RE the Aw149, I agree with what most folks are suggesting that it has to be a candidate if there is a split purchase with more Merlins. There hasn’t been too much published about its spec, but one thing that does jump out is that its payload apparently isn’t as good as a Puma or a Sea King by about 1-1.25 tonnes, which in rotory wing terms is quite a lot which I think is what Distiller was hinting at in his earlier post. Is that likely to be a major factor in any decision ? Presumably there is a single piece of underslung kit that the Army have in mind that it ‘must’ be able to move with the winning design ?

The NH-90 seems to have similar lift capabilities to the later spec Puma’s and SK and is of course quite a success with a significant number sold. I don’t think it can be ruled out completely if there is a competition.

The NH90 is too similar to the Merlin really, except you lose a little lift capability don’t you? I can’t see it happening when the Merlin is so similar and provides British jobs instead of European ones.

I think the point of the AW149 is that it can do what the puma is often used for, dropping squads in, with a capacity of 15 troops that’s good enough. And if it’s part of a split purchase with Merlin’s which have a much larger lift capability it gives a nice balanced force.

They certainly do seem to be producing some useful stuff and this 50kg thing is designed to be tri-service and be useable with fixed and rotary wing. 😮 The taxpayer might end up getting value for money

Nah if it looks like that’s going to happen we’ll have to tell team complex weapons to give it an additional capability, perhaps sub strategic nuclear strike. We can’t have a successful procurement of British built equipment now can we, what would we have left to moan about?

Seriously though, i’m excited that we’ve finally found something we seem to do really well by global standards without cocking up.

What was that role mentioned for a modified Starstreak? I want to wow my neighbour tomorrow with my knowledge (he runs the Starstreak project team)

Actually another question I have for our fleet experts, but how many V22 would the RN need to support AEW for two carriers as well as a secondary tanking and COD role. Would we need an OCU as well or buy into American training?

I doubt a lot of thought has been given to that solution, considering the current budget pressures I can’t see the UK buying in to new capabilities like that anytime soon (especially the tanker bit). But as far as I know they were planning for between 6 and 12 AEW craft for the CVF’s.

How is the experience in the UK with their Merlins ? Most things I read about it and it’s variants are negative reports about quality issues and low availability.
Just two examples:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/10/20/cormorant_ground041020.html

http://www2.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=f2bb3c5f-8663-4987-bab2-0d598d126052&k=84953

The first article is from when they first became operational, the cracking issues were fixed by 2005 I think. The second article refers to that same issue quite a bit too. I haven’t heard much about the spare parts issue, maybe it isn’t an issue here in Britain since they’re built here, for all I know the Canadian spare parts might have been diverted to our Merlin’s in Iraq.

Apart from that I hadn’t heard of any significant issues with the British versions except that they hadn’t trained enough crews to fly them. That’s not an issue with the helicopter though.

The issue of the Danish engine braking was blamed on an unavailability of spare and too few qualified repair crews. It looks like it was mainly the Danes fault for waiting until the last minute to order spare and not properly training their crews (as shown by the higher availability rates now).

Sorry, gallows humour at the end of a long day.

I think the Merlin/Wildcat/Aw149 buying combination makes the best sense. Two of them have had the development costs all but paid for and are in production while the third is just a bigger 139. If all three built at Yeovil it could be a real boom time at westland.

Agreed. A potent helicopter combination and British industry benefits, it’s almost too good to be true until you hit cost and number of orders.

Very poor spares package leading to lots of robberies, Westlands have to get structural repairs cleared through Boeing leading to delays, no access to build drawings etc, etc.
It’s a right b*ggers muddle to try and work with, and i’d hope they’ve learnt many lessons from this contract so it won’t be repeated in any future purchase.

I’d heard about the spares shortage, hadn’t put the pieces together though. Are they planning on doing anything about it? Surely it could come under a UoR with a squadron deployed to Afghanistan. But hey, it strengthens the argument against relying on the Americans for our helicopters.

To replace the Puma and Sea King I would like to see between 24 and 36 Merlins bought to equip 3 RN Squadrons and bring both RAF squadrons up to full strength. I would like to see the AW149 as well but given to the Army to replace the Lynx AH9 so around 32 for 2 Regiments each of 2 AW149 Squadrons and 1 Wildcat squadron. 1 Squadron of Wildcats would go the the RM.

Maybe a wish list but surely someone has got to finally see the light in HMG and/or the MoD!

By the way what if any are the plans for armament on the Wildcats?

If you want to replace the AH9 (some of which re actually being upgraded so it’d be a while yet, i’d rather see more Wildcats ordered. Apart from that, Merlins and AW149’s all the way!

Haven’t heard much about the planned armaments for the Wildcat, I presume it is similar to what the current versions carry since they’ll be performing in the same roles, plus any of the replacement items (e.g the Sea Skua replacement) when they come into service.

Interesting sidenote to confuse you: The Wildcat is also known as the AW159, so we better be careful when typing out numbers. 😛

Even with them tied down on deck I wouldn’t take the risk unless I had to. I can just imagine the look on people’s faces when i told them I’d acidentally dumped my multimillion dollar Air group into the sea. That’s probably why none are on deck in the photo.

I seem to be doing a lot of this lately:o

That’s what the article I posted says, I’d love it if the got the 2 extras T45s, without a new Government with a radical new investment in defence I don’t see how this is possible.

Sorry haven’t had a chance to read it yet, i’ll do it now. You’re right, none of the major parties seem likely to put in the money required, it’s a shame that the only half decent defence proposals i’ve read came from UKIP (1% of GDP increase in defence (40% above current levels), some pretty heavy procurement investment to get the RN, RAF and Army back up to strength). Almost a shame they’ll never get in.

I’ve been thinking of a slightly different approach to the problem now. So far it seems that to create C2 we’re thinking of things we can take off C1 What if C2 was set as a baseline ship, with the basic requirements of local air defence (CAMM), local ASW (hull mounted sonar + helo/torpedo tubes?), basic shore bombardment (155mm gun or a little smaller if it doesn’t work out), possibly some Anti ship capability (4-8 x Harpoon) and room for 2 helo’s etc. Then the C1 could could be an upgraded version based on the role they want to fulfil, so dedicated ASW would have a modular TAS fitted in the aft mission bay, a GP variant would have increased numbers of TACTOM etc.

Basically the hull would be the same, so all would effectively be built to the same standard, then instead of taking weapons off to make C1 become C2, weapons are added on to make C1 from C2. I don’t know if that could all be made modular (eg. TAS) and messing about with what’s in the VLS (e.g increasing TACTOM numbers) so the role can be altered as required, or all the role specific equipment + crew taken off for the C2 role (choke point escort, patrolling etc) when it is unnecessary for TAS etc.

I don’t think i’ve put it across very well, so I hope someone can get my meaning, but feel free to pull it apart and it might help me explain what I mean a little better.