Liger30[QUOTE=90inFIRST;1612792]
[EMAIL=”http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/6803/hms1k.jpg“]http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/6803/hms1k.jpg%5B/EMAIL]
Awesome image. Know where to find the second half as well…?
Liger30Rolls Royce opens the manufacturing arm of the vectoring-thrust duct for the F35B: http://www.defpro.com/news/details/16882/
But indeed, one only carrier will be at sea at a time with F35s on board, this is going to be the normality, unfortunately.
I just hope to see enough F35 bought to see a decent degree of activity and a decent peacetime airgroup deploying on the carriers, however, because it would be a major waste and a sacrilege to see empty hangars and decks waiting for planes.
Liger30Thanks.
The problem with that is that it isn’t a definite statement about what Canada will pay. If you examine it carefully, all she actually said is “F-35A will be about $60 mn in today’s prices”.
Well, of course. I dunno if and when we’ll know the price of the F35. We may very well never know it for sure. I guess that that one statement, though, is the best indication we can hope for at the moment.
And we can hope for things to stay roughly the same or even improve a bit, depending on how many F35 are ultimately ordered and build: that will largely determine their cost.
Of course, two very important pieces of info to have will be:
– price of the 3 F35B ordered by the UK for the trials. It may be a couple of years before they come, through, and i doubt we’ll know the price before it happens.
– number of the F35B ordered by US marines and their unitary cost.
The more F35B the US marines order, the better for UK. Again, the more planes ordered, the lower unitary cost you can expect.
Italy will buy a bunch of F35B as well, mainly for Cavour but reportedly some also for the land-based ops. Most of the italian order will be made up by F35A however, so the UK is not really affected by it.
Liger30If i can find the article again, i’ll link you to that. The article said that the unitary cost of each plane in flyaway condition was “in the region of the 60 millions”.
I guess the rest of the bill for Canada is about training and spare parts.
Anyway, i’m looking around the internet to see if i can find that article again. I should have saved it somewhere, goddamn it.
Found!
[…] The version the Canadian Air Force is buying is the least expensive of the three variants and in today’s dollars it will be around $60 million per aircraft, said Lockheed spokeswoman Kim Testa.
DoD officials told lawmakers in June that the F-35 fighter program could cost as much as $382.4 billion, with an average through-life per-plane price tag of $92.4 million. […]
From http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4711718&c=AME&s=AIR Defense News is quite respected as source, so i think it can be given some trust. Obviously, mine are speculations however, this is clear.
Liger30Can you say where you got that figure? All I’ve seen is the figure of CAD9 billion for 65 aircraft, including unspecified extras (spares, etc.). That’s CAD 138 mn each. I’ve not seen any breakdown of that into aircraft & other components, but CAD65 mn for the aircraft implies CAD73 mn for the rest, which seems a very high proportion.
If i can find the article again, i’ll link you to that. The article said that the unitary cost of each plane in flyaway condition was “in the region of the 60 millions”.
I guess the rest of the bill for Canada is about training and spare parts.
Anyway, i’m looking around the internet to see if i can find that article again. I should have saved it somewhere, goddamn it.
Liger30Meanwhile, the Artisan radar is being tested on the QE island mock-up at the isle of Wight:
Liger30Always the awesome Navy Matters website (pity it was last updated in 2008, i miss the great info it always provided!) reported this F35 cost evaluation:
As of January 2005
Conventional takeoff and landing variant (F-35A) $44.8
Short takeoff and vertical landing variant (F-35B) $54.0-61.1
Carrier variant (F-35C) $55.0-61.0
Now we’ve seen that the F35A has been nominally sold to Canada for 65 million canadian dollars for plane.
Assuming that the proportions remained the same, we are looking at an F35B costing between 73 and 82 millions canadian dollars each.
The CV variant would cost roughly the same, apparently, possibly a little bit less than the B.
Due to the value of the pound, today an F35B in my (very empiric) analysis may cost the UK 50.8 million pounds at the highest end of the cost scale. Which would be quite awesome, actually. Unfortunately, the F35B is likely to cost far more than it was planned back then, and having no indication of its cost it is difficult to come up with a true analysis.
Having 6000 millions pounds budget, a 50.8 million unitary cost would give 118 F35B, which would still be a cut, from both the 150 and 138 figures, but a very acceptable one at that, i think!
Assuming a worst-end unitary cost of 112 US million dollars for each F35B (the amount has been suggested in the most pessimist reports, i think), it would mean 73.2 million pounds each. Starting from a baseline budget of 6000 millions, 81-82 planes.
Assuming a 10% cut in F35 budget, down to 5400 millions, with the worst price i pointed to we would be look to a 73-74 planes.
In the best cost case, 106.
Lookhed Martin says it managed to lower the forecasted cost of the first production planes down 40% from the data in the doom-and-gloom previously made in the dark hour of the program, and promised to lower costs of a further 20%. Let’s hope they can manage it!
But the true point is the value of the pound, and the effective budget that will be released for the F35 acquisition.
Let’s hope in a very strong pound when the F35s’ll have to be paid!
Liger30As for the budget for the F35 i’ve found this outdated but interesting MOD report on Richard Beedall’s Navy Matters:
[…] Overall numbers and the choice of F-35 JSF variant, both of which have yet to be determined, will drive the final cost of the programme, but it’s currently expected to be in the region of £7 to £10 billion (2000-01 outturn prices). In May 2001 the following estimated procurement costs for JSF were given by the MOD:
Concept Development Phase £160 m
Engineering and Manufacturing Development Phase £1300m
Expenditure on national requirements £600m
Production cost of 150 aircraft at £40 million each £6000m
Total £8060 m
Peak expenditure was considered likely to occur in 2013-14 and 2014-15.
Costs have increased substantially since 2001.
It was revealed in 2005 that the MOD had effectively cancelled much of the “expenditure on national requirements”. Some £368 million was ‘saved’ by the cancellation or deferment of upgrades for UK weapons such as Brimstone.
Current indications (late 2006) are for a JCA buy of around 80 F-35B’s – covering front line units, training aircraft and attrition. Its expected that these will equip four carrier capable front-line squadrons (two predominately RAF, two predominately RN) plus one second-line joint Training/OCU squadron of 16 aircraft. JCAF squadron designations will probably remain the same as now, i.e. 800 and [eventually] 801 NAS; 1(F), IV and 20(R) RAF. It has been suggested that that an 80 aircraft buy will in practice only allow a 9 aircraft front-line squadron strength – the same as the squadrons have today with the Harrier.
The Royal Air Force is planning to base its JSFs at RAF Lossiemoth in Scotland and are currently planning the facility in terms of an MRU on that base. The base also will “probably” be the location of an integrated training center.
Liger30Right, just shut up now. Others in the thread had finally managed to move on. I’m sick of having to sift through this argument to find posts on topic. If you want to carry on take it to PMs or another forum.
Jesus this board needs more moderators.
Back to topic: Interesting on the armour front. Are all our front line warships armoured to some degree still?
Sorry, wasn’t my intention to see it drag this long. But i couldn’t just let go.
Anyway, modern warships are normally not armored. I doubt Type 23 have “armor”, in fact, and even Type 45 does not have armor in the literal sense of the word. There are compartments and other passive-protection features. The SURVIVE software mainly determines how to place instrumentations, locals and machinery to create the safest and most resistant structure possible.
Anyway, from that article the CVFs seem to have some degree of armor, probably protecting the vulnerable fuel and weapon storage locals, and probably designed more to protect against slivers and blasts than from hits.
However, Navy Matters had a page about survivability and protection of the ships, where it was stated that most, if not all, the active protection (kevlar armor plates and such) had been dropped as a cost saving measure, and the safety of the ships based mostly on passive-protection and survivability measures.
With details being classified (wisely) it is hard to tell where armor may be, and what effective consistence it could have.
Liger30You keep rambling and rambling without getting the message that was clear several posts ago; or more likely you realised how fundamentally flawed your main argument is and are ignoring it out of pride. Either way I’m done with you. I’ll just give you this one line to think about:
If you cut 4 F-16s out of Pakistan’s military aid package they’d still be happy, there would be no difference whatsoever to the Taliban cooperation(since F-16s aren’t going to be deployed there anyway), and you would free up that 250 million you’re so desperate for, without any harm done to needy people in any country.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Returning to the thread, are there any plans to include armor plating on the CVF or do they remain dropped due to cost? At that size it’d be a shame if they didn’t use some of the space to ensure it didn’t sink with one AshM.
The F16 you ramble about aren’t Uk related to start with. It is a contract in place between Pakistan and USA that dates back to 2006 and builds on even older “Peace Gate III” and IV agreements in the late 80′ and in the 90′ that saw Pakistan ordering F16 fighter planes but never got them because US embargoed the country because of its nuclear program.
Even assuming they pay the F16 now with the same money the US give them in military aid (and it is higly unlikely that the US are SO stupid to seek no evidence of the use that Pakistan makes of its aid), the UK has nothing to say about it. The UK is not giving them Typhoons.
If you are trying to say that UK paid those F16, you are most likely wrong. If the government is stupid enough to hand them money without checking how it is indeed used, it is its own stupidity it must tackle.
And ultimately, Pakistan fights the talibans in the border region. It does what we need it to do, and this justifies the aid.
India could very well CUT A FEW OF ITS OWN PLANES and sustain its own people, instead of requiring the UK to cut its own investments to help indian villagers.
End.
Liger30Your ‘reasoning’ was pretty transparent, and here you’re merely continuing your ‘attack the arguer’ idealogy. The PAF thread should be updated with the new F-16s in a few days time. Don’t miss it, after all you couldn’t bear to see a single plane axed instead of Indian economic aid.
Are you still going on? Gods, you are annoying for real.
Luckily, there’s already been someone in the conservative government calling for a reduction of aid given to India, which means that they saw the absurd of giving money to a superpower with a space program without getting any advantage in exchange.
For the people like you who did not get it yet, the Afghanistan operation we are all tangled in, will be ultimately won or lost in the South-Afghanistan/North-Pakistan region, teh sanctuary of talibans and the red-alert area, since it reaches all the way close to Pakistani nuclear facilities.
Aid to Pakistan is strategically relevant because of this simple fact. If you have evidence of the money of the aid being used for other military programs unrelated to the struggle in northern-pakistan, i could even believe it, pretty easily in fact. But it does not change the fact that we need Pakistan to work in the fight against talibans, and we unfortunately have to pay in some way for it.
As to budget aid, what has no strategic relevance for me should be immediately cut, in this times of crisis. When you have problems at home, you have to fix them before you can play nurse with the world.
If you still don’t get it, cut it short anyway. Because you have grown annoying for real. And you keep forcing people to go out of topic. End it once and for all.
Liger30Nothing much will come of the Co-op talks (I imagine that we may share certain design program etc, and we all know how well they work out), and anyway the SDR will take place long before any deal can be hammered out
Actually, the article suggests that by November such analysis on cooperation will be concluded. The SDR is expected around that period, perhaps in October, but it could well come in November.
As to what will come out, we’ll know when it comes out. Very likely, there will be at the very least something about the air tankers, because the rumors have been numerous already about that and because the RAF is not going to find a civilian air force paying to use the 6 air tankers that in the contract are available only on call.
These 6 tankers will be leased to the french in a pay-for-hour fashion, and it would make perfect sense to do so: after all, the PFI contract anyway talked about having those planes serving as civilians aircrafts when not needed by RAF already.
Liger30The bulk of my problem isn’t that you’ll spend on ships over villagers. It’s that you’d willingly finance one foreign nation’s defence programs at the cost of your own and then turn around and say you want to finance your defence programs at the cost of another foreign nation’s economic aid that unlike the previous case is actually helping to make the world a better place. Therein lies your hypocricy. Get it?
You did not get a single concept of my reasoning, man about Pakistan and India’s matter. You are making your own conclusions bending at your will what i said. In this way, you could pretty much make me say anything.
Liger30I think it’s more likely to be good news for Mantis than Taranis. Mantis is a good fit for both British & French requirements in the next few years, & France has no real equivalent. Taranis is very similar to Neuron, which France appears committed to.
Since the AdlA has already expressed its preference for A330 MRTT tankers, i.e. what the UK is getting, pooling resources there would be easy.
There’s already been co-operation on carriers, but it ended when France postponed PA2. Co-operation of the kind suggested in the press recently is not practical.
Perfectly right. I wanted to write Mantis, but i was still thinking about the recent presentation of Taranis and so i wrote the wrong name.
But there may be some space for Taranis as well, you know. It fits in the same class of the Neuron project, very ambitious program but one that made slow paces considering all the money spent on it. I wouldn’t be too sure about France’s commitment to the Neuron. Of course, though, it is far more likely that we’ll see collaboration on the Mantis, because France has a very urgent requirement for a drone of that kind, it is not really happy of the possibility to buy american and an european solution may be appealing.
While for the UK, Mantis is the ideal answer to the Scavenger requirement.
As to the carriers, you know well that i’ve pointed out more than once that as things stand now there’s no way in Hell to do what press suggests. But i’m not willing to rule out an agreement of some kind before this review in the review is carried out.
After all, i just read that the RAF seems willing to refuse the Nimrod MR4 now that it is ready to go, and proposed to ground all Tornado GR4 in five years time.
After such a shocking read, my fears about the SDR can only grow exponentially. And i don’t dare trying to imagine what will come.
Liger30Nice. Seeing your hypocrisy utterly exposed you change tactics to attack the arguer instead of the argument and hide behind the prentention of staying on topic. Getting back to topic, I wonder how many of the CVF’s F-35Bs are going to get cut as a result of the first batch of F-16blk52s that will be delivered to Pakistan in a few days. No, I don’t even want youranwer, just wondering, Liger.
And… An account of the work being done on the Queen Elizabeth’s bow section and propulsion system:
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/blog/queen-elizabeth-takes-its-bow/1003401.article
If i wasn’t the polite person i am, i’d reply pointing at your utter stupidity with stinging malice, but since i’m a correct person, differently from you at what i see, i’ll avoid doing that.
Anyway, i’ll give you a satisfaction. If you want to call me evil because i’d rather spend on ships than in aid (supposed to go) to villagers, do it.
Because i’d definitely do it. Aid should used strategically in accordance with the nation’s interests in foreign policy, since it comes out of taxpayer’s money. Who wants to help villagers can do it on its own, and receive the apprecciation of everyone. But it is his own choice.
End of the matter.
Sign In
