Meanwhile, i was trying to reason.
Escort fleet is reported to shrink from 24 to 16. I have a doubt about the numbers:

4 Type 22
13 Type 23
5 (?) Type 42

Type 42 left in service should be

D92 Liverpool
D95 Manchester
D96 Gloucester
D97 Edinburgh
D98 York

Since Nottingham bowed out in February.

5 + 4 + 13 + 1 (HMS Daring) = 23
I’m guessing the 24th ship is HMS Dauntless.

Logic thus rules that cuts to be announced tomorrow are:

All 5 the Type 42
All 4 the Type 22

Which gives 13+2 = 15 Escorts, not 16. What’s wrong…?

Certainly they can’t be mad enough to cut 3 Type 23 in place of the 4 Type 22, right…? Please say they aren’t.
Because the planned retirement dates for the Type 22 make this eventual plan ABSURD:

Type 22 Batch 3 frigates: HMS Cornwall (2015), HMS Cumberland (2017), HMS Campbeltown (2017), and HMS Chatham (2018).

It sadly looks like a political “concealed” cut. Now it seems they cut fewer ships, but by 2015 the RN is left with an even smaller number of frigates, and by 2018 the whole fleet will be 10 Type 23 (hopefully) and 6 Type 45.

Add this to:

Type 23 frigates: HMS Argyll (2019), HMS Lancaster (2019), HMS Iron Duke (2020), HMS Monmouth (2021), HMS Montrose (2021), HMS Westminster (2021), HMS Northumberland (2022), HMS Richmond (2022), HMS Somerset (2023), HMS Sutherland (2025), HMS Kent (2028), HMS Portland (2028), HMS St. Albans (2029).

And even if no more cuts pop up, in 2019 the navy risks having 8 + 6 = 14 escorts in total, if the cuts are made with the past smartness of the selling of HMS Grafton, which was very young still.

It looks like a fraud, sincerely.
By the time the first Type 26 enters service (will it really…? Don’t bet on it.) in 2021 the RN’s force could easily be as low down as to 4 + 6.

Here there’s potentially a gambling game on retirement dates.

Also, i think this is the “silent end” of the dream of a two-tier frigate force of C1+C2 (10 + 8) hulls and the target of “bare minimum 23 escorts”.
If the navy is very very lucky, it’ll aim for 12 (incidentally, a number that’s been appearing on the press) Type 26 and get 10, just enough to ensure that escort numbers remain in the future on the 16 level. Of those possibly only a bunch with weaponry, the rest with “provvision”.
It will pretty easily shrink even further, though.

The National Security Strategy is out.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_191639.pdf?CID=PDF&PLA=furl&CRE=nationalsecuritystrategy

Don’t loose your sleep on it, it says nothing about the cuts to the armed forces, nor gives any particular insight on how the modernization programme and thus procurement will change and evolve.
No way to understand from here if it’ll be F35B or C, in short.

The usual bunch on good words and sound reasoning that all but makes you think even more that the country actually shouldn’t be cutting at all on defence, and that thus clashes against the reality of the MOD’s budget like a car launched against a concrete wall.

This instead was on the FT, and is a more “tangible” sign of what exactly the Security Review decided:

However, the overhaul of the department for international development’s (DfID) £5.3bn budget will also be one of the key announcements. Mr Cameron will say Britain currently spends £2bn relieving poverty in nations plagued by conflict, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. This will be doubled to £4bn by 2015.

The net effect will be a significant reduction in the amount of DfID cash spent in other states such as India, Russia and China.

It was damn about time to cut aid to growing superpowers which are doubling or increasing threefold their military budget on a yearly basis. It should be cut to ZERO for those three countries, actually.

Not to consider that AAR C130s and A400s are platforms best suited to refuel helicopters, not fast jets.
It is not a case that the main air refuelling platforms are based on civilian jet planes by several years already. There’s an evident disparity in performances and air refuelling envelope between the two platforms.

A VC10 and a C130K were based in the Falklands as 1312° Flight years ago, but i suspect this Flight ceased to exist already. Possibly the C130 tanker was there before of these planes…?

I also read yesterday (I think on PRUNE or ARRSE) that they now think Afghanistan would be to dusty for the Typhoons and operating them would be detrimental the life of their engines.

This is all too evident! Deployment of course will take a tool on machines and engines, but they were bought EXACTLY for that work.
Engines are made to be replaced, and Typhoon was tested in Extreme Hot (Oman) and Extreme Cold (Norwey) locations alike with excellent results.
Of course you won’t consume the planes if you don’t use them, but this is no justification.

Is there enough slack in the USN to lease a squadron of Hornets or Super Hornets?

Answer: no. The USN is short on F18, and had to order 124 new ones recently to ensure it has planes until the F35C enters service. So no, they don’t have planes they can lease.
Then again, the UK would be able to use them on carriers only in 2018 anyway, and at that point it makes no sense.
What the UK can do is send pilots in the US training on carrier ops with the USN (already doing it it seems from the rumours) and then SPEND EVERY PENNY IT CAN FIND TO BUY AS MANY F35 as possible to have in early 2018.
Leasing costs money. Money better spent in ensuring as many combat aircrafts as possible are bought for the carriers.

Umm Italy is another. Greece and Turkey both receive military aid. Egypt also.

Italy received US military aid in the aftermath of the second world war, BUT NOW????

Are you on crack? Italy does not get a penny of military or civilian aid from the US nor for anyone else.

Italy gets to build a F35 production and mainteinance plan at Cameri, but not because of US aid.
Had UK been smarter, the production plant for europe would be somewhere in the UK. You’ve been the only Tier 1 partner of the programme, but still you’ve managed nothing constructive from it. It takes investments to make money.

Greece and Turkey both receive military aid. Egypt also.

Of those, possibly only Turkey will eventually order the F35, and we’ll have to see what kind of military help they’ll receive by then.

Most certainly. Tornado is an extremely valuable asset worth every penny. Bear in mind that the F35 would (when one excludes all the aviation magazine hype) be able to achieve nothing that cannot be achieved with Tornado and Typhoon. What possible sense could there be in writing-off the Tornado and Harrier fleet in order to have an aircraft which will be available in ridiculously small numbers (probably a dozen at best), be hideously complex, and has to be paid for (Tornado is already paid for)? There is no sense to it. It is politics, not sound defence thinking.

The fact Tornado made its first flight 10 July 1979 is also unrelevant i’m guessing.
Factors such as obsolescence, ending life of the airframe after the thousands of flying hours made, rising cost and shriking capability of running a so old design are all things you don’t consider worth a moment of thinking.
I’d like to know how old was your oldest car before you changed it with a new one. And your car is not designed to fly at sound speed, nor fly while people fires missiles at you.
Tornado will need replacement no matter what.

Also, the fact that F35 will be cheaper in terms of manpower, have an endlessly more powerful radar and avionic system that will make it sorta of a mini-ISTAR platform as well, the fact that F35C has more range and is definitely more stealth and survivale is totally uninportant to you.
A 1979 platform doing the job of the latest multinational effort in terms of airplanes. Come on, get real…! The Tornado was the “European Miracle” but it is not Jesus!

I can barely bring myself to imagine the claptrap that is going to be spewed-out this week in order to justify SDR. Hope everyone will bear in mind that whatever Fox says, it almost certainly will not be true. We’re going to be sold another absurd picture of Britain’s role in order to justify what will actually be nothing more than the results of an inter-service squabble…

This is totally true instead. Fox was already forced to say a bunch of idiocies to justify the loss of carrierborne strike power indeed, babbling out concepts that are so fake and weak that it disgusts me.
And still the press reports that the Nimrod might go, again with the Ainsworth’s trademark justifying lie of “we’ll cover the role with C130and other platforms”. A worthless lie that can trick no one.

the stories that appeared in the press about the aircraft’t lack of defence systems is probably a red herring in terms of AAR capability.

For what i could understand, the FSTA contract includes fitting of electronic countermeasures kit.

Other than the refuelling systems, the main areas of modifications are the installation of plug-in and removable military avionics, military communications and a defensive aids suite. The military systems will be removed when the aircraft is in commercial non-military use. The passenger cabin and the cargo compartment are not altered.

The lower deck cargo compartment can hold six 88in x 108in Nato standard pallets plus two LD3 containers. The civil cargo load could be 28 LD3 containers or eight 96in×125in pallets plus two LD3 containers.

UK tankers are being fitted with the Northrop Grumman large aircraft infrared countermeasures system (LAIRCM).

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/a330_200/
The LAIRCM is fitted to C17 as well and is state of the art in its field.
The “countermeasures” that the press reports as lacking are the “battlefield-entry” military specs like armored floor for the cockpit and reinforced floor with large pallet guides for the cargo compartment.

I would like the MoD to hold off on the conversion of Merlins to AEW&C configuration and contimue to operate the Sea King for as long as possible. I think we need to have a good look at what capabilities we are after and to see if a rotary platform is best for the job.

This may or may be not economically effective. With the Sea King HC4 apparently desired to go out by 2015 (when the end of Afghanistan will allow the Merlin HC3 to go to the Commandos), it may make more sense to try and get rid of the Sea King ASaC. Probably without immediate replacement, realistically. And don’t waste time telling me how absurd it would be, because i know. But the MOD will most likely be forced to do it nonetheless for lack of money.
For the replacement of them in time for use on the carriers, it will hopefully be once again evaluated the possibility to lease 6 used Hawkeyes from the US, with training package.
If the carriers will have catapults for the F35C, the Hawkeye is the best possible choice militarily… and economically, to lease a bunch of planes from the US and have the US or French navy train the UK personnel on them may be cheaper than convert Merlins and then train people on them.

I thought it was the Tornado F3 that only had a single gun and that the GR had 2 except the A variant which lost them to make space for Recce hardware.

The GR4 has one internal cannon and the GR4A has none.

The Tornado GR4A is used as a combat reconnaissance aircraft – also upgraded under the GR1 series MLU – and has no cannons mounted in the forward fuselage. Replacing these are an internally-mounted Sideways Looking Infra-Red system and a Linescan infra-red surveillance system.

The GR4 traded a gun for a Forward-Looking Infra-Red (FLIR), which you can see in any photo of the Tornado: you recognize it easily because of the glass seeker that makes it look almost like the Sniper pod.
The ADV traded a gun for additional fuel instead.

The Naval Wildcat though should be developed to enable it to act as an armed acout in addition to its maritime role. This would give the RN a very flexible platform able to support operation on land as well

It already is. The thermal imagery turret with laser rangefinder and such is the same on both versions.
Its capabilities would further be enhanced with software integration to the radar to make it suitable to track land targets, at the most. As it has been done with the Cerberus system of the Sea King ASaC before using them in Afghanistan.

This means tranche 3A must go ahead in full and serious consideration needs to be given to the purchase of some if not all of tranche 3B.

TRanche 3A appears to be safe, but it’s the Tranche 1 Block 5 that are in danger: the RAF is being asked to try and get rid of some of them. It was disclosed, for example, that the offer to Oman was either for 24 of the once-UK Tranche 3B production slots OR 24 ex-RAF Tranche 1 Block 5 planes.

Tranche 3B is set to be axed, and it is overall the most correct decision to take. Whatever money will be available to acquire new fighters should be used to ensure a decent number of F35C is bought.

As for the Tornado force, do we still need the same size.

No worries, it appears higly likely that Tornado IS NOT completely safe. Harrier will be out entirely by 2013 at the latest, and “several” Tornado squadrons are expected to go as well.

I’m hoping the latest Nimrod-cancellation rumors are totally misinformed, however. The Harrier decision is demented enough on itself without an even stupider decision being added to it.

Jets may not be it all, but in the normal world they are MOST of the nature of an aircraft carrier. The Invincibles will not be carriers anymore, but DDHs or LPHs.
The demise of Sea Harrier was a major blow to the capability of the fleet to defend itself from air threats.
But to lose even the capability to strike land targets at all…

Man, it will be 1981 all again.
And oh, while i remember!

You’d also hope our intelligence systems are sophisticated enough to give decent warning, and of course, Argentina isn’t in a wonderful financial state itself.

Three things i feel it is my duty to point out:
1) In 1981 diplomats and intelligence all but ANNOUNCED the imminent Argentinian invasion, but the government snubbed the warning as “unlikely”, as too often happens with intelligence reports.
2) Carrier Strike really isn’t justified JUST by Falklands. This is way too limited a strategic vision. Falklands are just the most emotional and evident example.
3) Argentina’s financial state is not bright. But this is by no mean a reason to believe the islands are safe. In fact, the financial crisis was the main starter of the crisis in 1982.

In the period leading up to the war, and especially following the transfer of power between military dictators General Jorge Rafael Videla and General Roberto Eduardo Viola in late-March 1981, Argentina had been in the midst of a devastating economic crisis and large-scale civil unrest against the military junta that had been governing the country since 1976. In December 1981 there was a further change in the Argentine military regime bringing to office a new junta headed by General Leopoldo Galtieri (acting president), Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo and Admiral Jorge Anaya. Anaya was the main architect and supporter of a military solution for the long standing claim over the islands, calculating that the United Kingdom would never respond militarily. In doing so the Galtieri government hoped to mobilise Argentines’ long-standing patriotic feelings towards the islands and thus divert public attention from the country’s chronic economic problems and the regime’s ongoing human rights violations. Such action would also bolster its dwindling legitimacy. The newspaper La Prensa speculated in a step-by-step plan beginning with cutting off supplies to the Islands, ending in direct actions late 1982, if the UN talks were fruitless.

It is an old rule that Hitler and every other dictator know well: when your people is starving/oppressed, give them someone to hate, and they’ll forget their own misery.
For Hitler it was the Jews.
For Argentina the Falklands.
For Saddam it was Iran, Kuwait and so along…

Ministers should be there EXACTLY to prevent this kind of utter bull. The Tornado is a better plane than the Harrier, but considering that:

Tornado in the end only have the RAPTOR and Storm Shadow as unique features that the Harrier GR9 doesn’t have;

Harrier is a bit less performant but does the job required AND is the only carrier capable aircraft left;

I think it is evident what choice should be made between the two.

Evidently, ministers miss the point and believe too much to RAF’s officers cries.

My advice?

Don’t build 2 carriers; build THREE (or four?) carriers. And sell them to EU! It’s about time the EU becomes a global player. You cannot do that without some military presence. The EU should should develop a EU military power base.

EU should have a few decent carriers around, just in case… And splitting the cost of 3-4 carrriers across all EU member states, should be affordable.

Of course, the above is not very realistic, to say the least. Still, I think it is a neat idea.

At the moment, it is unrealistic a proposal, but i totally agree with you on the point, and i think that, want it or not, there’ll be a point in the future (the sooner, the better) in which european military spending and armed forces will become as joint as the US military.

Europe is the FIRST economic power in the world for combined GDP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29). Still, it has a relevance on the international stage that is shrinking more and more and getting crushed under a re-born Russia, the US and China, and a military might ridiculous compared to what it should be.
That’s because the military is ridiculously low on the list of priorities of Europe, and keeps sinking even lower. However, at some point, the option will be “United States of Europe” or irrilevance, and the economic crisis all but made it more evident.

I hope that, by the time the CVF will need replacement, an european class of nuclear CTOL big carriers will come on the scene.
Europe CAN afford them (arguably it could afford more than even the US have) and will be pretty much forced to recognize the need for them because, in the best case, US will have 11, Russia by them might be fielding several (a stated requirement of 6 carrier groups was made public, and with the military budget growing three times bigger in the next four years i don’t have the courage to rule that out, sincerely) and China will have at least 2, with India having no less than 3.

Big players require big flat tops. Like it or not, it is a golden rule. There’s no going in mission away from your garden without air cover.