up as I step onto the London Underground with the last words I ever hear being “Allah U Akbar”.
Taking money from the armed forces doesn’t punish the right people as Flubba said, arguably it harms the best and bravest among us who have stepped forward to serve.
Defence spending to stimulate manufacturing is extremely inefficient from what I understand you put far more effort in than what you could ever hope to get back. For stimulating manufacturing I would rather instigate a massive rebuilding of the nations decrepit infrastructure from the National Grid to the rail network from water to gas. As an example to expand things like renewable energy the main barrier is the fact that the national grid was not designed with distributed generation as a driving factor, the investment would be worth it. Renewing the national grid would advance the progress of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and therefore increase energy security and depending on your view lessen our contribution to Global Warming. It should create manufacturing jobs from producing all the equipment needed as well as supporting jobs in the construction industry, steel making and various other primary and secondary industries. Results would also reach into the future with a lasting legacy compared to short term welfare spending.
The problem with things like government departments is that the more money something gets from Government the more inefficient it becomes that’s my view based on what I see around me in the world. Small organisations and businesses are dynamic, flexible entities that usually have to operate with a high efficiency and adapt or they die. Whereas large organisations and businesses tend to be large lumbering entities that survive due to their mass and ability to influence other people such as politicians by the fact that they employ people who vote. Education the NHS or social protection cannot ever have enough money or resources and there is a point where it takes down a nation as people try to make the impossible happen. Teachers and educators can be dangerous people as they can sow lies and influence those who are impressionable; the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. The poster that suggests that Armies should have jumble sales to fund their wars was possibly written by an idiot, Armies don’t start wars politicians do, armies and service personnel are merely tools used by politicians. I’m not having a go at you merely the suggestion of the poster
Fair enough. It would be good to see the national infrastructure updated cohesively, but the cost of that would go beyond any possible bonus for the armed forces. For example, the new planned high speed rail line from London to Edinburgh is estimated at £16 billion. That is 50% of the total annual defence budget. Imagine what we could do with that.
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