CVF and Carrier Strike thread

[sunnoficarus]

I think the difference was in more than just speed, I believe the STOVL variant also carried less armament, but I could be mistaken.

However, just to throw a controversial tuppence worth in. I actually think that replacing the Invincible class carriers needed to be done, and I also reckon that while there will be problems, we're still going to have something pretty special at the end of it. It's just very British to keep beating ourselves and our capabilities down.

T45, Astute are impressive proof in my book that we still know what we're doing.

Correct.

The internal weapons bay on the STVOL F-35B can only take a 1,000lb Paveway, not the 2,000lb one the other versions carry, and if you're knocking big 'oles in hardened structures like C3 and such like, you're going to need the big ones. Add in less internal fuel and not as nippy about town thanks to the smaller wing.

And yes, the Invincibles did need replacing, that's a given. But, the early design studies to replace them didn't come up with the 65,000 ton HMS Huge and HMS Ginormous, they came up with rather more modest and affordable options of around 30,000-35,000 tons that were promptly kicked into touch when Blair got a touch of the vaoours and started dreaming of doing a spot of Regime Change.

Harriers landing on container ships, beaches, roads, Type 23 frigates, aircraft carriers that are so hammered by the enemy that they only have 10x10m of deck left but they're still supporting air ops somehow and Royal Signals officers' berets.

I'm impressed with how much fuel and weaponry that the Fleet Air Arm is going to have prepositioned all over the globe ready for a Harrier to appear out of nowhere and land instead of going back to their carrier or banging out and waiting for their helicopter ride back home.

Stop it! If the RN came up with the conclusion that they needed a section of clear deck at least 30m x 30m just to operate a Harrier in jump into the air and run away to the proper carrier mode without the ship being on fire, who are we to wonder at the wisdom of 10m Tek?

[whitecity]

I think we all know that the sensible answer is to buy a whole load of Super Hornets.

No. Buying yesterday's aircraft is not the "sensible" solution for tomorrows defence.

That's the answer of the desperate, the deluded, and those determined to convince us that Project CVF is a jolly good value for money effort if only the flyboys could get their act into gear choosing a flying machine.

The problem of Project CVF is in the politics (Whitehall and inter-service) coupled with the (compomised) design of the vessel - not the aircraft type that is merely a temporary visitor.

I don't know what their ground attack ability is like compared to Typhoons, but I am sure that the RAF could use some as well.

Drivel.

The number we could get compared to the F-35 for the same price...

...is?

[AndyPipkin]

SNIP

T45, Astute are impressive proof in my book that we still know what we're doing.

You really don't know the history of the T45 and Astute projects, do you?

T45's main advantage is its French missiles and launcher, in fact T45 is by value less than 50% UK sourced. Apart from Aster/Sampson/Sylver, T45 is distinctly underarmed compared to e.g Burkes.

Astute - the whole project makes CVF and MRA4 look like models of project methodology. Eventually BAE had to get the US firm Electric Boat in to help them out.

Check them out here on:

Navy Matters | Home Page

[Oddbod]

The problem of Project CVF is in the politics (Whitehall and inter-service) coupled with the (compomised) design of the vessel - not the aircraft type that is merely a temporary visitor.

I'd say the inability to launch/recover an aircraft type available at the time the ship enters active service is a pretty big problem.
The B model is too slow, too short ranged, too low on payload & wont be very stealthy at all with its (reduced) war load dangling off its bottom. It is also rapidly becoming the model most likely to be given the chop/cost far more than UK PLC can afford/enter service after 2030.
The C model beats it hands down on everything except STOVL & only outclasses the Hornet on combat radius & "stealth" - a somewhat ephemeral quality that has little relevance when playing "International Copper" against likely foes.

[sunnoficarus]

Yeah - but I'm still waiting to hear when the USN began operating more than one CVN in a group, i.e. when you could operate on the basis of an alternative deck being available in the same group?

It will be a very long wait. While carrier groups may end up in the same geographic AOA to do some serious attacking of people from time to time, 99% of the time they operate on their own.
Although 6 US Carrier Groups participated in the first Gulf War, they were spread over an area of thousands of miles with carriers operating in the eastern Med, Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. It was most definitely not a case of 6 carriers sailing majestically in close formation to provide alternates for each others embarked Air Groups in case of an attack.

[sunnoficarus]

I'd say the inability to launch/recover an aircraft type available at the time the ship enters active service is a pretty big problem.
The B model is too slow, too short ranged, too low on payload & wont be very stealthy at all with its (reduced) war load dangling off its bottom. It is also rapidly becoming the model most likely to be given the chop/cost far more than UK PLC can afford/enter service after 2030.
The C model beats it hands down on everything except STOVL & only outclasses the Hornet on combat radius & "stealth" - a somewhat ephemeral quality that has little relevance when playing "International Copper" against likely foes.

The general feeling within the USN is that the F-35C is the most vulnerable version.

USAF must have new fighters as all their teen series ones are falling apart, quite literally in some cases, so the F-35A is pretty safe. USMC must have new STVOL planes as their entire modus operandi for the next 40 years is based around their new LHA's and LHD's operating fast jets. We may have a bit of an embarrassment if we end up with HMS QE and no planes, but the USN will have some serious explaining to Congress to do if they have twelve 40,000 ton flat topped things, all dressed up with nothing to go on them, so teh F-35B should be pretty safe.
The USN however has lots of fairly new low milage F/A-18's to tide it over in the medium term, and they could suffice until F/A-XX and UCAVS hits the decks.

[Cold_Collation]

Christ on a cracker, y'have an early night and what happens? A coherent and fairly sensible thread gets attacked by tekirdag and his Megaharrier crayons.

If only we had a carrier to fight him off with...

This is becoming like the carrier thread in which this has all been done to death; in which we've already said:

CVF is a nonsense, was the wrong ship back when and is even more so now.

It's big but has been 'value engineered' to the point where it lacks some serious capabilities.

It should still be contractually possible to cancel them but give the 'lost' work to BAE in terms of generating the T45s, T26s, RFAs, MCMVs and so on that would give us back a balanced navy.

... in fact, that should be done. That would still allow us to play on the world stage, if we really, really wanted to, by supplying expertise in niche areas.

F-35 is a cluster and the -B is an absolute dog which lacks range and capacity, and is probably never going to be about the austere field capacity which Harrier was (in any case, why, if you've secured a landing strip, don't you get on and use CTOL and so enjoy greater range and payload).

Cats and traps allow all the other bits of a coherent carrier group (fixed-wing and therefore more capable MASC; COD etc, as well as international interoperability) which ramps don't.

All those pretty essential other air capabilities are being ignored in the rush to F-35 - and particularly -B.

F-35 gives us a very expensive Day One capability which can probably already be largely fulfilled by longer-range smart weaponry.

F-35 is a very expensive way of doing the 80-90 per cent of other operations which are the current realities, and even if it works, it'll still be a less than sparkling kinetic performer.

In fact, it does those 80-90 per cent of 'real' ops rather less well than its predecessors when one considers range and payload.

F-35B was an attempt to take Invincible-class operations on to a proper-sized carrier. Invincible/Sea Harrier was a way of maintaining an air capability through the 'dark years'; it doesn't set the pace for future air ops, and if you're going down the path of using a full-sized carrier then CTOL is and should be an option.

All these other fantasy planes (Sea Typhoon, tekirdag's carved-from-fairy-dust new Harrier, etc, etc) don't exist and would cost more to institute from scratch than the bag of bollocks we already have.

Hornet does however exist and it's more than a bit handy, especially in proposed versions for which there is a comparatively lower-risk and defined development path.

...

All this about tailhook problems is sensationalist. It can be solved. Reversion to the -B would be exactly that: a reversion, in terms of performance and long-term operational concepts and realities.

But speaking of bollocks: tekirdag, do you really think a holed ship is going to carry on ops as you describe? It's actually quite quaint that you think a neat, circular hole caused by a 'bomb' through the deck is likely. What's going to deliver them? Japanese 'Val' dive-bombers? German Stukas? Last time I looked, people had started punching holes in ships with fuck-off big missiles that do really, really screw up your day if they hit you.

In that case, matelots are going to be doing many other things, but mainly running around screaming and burning or scraping other, melted matelots off the deck. Not making 'V' for Victory signs, shouting "Damn you [insert non-PC and mildly racist term for whichever enemy we're up against at the time]" and cracking on with ops. This is the real world, not 'Victor' comic.

And F-35B runs hot; go park it on your 10x10m patch (from which its 14-something metre length daren't budge) from which its useful range and payload is, well, less than useful. Or without melting your merchantman or frigate. But then tell me how you're going to fuel and provision it for ops. Harriers coming off merchantmen was about delivery to the fleet, or an absolute emergency if we really, absolutely needed a flat-top of sorts and everything else had big, Soviet-inspired holes in it and something of a problem with the damp course.

Please, please, please stop talking bollocks. I get enough of that at work.

[whitecity]

I'd say the inability to launch/recover an aircraft type available at the time the ship enters active service is a pretty big problem.

Which is a vessel design problem based upon previous political issues.

The C model beats it hands down on everything except STOVL & only outclasses the Hornet on combat radius & "stealth" - a somewhat ephemeral quality that has little relevance when playing "International Copper" against likely foes.

And....????

Why would the RAF want to take into service a 'new' aircraft that is a step back from its existing fleets? The F-18E/F is just about comparable in performance and effectiveness to the Tornado and a step behind the Typhoon. An F-18 would be a retrograde step to UK military defence.

It's only a 'sensible' purchase to the RN/FAA supporters club desperate to get their hands on anything that is fast and pointy whilst diverting attention away from the obscenity called Project CVF.

[jimmys_best_mate]

Why would the RAF want to take into service a 'new' aircraft that is a step back from its existing fleets? The F-18E/F is just about comparable in performance and effectiveness to the Tornado and a step behind the Typhoon. An F-18 would be a retrograde step to UK military defence.

It's only a 'sensible' purchase to the RN/FAA supporters club desperate to get their hands on anything that is fast and pointy whilst diverting attention away from the obscenity called Project CVF.

I can't comment on F/A-18 compared to Tornado because I really don't know.

For your other point though - the fact of the matter is that we're getting CVF. I don't think it's the right ship for us because we've dicked round with it so much but they're being built and at some point the RN has to sail them and fly something off them. The only real discussion about them now is whether it's going to be F/A-18, F-35B, F-35C or Rafale that flies off the things when they're built.

I really don't see any realistic scenario where the RN decides not to bother with them and pays out more to cancel them than they would have to buy them. Thinking about scrapping them and building a more balanced destroyer/frigate based fleet just doesn't seem to be possible and there's no way the Treasury's going to ok us scrapping them and then designing a new carrier from scratch.

As I see it, the sensible option would appear to be the RAF being a one type force (Typhoon) and a smallish number of F/A-18s or Rafales (as I understand it F/A-18 is better) being procured for the carriers for the next 20 years by which time we'll probably be replacing whatever we have with UAVs anyway.

I might be wrong and I'll freely admit to not being a naval expert in any way, shape or form so I'm happy to be corrected but that's the situation as I see it.

[whitecity]

I can't comment on F/A-18 compared to Tornado because I really don't know.

For your other point though - the fact of the matter is that we're getting CVF. I don't think it's the right ship for us because we've dicked round with it so much but they're being built and at some point the RN has to sail them and fly something off them. The only real discussion about them now is whether it's going to be F/A-18, F-35B, F-35C or Rafale that flies off the things when they're built.

I really don't see any realistic scenario where the RN decides not to bother with them and pays out more to cancel them than they would have to buy them. Thinking about scrapping them and building a more balanced destroyer/frigate based fleet just doesn't seem to be possible and there's no way the Treasury's going to ok us scrapping them and then designing a new carrier from scratch.

As I see it, the sensible option would appear to be the RAF being a one type force (Typhoon) and a smallish number of F/A-18s or Rafales (as I understand it F/A-18 is better) being procured for the carriers for the next 20 years by which time we'll probably be replacing whatever we have with UAVs anyway.

I might be wrong and I'll freely admit to not being a naval expert in any way, shape or form so I'm happy to be corrected but that's the situation as I see it.

The "sensible" option is to go straight to UAVs!

But we can't have that now, can we? No seats for fast jet FAA jocks!!!!