CVF and Carrier Strike thread

[sunnoficarus]

Missed that performance - what made her so uncomfortable?

MOD bigwig was in a black leather jacket. She needed a suit of armour | Mail Online

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/838fbf22-8f9...#axzz1tBzaJCa8

[tlamdweeb]

Thanks. I wonder if it will appear on BBC Parliament...

[GLOCK09]

It is a worry that a career civil servant, working in defence at a time when uniformed service personnel are
being thrown on the scrap heap, presents before a House of Commons Public Accounts Committee dressed
like a night club bouncer. Obviously an increase to her £3,000 + per week salary would address that issue.


Parliament TV - Carrier Strike Report - Thursday 26, April 2012

[sunnoficarus]

She looks like some dodgy eastern european gangster.

[SUU23]

I hate to say this. I really do, but. Some MP's have just gone up in my estimation. Just how does that specimen float to the top of the cesspit?

[Cold_Collation]

I hate to say this. I really do, but. Some MP's have just gone up in my estimation. Just how does that specimen float to the top of the cesspit?

At a rough guess (and allegedly, etc,etc), if Letts's commentary is anything to go, by always having a fall-guy and being very willing to step over the still-warm bodies of former colleagues...

[History_Man]

I hate to say this. I really do, but. Some MP's have just gone up in my estimation. Just how does that specimen float to the top of the cesspit?

Possibly by being (so rumour has it) the only candidate for the job that is the equivalent of a slow-motion car crash i.e. PUS at the MoD.

[sunnoficarus]

I hate to say this. I really do, but. Some MP's have just gone up in my estimation. Just how does that specimen float to the top of the cesspit?

'The top civil servant at the Ministry of Defence has urged the military to promote women to some of the most senior posts in the armed forces. Ursula Brennan said that "the world will not end" if women move up into roles that have so far been the preserve of men. "They are not going to hit the nuclear trigger button by mistake," she said. In unusually forthright remarks from a civil servant, Brennan said the armed forces were lagging behind in terms of gender equality. And while progress had been made over the years, the department was "from some perspectives, still in a depressing place", she added. Brennan, the MoD's permanent secretary, spoke to the Guardian after addressing a conference on women in defence and security, held at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank in London'.

[History_Man]

From PPRuNe this morning (with full acknowledgement to the author):

Backwards,

I'll stick my head above the parapet and say that I'm not convinced that cats and traps are the way to go.

The 2000lb class weapons in the bay of a -C is a complete red herring to me. So you're having to go in LO config, i.e. it's a high threat environment; there's a target out there that a 1000lb class munition will bounce off but a 2000lb will destroy; and the threat that was so high a minute ago that made you go in LO is now sufficiently low that there's no chance that they'll protect the said target with SA-19 or -22 to take down the odd singleton PGM. Sounds like a trivial edge case to me that can be ignored. The question about capability is 'how many SDBs do I get in the bay' and it's the same for -B or -C.

When you play Top Trumps with the fuel number of course the -C wins. But then look at how we've traditionally operated tailhook vs STOVL aircraft. Hornet guys usually aim to be back overhead Mother close to max trap, or certainly with enough gas left in the tank to make a couple of passes, and then be able to hit the tanker if necessary or bingo to the beach (seeing as we don't have a tanker...) - around 3-4000lbs of fuel? Harrier guys on ops, i.e. bringing bombs back, would routinely come back with 1000lb of fuel alongside as that was all they could hover with. My point isn't that -B's could ever match the range figures or on-station time of the -C, but that I don't think the differential is quite as glaring as people make out when you start operating airplanes and stop focusing on spec numbers.

Finally on the fuel argument, how much is 'enough'? Our mighty mighty Tornados have been hailed as very successful deep strike aircraft for decades. But they don't go as far, or carry as many internal weapons, as an F1-11 would have, and they have a combat radius with a full warload that isn't that much bigger than a -B's. Just because the -C goes further than a -B doesn't render the -B useless. The basing flexibility of the -B is better than than the -C after all.

And on interoperability - buy the -C and you get one UK carrier, limited capability of cross-decking to the Frenchies if you don't land at max trap (allegedly), and you can land on any Nimitz you find. Buy the -B and you get 2 UK carriers, the French carrier, the Spanish carrier, the Italian carrier, all the Nimitz and LHA/LHD/LHX fleet and you can use any old LPH in extremis if fuel's tight. If you smoke enough mind-altering substances you can dream of a world of bottomless defence budgets in which the UK could be able to lease fleets of aircraft or buy cat & trap tankers, AEW aircraft, On-Board delivery aircraft etc. But personally I don't see it happening, ever. If we as a Nation suddenly come into a glut of cash we first need to buy some more destroyers and frigates to defend all the eggs we're putting in our carrier basket.

I suppose my position on the -B vs -C debate is that to a degree it doesn't matter. The frontline pilots who get their hands on this jet will make either work, and make it work very well. In my head they're both as capable as each other. My concern, if I have one, is that I'd hate it if, when you visit an F-35 squadron in 20 years time, all the guys are strutting around wearing patches that declare how many times they've successfully landed their airplane, and people are talking about who won the 'line period' and is 'top hook' for the last cruise etc.

Regards all,
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly!

A well-reasoned point of view and, perhaps, indicative of the MoD's thinking, although I still strongly suspect that we will get one supersize LPH and one CVA (fitted with EMALS and carrying FA-18 E/F). I am pretty certain that the FA-18 can operate off the CDG. Sunno and I have both mooted this idea before - I just do not see how we are going to be able to afford to buy F-35 (of any variant) in sufficient numbers. We should never have linked the procurement of the ships themselves with the purchase of new aircraft.

[Yeoman_dai]

Fuck gender equality! If they are capable they'll make it to the top. Indeed, we're beginning to get the first women at a seniority where they are in the zone for a drive, and lot' behold the first female CO of a frigate! It's all a question of time, give it few more years you'll have women at flag rank, but due to the one in 7 nature of male:female ratio there will always be less.