Confusion continues to reign in the land of CVF.
The MoD seems unable to get it’s story straight on the conversion to conventional carrier aircraft operations and is increasingly looking like it doesn’t know it’s arse from it’s elbow.
A recent Parliamentary answer confirmed the ‘official position’ that basically seems to be that no decisions have yet been made, with the final decision coming out of an 18 month study carried out by Aircraft Carrier Alliance (MoD, Babcock, Thales and BAe) and Naval Design Partnering (NDP) team.
The date that the operational Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier enters service with the Royal Navy will depend on which ship will be converted to operate the carrier variant Joint Strike Fighter. This in turn will inform when fast jets will be deployed from the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. We expect firm decisions to be taken on carrier conversion in late 2012 and it remains our intent to deliver a carrier strike capability from around 2020.
The generally accepted position is that QE will be commissioned as the worlds largest helicopter carrier and PoW will get the modifications to support the F35C, although it must be noted main gate for the Joint Combat Aircraft has yet to be finalised so the selection of F35C is not certain, even if it remains the preferred option. When PoW enters service, QE will be placed into extended readiness or sold, again, no decisions have been finalised.
The Carrier Alliance have been provided with funding to get the study to October, after which additional contracts will be let.
This initial funding is for £5 million
Then up pops Gerald Howarth in an interview with the Portsmouth News
The SDSR concluded we needed one carrier but clearly that has its own limitations in availability and clearly the 2015 defence review gives us an opportunity to look again in the prevailing economic conditions and see where we go from there. Clearly, all of us would like two aircraft carriers because that gives us the continuous at-sea capability.We’ve had to take some pretty tough decisions but we’re hoping to be in a position to recover that one in 2015
We endlessly debate the dogs breakfast that is the CVF programme but there seem to be a pair of immutable laws
- We really haven’t got a clue what we are going to do, how much it is going to cost or what will be involved in the switch
- Costs only ever rise
Cribbing comments from authors on other forum’s, the current mess of different stories of what happening appears to be a tussle over what should happen to QE, with different parties putting forward what they want to happen. To be frank, I am not sure given the final decisions will not be made until late 2012 that it might not be to late to add cat and traps to PoW, and I can imagine a situation where it requires ripping up one new carrier, regardless, to fit the cat and traps.
QE sold
PoW renamed Ark Royal
Rafeles to be operated.
“The SDSR concluded we needed one carrier but clearly that has its own limitations in availability and clearly the 2015 defence review gives us an opportunity to look again in the prevailing economic conditions and see where we go from there. Clearly, all of us would like two aircraft carriers because that gives us the continuous at-sea capability.We’ve had to take some pretty tough decisions but we’re hoping to be in a position to recover that one in 2015″
Sensible chap that Gen Howarth.
At the risk of stating the obvious, it is a money question. In the 2010 SDSR the government took the unusual step in a money driven review, of not declaring a position on the second carrier and postponed a decision until 2015.
Conspiracy theorists will read a lot into this but I tend to the more innocent view that in 2010 (and still) the MoD hasn’t yet got itself into a position where it can say to the government that it can afford to give both carriers cats & traps. There seems to be some goodwill to completing the second carrier and indeed it seems the government deliberately left the option open by not cancelling it entirely in 2010. In a perverse sort of way you hope that Liam Fox can free up enough funds by closing bases and fringe assets/capabilities, so that by 2015 the MoD can say that the cost of a second set of cats & traps becomes ‘within budget’.
I read this part “given the final decisions will not be made until late 2012″ as not only choosing the cats & traps supplier, but “freezing” the additional costs by a definitive contract
- the outcome on that may well decide whether one or both with cats & traps
- a further, down-the-line effect on the F35 orders (whether there will be two batches, well separated in time, or just the first one)
The hulls are in the water. They will have a long life. It appears the technology for CATOBAR is nearly there.
I have said before here the maritime approach is an easy target because it is concrete and there are cogent arguments to support it.
It would be nice to see some of the anti’s here layout a broad brush stroke non-maritime approach.
X
I’m not really an anti, but I’m not a Carrier zealot either.
I have posted a few times alternative views, but alternative views for a carrier free strategic raider, rather than anything inherantly different.
Basicaly, replace Carriers with stretched 128 TacTom Toting T45s
RE ” carrier free strategic raider”
- how does that compare with the present mantra: carrier-assisted (str. raider) ops?
I think there are many parties in the MOD and the government who would like to have both carriers with CTAS and TRAPS. Given the shrinkage in the budget deficit which is estimated to have been elimintaed by 2015 it should be relativley easy given the small cost for the government in 2015 to find the extra money. If the treasury wants a project dead it will normally do everything from posining the well to cutting off its own noce. Look at TSR2 where the prototypes and jigs were ordered to be burned for no reason. If they really wanted just one carrier they would have canceled the project even considering the penalty.
@X
‘The hulls are in the water. They will have a long life. It appears the technology for CATOBAR is nearly there.’
In pure financial terms I don’t think that matters much with regards to if they will even enter service. Look at MRA4, they were flying, and still got the chop. I’m not saying they should be cut btw, just that there is still plenty of time yet for someone to wield the axe.
RE “Given the shrinkage in the budget deficit which is estimated to have been elimintaed by 2015″
- currently the markets are telling us about a double-dip, i.e. the 2nd one in process, and without a pronounced upswing, there will be no elimination of the deficit
… so where do we go with the defence priorities, and choices?
Even bigger cuts, if the country doesn’t pick up, hard to see more money being given to the MoD in such circumstances.
ACC
Erm, instead of using a carrier and JSF to bomb the enemy, buy half a dozen stretched T45s and plaster the enemy with TacToms.
CAS can be provided by Apaches off the Flat Tops.
@ Topman
I hear you.
There will be plenty of money when the army is cut to the Household Division and a battalion of TA.
TD,
I think you’re being a bit unfair here. Rather than incompetence as the title of your post suggests, I think it is all about political manoeuvring.
Basically, when the SDSR was proposed, the Government was told that the F-35B STOVL version of the JSF strike fighter was unlikely to fulfil expectations and, even if it did, it would arrive late. This led to the choice of the F-35C. It has since been pointed out that navalised version of the Typhoon could do much of what the F-35C could do while having two engines, a bit of a bonus at sea.
However, we need a Harrier replacement not only for the Navy and its carriers, but also for the RAF. The STOVL capability is useful if not important for close air support. The F-35B would give us a worthwhile capability upgrade versus the Harrier GR9.
Moreover, since SDSR, my understanding is that the F-35B is gradually getting back on track and will perform as expected. Given the advent of the Russian Su T-50 and Chinese stealth fighters and, of course, the grounding of the F-22 Raptor fleet, America realises that it has to make the JSF work… or risk EU customers going elsewhere to fulfil their combat aircraft needs. The US will invest whatever it takes to make JSF work, although it could indeed cancel the F-35B version.
While the F-35 program matures, the Government doesn’t need to take a decision on which version it wants just yet. In fact, the CATOBAR system doesn’t need to be funded until the hulls are ready.
i note that UK F-35 funding is mentioned in the latest forecasts. This is our inescapable commitment to buy test versions of the F-35B. These will enable us to see its potential.
These factors give the Government manoeuvre room to change their mind about which version of the F-35 we end up buying. it wouldn’t be the first time David Cameron has changed his mind.
If the US can get the F-35B to work as advertised, I would prefer this option.
@ DomJ
Didn’t see you lurking there……..
It isn’t so much the carriers more that nobody from t’other side puts forward anything. The UK has been “fortunate” that the US has been there to allow us to do things. If all we are to do is defend Europe so be it. I am sure the Greeks and Poles would enjoy all the economic benefits that were enjoyed by >cough< German allies. But if the UK sees a need to take part in global security arrangements we need global reach that is sustainable.
This is an image from 2020 of an MRB deploying to Mozambique because of an emergence in Zimbabwe.
http://blog.housetrip.com/wp-content/uploads/on-the-boat-between-dover-and-france-540×405.jpg
Glug, glug, glug……..!
The problem with just using T45s with Tomahawks and using Apaches for land attack, is of course, defending against attacking jets, such as was crucial in the Falklands.
Changing to the F35C is the better decision the problems with f35b are many and varied.
DomJ really for apache to do cas you assume no air threat and targets within 100 miles of your target less if you want loiter time.
x as for the mrb as Libya suggests we can overthrow dictators by supporting a local militia by supplying them with an airforce and navy we may not need the stabilisation mrbs (general banging head off table).
mark
i see 500+ cruise missiles and 8 paams as equal to the task of any airforce and sam network we could face alone.
100 miles isnt that bad, enough to reach most targets, i cant imagine why we would be 50miles inland on a ‘raid’ anyway.
@ x
“I have said before here the maritime approach is an easy target because it is concrete and there are cogent arguments to support it. It would be nice to see some of the anti’s here layout a broad brush stroke non-maritime approach.”
– The problem I think you’re having is that you equate CVF as being the only tool of a “Maritime Approach”. And thus anybody anti-CVF is de facto anti-Navy/anti-Maritime.
I would like to see the Navy get more money. I’m not convinced at the minute that CVF is the best way to spend said money.
That’s not being “non-maritime” or “anti-Navy”, that’s being anti-CVF.
To take this further, anti-CVF is not even anti-aircraft carrier. It’s just anti-”the ship bulding program known colloquially as CVF” (and some of the absurd arguments made in its defence).
Why can’t someone be against the CVF program, but in favour of increased escorts, subs etc?
The problem is not ours, its yours.
You’re automatically assuming that because someone doesn’t share your ardour for your pet project that they are, by default, in favour of scrapping the Navy entirely and replacing it with a world wide web of Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
That’s not the case. One can be pro-Navy, pro-maritime, Sea-seeing (what’s the opposite of blind?), without also being a supporter of the CVF program.
Actually no Chris. You have the problem. But as I don’t want to get into a circular clusterf*ck like the one you did with Gabby I will leave it.
To the carrier Junkies
Yea whatever.
TD is right. not even the govt knows whats going to happen, lots of people in uniform and highly ranked know what they would like to happen, but no one yet has decided what will happen.
2012 and 2015 will see a lot of things ‘on the table’ There will be shocks, especially if ‘Call me Dave’ has apparantly decided the Guards units are untouchable.
dom
cruise maybe useful in some cases but paveway iv and brimstone are the weapons of choice tomahawk just limits your options to much. PAAMS can only shoot things down it cant intercept or shadow.
chrisB a frigate navy limits your options significantly and removes a whole axis of movement that has the least political impact. You get 3 astutes for the 2 cvf or 5 type 45 which is hardly game changing escort or sub numbers.
The aerial axis, if that is indeed what you’re referring to, can be covered by other means. You should also get a bloody sight more than just 3 astutes for 2 CVF.
Never the less, the fact remains that replacing CVF with other ships or with a combination plus MPA for the local role etc, constitutes an interest in things maritime.
Thus to be anti-CVF does not automatically make one anti-maritime, sea-blind, pick your bullshit title and insert it here.
CVF will likely (based on current decisions) be a component of our future Navy. It is not “The Navy” in one vessel.
People seem to be having a hard time divorcing the ship from the system in which it serves.
Hi Ixion,
RE ” not even the govt knows whats going to happen, lots of people in uniform and highly ranked know what they would like to happen, but no one yet has decided what will happen.”
- and, while being correct, that is bad
- general election in between, so the first part is correct [to the comma]
- I would hate to have worked to the top of the RN (takes a life time, literally), and then be making these plans that the next Parliament might totally turn over
- it is a ‘system failure’ would you not agree? (pro or contra CVF, that does not matter)
Mark
We have done this a thousand times.
One one hand we have carrier junkies
On the other we have the the CVF athiests (I say CVF as many like me favour carrier air power but not the CVF program).
Both think the other deluded.
Whatever we say money will do the talking,it will eaither happen or not, and if it does happen what use it will be, etc.
So lets not do the: -
‘CVF is the savour Of GB and RN as a ‘world power’
OR
‘CVF is the work of Satan’
Again!
ACC
It is CVF’s fate to be perhaps the touchstone of our utterly disfunctional millitary procurement, and ‘strategic’ (yeah right) millitary decision making.
You are correct, it is no way to run a railroad.
The whole carrier procurement affair will go down in history for all the wrong reasons, but I’m pretty sure this is a one-way track by now. There will be a carrier, and it will have aircraft. And even after considering all the uncertainties, including the next election, I think keeping number 2 is no better or worse than a 50-50 toss up.
It’s probably a bit late to be drawing up shopping lists of what we’d like to see instead of CVF. So an early suggestion for a 2025 article – ‘How I learned to live with and love CVF’ by Think Defence.
Ixion yes we have and I not starting a repeat but as you chipped in a nelly and dumbo I thought Id thru one back.
chris as astutes cost about 1.5b each and the cvf at present is about 5.5b you get 3 and 2/3rds I suppose. Nor did I say you were anti martime or any other bullshit title.
mark
the cvf program with jets is more like 10bn.
Higher running costs than 5 or 6 battleships too….
Dominic, you can’t really roll all the aircraft costs into the carrier programme, as we would still be buying jets with or without CVF. Could even have bought into F35A/B had we never started the CVF programme.
“It’s probably a bit late to be drawing up shopping lists of what we’d like to see instead of CVF. So an early suggestion for a 2025 article – ‘How I learned to live with and love CVF’”
Very much agreed BB, including the comment above.
Just wondering …with F22 never likely to be used in anger
how likely is it that the same applies for F35 ??
i.e. its too valuable to loose at the start and then too plagued by issues such as upgrade costs and the technical problems of new technologies to be a reliable force
leaving the ucavs and older jets to shoulder the workload, it doesn’t seem any stranger a fate than that which has developed for the worlds “leading 5th generation fighter”
@ Rw the B2 had the same problem in the early days but it has been used in more recent operations. No one wants to let a piece of kit liek the F22 out too early. Don’t want the Chinese getting any data on it. As the F35 is not suppose to be as capable and will come 10 years later I do not predict the same problem. It always amazes me how contoversial CVF is. Considering that the cost of the program is really not that much compared to Astute or T45. Even with Aircraft it comes in well below the estimates for FRES or for Typhoon. It is possibly about the way we see ourselves and our armed forces. CVF make a very large statement on the world stage good or bad.
@ Mark
“chris as astutes cost about 1.5b each and the cvf at present is about 5.5b you get 3 and 2/3rds I suppose,”
– I believe the cost has gone down as the project advances and newer ships are built quicker, using the newer techniques and processess developed.
“Nor did I say you were anti martime or any other bullshit title,”
– My comment in that regard was not aimed at you.
BB I agree with your comments also.
Chris I think the first 3 cost over 6b and next 3 below 5b not sure what boat 7 cost. As for responding to your comment i was a bit ott.
Rw
Ops sent above post to early
Rw don’t see that being a issue the us need to replace almost it’s entire fighter fleet due to significant fatigue issue across the board whichhas lead to a number of fleet groundings. They intend f35 for this purpose it will be used it won’t have the same issues as f22 indeed a number of techs developed for f35 will/ are being retro fitted to f22 to help improve it’s reliabilty
Great point, Martin
“Even with Aircraft it [CVFs] comes in well below the estimates for FRES or for Typhoon. It is possibly about the way we see”
- “ourselves”; Typhoon – the last hurrah of British aicraft development (fun for those who were on the ride, but starved out other budgets?)
- “and our armed forces”;CVF & off-the-shelf (almost! ots)strike planes = buy what is needed
+ which one is nationally more important: to be able to build warships or DESIGN warplanes from scratch
+ in the long run F-35 will do as much to sustain aircraft building in the UK as Typhoon (was it 18% of 2000 planes vs a higher percentage of a couple hundred)
FRES is not really in this league as it will never, in my view, materialise on the envisaged scale
bb
you have to include aircraft costs, its a fundamental part of the carrier!
Its like stripping paams out!
Rw
why wont the 22/35 be used?
Every other stealth aircraft has been, typhoon and rafale are hardly hanger queens.
Martin
they are all controversial!!!
Well, astutes just expensive, the 45s should never been gutted or killed, we’d have been better with rafel than typhoon and fres makes on weep
someone else
the entire usaf is past its use by date, airlift, tankers, sigint, fighter, bomber
“you have to include aircraft costs, its a fundamental part of the carrier!”
Sure, but those aircraft will be in the RAF if they aren’t in the FAA.
If they aren’t then we aren’t talking about a better allocation of resources, we are talking about lesser ambitions with smaller budgets to match.
Not true “the entire usaf is past its use by date, airlift, tankers, sigint, fighter, bomber”
- the fighter shortage scare has been created to push (the ever-increasing) F-35 funding on the Hill
- Congress got a very in-depth study to counter that, it even factored in various flight hour assumptions and maintainability (with probabilities) to make the fleet projections reach far enough into the future, without falling on a single assumption (that might turn out to be critical & wrong)
“Sure, but those aircraft will be in the RAF if they aren’t in the FAA.”
Not sure I buy that.
We’re likely to get 40 F35′s, all navy, if we werent buying carriers, we wouldnt buy a single F35.
Sure, the government still claims 160 F35s, 80 each, but the government was claiming 260 Typhoons were still planned, right up to the day they cut every damned one they could.
We are buying carrier aircraft, because we are buying carriers.
If we cancelled the carriers, the F35 order would have gone as well.
Hi, Dominic. The F35 for CVF are not an additional number of airframes; without a carrier we would end up with a greater number of land based fast jets instead.
And without CVF the RAF might still be seduced by the magical stealth properties of F35A, and we might also still have been tempted to buy BEEs too as a Harrier replacement. So without CVF we could still end up with a very similar looking core fast jet fleet.
And yes you can strip out the PAAMS development costs from the cost of CVF too, as that was originally part of the Horizon programme; and when we pulled out of Horizon PAAMS was attached to the T45 programme, and we would most likely still want area air defence without CVF – to support amphib ops for example.
Think the current numbers are 138 planned f35. I would expect this to fall to about 100 to go along with 100 typhoon. Below that total of around 200 jets and your below critical mass. Typhoon and f35 price wise next to no difference. F35 now replaces tornado and Harrier the RAF have been saving for some time that typhoon cannot meet the tornado replacement spec. We also would not get f35a as we can’t aar it. Tornado needs replaced and no sign of ucav for 20+ years you get what you get.
As for us fighter fleet structure fatigue on f15 ground 400 of them within the last 2 years and issues on early f16 caused something similar. Also about 100 p3 were grounded due to wing fatigue issues not that long ago either.
ACC
I couldnt comment on a “fighter shortage”, but virtualy everything in the USAF is due for replacement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAF#Aircraft_inventory
A10 were brought into service in 78
The C130J is new enough, but massive numbers in US service arent J’s, most arent even H’s, most are from ther 70′s again
The B1 and B2 are new enough, late 80′s early 90′s, and little enough use, but the B52′s were all built before 1963!
The C17s are new, and the C5s arent exactly ancient, but they arent getting any younger.
Even the youngest E3s are 20 years old…
@ Dom – “We are buying carrier aircraft, because we are buying carriers. If we cancelled the carriers, the F35 order would have gone as well.”
According to Trouble @ Warships1 jets are all about generating “FEAR” which is some acronym for the number of deployable aircraft that can be sustained on operations, and one of the main reasons that Harrier got canned.
You often see it called FE@R as well
Force Elements at Readiness
that’s the one admin, cheers.
Like it or not, the carriers will be built, but the more we fanny about deciding on role/configuration and what aircraft, the more expensive it’s going to be. The governments/MoD’s current choice of F35C is frankly absurd. This aircraft is going to be horrendously expensive and in comparison to the cheaper F-18 super hornet, will be far less capable in so many areas. If we are going for a conventional carrier we will need a solid workhorse and the F-18E/F is a proven design.
Now, I know we don’t yet know what F35C costs will actually be yet, but at current costs projections, new build F-18E/F come in and almost half the cost of a F-35C. Hell, in a few years time the Australians will be wanting to get shot of a few themselves, so there is an opportunity to pick up a few additional airframes on the cheap from them.
Also obtaining a few F-18G Growlers would give the RN a capability it has never had before.
I believe we can’t afford F35 anymore and the sooner a decision is made to cancel it, the better.
“We are buying carrier aircraft, because we are buying carriers. If we cancelled the carriers, the F35 order would have gone as well.”
But Dom, I presume instead of the QE class you’d prefer three smaller carriers at about the Illustrious’ size (that would have been my preference). They would need aircraft anyway.