You forgot Brazil.

A reasonable assumption (I do forget things, a lot) but in this case incorrect.

Brazil has a big flat top and is practising operating Skyhawks from it. Which is great and certainly no trivial capability. Brazil also certainly has the numbers. Sao Paulo will be able to operate more aircraft than a USMC platform. BUT ….. I don’t see these old Skyhawks as being superior to the AV8B+.

If/when Turbo trackers are ready for use as AEW then Brazil will have a capability that USMC just do not have. And the comparison becomes trickier. Is AEW worth more than AV8B+’s superior radar and BVM?

If/when Brazil has AEW Turbo trackers AND Rafael-Ms then sure they have knocked USMC aviation into 4th place.

If/when USMC get F35s the comparison returns to trickyville. Is AEW + RafaelM better ot worse than F35 without AEW? (I regard this last as hypothetical and apologise in advance for the flood of definitive statements which will be made by fans of one aircraft or the other)

I thought the general opinion was that TVC on the eurofighter would be a marginal investment, given it’s dominance other it’s competitors in manouverability already vs the weight penalty imposed by TVC?

Semi-informed guesses only.

1. Technology moves on. Any comparison of advantages and disadvantages would have to take into account the situation now not before. i.e. TVC may now be doable for less mass, less risk and less cost.

2. Eurofighter, Eurojet and ORIGINAL customers may have done the above analysis on Captor and on fixed nozzles and decided that neither were needed/warranted. But POTENTIAL export customers may see the lack of one or both of these as a dealbreaker

3. Maybe they read lots of forums like these and think PML megaLOLs TVC is leet or somesuch

6 is for England

I suspect that a few Cymric, Scottish, Eirish, Northern Irish and Channel Islanders would resent that first bit

since the Harrier, Jaguar, Panavia Tornado, Spitfire, Eurofighter and EAP are okay but are not the most beautiful aircraft, aircraft like the Lighting make the MiG-21, A-7 or J-8II look beautiful, and the Vulcan makes the Skyray look gorgeous

Lightning ain’t pretty, she’s handsome. Same with the Bucc and Sea Vixen. The jawline is too masculine and the shoulders too muscley from too much swimming to look like the classic beauty but there is something a bit classy and unique about them.

EAP and Eurofighter look too fragile to my eye (clearly they are not, this aesthetics not engineering talking)

And tangentally to the ‘which nation roolz‘ flavour I seem to be in a minority of 1 in thinking that the Crusader looks just like a jetfighter should do (the proposed two seat strike fighter version just looked even better in my view)

The earliest mockups I’ve seen of Phantom II (when the design still had 4x 20mm cannon) looked lovely. Production and improvement just made her lumpier and lumpier. But she is distinctive and purposeful and that stops me short of calling her ugly.

Spitfire looks prettier than any engine of destruction has the right to.

Having land forces opposing San Carlos landings would of been a decent start, trying to bomb the troop ships instead of escorts, sending better troops instead of thousands of conscripts.

Waiting until they’d received the military hardware that they’d already ordered from countries which Britain would be able to lean on to stop delivery.

NOT having two different ratpacks (Cigars and Brandy for the officers, insufficient calories for the conscripted)

Waiting for UK to decommission its flat tops before launching the campaign

Retarding iron bombs correctly so that the fuses actually worked

Individually most of these would probably have led to the same result but with many more casualties (on both sides). Waiting for UK to get rid of its organic airpower before invading would however have won the conflict for the junta.

(Can we take it as read that I’d rather that the Junta hadn’t felt the need to call Thatcher’s bluff and that there hadn’t been a conflict in the first place)

Rejected?:rolleyes: Silly me thought I would have LM on the phone as soon as they discovered my post!!:cool:

Seriously though, if the final number is six AAM’s internally, then it’s still a pretty hefty air superiority-platform!:) IMHO the added millisec it would take to launch a missile would only be a factor at gunrange. At BVR-range, the millisecs is less a factor, don’t you think?

If its just the millisec at BVR range then I think you are spot on.

If we’re including the extra complication and risk of unservicability of extra moving parts then I’m not so sure.

On the gripping hand F35s vertical lift system is a bigger maintenance worry for me. Keeping that clutch working is going to be a fun job, even if the design and production engineers are up to scratch.

Have to say that pictures really helped ME and the shot of Raptor with open bays and three launchers really makes me much more confident.

Tomcats had a separate pallet fitted for carrying Phoenix which bolted onto/over the hardpoints for Sparrow or iron bomb carriage. Here’s to hoping that LM have had a cunning plan all along to slide an easyfit insert into the F35’s weapons bay which will carry 2,3 or 4 Amraams in place of the 2000lb class weapon. (I for one don’t know what firing connections are in place already and hope that this has been planned from minute one but I confess that this does fall into the realms of wishful thinking).

Fnck it, plan B

Cancel everything in the pipelines (to maximise money already sunk and wasted)

Sell all accomodation and shore establishments. Hire back yacht clubs around UK (‘distributed nodes dontcha know‘)

Disband RM

Buy Already Brokes but spend a fortune refitting with Speys, Mk8s and Sylver silos. Replace Phalanx with Gambos. Oh and replace SPY1D with double-ended Artisan for C1.

Lease Coastguard cutters through at least two companies in series (Ingalls and VT) for use as C2 and C3.

Re-open Concore production line. Get the same surveyors in who did such a sterling job on Nimrod to measure the fit for a nice rotary bomb bay in in place of cargo and passenger section for use by RAF as landbased FAA replacement. Ensure that no inflight probe is fitted. Fit for but not with Meteor, afterburners, Harpoon and tyres.

Slow all submarine production and put back all in service dates by an arbitrary 15 years. Ask the Canadians if we can buy the upholders back for 110% of what they paid. Pay extra if they can manage to set an identical fire to the one we gave them. Fit for but not with hatches.

There, future RN sorted.

Politics

USMC (and USCG) come under the USN in the Pentagon.

The USN is paranoid that if LHDs etc ever appeared to be (what they are) as good as the air-capable ships operated by all but one other Navy (France) then some in congress might use that as a blunt instrument with which to smite the supercarriers.

For myself I think that:
a) USN are probably correct in holding this fear
b) its a bloody shame as it really stops them being used to their full potential