It was mentioned in cabinet minutes, not specifically a map and not specifically with regard to CVA-01 either, but with regard to a proposal for enhanced Buccaneers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11334836/MoD-forced-to-ask-US-for-help-in-tracking-Russian-submarine.html

Someone is agitating for MPAs, though the P1 might be in the running now.

Sensible option might be to nick some old Vikings out of the boneyard for peanuts, hence this won’t happen.

More interesting than whatever clucter****s come out of the SDSR will be the petty squabbling, brinkmanship and childish leaks to the press. The RAF will probably be begging for a Bear to come within 2000nm of the UK and pointing to deflation in the EZ leading to cheaper luxury hotel rooms. They will point out that Stormshadow is the perfect weapon for taking out a 1992 Toyota Hilux with a rusty AK visible through the back window and that a low speed pass by an E3D is the perfect way to deter ISIL militia from thinking unglamorous thoughts. The Army will be sending 2 Yorks to get themselves photographed rescuing orphans somewhere, anywhere in the world and prepping several chinless wonders to write pieces praising the utility of MBTs in preventing flooding. The Navy will be paying off every fisherman to swear they personally spoke to Captain Ramius as he swanned about unhurriedly plotting evil and finding some reason to deploy a non existent frigate to the Falklands.. Meanwhile the scumbag politicians will be claiming that we don’t need x or y because we can simply buy off whichever local dictator the Guardian is comparing to Hitler with a private jet funded through foreign aid and trying to find a new phrase which means the same as ‘capability holiday’ without being interpreted as such.

Once things get really bitter the RAF will try to find a single aircraft that their fighter force has shot down since 1946 ( a Spitfire of all things), the Navy will blame whichever sub or frigate has run aground this week on a lack of dinghys to train in and the Army will bring in Jamie oliver to start a campaign to outlaw cheese possessed.

Ten years after the SDSR, once full pension has been secured, the various retiring heads of the services will write damning oped pieces blaming the scumbag politicians for short sightedness in not showing leadership in preventing their most valuable assets leaving for civvy street.

Given the sub continental scenario (and the original design offered) I assumed it would be closer to one with quite a hint of two.

Both likely sides have air forces packed with lightweight interdiction or strike aircraft. Jaguars, 21s and tejas versus mirage, jf17 and j7.

Other than trainers which could try their hand there does appear to be a gap in the market…

Sorry to revive an old but interesting thread…

If the requirement is effectively an artillery spotter with the ability to attack chance targets then the second world war and Vietnam era liaison and army cooperation aircraft might hold the key. I’ve read many accounts from pilots of Grasshoppers and the like that suggest that ground fire was not a major concern to them. Their job afterall was to locate the enemy forces hence a HMG opening up on them would simply bring a hail of artillery fire. One nutcase even started taking out tanks with bazookas fitted to his Piper Cub… In Burma casevac and artillery spotting was performed under the noses of Japanese forces without massive losses ensuing. FW189s were successful due to their visibility and low speed rather than performance or armament.

Manpads has certainly changed all that but what about the idea of reducing the IR signature to the point where manpads would be ineffective? Diesel electric propulsion is being trialled by EADS ( though low hp they reckon it is scaleable ) which would allow you to hide the IR signature of the generator. Something along the lines of a YAK58 with a propfan and the generator exhausts being shrouded over the wings airacobra style maybe. Wouldn’t be fast but would be quiet, which might be more important.

Also what would a purpose designed gunship look like? Rather than a converted transport ac how about taking an asymetric design a la smaller BV141 in order to shroud the propellor and engine from enemy forces looking for IR lock from one side only? This would also allow excellent visibility and armour to be applied to the ( hopefully) vulnerable left side to give protection against 50cal etc. Saying that to get an IR lock you still have to spot the aircraft in the first place so maybe Yehudi lighs with LEDs or even thermistors to give a ‘false’ IR reading for smoking manpads out? I have no idea whether you could reduce a useful airframe’s IR signature enough by using electric motors, though a towed decoy would also stand a decent chance. Could be useful for tribal compounds, hills and likely arty emplacements which will have air defences roughly arrayed close to their positions. Mosquitos wielded 57mm autocannon in WW2 weighing in at less than 700kg, could probably reduce that much further and mount something similar sideways within the port side stub wing to provide standoff range and IR reduction as well as taking advantage of already developed airburst rounds. Hence dual role, either nap of the earth forward air controller / own side of FEBA gunship for CAS or medium altitude surveillance gunship in lower AA threat areas.

Would take balls to fly but would be cheap as chips, easy to maintain and you could probably get away with 350hp or so. Probably closer to COIN than you are now thinking… Wouldn’t stand a chance in genuinely contested airspace ( though circling on own side of FEBA with standoff ranged weapons might be interesting) but could maybe make the latter medium altitude role unmanned in similar fashion to the Firebird.

“Here we go with the doctored slide, again.”

Why would adding the best fit for other aircraft using known data be doctoring it? The only difference I can see is 1600lbs of internal weight, which aren’t going to affect the metrics much at all…

Might not be exact but it looks about right to me and put the claims of “F16 or F18 like” performance into perspective at least….

EDIT: Saying that… 63 seconds actually puts it almost identical to the F5 in performance surely? If anything the graph is too generous…

Someone needs to tell those idiots at RAND that their A2A assessment of the F35 is wrong.. ( Can’t climb, can’t turn, cant run / double inferior).

I do however think they were a bit harsh to suggest that F35s would be clubbed like baby seals.

Whilst I broadly concur with the content, I certainly do not with the tone…

As designed, as I stated, maneuverability was irrelevant to the mission. Hence an amalgam of then current mud movers was seen as adequate; then current multi-roles as a design risk and then proposed or current air dominance fighters as being undesirable.

Your own paper contradicts your stance..

“The overall performance of the proposed JSF is highly inadequate to be considered a “next generation” fighter. The minimal, if any, increase in performance over the legacy platforms it intends to replace, proves that designers are completely dependant on stealth technology”

Which isn’t surprising given it’s design, which I covered in my first post.

Hence the ‘facts’ which you have introduced would appear ironic unless you consider a carrier based multi-role medium weight fighter of 25 years vintage as the bleeding edge.

I’m not convinced that you understand the project, the weapons system or the role of the aircraft….

Reasonable comments which deserve an answer Al….

Yes it fires whilst submerged. Think of a medium sized coastal patrol submarine without anything particularly remarkable about it. Just a basic diesel and battery job which we could have produced 20 years ago but with software and components nicked from the Astutes where their costs aren’t too high. Keep it similar but low key.

In the NGF scenario it comes to periscope depth and extends a barrel, it fires the same ER munitions developed for the Zumwalt straight up in the air. According to the designers this is near optimal, hence why the original system was designed as a vertically firing gun. They are having some problems with the rocket boosted projectiles (to get them to the extreme ranges they are designed for) hence lets assume they stick with the already tested 45nm variant.

The only clever part of the system is the projectile itself, the mechanics and engineering behind the gun assembly are old hat. It effectively glides to it’s target using GPS coordinates supplied by a third party, no different to the conventional mount on the Zumwalt. It will still be supersonic by the time it hits and CEPs of 50m are quoted which is exceptional for 155 at the best of times.

Hence it doesn’t matter greatly whether the projectile is thrown truly vertical due to the GPS guidance. Close to vertical would be enough for most ranges. I doubt anything particularly fancy in terms of active stabilization would be required, submarines already launch ICBMs, 3500lb cruise missiles etc.

As for costs, strip the reactor out of an Astute and you’re left with £600million worth of sensors, steel and weapons in a 7000tonne frame. That would be comparable to the cost of a diesel SSN lite of comparable size, same sensors and weapons. The Upholders cost roughly half of what the Trafalgars did and represented the most advanced SSKs ever built in terms of sensor fit. Saying that in the Upholder’s case we would indeed have realised far better value for money with sticking to SSNs.

Currently the luxury end of the market in the 214 goes for 500million euros export, or about the same cost as a modern frigate.

The Astute class, and it’s cost, is designed to keep Barrow in Furness ticking over whilst they build a boat every two or three years. That’s a long time to build a boat, though the Trafalgars were similar. Constructing a boat containing a nuclear reactor is many orders of magnitude more difficult, compared to the 2-3 years for Astutes or Trafalgars the Upholders were much quicker, the lead of class took 10 months. Most importantly the software and integration work has already been done and is mature. We’ve spent an awful lot of money on it.

SSNs cannot fulfil the same role with Tomahawks, even if the system was capable of providing timely support a single costly missile with a large warhead is not what NGFS is all about. Timely weight of accurate fire is the key, Tomahawks provide a different capability against vertical fixed structures. Their weight of fire is only sufficient for point targets though it is immensely useful as a diplomatic tool.

Economies of scale are inherent in the system. Same torpedoes, software, some sensors, training and maintenance. The only ways in which such a system would differ are in terms of technologies which are inherently familiar to any medium sized navy. Some efficiencies of scale would be of huge benefit, notably in terms of crewing, training and availability of trained personnel. Others are more abstract but valuable in terms of impact upon the design of our future frigates, freeing up SSNs from perisher or patrol duties and SF tasking.

Skimmers are, by their nature, visible. Some duties such as fisheries patrol would certainly benefit from the stealth afforded a submarine. Indeed the Canadians have brought prosecutions against illegal fishing activity due to the reach of their Upholders where a frigate would merely have prevented that one instance. This is of particular relevance to the UK, but a role which an SSN would be wasted on. They also find that the Upholder / Victoria’s patrol three times as much ocean as an equivalent skimmer, with a third as many men.

Submarines simply make better patrol boats, they can observe without influencing events whereas our tiny pool of skimmers, which require complements of 190-250 souls compared to 47 for the Upholders (though I suspect this figure could be lower for a new design), are relatively manpower intensive by comparison.

Freeing our future frigates from the contradictory demands of NGFS and ASW escort would save a great deal of time, space and money in their design. Freeing our SSNs from roles for which they are not deeply suited would enable a $2billion weapons system to do what it is peerless at.

SSK gunboats needn’t be expensive, they are inherently force multipliers even without their potent NGF threat.

With the US Navy largely withdrawing to the Pacific realm operations such as the most recent one in Libya are likely to represent the future. A small class of (say 4 boats) gunboat SSKs could have provided the same, or more likely far greater, capability than the hugely expensive RAF operation operating from friendly airfields. Indeed the costs of that one deployment would almost certainly have paid for the entire class.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems with the idea, I’m amazed that no-one has mentioned the prospect of a breach explosion, jammed rounds, maintenance, servicing or barrel warping. Whilst these are not factors in computer games they are the primary factors in real life.

Well I’m getting bored of this but one last reply…

And Hanit was perfectly capable of dealing with the missile that hit her – if the crew hadn’t been complacent.

You assume. She was 10nm off the coast, close enough in to be vulnerable. Successfully evading an ASM has certainly happened but it is a very limited data set and some of the examples quoted could have been as much due to luck as anything else. Hanit had CIWS which, to the best of my knowledge has only damaged a battleship in actual combat. Sensors were off due to EMC issues however close to a threat environment actual crews end up expending a great deal more ordinance on non-existent threats than real. I’m not decrying this in any way, however the frigate is completely reliant upon its sensors to stay safe. If you had any military experience you’d know that they break, quite often.

A Frigate using it’s main sensors however is broadcasting it’s presence and range to anyone with primitive equipment and yet the Hanit was at extreme range for providing even close to shore NGFS and not radiating. It was hit by an ASM best described as mediocre or cheap. indeed the Sa’ar 5 was often hailed s an example of what could be done with a small Frigate or corvette, admittedly without providing for the NGFs role.

By the very nature of the multiple missions for which they are designed they always choose mobility and firepower to the massive detriment of protection. Armour is present immateriel of complacency but no surface combatant in the last few generations has provided it.

NGFS is a role which requires unique, and contradictory, attributes for a surface ship. The need to get relatively close inshore means a shallow draft, the need to pack a decent piece or artillery means sea keeping, stability and size. Because size is a given you are a largish target hence mobility is the key, but this in itself impacts upon the accuracy of your artillery. Similarly shallow draft ships don’t generally do well in much more than a flat calm. The only options which help this equation are stealth, range or armour, all of which the US can afford and has tried, or is trying.

C3 was cancelled because Frigates have to be useful in multiple roles and the compromise of the equation is a platform which is a jack of all trades and master of few. ASW is the focus, ASuw a second and NGFS almost an after thought.

The only realistic alternative to NGFS is landing and supplying artillery batteries. Bear in mind that the vast majority of the logistics tail for a Battalion or above sized formation is keeping the guns firing. In amphibious warfare, of which the RN devotes a great deal of it’s manpower and tonnage to, landing and supplying the artillery is a logistical equation which is almost impossible to solve. Attacking in the face of artillery support without any of your own is suicide, and on a beachead you have no option but to attack.

So if NGFs is a ‘peripheral’ mission then we can scrap the Royal Marines and fully half of the RN tomorrow, as without it they are a paper tiger at best. We are left with our escorts to provide it, and numerous programmes over the years have failed to bring anything in terms of capability to the table.

Missiles or UAVs are incapable of providing the weight of fire needed. Our current platforms are stretched in their current roles and several, the Darings, are unlikely to be risked in such a role. That leaves our T23s, which bend the frigate equation as far towards ASW as any modern vessel ever has.

The need for a survivable platform to provide NGFS is clear given the weight our Navy devoted amphibious warfare yet the total escort fleet is both less likely to be risked and less numerous than that devoted to the Falklands campaign, where frigates could not always be spared to provide it. Those frigates which did ran their magazines empty to be unrepped by rope and bucket. In one attack it took 3 days of bombardment by various weapons, with the naval mounts being key, to suppress the opposition forces to an extent which allowed an attack.

Any argument about NGFS being peripheral or a luxury is not imbued with every lesson ever learned from opposed amphibious landings. The statistical lessons learned of the vulnerability of ships close to shore ignore the meagre capability of the weapons deployed.
Exocets, Styx, silkworms and the like only rank in the lower leagues or even conference of ASMs.

Tell me, how will you deal with those Brahmos launchers from your submarine, which has no idea where they are unless someone tells it?

Brahmos shore batteries are no threat to an SSK. Only the gun barrel and a comms mast would be above the surface. No threat at all.

Taking out such batteries would be a likely tasking for such an SSK though so your question is pertinent. The answer is you would detect them with great difficulty. One obvious answer is SF, another ship launched UAVs such as the Fire Shadow. I believe trials are ongoing as we speak though don’t get too excited, it is cheap and cheerful and probably capable of taking out anything it finds on it’s own.

Compare this to a surface ship. The Brahmos crew has no need to radiate, they can use spotters on high ground until something wanders into their view as it takes GPS or intertial guidance until it reaches it’s terminal phase, after which the small ship is toast whether it intercepts or not. The chances of intercepting a mach 3 missile are exceptionally slim to mathematically improbable, most especially so with VLS launchers.

Time spent in reconnaisance is seldom wasted’

Excellent, but NGFS is about killing the enemy. In a proper engagement your toys would be little use. Timely weight of accurate fire is all that is important. Your toys would only provide the latter in a policing capacity, the former two not even close.

Sea Wolf rectified that and the GWS26 installation on the 23’s enhanced it.

Seawolf was present and ineffective in the Falklands.

With FLAADS our next gen frigates will be tough/expensive targets to engage from the air and FLAADS is already funded.

I’m not disagreeing, it is a national disgrace that our FF fleet stands at 13 hulls and whilst I’m a big fan of the T23 design, and frigates as GP ships in general, the primary role that they are designed for is a long way from NGFS. There is no hope for frigate hulls before the 2015 SDR and realistically before 202x. All of the designs indicate a similar platform.

Why are we patrolling oil platforms with an SSK?. Why not use an OPV like everyone else does?.

We’re currently patrolling with at least one SSN open sources suggest. That is a waste I’m sure you’ll agree. C3 cancelled, OPVs have limited or no sub sea surveillance capabilities… SSKs make more than enough sense to be realistic. 60 billion barrels of oil is worth an insurance policy, SSKs are cheap and capable for such a task.

Deploying there is no waste…you cant have it both ways!.

It’s a good use of our current resources I grant you, but definitely overkill considering the threat. This is just the sort of task that an SSK such as I have outlined would be ideal for, with or without a gun!

Daring’s deployment brought diplomatic consequences, militarising the S Atlantic was the phrase used I believe. OPVs are good littoral boats, the conditions down there however are atrocious to bad, during the summer. You might as well use a row boat.

Exactly. We have no MPA so the answer is to buy MPA’s when we can afford them not waste money on one-trick pony SSK’s with some ludicrous gun system aboard!.

Despite the seedcorn initiative our skills in this area are toast. They may start thinking about buying airframes in 2015, but more likely they will think about designed airframes in sometime after 2015. Shortsighted and indefensible as it is this would be unlikely to generate any real capability in the next 10- 15 years. Training submariners in comparison is something we are still good at.

Agreed. I’ve been an advocate of us buying at least three, preferably five, SURTASS boats/arrays off the Americans for decades.

A surprisingly reasonable proposal, though adding no warfighting capability per se. SSKs add to this by freeing up SSNs as described at length. Of our SSN fleet, only half or less will be actively deployed, the rest in refit, training or conducting tasks either better or adequately suited to SSKs.

Please note that I’m not advocating SSIs, as you point out our T and A boats provide the muscle. Cheap and cheerful patrol boats would suffice,.

Closer to shore is more vulnerable for a surface vessel as its easier to employ less sophisticated and more prevalent weapons against the ship. That said though even a conventional frigate can deliver effect from over the horizon ranges and that is effect against a bigger target set than just basic NGFS allows for.

There is no data set for more sophisticated weapons, and a very limited one for mediocre ones. Even that data is nigh on damning close to shore. It can deliver effect but not with the response times ( even a sophisticated frigate with Tomahawks at 450kts) or weight of fire. Even accuracy against mobile targets is poor given the transit time of the missile. I think you misunderstand the dynamics of combat.

The vessel I outlined…absolutely…especially against those missile systems you list.

Hit either of those with your SAM or CIWS and the supersonic debris will likely as not sink your frigate. Forget about the warhead, a single 76mm small calibre round would probably mission kill you. Any torpedo hit and you’re dead. Dumb or guided bomb of any size? Dead. Lucky hit from a 105mm shore battery? Probably sunk. Small or outdated ASM? You might be lucky or alert enough.

Absolutely deluded more like, and the risk is an order of magnitude higher close in to the shore. The reality is that a $2m Brahmos would defeat a $500m Frigate close to the shore with such a high degree of probability that missile failure is the most likely discrepency.

From launch you would have less than 20 seconds before impact at 10 nautical miles. Say you were alert and actually launched your SAM which scored a hit 3-4 nm out. The debris would sill cripple or sink you 2 seconds later.

At 10nm you’d be at extreme range with a Mk8 mod 0.

Still fancy polishing those UAVs?