Grim901No need to be arsey! 😀 If CVF lasts 50 years i’ll be a monkeys uncle. Who would want it to? the world or war and defence would have changed so much by then.
Thus the massive future proofing effort. It is much easier to get funds approved to upgrade and update a hull than it is to build a new one. I am certain the CVF in 40 years will have little resemblance to when they launch. Just about everything will be replaced and upgraded to keep it modern but the hull will stay the same/very similar and that is perfectly feasible to do and to keep a hull of that size up to date.
Think about the US fleet. The USS Enterprise was commissioned in 1961 so will be 50 in 2 years and I’d take that over many more modern ones in a war today.
Grim901Frosty, CVF will be up for replacement 30 years after launch, at least i’d hope so. Thats still in the expected life time of JSF. As for UCAVs- why not make them STOVL? That would make them so much easier to recover and allow them to be deployed on a range of platforms.
Nope, the carriers will be outlasting the F35 fleet by the last numbers I saw. That’s why they went to the effort of future proofing them to such an extent.
And yes a UCAV could theoretically be STOVL but we’re a long way away from that. The only reason why UAV advances have been so rapid in recent years is necessity. The necessity for a STOVL UCAV to fly off any and all carriers isn’t there yet, so neither is the money or effort.
A Cat launched UCAV is not that far off though.
Grim901an Ho 229, flying a few dozen feet above the English Channel, would indeed have been “invisible” to the Royal Air Force
That is from the article. Correct me if i’m wrong but very low flying would have worked against the RAF radars for any aircraft wouldn’t it? I had heard that flying low enough meant the radars of the time were fooled pretty easily.
That would mean that it’s not that stealthy, just looks cool.
Grim901What you’ve done is draw a nice picture of a fantasy ship that you’ve just conjured up, which is fine, everyone enjoys playtime. This is/was a serious thread though so if someone picks you up on the practicalities of your picture you cant be surprised!.
Ignoring the rest of your post, though i’m forced to agree with it, you have made a valid point. This was a serious thread and the topic seems to have disappeared in to building a new super battleship that no one would ever need.
Grim901That howl is terrific. Nice noise for a show of force.
I beleive that the switch has been made or is being made this month. I guess that only 9 Harriers were sent because we have so few now and they get so battered in those conditions. Perhaps more Tornadoes will be deployed unless there is another factor (Brown doesn’t want to commit more resources, possibly Kandhar air base can’t support more?)
Remember that deploying 3 more aircraft is still a fairly significant commitment overall. I guess that wityh the number of US troops deploying that USAF commitments wil shoot up meaning we may not need to deploy more.
Grim901Agree 100%. A carrier and her air group have something no Destroyer, Frigate or SSN can ever have;- Presence. Stopping a war from breaking out is more important than winning it after the shooting starts, and the Aircraft Carrier is possibly the most effective exponent of ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ ever invented.
The extra cost of the CVF programme is almost entirely down to the Government’s two year delay to the completion dates. Keeping tens of thousands of workers employed for those two years doesn’t come cheap…
Well said.
At this point I believe that if the treasury does manage to cut CVF then Britain will lose the carrier strike capability entirely. There will be no replacement program because the moment the Treasury see figures on designing and building a new ship, even a smaller one, will think that it would have been cheaper to stay with CVF and cancel the new program too.
I have to disagree on one point, SSN’s can be very effective deterrence to sea faring nations. As someone recently pointed out, they stopped a Falklands invasion in the 70’s just by being there. They may not be a big shiny visible asset but the threat and menace one causes it significant. The last think i’d want to see as a sailor would be shadow of an Astute a few miles out bearing down on my ship.
The few thinks i’m thankful to Gordon Brown for in defence is keeping CVF alive, thanks largely to the work his constituency gets. If he had been smart though he’d have told the MOD not to slow the project, thus saving money and pushing it too far beyond the point where cancellation is worth it when the Tories get in next year.
Grim901As stated Carrier Strike demands a defined sortie rate. CVF is the absolute cheapest hull that meets that operational requirement. There is no foreign, lower-cost, CVS/LHA design that matches up to the specification.
Correct me if i’m wrong but outside the USN there is no carrier built/building that will match/better the CVF specs, right? That seems pretty good to me.
Grim901While I agree with you for the most part do you know how much money an average state comp school is run on? You take £10 Bil out of education i’m afraid you would see melt down quite rapidly.
To give you some idea an average History Department in a comp of 1000 students usually has a budget of £800 a year for everything including books, pencils, trips, posters, dvd players, artefacts, software, photocopying….all for a 1000 students. Thats how tight school budgets actually are- actually very good value for money to be fair.
I know quite a lot about the education system and I agree with you largely. However there is still plenty of fat that could be trimmed. I remember a few years back my school spent thousands on buying 10 or so new 42″ plasma screens that are used for next to nothing (literally just the weekly written announcements – powerpoint type thing that gets read out by tutors every day separately) and some aren’t even plugged in to the walls they’re fixed on. It was an obscene waste but they way schools are funded means that the money couldn’t be spent in another department so they just splurged.
The NHS is a much better place to take the money from. The waste there is astounding. Billions of pounds is entirely wasted every year. The entire cost of the CVFs could be made from NHS efficiency saving from 1 year if you wanted to. But if you tried it they’d spin it as taking money out of hospitals that they desperately need to buy guns = not popular and not true. Patients wouldn’t suffer if we cut about £10 billion from the NHS budget and made them run it like a business in part (the bureaucracy bit not the actual patient care).
Grim901Damn that’s going to cost a lot:cool:
Interesting about the F35s maybe its a case of leaving options open and a small purchase of Bs will be studied?
A few nations seem to be interested in the B models outside of Harrier replacements, namely Israel. I think nations may be coming round to the view that STOVL can be useful in dispersing forces without a big shiny air base. I can see the potential there for the Aussies.
Grim901The route of all of this is the difference between the expectation of British Foreign Policy and how it is funded and executed. As a nation we still cling to an Imperial view, a Britain that is powerul and influential country, a force of good that is respected by other nations as an acknowledged leader on the world stage.
This view, a view that is held by Prime Minister and shopkeeper a like is outdated and almost entirely wrong. The UK is no longer a world leader, not anywhere near. It is viewed as an outdated, out of touch little country that has an inflated view of its own self importance. Its economy is weak and will continue to weaken relative to others. Its ability to influence world politics is small when in concert with others, non-exsistent when by itself. Its military clings to a technological superiority that grows ever more expensive and unattainable.
The real debate about foreign policy and defence policy needs to be had, to a certain degree this report is starting to address that.
Do we need a nuclear deterrent? We will never independently launch, so who exactly is it aimed at? Does it have a real role other than keeping our seat at the UN security Council?
Carriers? Do we need this level of power projection? Is it affordable or even desirable? Like nuclear deterrence the chance of us launching a large power projection war independently is tiny, so should we pay for that level of force given it it is unlikely to be used?
The sort of military operation the UK will launch independently will be no larger than a brigade+ Operation. It will be of the Sierra Leone scale. When politicians and Hiearchy except this we might actually get a military procurement that is efficient, value for money and affordable.
I agree with much of it, but it does still sound incredibly similar to words uttered in he 70’s and 80’s, ideas that quickly disappeared when everyone remembered that, although few and far between, we do control areas overseas that rely on us for protection. It took a war to prove that we do still need significant force projection.
You also said rather pessimistically that we are no longer powerful or a force for good, at this point I must also disagree. We can and do still work around the world and on occasions alone and I think on the whole results have been positive. Sierra Leone would be a good example where we alone made a substantial difference to the country.
I think that you are probably spot on with the direction that Britain is heading in, I think you’ve jumped a little ahead of yourself for now.
EDIT: Jonesy said a lot of what I meant better than i did in the post above.
Grim901Cavour doesn’t suit UK needs. The UK needs a carrier that is not tied to one aircraft and that can also be converted for conventional launching in case there are no suitable STOVL options after the F35 retires. The UK also needs a carrier that can give strong power projection such as a large ship that can operate many aircraft. CVF is the right ship it’s just the MOD being stupid over its procurement.
You’re right we do, that’s what the issue comes down too really, we need these things to support our foreign policy but not the money, we need to change one of those things to make the military effective. We all know what is sensible and the opposite which is what is happening.
Hmmmmm Senior soldier says that the army needs expanding, more training , more fancy gear and greater numbers, the air force needs cas but no penitration and the navy can just disapear up its own a!!! so no prejudice there then.
It just wouldn’t be Britain if the services weren’t trying to cripple each other for their own benefit and only managing the crippling part. The army are deluded to to thing they can operate without the RAF going ahead first and making it safe, or the Navy actually getting the army to where it needs to be and projecting the majority of the power early on. The RAF is deluded to thing it can do the job of a ship well enough from land anywhere in the world and that they can do the job of a tank or WIMIK. The Navy are deluded to thing that they can carry on buying what they need with no money.
Knowledge is perishable. When you design an aircraft carrier only once every 30 years, don’t expect it to be easy.
I don’t think anyone designs an aircraft carrier that often. The US had a 30 year gap between designing Nimitz and the new class. I think you refer to building one which you have done continuously, we have not.
Grim9011.4 billion Euros, though you could save a bit by not fitting the Asters. Follow-ons might be a bit cheaper than first of class, but there has been inflation since Cavour was built.
If we did go down the Cavour route i’d be pretty adamant about wanting Aster aboard because that shortage of Destroyers is not going away anytime soon. I wish the CVF did too but that’ll never happen either.
Grim901Apart from a console somewhere obviosuly…. (whistles quietly while edging out of the room) 😮
What control does an operator/monitor have for either system? Aprt from the ON/OFF switch.
I read that the Phalanx can be used manually too, so i’d assume there is more control than just a switch. Not sure about goalkeeper though.
Grim901Yes it is true,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8125449.stm
Dump them, 8 more Type 45’s.
Dave
Yes, that would be a sensible force mix…or not.
Yeh I just read this and wondered if the BBC have ever seen a large scal defence procurement before, no doubt it is just going to be used by opponents to renew calls to scrap them.
History repeats itself and no one cares. Maybe the Argies will be kind enough to snap people out of their anti-carrier mindsets again.
Grim901Temporary Hangers similar to the Bays would be the minimum, however a must would be a magazine for helicopter mounted weapons.
It would also be needed for mine-clearing charges.
I advocate a multimission bay that can be reroled. So it could be used for helo’s or MCMV equipment etc. They’d have a magazine on board anyway, may as well just make it available for MCMV charges and helicopter munitions.
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