Al.[A lot of these programmes appear to wish lists rather than realistic requirements and with cancellation payments etc. and the cost of sourcing the equipment from elsewhere we as a nation are billions worse off, but the real losers are the servicemen and women who suffer from these poor decisions.
I cannot argue with any of those points. Smart procurement has been anything but.
[In the private sector such financial incompetence would be rewarded with a P45
Not in any of the private sector firms I’ve worked in or had dealings with. Sad fact of life some people are technically competent, some are very good at playing internal politics and a very rare few can do both.
Al.Your fingers weren’t co-operating with your brain for much of that post, were they?
GRIN.
If that’s the only factual error then I’ll be a happy man! (And surprised)
Al.F-2 ? Single Engined ? Middle Weight ?
Quite correct. My original assertion not nearly tight enough. When buying from US two-engine heavyweight.
Single-engined Middle Weight quite nicely describes JSF though doesn’t it? So will JASDF decide that it already has that niche covered or that this is in fact the way to go?
Al.That’d leave a lot of the equipment of the naval AW159 completely pointless. Who needs a Seaspray 7000E radar & Sea Skua 2 for boarding operations? No, they have to be navy.
For sure. There was a degree of flippantness in my suggestion. But it does raise an interesting question as to why we (almost uniquely) have TWO naval helos.
Traditionally Wasp or Lynx on small ships which couldn’t take anything larger and Wessex or Sea King or AW101 on the big beasts. That made sense of sorts.
If Wildcat is as good as is hoped then each time we deploy a single escort we have the question: AW101 or AW159?
Logistics will be joint to a high degree anyway.
Let us hope. Have joint logistics worked brilliantly thus far?
Al.I think the answer could be the same as for NGFS/Land Attack Burkes:
I can certainly see the attraction. Deterrent effect would be awesome if nowt else. But again I am worried that we are looking at high-cost, big, vulnerable, rare resources being put in harm’s way.
And then delete all the expensive anti-air and anti-sub systems. Saves a huge amount. But I would just delete stuff, and keep the structural differences to the absolute necessary minimum.
In warship design as with legislation I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that deletion is as important as addition. Gold-plating seems to me to be a very poor design trend so its very avoidance as you suggest is as the young people say ‘made of win’.
I don’t think putting large artillery complexes on relatively small vessels, like a C3, is a viable solution. Not stable enough.
There might very well be truth in that. If Monitors (which is in effect what I’m suggesting upon reflection) were the be-all and end-all in NGS we would still have them.
BUT (and I don’t have the best nor even the least-worst solution to this) how do we get sufficient numbers of NGS platforms that we are prepared to put in close to shore?
Al.What’s ‘insane’ about this?
There is no Alaskan highway 🙂
Al.Sounds promising for Typhoon. IIRC Japan’s indigenous F-2 fighter production is winding down. Typhoon would provide ongoing work for the sector. Additionally, it seems to be the closest in performance to the F-22, which is what Japan would ideally like to buy, but cannot.
The Japanese government has shown a willingness and ability to play the long game in defence procurement. F1 and F2 didn’t really add anything which an off-the-shelf (probably US) purchase wouldn’t provide, and certianly didn’t justify the price premium. But these programmes provided an indigenous capability. The US has reused to provide Japan with its top line air dominance fighter so Japan may feel quite happy in sending a message that in that case THIS TIME they will go elsewhere.
Japan is ALMOST unique in client states for US fighters in always going for two-engine heavyweight and never one-engine lightweight. That option is not available this time.
The other political gain for India and Japan is in showing their common compettitor (please God not enemy) China that they are co-operating on defence and have the same interoperable airframe.
Al.So the justification for cancelling Nimrod was to save on £2bn worth of operating costs over ten years through 2011-2020, they’re now going to throw 50% of those savings away in the procurement of a new MPA type, that still has operating costs of its own, within just 4 months? Is there a point to all this?
A 50% saving is still a 50% saving. Maybe the operating costs of MPA-lite will be less than the costs of making good on MR4?
Politically it gave ConDems another chance to highlight stoopid procurement decisions happening under the old regime. Which has the delightcul advantage of not requiring them to say what they’d have done differently then.
Moving MPA to FAA has certain attractions.
Idiologically making each service have ONE example in each type of airframe might seem attractive and might even have cost and logistical advantages (clearly that will come a distant second)
i.e.
RN
Helo – AW101
Fastjet – F35C
Prop – MPA
RAF
Helo – Chinook
Fastjet – Typhoon
Prop – A400M
The disadvantage (and it’s a big un) is that we still have a multiplicty of types doing needed jobs. Will these be cut or will we spend more to gain a common airframe?
Do the bootnecks get all of the Lynx Wildcats? Scouts for the Army and boarding operations for RN?
Al.LordJim makes a valid distinction between civil servants.
A related point: one of the reasons that there is a disparity between uniformed numbers and civil service numbers is that a (largish) number of uniformed jobs were civilianised IN ORDER TO SAVE MONEY. It seems a trifle unfair to then blame the chaps doing these jobs for the budget deficit.
We have defence deficit because our previous government (strictly plural I suppose) fought two wars on a peacetime defence budget.
The reasons for the larger national budget deficit are more complex but no doubt if everyone trots out their own pet hobbyorse the reasons will all eventually be aired.
If the RAF is to be rationalised to a single Fastjet type then there must be idiologocial reasons for starting this sooner rather than later. And no doubt there will be apparent financial savings. I hope that at the least the ministers responsible have been given a graph showing what needs to be spent and when to maintain capabilities and can see where this crosses over with what gets saved when by axing.
Al.AI
Its an L not an I. But admittedly not terribly clear in this font.
Your Type 45 AAW destroyer seems rather unaffordable,
Possibly. Quite possibly. Which aspect in particular do you see as being unecessary expense?
The thing I disagree with is the big gun for naval gunfire support. AAW destroyers should be the last ships in any fleet to carry out this mission
I thought I’d covered that (apologies if not) in wanting to keep my high-end AAW as far as possible from shore. I don’t disagree for one second with your desire to keep them out of littoral harm’s way though! I would guess that T45s got Mk8s in the first place as a combination of historical accidents.
Al.Yes but you have built the ship to SB standards and are there for required to stick to them
IFF he posts it to shipbucket. Their standards are a quality control for the images on their site. Regardless of where posted it’s only common decency to acknowledge anyone who did previous drafting/design work and he(?) seems to have done that.
Al.Its also a very bright light for something in such bright sunlight.
Because it looks cool
EDIT: Or its part of a directed-energy weapon, I can’t believe that I didn’t think of that earlier
Al.Fair play to the pilots (and those reported squaddies) for doing what I only hope that I’d have the courage to do.
Al.Type 45 AAW Destroyer
Fit midline of VLS in deckhouse for total of 9×8 launchers
Load all with Aster-30s (use up current inventory Aster-15 boosters for tests and replace with the 30 boosters)
Replace Mk8 with something bigger, either BAe’s 155mm or Oto Melara 127/64 and add Vulcano guided munitions
Either Dardo twin Fast-40s or Millenium 35mm amidships (tbh I’d accept reused Phalanx mounts if push came to shove)
Fit one (or more?) Centurion decoy systems
Fit CAAMMs in C Position rather than ‘will they won’t they’ Harpoons
Carry Italian-style AW101AEW
Rationale: If my lovely, rare AEW destroyers HAVE to do NGS then I want them as far out as possible, and a common NGS weapon on all frontline warfighters makes sense to me
The further out I can detect threats the better, so extending my AAW picket’s detection range with dedicated AEW platform wins.
Likewise my only class able to guide Asters need to have as many as possible and with the longest range possible.
CAMM again provides commonality with rest of my fleet and allows me to engage surface targets as well as any pop-up air threats.
I don’t want the physical loss or embarassment of damage inflcited by assymetrics so best possible gun system required
Al.Personally I think that the aft VLS should be deleted and the forward VLS should give up 4 cells to MICA quad packed or use a Mark 56 vls extruding aft.
Nick
Putting all of the VLS in one area would
a) simplify maintenance
b) provide more usable space for the helos
c) provide two ends for point defence SAMs (what with Tetrals being aft) which makes the design more battle resistant
The overall idea (revision a or revision b) is a winner in my view
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