Interesting info. re costs of warships, incl. carriers:

http://newwars.wordpress.com/warship-costs/

4OD should have it on. I read the preview to it in the mail this sunday, and only watched the final 5 minutes of it.

Did they say how much much the UK armed forces have?

The main point was the cosy relationship between the defence industries, especially BAE, and politicians, civil servants in the MoD, and senior officers, and the way this leads to enormous waste of taxpayers’ money.

(One of many interesting points is that it seems the reason the Army doesn’t have Blackhawk helicopters – which is what they want – is that the Army and the RAF can’t agree on which service should operate it!!!)

…Who knows?. Why is that of any consequence?. We didnt have the option of deploying Gripen and more than we had any other STOL capable non-STOVL type. As stated any other STOL type out there could not operate from our CVS’s so why would they have been a better option for the UK?……

The reason I asked about Gripen is that it has a STOL capability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJQKCUjcslM

You suggested that the only aircraft that could have operated at an austere or restricted forward base is the Harrier, and presumably in future the F-35, because the runway length to launch conventional fighters wasn’t available. I was wondering if the Gripen could also have operated under those conditions.

The other question is whether the proposed Sea Gripen could operate off the CVFs, and if this alternative would be cheaper than the F-35B/C or F/A-18E/F options.

I’d guess almost definitely so. They would not have been able to provide the same response speed, sensor dwell or firepower that GR9 did and would have been massively more vulnerable to the trashfire envelope. If you want slow-mover light-CAS do it with Reaper and get the sensor persistence to catch the baddies laying the IED’s!….

The response speed of a Super Tuc or an AT-6B would be similar to that of an A-10, which is said to be the most popular and successful CAS aircraft operating in Afghanistan. The ‘sensor dwell’ of these turboprops – six hours endurance – would seem more than adequate, and while they can carry less ordnance than a fast jet, the trend in Afghanistan has been towards smaller, precision weapons, rather than big bang bombs, so is that a problem? As for vulnerability to ground fire, presumably they could operate in similar fashion to the A-10s and/or AH-64s, standing off beyond DshK range?

Nope. We couldnt operate Jaguar GR3 or Tornado GR4 from Kandahar and we had a requirement for fast jet CAS in support of deployed forces. By any token STOVL was an enabler for capability deployment where none would have existed, with UK forces, otherwise. Could we have bought A-10’s or another short-field capable type and used them from an ‘unprepared’ strip instead of Harrier?. Yes – but we dont get the sea-basing option we do with Harrier. So its a stupid option. STOVL is proven for expeditionary ops and as a land/sea base force multiplier.

Saying its not pure ‘STOVL ops’ does nothing to reduce the usefulness of STOVL.

Apples and Oranges. A helicopter isnt doing the high-end taskings that a STOVL-F18C equivalent is doing. You cannot replace the single STOVL jet without buying the Sikorsky AND a high-end platform.

Fundamental misunderstanding of CVF there. We are building a large carrier to support the sortie rate…..not the STOVL jet. If we want the sortie rate we have determined necessary we have to build the carrier large as a smaller ship, whilst capable of operating the jet, will NOT do the job required.

1. Could a Saab Gripen have operated from Kandahar under those circumstances?
2. Could armed tuboprops such as the Super Tucano or AT-6B have operated from there?
3. If the RN is planning to use ‘rolling’ carrier landings with the F-35B, then that’s STOL rather than STOVL, so has STOVL already been dumped?
4. I think I’ve asked this before, but if the sortie rate is THE critical factor that determines the need for CVF, where does this particular figure come from? And why is it impossible to change?

Hungarian C-17? Do they currently use or plan to use C-17s?

NATO SAC (Strategic Airlift Capability) C-17, based at Papa airbase in Hungary.

1. The Marines want STOVL

……

The problem is that the Marines want supersonic STOVL. Do they really need it? Is it worth what it’s costing?

1. I still don’t get how the cold wash coming onto the deck@
18klbs of thrust isn’t going to help cool the deck! I’m sure if you stood underneath it you would have a bad day
2. Once again its only few degrees hotter than an AV-8
3. You will say velocity, but I will say 18k of thrust is still 18k
No matter how you slice it. It can’t exceed the front end air flow for odvious reasons

According to this article, and one of the comments, the hot end exhaust temperatures are 1200F (Harrier) and 1700F (F-35). True?

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A27103ee8-d867-4e32-a619-92297fa29cf3&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

Comments? Well in the first place, what do you need a “bomber” for when the last thing you’ll be doing is dropping bombs? If the mission is strategic air strike, the work will be done by long-range stand-off missiles. Drop them from a C-5, or a 747, no need for a mega-billion bomber when it’ll never be going into harm’s way anyway.