Kind of, as it stands at the moment CAMM is ASRAAM with TVC.

I thought they were giving it a new seeker too. Which incidentally, is a major part of ASRAAM that changed after the German’s left.

Germans did not agree ASRAAM to be perfectly fine Missile as it is, nor the future direction it was taking.

And that has already been explained. Just because one nation didn’t like the direction of a project doesn’t mean the project is useless.

France didn’t like the direction of the Eurofighter project, that doesn’t instantly qualify the Rafale as better than Typhoon does it?

British are holding on to ASRAAM only coz of ego, its utility is long gone with soviet bombers.

Are you kidding? The only reason Britain still produces a WVR A2A missile is for ego? And why exactly does every other nation hold on to theirs? Ego too? Back up what you say with a little substance. The ASRAAM is a good missile and does the job well, it was designed with Britain’s needs and dogfighting experience in mind (something Germany hasn’t had since it the Battle of Britain…which it lost :P)

Am not sure about that, as all i know is Australian defence acquisition is not what it used to be.

So you started by saying that no foreign air force wants it, now you’ve changed to questioning those air forces acquisition process. What exactly is wrong with it that would skew the Aussies towards ASRAAM unfairly?

All you managed to establish is that the requirements for Britain and Germany were different, that doesn’t mean one missile is better, and if the other posters are any indication, it actually helps the case for ASRAAM over IRIS-T for RSAF due to their security situation.

Note also, that you should be wary about the fact that 6 nations use IRIS-T. I’m saying it is the case here, but I have a feeling it may have been latched onto by the EDA and become a European project, making it near mandatory for certain countries to go with it. It could also be down to Germany wanting a higher workshare than it got with ASRAAM. When it comes to defence procurement in the EU, nothing is clear.

But how much more expensive is that to operate, a fair old bit I bet, each jet takes longer to get airborne let alone to the target area then any GMLRS shot by a huge margin.
It’s highly accurate hence it being known as the 60km sniper. Troops on the ground don’t care what delivers the hurt to the enemy be it aircraft or the big guns, they just want it there in a hurry and in a highly accurate manner and this is where GMLRS and other systems like it excell over aircraft.
Also with a GMLRS system you also put less personel at risk, that is the pilots risk which is always a factor and lose the pilot and you lose the plane, see the Tornado and F-15 going down recently as an example, GMLRS should have zero losses if deployed correctly.

Afghanistan is the most heavily mined country on the planet and has no defined front line. A GMLRS crew is in just as much, if not more danger than a tornado crew since the Taliban have no Surface to air weapons.

And remember that 1 Tornado can cover a much larger area than a GMLRS. And can do so with a larger weapons load, a wider range of weapons and can stay on station for longer at greater distances from base.

I don’t think any soldier or anyone with an in depth understanding of Afghanistan would say that fast air is no good out there and could be done better with a GMLRS system. Fast air is probably the most important asset we have deployed out there. It’s massive use and the frequency of which troops rely on it is testament to that. It is more often that a compound needs flattening with a 500/1000/2000lb bomb rather than a single 200lb rocket. The only thing that can deliver that large ordnance that is used daily is a fast jet.

The Tornado and Harrier have been massively valuable in Afghanistan and just about every conflict we’ve been in for years. Typhoon will replace and enhance that capability, it just hasn’t had a chance to deploy into theatre yet. The only reason people call it useless for current conflicts is because it’s only been deployed in the QRA role so far, but that will change.

Can someone give me the specs on the Khareef’s? Weapons systems etc.

And what were the proposed changes for C3?

That VLS is making me think it’s expensive. But it does look ideal, it would just need room for 2+ ISO’s.

I never worked directly around the stuff, but you would not believe the amount of planning, regulations and care it takes to do ANYTHING to(move/store/maintain/think about/talk about) the weapons.

As it should be, unless of course you leave 6 on the wing of a B52 and fly them halfway across a continent before anyone notices.

No it doesn’t. We gave up that capability in 1998 when we retired our last freefall nuclear bomb.

All that’s left is Trident now.

However if the need were ever to arise that is a capability that wouldn’t be excessively hard to reaquire, especially compared to reaquiring SSBN’s or ICBM’s. Just modify/build a new cruise missile that will fit a warhead and integrate it to a Strike fighter.

Just had this little gem of a PDF pointed out to me by Mr Sunk on Warships1, lots of very useful information about FSC from pages 59 onwards suggesting that design proposals are firming up a bit although its obvious that the dimensions and displacements figures for the C1 and C2 indicative designs are only vague (they’re both the same):

http://www.dt.navy.mil/cisd/presentations/02_09%20UK%20Perspective_Dicks.pdf

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re vague, it could just point to the line of thinking that the same hull type will be used with a different equipment set. I’m all for it, although i’d still like to see the T45 hull used for C1 to save on design costs.

I beleive the UK ordered 900 Storm Shadows.

No idea about the rest though. Not sure if that is even released usually.