A few interesting videos from the RAF.
You have to hand it to the crabs, they certainly know how to exploit the still and moving image.
What these show is a relatively modest yet still effective expeditionary deployment, all whilst still maintaining operations in Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan)
Beyond the arguing about about carriers and harriers, whichever way you cut it, this is impressive
You are comparing apples with pears.
Tornado/Storm Shadow is good for first strike, but Harrier/Maverick would be good for taking out armoured columns if it was still available.
Its is impressive and beyond what I thought we could do now. With over 1/5 of entire fast jet fleet now committed to ops and at least 3/4 of the ISTAR and Transport fleets committed I would think there’s going to be an awful lot of aircraft requiring a lot of TLC when this is all over. I hope Air Tanker can hit the ground running at the end of this year or were in real trouble.
Ah…But could a harrier carry two paveways, a triple brimstone what looks like a designator pod and air to air missiles at the same time, like the tornado in the last video. Tornado is just more flexible.
Mark,
The answer to your last point is: yup.
c,
Tornado is indeed more flexible (like F35, it is after all really a fast light bomber with a “small” size for the role, rather than a pure fighter, just as F3 wasn’t so much a “pure” interceptor as a big AAM truck with outstanding staying power on patrol. I’d trade the underdeveloped Typhoons for some F3s in this situation. Develop the Typhoons properly, if so catstrophic amounts of dosh hadn’t been burned through earlier on, and it’d be different. While I hate Typhoon the program, Typhoon the aircraft has rael potential.)
But in terms of persistence and sortie rate, the kind of thing needed when the Gaddafists do as they’re now doing in Misrata and Ajdabiyah (hug the walls and wait for the tank-killers to leave) Harriers with their cannon pods restored would be very useful. The trouble, again, is not with the Harrier per se — just look at what the USMC Harrier IIs have done, and Italian/Spanish ones could do if let off the leash — it’s with the over-specialisation of British aircraft until very recently. GR9 isn’t an “all-rounder” to the same degree as Harrier II+, nor does it have as many nice mud-moving devices integrated because it was (for the institution it served) an aging airframe like GR4.
I would really like BAe to get off their duff (or a “trust-busted” aviation component of old BAe that actually gives a damn about efficient product production because that’s how they’d stay afloat) and develop Son-of-Taranis properly. It’s really the natural successor of GR4 as a bomb truck. Again sod F35, landward (and naval?) aviation can do properly-evolved Typhoon or Typhoon/Raf, with Taranis’ successor to come in for the strike role in time.
John Hartley,
1/5th of the fast jet fleet? That much? Well, with just-about two squadrons for Libya and an understrength one for Afghanistan, in terms of in terms of aircraft in squadron it might be even more than that, come to think of it. It’s probably just the sea-lover combined with the descendant of several wearers of the green (the service’s green, not Ireland’s) in me, but the scope of modern “back fleets” really rather disgusts me.
Jackstaff
Were now at 10 fast jet sqn heading to 8 in June. Conceivable we could still be in Libya in June. So thats Northern and Southern QRA Falklands tasking, a full squadron in Afghan and 2 full squadron in Libya. Taking into account numbers committed to the OCU,OEU of both fleets and the numbers in maintenance (tornado is now and old girl after all she entered service in 1981) I don’t think there’s much left in the tank.
RE “develop Son-of-Taranis properly”
- this seems to repeat over the thread; I have not paid much of attention by whom it has been stated
- I know BAE is keen for that global market
- if we talk carrier-based, and useful beyond (over & above) manned, and in quantity restricted pieces, then XB-47 or son-of-it will be “it”
No contest?
RE “and the numbers in maintenance (tornado is now and old girl after all she entered service in 1981)”
- I am glad we don’t just throw them away, but actually use them
- Italy and Germany had not set such arbitrary dates for fleet retirement
Mark,
Agreed.
ACC,
X-47B (and its younger sibling X-47C that carries a more serious load of ordnance) are certainly first out the gate, and quite possibly on their way to eating Lockheed Martin’s lunch. But a lot of good effort went into Taranis, COrx, et al, and some (even though we must praise the French for a moment
into Neuron as well. There is a base for European UCAVs, the question is are the companies involved too busy milking revenue (both contract payments and stock valuations upped by promise of steady work) from extant contracts to put real money and effort down on getting into the UCAV game properly.
Corax, not “COrx,” and here I am quite sober … (although of course it is “nEUron” — can we get all cutesy names attached to projects that say “yet another going industry and/or functioning government department have now been cannibalized for parts and value and bled dry of their capabilities” banned?)
Mark and I’d like to see at least 200 Typhoon in service and getting the squadron numbers back up to at least 9 of 12 each. Seems like a functioning minimum, and if the Air Marshalls weren’t quite so concerned about which companies on whose boards they will sit in retirement would benefit from the shininess of F35, a quite reasonable service goal around which to lobby.
Why is it impressive ? A handful of jets tasked to a major NATO operation. Not having an dig at the RAF, but I really don’t find it impressive at all
Yep,
Keeping these letters and numerals in right order, was I going back to the late ’40s?
Anyway, Dassault (ie. the French Gvmnt) had mustered 6 companies behind there venture… it only “flew” as for the funding when Saab – finally – signed up, now the prototype has flown for real.
So it is this and the X-47C that are the offensive UCAVs, never mind the high -altitude Global Hawk/ BAMS etc and the COIN varieties
- only one of those designed for carrier operation, though?
UK (=BAE) has signed up for joint dvlmnt between the PM and the Prez… where do we go from here?
ACC,
I like to think of Northrop’s X-47 type designation as pleasingly retro
But they’re both fairly new, carrier-cleared (which often gives you yeoman airframes, viz. Phantom and SuperBug) and the “this actually works already” edge. But there is something to be said for trying to reverse just a bit of fifty years of steady collapse in what used to be the world’s third-biggest aerospace industry, just a touch.
Jed,
Afraid I don’t find it that impressive either, given that a fully loaded Charles de Gaulle could get that many aircraft into the neighbourhood on its lonesome, and despite the fact these are complex sums as TD says, that it would cost less than mileage from East Anglia or Italy’s “we’d like to price you out of the Gaddafi-killing market” rent….
Yep,
RE ” both fairly new, carrier-cleared (which often gives you yeoman airframes, viz. Phantom and SuperBug) and the “this actually works already” edge” but only the letter (“C”) working to the spec
- do note: In Service date before the JSF will fly off a Brit carrier (at least operationally)
- is this the reason for a “thin” airwing, as planned, I have asked many times ( I understand that there has been no answer; it is just my vision… and perhaps a Big Secret?)
ACC,
Using F35s as “shepherds” and missile trucks (and, supposedly, some degree of ISTAR) to cover UCAV deep strike? It’s possible. It has always looked to me like that more-LO SuperBug successor Boeing has on the drawing boad is designed for that role as well (particularly since, if memory serves, Northrop Grumman is now a Boeing subsidiary ….)
Well, “B” is the demonstrator for working out the issues, “C” is the estate-car version that carries a proper strike load. And would, I’m guessing, be intended for active service. (Yes, IOC is pushing ahead of F35, certainly for RN and at this rate for USN as well.)
Jed,
Any thoughts on how Dave-A as a political football will play out in the federal election?
ACC,
That would be acceptable if Dave-C was a big, fat AAM truck (big and fat, check, but not necessarily an AAM truck) that could loiter forever like the late Tornado F3, so that you actually have persistent fleet air cover rather than just a bunch of strike aircraft that skedaddle to do manly and mustachioed things ashore rather than being a tool in the fleet’s kit for sea-and-beachhead control. But it’s not clear that’s the design principle. Seems more like (since they are from rival companies) C and X-47 are collaborators at best, competition at worst, and complementary at a very long stretch.
Libya will still be screwed up long after this is over. Might as well boast about using a shiny new challenger tank to crack some walnuts you left in the road. Yeah, it worked – but somehow it’s all underwhelming, cost a lot, and you’re not sure you’ve really done yourself much good. And Christ, you’ve just remembered you hate walnuts.
What I’m about to say is probably akin to poking a hornets nest with a big, fiery stick, but….
I still don’t get the Global UAV obsession. I understand the high endurance, high persistence ISTAR assets, complete with attached ASM capabilities.
But I’m not convinced overall by the idea of the future of air power residing in the hands of people sitting in front of TV screens. I appreciate that a UCAV doesn’t have to suffer certain weight penalties and can be designed with a more stream lined shape, but I’ve always felt that the pilot in the cockpit provides a decisive and unique advantage, with all round situational awareness and that doesn’t rely on delayed satellite transmissions etc.
Maybe I’m wrong and will be proved so in time, but I’m very apprehensive about the paradigm shift towards unmanned assets.
Chris B
I share your concern on strike UAV. I am not a Luddite. I think they will be useful, but given the cyber warfare coming out of China & Russia & that all our computers are made in China, then I think it risky to put all our future eggs in the unmanned basket.
Back to Libya. As I said, all praise to Tornado/StormShadow for first strike, but for close air support, a carrier just offshore with Harrier/Maverick would provide instant support without having to transit to land bases hundreds of miles away.
Hi jacksatff,
RE ” “B” is the demonstrator for working out the issues, “C” is the estate-car version that carries a proper strike load”
- that is right, but there is more to it
- before the current version, the whole thing got killed off (one of those things that were made “joint” by decree and then met nobody’s requirements)
- the next thing that happened were the major (computer simulation) exercises, hosted by RAND to assess a hot situation in the Taiwan Strait
- F-35s and F-22s were factored in (yes, it was a computer simulation)
- ooops, “we” lost => what next?
- answer: a longer ranged, LO, unmanned strike platform to reach assets on the ground, rather than run out of missiles before running out of targets(lack of basing, need for range and massive AAR, rather than inferior aircraft/ missiles)
Separately about the F-35: It has a very small internal weapons bay, and when more is carried the stealth is “gone”
Hi jackstaff,
If this “(since they are from rival companies) C and X-47 ” were not the case, our big friendly nation would end up with both of the top end platforms (F22 and F35) being from one and the same LM!
- if they “owned” two generations of technology (even though both are classified 5th gen), who could the catch up for the 6th
- Europe has only managed 4.5 (Typhoon, Rafale) with the notable exception of Gripen NG which is somewhere between 4.5 and 5
Hi Chris B,
RE “I still don’t get the Global UAV obsession. I understand the high endurance, high persistence ISTAR assets”
- ISTAR, close to global, yes, with persistence from 36 hrs to 7 days as they hardly carry anything
- strike/ deep penetration platforms far from global (but will add to the reach as carriers are being “pushed” further and further from where they need to have their aircraft in action). Libya is hardly a typical scenario (as for the arsenal of the adversary).
Hi ACC,
I trying to get my head around yours and Jackstaff’s discussion. Are you trying to say that the F-35C is the wrong aircraft, its neither good enough in a strike role due to its limited internal payload or in a role as a persistent A2A missile truck to provide air defence of the fleet and that this is why we are not going to buy all that many of them as we are already looking for the next thing beyond F-35C that can actually do the job we want it to do?
Hi Tubby,
In the former role it is the best aircraft you can place an order for NOW.
In the latter role… have a look at the specs re: what it can carry. Of course, in this latter role stealth is of lesser importance (assuming the adversary does not have top-end radars in stealthy airframes, equipped with BVR A2A missiles… which I accept as a fair planning assumption)
- the real threat is not being beaten on technology, but being beaten with swarming
Ok lets not get carried away by the cheap and cheerful great white hope that is the UCAV. The x-47b(the C version only exists in spec requirements and some fancy ppt graphics) is a proof of concept plane of which on 2 are to built they are to compete over the next 3 years in a fly off with other companies products to select a winner for the US navy much like were F35 was around a decade ago. Its development has already been delayed around a year due to technical difficulties and thats without a mission system installed. Also its not dues to get anywhere near a carrier until 2013 it may not work!
Also taranis is another proof of concept plane without a mission system that has cost $240m for a single airframe F35 gets crucified here and it costs a $90m less than that and it has a mission system. It has also been mooted that to get taranis to a working system may cost 3b more hence the joint program with france. And this is before we think about the satellite system required to support them.
They maybe the future but there nearly 15-20 away from being ready they will be closer to typhoons replacement date than F35 entry into service.
As Obama will have to pacify not just Gaddafists but also US lawmakers, this “As operations continue, the United States will fly most refueling, surveillance, information operations and jamming missions” (i.e. not strike) is likely to be part of it
- whaddayou mean, I didn’t go to war, see for yourselves… kind of line
Hi Mark,
I share all your views re: Taranis and my bet is that it will turn out too expensive and will not get into service.
Haven’t read much on the topic this side of the year end, but RE “Also its not dues to get anywhere near a carrier until 2013 it may not work!” I think the first carrier test was done this year (sort of caught my eye at the headlines level)?
- emals was only tested in the last half year and will go into service on the already half-built US carrier; these things can move fast, at times, even though the main rule is decades
ACC
x-47B did its first flight of 29min on the 4 feb this year at Edwards air force base it wont go to carrier this year.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/02/05/352817/x-47b-begins-three-year-demonstration-with-first-flight-over.html
Emals will be on a carrier in 2015-16 yes they can happen quickly but not usually in aviation with an untried technology.
Impressive, really?
No, this is impressive
Aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91)
8 × Rafale M fighters
6 × Super-Etendard strike aircraft
2 × E-2C airborne early warning aircraft
2 × Dauphin multipurpose helicopters
2 × Alouette III utility helicopters
French Air Force detachment of a Puma and 2 × Caracal transport helicopters
Note for those who like to criticise the RN’s planned routine 12 aircraft that here we have the french on operations with a whole ’14′
A 3,000 mile round trip for 3 Tornados isn’t impressive it is an indictment.
Just thought I would share our “friend”‘s latest missive on UK defence and Libya: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/25/libya_analysis/
G
A pilot in your aircraft does give the additional situational awareness, over a controller sitting a thousand miles away, and I don’t see them replacing manned aircraft any time soon; but UAVs like X47B, Taranis etc are meant to introduce the ability to carry out unmanned missions independently, without a constant link to the ground, unlike dumb drones such as predator.
If you want to take out a target at a fixed location -a structure perhaps- or want to loiter over an area waiting for an air-defence radar to light up, then these kind of UAVs are ideal. That initial strike capability, in high threat environments, without putting a pilot at risk.
Much of the technology for this type of UAV is already there too. Tomahawks already fly their own missions without a pilot, they just go kamikazi rather than launch a weapon.
Future TLAM will have the ability to loiter waiting for targets, and will be capable of redirection by a ground controller to another target, whilst already in flight – a successful test has already been carried out.
The work to get a X47B to land on a carrier deck also doesn’t seem to be regarded as excessively difficult by either the military or by industry.
And let’s face it, there’ll be loads of room for UAVs on our enormous, half empty carriers.
One thing I think has been forgotten in the Libya debate is austerity, or lack of it. Typhoon and Tornado may win hands down over Harrier in terms of capability and technology but given a hypothetical, short term deployment to Libya, it’s the Harriers and its also retired stable mate, the Jaguar, which would’ve been deployed at very short notice. Their record of deploying to austere environments at short notice outstrips both Typhoon and Tornado.
Also, we shouldn’t forget that once this conflict has been resolved Libya is a nation without an effective air force that one day needs to police its own skies. Or are we suggesting that NATO can do it permanently from Italy? Therefore, we should be asking at this point, what will the new Libyan air force look like? Given the volume of French aircraft it possessed, France should be looking at donating Mirage F.1’s and any spare Mirage 2000’s it has, as for the UK, we could give a few Jaguars and Hawk trainers if need be.
Stripping Libya of its air force will leave it vulnerable to the machinations of its neighbours, if we have taken responsibility for helping to smash its armed forces up, then we should take some responsibility for putting them back together again. Lets not make the same mistake we made with Iraq and dismiss the armed forces en masse, take them back into the fold and help rebuild them, the sooner Libya gets back on its feet, the less chance there is of it becoming a breeding ground for terrorists and the sooner we can get out.
@george, read it and now i want to gouge my eyes out to try and forget it, sometimes, just sometimes he’ll make a valid point in one sentence but he’ll cloak it in 4 paragraphs of pure shit!! overall that was a dire piece of journalism
@paul g – agreed, but I couldn’t stop myself sharing it!
Lewis Page can’t write for toffee. He’s right though, more or less, even if he does have a hard-on for aircraft carriers.
The big kid in me loves fancy bits of kit that make explosions. They’re brilliant. But I like accurate maths more. And the sums behind our military expenditure don’t add up. We’ve spent hundreds of billions since 1990 for kinetic effects we could have got for a few billion, and for capabilities we could have got for tens of billions. It makes my stomach churn at the retardation of it all because it’s 90-99% waste.
We shouldn’t call it a defence policy or a defence strategy. It’s an expensive jobs subsidy scheme. I rate our defence contractors and senior military leaders as pretty much the least patriotic people in the country. Or the thickest.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the involvement in Libya, we could have crippled the regime’s military ourselves for the sticker price of two Typhoons. Several hundred tomahawks, and most of his fuel depots, airfields and 4CI go bang.
Want to help the rebels? Give them several thousand RPGs and simpler anti-tank missiles. It takes a week at most to learn how to use them, no matter how complex they are. Half an hour, for the simpler RPGs. They still kill BMPs and T-72s. (Don’t worry about terrorists getting them – you can them buy anywhere for pocket money anyway.)
The cost to us would be several million, and we could have flown them in weeks ago even on our limited airlift fleet. Keeping a supply on-hand in a bunker would have cost us next to nothing.
If the UK can’t handle an impoverished country of 2.5 million people on its own, right on its doorstep, then – objectively – our military is atrocious. Stunningly, abysmally bad. Craptastic.
Future commentators will read about this in the history books and think we were as dumb as people who burned witches. They’d be right.
@ George – Just have to say I’m loving your Gravatar!
“hope Air Tanker can hit the ground running at the end of this year or were in real trouble”
Amen, remember that FSTA alsobecame a handy annotation
It is impressive in a sense we can stilldo that whilst balancing everything else…
The C de Gaulle is ‘impressive’ because they used their funds wisely.
@Mat
I have been watching the news recently and drawing a slightly different conclusion to you. I see what we have on paper, and have decided we are basically do this on the cheap. Now it may be that I am feeling overly patriotic and slightly deluded but as far as I can tell if we really pushed our capabilities to the limits and went with an all out attack we could have done most of what has occurred in the last week on our own. Hell, if this was a do or die, backs to the wall moment and we had two weeks to oust Gaddaffi or else, I am pretty certain we could do it – blown his air defences to hell, kick seven shades of sh!te out of his forces, get land forces in country and role back his “elite” units to Tripoli. Its just that currently it ain’t worth the cost in blood or treasure to take those extreme measures.
I actually think we have done a good job and probably contributed more than most. We have 20+ fast jets, 3 AEW, Sentinel, A few helicopters, Nimrod, Tristar, VC10, hercs c17 weve probably got close to 40 a/c deployed to this. What concerns me is how many we would have had if this had happened 12 months from now. Not a bad force considering what else were doing. Also remember a lot of our other allies may have difficult doing AAR or night ops. Mat the pentagon has estimated they need 350-400 aircraft to provide 24/7 air policing over Libya it which has been beyond us alone probably since 1965.
This has been s very interesting topic. I have resisted the urge to put my 5 pennyworth as my views had been covered by many contributors.
Shat has got to me is Lewis Page! If his costs are are anywhere near accurate then I dedpair.
I have been a Typhoon supporter for years. It has suffered by the normal side effects of collaborative projects, plus the collapse of the soviet union and the bloody Germans. However
If it is developed fully it would be a very fine aircraft. What I see now, makes my blood boil. All the earlier tranches were supposed to be upgraded to a common standard. We now appear to be trashing 55 T1 and only getting a fraction of the remaining 160!!! There is no commitment to all the upgrades we should be getting… AESA, conformal fuel tanks, full integration of stormshadow,brimstone,raptor,meteor etc. Yet we seem to ditching our current fighters prematurely.
I would read to much into anything Lewis Page says if he even did a quick google before writing that article he would have at least got some facts right. The only thing he got right about Typhoon and Tornado was that there planes. Every thing else was nonsense.
LP quoted 10 bn earmarked for armour renewal; I have not seen this anywhere else? One can read any kind of FRES total figures, but they are history (without new procurement decisions).
The Typhoons T1 are 53, actually. 2 were turned to Austria and recovered later in the T2 total, that however saw 24 planes turned to Saudi Arabia.
The UK, once retired the T1, will have exactly 107 Typhoons in T2/3 status. Not bad, actually. Probably more than anyone else in the programme (save for (maybe) Germany (which will have ONLY Typhoon however and (possibly) India)
I’ve written an article over Typhoon numbers, Sea Typhoon and F35. I’ll be sending it to Think Defence later, and one day in the future it should pop up over here. I think i put together some interesting informations.
So can how many Storm Shadow can the Tornado carry? Is it just one?
How far out will Storm Shadow be “fired”? Surely not at maximum range?
How much of a turning circle does a Tornado have 500mph?
@Gareth Jones
Thanks! I kind of liked it and thought it was appropriate given the conversations we are having currently
@Gabriele
But why get rid of the Tranche 1s at all? Just use them for QRA home defence? Or OCU? Let’s sweat those assets…
X
Standard war load is 2 on under fuse pylons. Not sure if they tested it but an additional 2 could be fitted in place of the 2 Fuel Tanks on the wing but this will impact range.
Second is classified and the third depends on what its carrying and at what flight level it flying at and were its operating.
He also hasnt got a clue about numbers deployed either in Libya or Afghan by the looks of it.
@ Mark
Thanks. Much as I thought then. Tornado isn’t short of lifting capacity. It is hard for a simple bear like me to reconcile AAR vs additional underwing tanks vs ordnance conundrum.
George and others. You are right T1 should not be ditched. If we REALLY can’t afford to upgrade them to T2/3 then at least keep them for the a2a role. 107 is no where near enough. We need the RAF to get the F35C as Tornado replacement. If we had a total buy of 80 to 100 I would be relatively happy. The RAF should have at least 160 Typhoons.
X
Yep I have to say Tornado is one my favourite aircraft. At it role of all weather interdictor strike it is still the best aircraft in the whole.
Phil
I would agree I think the long term fast jet should number 12 squadrons of at least 12 a/c each split 8 to 4 Typhoon to F35. The numbers to get us there is up to the people in charge but below that level of force we are no long serious about deploying combat aircraft.