Al.The Iraq Iran war was symetrical?:confused:
How many new combat aircraft, SAM systems, missiles, PGMs, Exocets were delivered to Iran in the 1980-1987 war?
What kind of Intelligence support did Iran receive from the Americans, in the same way that the Americans supplied it to the Iraqis?
I believe that the Iranians received SOME help from the USSR …………..
The Iran-Iraq was a (sadly all too typical) war by proxy where both sides were armed by superpowers.
Al.Im sure the UK would be happy to sell the Australians Astutes probably in the region of 2.5 billion dollars per sub. Good buddies after all and our ship yards could do with the business 😛
I suppose that depends on whether or nor we replace our SSBNs. If we do not then there would be capacity in our one boat shipyard. If we do then we will not be able to build and supply in any semi-reasonable timespan.
Would we be allowed to sell you chaps nuclear reactors? would australia even want them?
Presumably reactors would not be subject to non-proliferation agreements. I don’t know how much help/technology transfer there has been from the US on the new reactors and hence whether we would need their sayso. I suspect that if it was a two horse race between Astute and Virginia class then I would suspect that the US would be astute (ha ha) enough to block the sale/transfer.
Al.And yes, the IDF does not acknowledge any losses unless it has to.
Annoying for us aviation fans but………… Good. I should hope that they do. Selective misinformation about one’s onw aircraft and their capabilities and vulnerabilities is a vital part of any military organisation’s PR arm’s role.
Why build a very strong reputation about your main air arm and then allow any kind of undermining of that reputation. The Israeli generals would be nuts to admit to any losses which they didn’t absolutely have to. The complexity of course comes from how to square this with providing honest information to decision-makers to avoid sinking good money after bad on a product from a manufacturer without making sure that follow on orders resolve the issue and/or training the next tranche of personnel (even) better.
Al.I mean, this sounds as if laymen were designing/approving this whole program…
That is quite possible.
Its also a problem which afflicts all kinds of projects (not just defence) from all kinds of nations (not just democracies).
Designing by committee and especially designing by committee members with little or no technical competence happens all over.
The problem is that JSF is just too big to be be allowed to fail. Maybe a case of putting all eggs in one basket or maybe just a realisation that so many airframes will need replacing (or already do) and the nations involved cannot afford to all go their own ways and produce so many SIMILAR aiframes for a range of SIMILAR tasks especially if there is agreement that the next generation will require such expensive new technologies.
F4 and F16 ended up being good enough at all of the roles they were tasked with and so were able to fulfill a lot of roles. F14 and F15 were EVEN better at what they were designed to do but were/are more expensive and for this reason (and others) were not flexible enough to be all things. With this in mind JSF had to be asked to do lots of different things AND TO DO THEM IN A MORE HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT.
I’ve always worried that the chosen VTOL system is just too prone to maintenance failure. But I’d be lying if I were to say that I’d always recommended that big wing, marinised JSF should be used in place of the other two sub-models. Making that decision early on would have made a number of technical problems just go away. But it might also have killed the JOINT bit of JSF.
Dear old Schelde have a maxim for their Sigma Corvettes/Frigates that chaning 10% of a design can mean changing 90% of the design drawings. The differences between the 3 models of JSF mean that 3 fundamentally different airframes are being developed in parallel and all of them are at the cutting edge. So any problems with any of the common bits affect three different designs. Any success on unique bits are of little help to the other two designs.
Al.exactly the kind of answer which Al was sking for, which would have been equally useful if the outcome was the opposite
Ta
Al.I have a lingering attachment to the Eagle so I’d like to think that the S Korean’s chose her in part because the costs of OPERATING the Flanker would be significantly more than the Eagle. Costs of buying for sure I can see that the Flanker would win.
Al.It is stated to be MORE draggy WITHOUT BVRAAMs attached.
Sure, sure I got that bit. Obviously I wasn’t clear with me question.
We have a relative situation. With or without BVRAAMs. Which is our starting position and which is our comparison?
Being more draggy WITHOUT BVRAAMs can mean one of two things. Either it is even BETTER with BVRAAMs attached and all is well. Or that it is even WORSE without.
Hitler didn’t kill as many people as Stalin. That doesn’t mean that he was a nice chap. It means that Stalin was even worse. Likewise if Tyffie with BVRAAMs is bad and without is worse this is a poor state of affairs. If Tyffie without BVRAAMs is good and with is better then this is a good state of affairs.
Al.As of september 2009 it were 113 sorties out of 5000 planned.
Which might be good news or bad. If the programme designers were particulalry far-sighted then they may have planned in lots of testing which they did not expect to need but were aware might be needed to test fixes and improvements which earlier tests threw up as being essentail. So this would be good news.
If they did not forsee these and the plan has slipped massively due to problems which were only unearthed by the initial tests. Then this would be bad news.
Al.My thoughts as well. I would like to say I’m in no way trying to upset people and nor am I yank bashing but I just can’t figure out this need for extreme speed.
I cannot either. And I really think that USN has been going down the wrong path a lot recently.
When your in a congested litoral space and a Linx pops out from behind a nearby island and fires a couple of skuas at you from 2-3 miles away being able to go 9 knots faster then other ships can isn’t really going to save you, or is it?
No, lots of soft kill is. Historically USN have been pretty good on loading up on soft kill.
Convince me how this is a good idea. No other navy seems bothered by this concept, are they all wrong?:confused:
Tricky to answer that one. The USN is about the only Navy with the right combination of funding, technical knowhow and experience. Thus they may be going LCS alone as only they can. (In a similar vein only USN have multiple CVNs, is this because everyone else is too clever or because no one else has them but wishes that they did)
Al.FF21 (a step up from the Sa’ar 5). Litton-Ingalls IIRC.
My concern is that FF21 will be the antithesis of LCS. i.e. too many weapons packed onto too small a hull. Stability and speed will be issues surely. Presumably she’ll still suffer from endurance issues?
For size comparison, such a 5-packed set of RAM would also fit in a single cell of the 8-round Mk29 NSSM launcher.
Say what now? 40 RAM per launcher ready to go? I used to think that not upgrading SeaCat to Lightweight SeaWolf was the most criminal failure to upgrade in Naval History now it looks like second place.
I thought LCS tests were going very very well?
Hypothetically (or not) what if further trials do not go so well? What if the specification is a bit off? (Which is a bigger issue than with many programmes since the top speed requirement is such a driver for so many aspects of the design) What if the whole concept is bobbins? What if politically it becomes too hard to defend a system which is so high spec and high cost with so few traditional/visible weapons?
Al.Yes, but if a helo dip an active sonar nearby, you’re either detected or on the verge of detected, a sidewinder mite remove the immediate torpedo threat.
On top of that, It must be a huge relief to have any kind of defense vs these would be bullies.
Bang on for both points IMMOO.
I think that the most interesting bit is the potential to change one’s opponent’s tactics.
Once MPA were working effectively it was no longer sensible to optimise submarines for surface work (travelling faster on the surface AND surfacing to attack with fish and cannons).
If the boat has the potential to lay off an attack from another position (or several other positions as long as one is clever enough not to send buoys and SAMs in a pattern which serves to bracket and tri-angulate one’s own position!) then MPA and ASW Helo tactics will have to change.
Al.Pre-LCS the USN had done some interesting studies including:
Regional deterrence ship
FF21
Combined Patrol Corvette
Personally I think that the USN is going to need something along these lines EVEN IF LCS pans out
Al.Have you heard of Robert Huggins and Associates
I shall have a look see
If Government could run well enough before 1997 without all the fat why do we need it now?
Well it didn’t!
But I’d certainly agree that any improvement (however small) hasn’t got better as a one-to-one mapping of adding more and more personnel.
Al.another case of the “build for but not with” for the RN ?
Yeah but even more sneakier like
incidentally, what would people expect the tornadoes to be replaced by, F-35 or some strike variant of the EF ? one type each for the RAF and RN would probably make more economic sense.
B1R surely 🙂
Al.Or a steam generator separate from the propulsion.
Smart ****!
(Thanks)
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