Reality is depressing, and I am even struggling with the motivation to finish the bridging series, even though it’s 90% done. So ignoring the fact that we are poorer than a jobless church mouse yet continue with our fantasy spending plans I thought a fantasy kit post was in order.
A recent Jane’s Defence Weekly reported on a Royal Navy lessons learned document in which the two major shortcomings were a lack of precision land attack capability and organic unmanned ISR.
Jane’s quoted Colonel Pierson RM, the Deputy Director of NATO Operations in Libya;
It was evident that the Libya campaign showed the need for precision fires, [perhaps the Lockheed Martin] Guided Multiple Rocket Launch System (GMLRS), from the sea base, deep into enemy littoral territory.
He added that there was a requirement on RN Warships for;
Unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), such as the brilliant live feed, full motion video provided by [Boeing] Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle
Looking at both these lessons learned it is obvious that both these clear gaps in capability are where the Royal Navy has lagged many other naval forces.
Incidentally, I note we discussed the issue some time ago, how very bloody clever we all are!
I know I might get accused of sounding like a stuck record, but these are the kind of obvious capabilities that are left beyond whilst pursuing a certain large programme, it crowds out investment in moderately priced equipment that delivers huge value in likely operations.
We might also reflect on the cost, especially in comparison with carrier borne or land based fast jet aircraft and Apache helicopters. Whilst not replacing either, the simple fact that we keep getting reminded how much the world population coalesces around coastlines when discussing CVF/JCA is something that cuts both ways.
If we can improve our ability to deliver strike up to a couple of hundred kilometres inland from surface vessels, does it reduce the demand for the RAF and RN’s fast jets?
Anyway, onto the post …
Organic ISR
The ability to extend the sensor reach beyond the horizon is of obvious benefit and usually this would be carried out by a frigate or destroyers helicopter but when there is a threat from ground fire helicopters become more difficult to deploy so many solutions exists for deploying sensors (and sometimes weapons) using unmanned systems.
It is depressing to think that the Royal Navy has been so slow to unmanned party, the reasons are of course largely financial but despite testing a number of systems like the Insitu Scan Eagle several years ago nothing has been introduced into service.
One might assume that an unmanned air vehicle operating from a ship must be vertical take off and landing, like a helicopter, but that is not necessarily the case although the emerging VTUAS requirement would seem to dictate a vertical take-off and landing solution.
The initial target date seems to be around the 2020 to 2024 mark, incredible given the range of low cost off the shelf solutions available and obvious need now.
The debate seems to be whether to opt for something that is just used for ISR or a system that offers a greater payload for weapons or even stores. Greater payload generally means shorter endurance and range so there is a balance to be struck. Whilst carriage of larger payloads may be useful, to match the endurance of the smaller ISR systems would mean multiple vehicles, increasing cost and of course, most ships are not overflowing with space.
A few options;
Schiebel Camcopter
Similar to Skeldar, the Camcopter S-100 from Scheibel has an hour longer endurance than Skeldar at 6 hours and can carry a range of sensor and communication payloads weighing 34kg in total. An external fuel tank can also be fitted to extend endurance to 10 hours.
It has also been shown armed with a single Lightweight Multirole Missile from Thales.
The Camcopter is in service with the UAE, being introduced in German naval service, has been demonstrated from a French Gowind class offshore patrol vessel and Libya also ordered 4 systems in 2009, wonder where they are now!
Gizmag wrote a good article on the Camcopter, click here, in which they describe the cost of a two air vehicle system complete with control station, payload, ground equipment, logistics package and training to be in the order of $2m
Click here to read the brochure which includes an interesting picture of the Camcopter being used to drop leaflets.
Saab Skeldar
The Saab Skeldar V-200 is the latest version of the Skeldar rotary wing UAV in both land and maritime variants. Although having a much shorter endurance than the ScanEagle the advantages of VTOL and hover in flight are obvious.
Saab have also demonstrated the Skeldar operating from a CB90 which highlights an interesting combination of smaller patrol craft operating at distance from the host vessel and extending their ISTAR reach even further.
The maritime version has a 40kg payload, an endurance of 5 to 7 hours and uses a diesel engine, important for ship safety reasons.
The Skeldar has an interesting ISO Container system that houses the air vehicle, all maintenance equipment and spares and can be configured to have a roof mounted landing and take off platform so the whole system can be easily hosted aboard a variety of vessels and transferred just as easily.
Firescout
The Northrop Grumman MQ-8B is a mature vertical take off and landing unmanned system with a long development background and proven deployment credentials with US forces. Developed from the Schweizer 333 it is a much larger aircraft than the Camcopter or Skeldar as shown by a comparison of payloads, for short missions the Firescout can lift over 300kg. Normal endurance is between 5 and 8 hours.
Its stub wings also allow the carriage of various missiles such as Hellfire or guided 70mm rockets.
Click here for brochures.
Hummingbird
Although still a rotary winged UAV the Boeing Hummingbird is very different from the others and arguably, much more cutting edge. Its unique propulsion system allows the rotor speed to be varied and this provides advantages in altitude and endurance, where it can operate at 15,000 feet for in excess of 20 hours carrying a payload of up to 130kg.
The Hummingbird was tested with the FOliage penetrating REconnaissance, Surveillance, Tracking and Engagement Radar (FORESTER) system, click here for an in depth article, although it had a few problems in Belize
Moving beyond Gorgon Stare is the DARPA sponsored ARGUS-IS project being developed byBAe.
This ambitious programme will create a 1.8 Gigapixel camera system able to cover a 40 km2 area at 15 frames per second from an A160 Hummingbird or Reaper UAV. To process this enormous data volume it will use an airborne processing system to deliver up to 65 windows that users can zoom into or out of on demand. The software makes the difference; its advanced target recognition algorithms provide movement detection and target tracking.
Other payloads might include the ubiquitous EO sensor pod, SAR or multiples of the same.
It is ARGUS that has been in the news recently with a planned deployment to Afghanistan very soon.
If one compares the Hummingbird with the Fire Scout, the former can fly higher and longer but carry less.
Boeing / Insitu Scan Eagle
The ScanEagle has an interesting history, initially introduced in 2001 to assist tuna fishing fleets it has evolved into a mature, low cost, flexible and highly effective family of vehicles and payloads. A few months ago it notched up its half million flying hours’ milestone.
In Libya the Scan Eagle demonstrated its capabilities and after, Insitu released a press release
“What happened over that period of time, no one expected,” says ScanEagle Detachment Officer in Charge Lt. Nick Townsend. “ScanEagle was locating contacts of interest that no one else could find. After the dust settled, ScanEagle was credited with locating a host of contacts of interest due to its ability to capture superior image quality and to operate covertly at relatively low altitudes.” Captured imagery was delivered from the ship to the task force via secure networked channels provided by the Secure Video Injection system from The Boeing Company, Insitu’s parent company. The UAV-provided, near-real-time video helped enable quick, tactical decisions.
The video below demonstrates just how compact and easy to use the launch and recovery equipment is, incidentally shot from the same USS Mahon that operated the Scan Eagle in Libya.
To reinforce just how compact the Scan Eagle launch mechanism the image below shows one being launched from US Navy Mark V Special Warfare boat.
To see the full specs, loads of video and images click here to go to the Insitu website.
ScanEagle can be upgraded to NightEagle specification only a few hours.
The Scan Eagle is a mature system that has many optional extras and a full range of sensors and supporting payloads in addition to mission planning and image analysis tools. It really is an off the shelf system.
Integrator
Scan Eagle has a bigger brother, the Integrator that can carry a larger payload yet still use the same launch and recovery method. The Integrator has been selected by the USN and USMC to fulfil the Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) requirement.
One of the strengths of the Scan Eagle and Integrator is the modular payload bay that has had many systems already integrated; electro optical, infra red and synthetic aperture radar as imaging payloads for example. Other useful payloads include communications relays of various types and an intelligent ships AIS interrogator that matches a received AIS signal with imagery to confirm the identity of a ship.
The 24 hour endurance is certainly impressive but limited to sensor payloads.
Click here for a brochure.
Gazelle and SW-4
These are interesting not only because they are conversions of existing manned helicopters (like many of these rotary UAV’s) but because of their UK connection, which makes them likely contenders for any RN programme.
Northrop Grumman and QinetiQ proposed an unmanned Gazelle and described their solution as ‘short-term and low cost’
The unmanned Gazelle would use the control systems of the Northrop MQ-8B Firescout which does beg the question of why not just buy the much more mature Firescout in the first place.
Using the Gazelle as a platform makes sense – it’s a proven system with low support and operating costs. We could bring in a capability a lot sooner than the navy currently believes is possible,” he said.
Speaking at DSEi 2011, Qinetiq’s assistant technical director of avionics, Jeremy Howitt, said;
Qinetiq would be responsible for programme management and integration activities under the proposal, which would also include flight test activities from the West Wales UAV Centre at Aberporth. Unmanning an aircraft is the relatively easy part. The difficult part is providing the multiple levels of redundancy and failure management required that allows you to deliver military effect. We could do an initial demonstration within 12 months, and within the order of £10 million
12 months and ten million quid for a demonstrator, mmm
Given that Gazelle is due out of service soon and the maturity of competing systems it is hard to see the advantages of reinventing the wheel.
At around the same time Agusta Westland (now owners of the Polish helicopter manufacturer PZL-Swidnick) announced a possible conversion of their SW-4 light helicopter.
The first unmanned flight was scheduled for early this year.
Both these were aiming for an endurance of 8 hours depending on the payload weight.
Precision Land Attack
The Future Maritime Fires Concept Phase is due to complete in around mid-2012 so no doubt the lessons from Libya will play a large part in informing the study. With the cancelling of the BAe 155mm TMF project the choice of a naval gun has narrowed, but there are also missile and UAV delivered systems worthy of consideration.
Question
Julian Lewis (New Forest East, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his policy is on the replacement of existing warship guns by ones of 155mm; and if he will make a statement on his policy, with special reference to (a) the future frigate fleet and (b) Type 45 destroyers.
Answer
Peter Luff (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Defence Equipment, Support and Technology), Defence; Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)
No decision on the calibre of the new Maritime Indirect Fire System (the new naval gun) has yet been made. This will be taken when work to consider the available options under the Future Maritime Fires Concept Phase is complete in around mid-2012.
The Maritime Fires Concept, of which the Maritime Indirect Fire System (MIFS) is part, is being delivered with the Niteworks Partnership and is expected to be met by a medium calibre gun or MCG. The other part of MFS is the Maritime Indirect Fire Precision Attack (MIFPA) is expected to be delivered using missile systems, potentially Fire Shadow.
Guns
The existing 115mm/4.5” Mark 8 Mod 1 gun aboard Royal Navy vessels has its origins in the late sixties and has given excellent service. The HE Extended Range round uses base bleed to propel the round to a maximum range of 27.5km and the existing illumination nature is also still available. In order to maintain a sustained rate of fire of 16–20 rounds per minute and accommodate the more powerful ammunition types the barrel is 62 calibres long. It has seen extensive service including action off the Falkland Islands (8,000 rounds), Iraq and Libya.
As we know though, there is not a large installed base on which to spread development costs of precision, proximity and IR illumination or smoke natures so the open market seems an obvious place to look, especially given the 155mm TMF concept has been cancelled.
There are a number of options but probably only two realistic ones, the BAE 5” Mark 45 and the Oto Melara 127mm Compact and Lightweight.
The Mark 45 Mod 4 from BAE, as used by the US Navy, South Korea, Denmark, Australia and others, is a 5”/127mm system with a 62 calibre barrel and is capable of a rate of fire up to 20 rounds per minute.
The Oto Melara system comes in a Compact form and the newer Lightweight version with a 64 calibre barrel.
In 2010 Babcock and Oto Melara signed a Memorandum of Understanding to offer the Light Weight Medium Calibre Gun System to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the Type 26 frigate.
To quote the sales blurb;
The Oto Melara 127/64 LW gun is capable of firing up to 35 rounds per minute. The production turret weighs less than 29 tons and the ‘peppered’ muzzle brake with an aluminium shield keeps cost down, improves maintenance and reduces radar cross-section. The gun uses an advanced ammunition handling system, consisting of four revolving drum magazines holding 56 ready-to-fire rounds of more than four different types, allowing flexibility in ammunition selection and a high rate of sustained fire. It is capable of anti-surface and anti-air defence, and area engagement. The new Vulcano ammunition is capable of precision engagement at ranges previously only achievable by missile systems but at a fraction of the cost.
Very impressive.
After many years of expensive trials the US Extended Range Guided Munition was cancelled, leaving the USN without precision gun launched land attack but Oto Melara have continued to persevere and have introduced the Vulcano range of munitions.
The Vulcano has both an extended range unguided and long range guided nature that is used with the 127mm to deliver rounds out to 120km.
I don’t think it is in service yet, though.
There is also of course the mental 155mm Advanced Gun System (AGS) from BAE that will equip the USN DDG-1000 Destroyer but given that we seem unlikely to build a new ship class around the needs of this gun, it’s for interest only.
Guns have several distinct advantages, the ability to fire different natures, apply their effects over a wide area (pinpoint precision is not always desirable) and to sustain operations over a longer period are just a few of them but missiles generally speaking, at least in this context, can fire at greater ranges and potentially apply a larger warhead with greater precision.
Missiles
Off the shelf there are surprisingly few options.
The report that sparked this post mentioned GMLRS, the famous 70km sniper.
A maritime MRLS/GMLRS is not a new concept, the US Navy initiated a study into something similar called the Precision Over the horizon Land Attack Rocket (POLAR) that used the MRLS rocket as its base, although the motor was nearly a third larger. This was cancelled in favour of the Land Attack Standard Missile that was also itself, subsequently cancelled.
Navalising a land-based system is no trivial task and the principle problem with this idea is managing the corrosive exhaust. Others include maintaining corrosion resistance, re loading and compensating for the ships’ movement (the guidance system may not be able to cope with a moving launch platform)
There may be simple design rather than scientific research answers to some of these or simply accepting compromises. Instead of reloading at sea, simply accept that it is an alongside task, instead of expensively making everything corrosion resistance design in semi protected components and accept a higher frequency of replacement and instead of creating a complex exhaust gas management system or replacing the propellant design the system so that it can only be fired (not sure what the proper nautical term is) at right angles to the axis of the ship, thus venting the majority into the sea.
Now, none of these might be feasible and there might be other issues but could some of the disadvantages be overcome with compromise?
Not sure.
What is certain is that a naval GMLRS would be invaluable, potent, have some degree of commonality with land forces and be relatively low cost.
What is even more intriguing is that should we be able to integrate a GMLRS launcher aboard an RN vessel open up the possibility of using the same launcher for the 300km BROACH warhead variant, ATACMS, 1 per pod. The Israelis also make the 150km EXTRA rocket that fits two to a G/MLRS pod.
Standing 25km offshore (with that indefinite poise thing) a ship launched ATACMS would be able to attack targets up to 275km inshore.
There are minimum range and many more thorny issues to consider with ship launched ATACMS/GMLRS but they remain an intriguing prospect.
A more conventional and off the shelf option is the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM3), in service with Norway and Poland.
With a 150km range, the NSM weighs 400Kg with a 125kg warhead and can attack a mix of land and surface targets. This would also have the added benefit of being integrated onto the F35 for commonality all round. The Stand Off Land Attack Missile, based on the Harpoon is another option.
Another system that is likely to be a shoe in is the Team Complex Weapons Fire Shadow that is a difficult system to characterise, half missile and half UAV it is called a loitering munition.
Fire Shadow will be deployed to Afghanistan this year. I must admit to being a sceptic on the Fire Shadow in a land environment but in a maritime environment it has many plus points.
If we really want to spend a fortune the CVS401 Perseus concept missile from MBDA will also provide plenty of options, potentially replacing Storm Shadow, cue, an enormous bun fight between the RAF and RN.
We might also consider that our ISR UAV may also be used to deliver precision ground attack at range. The Camcopter has been shown with the Lightweight Multirole Missile and the Fire Scout has also been demonstrated with a wide variety of missiles.
The LMM is now in manufacturing phase and will be deployed on Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters. Arming a UAV with multiple missiles would provide a low yield land attack system.
Summary
To summarise, there seems a tremendous variety of military off the shelf equipment that we could take as a base and integrate into UK systems, the UAV into the Watchkeeper infrastructure for example so it does not look to be a compelling case for a UK development.
The need to extend the reach of surface vessels, I carefully avoid the use of the term major combatant because vessels lower down the flightiness ladder can equally benefit, with both ISTAR and attack capabilities is obvious.
We could still deliver improved land attack capabilities without an investment in maritime UAV’s because target identification and guidance can come from other ‘platforms’ but the availability of an organic UAV would greatly enhance the ability of a frigate or destroyer without requiring others or relying on a manned helicopter where it might be difficult to deploy.
The Gazelle and SW-4 unmanned developments from QinetiQ and Agusta Westland look interesting but what do they really bring over and above the Fire Scout, Camcopter or even the Scan Eagle, all of which are available now.
Land attack from surface vessels is a capability area that the Royal Navy is comparatively weak in but this can be addressed without resorting to a mahoosive project. We should not forget, whilst bemoaning the lack of capability in this area, that the RN is one of the few nations able to deliver cruise missiles from submarines, a fearsome capability if there ever was one.
Whilst we might consider cruise missiles as strategic in their effect the ability of the lower cost systems should not be dismissed.
Let us equally not forget how CVF with Apache and in the future JCA will also provide a significant land attack from the sea capability, however costly.
With a relatively modest investment, the RN could have a multi layered system of systems (sorry) that can deal with a wide variety of operational needs.
The unmanned Firescout looks a demon piece of equipment, however, I can’t help thinking that it was developed from what is merely an advanced version of the TH-55 Osage…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TH-55_Osage
….if the RN is to buy something of this ilk I’d rather it was something more advanced and with greater performance, like the Boeing AH-6.
“The Skeldar has an interesting ISO Container system that houses the air vehicle, all maintenance equipment and spares and can be configured to have a roof mounted landing and take off platform so the whole system can be easily hosted aboard a variety of vessels and transferred just as easily.” -Sold.
I think a massive consideration should be the ability to fit any system onboard a FF DD sized vessel to complement manned rotary wing aviation rather than replace it.
the problem the UK has is the same as many countries in that they can never truly by something “off the shelf” they always have to make changes that end up costing millions. Worse still are the looking into which system we truly need spending millions on just looking at something that in the end can’t be bought because there’s not enough money. I mean sometimes I want to jsut say buy the damn thing already at least them you used the money to get something.
@ APATS – I once read somewhere that the footprint of a seahawk was 3 Firescouts. So two for a lynx, 4 for a Merlin? A type-23 could have 1 Lynx, 2 Firescouts?
the problem with the UAV solution is that they’re only viable in permissive environments. the second you have even a moderately competent foe, you’ll see the loss rate explode.
hell lets be honest, the loss rate in even permissive environments is horrendous and the more capability you build into those systems the more expensive they become negating their main advantage.
the MLRS solution has been banged around since the first gulf war and just doesn’t work. the cannon is nice but puts you within the horizon of shore batteries (whether gun or missile and with a competent foe youre going to get banged)….
which leaves you with only two real options. you can put up your attack helicopters in that non-permissive environment…load them down with hellfire, brimstone or whatever and have them take out your targets or you do it with a fast jet.
yep. we’re back to the carriers if we’re talking out of area operations.
this might seem like a simple, think out the box issue but its anything but. face it gents, the next combat action will probably take place outside the range of land based fighters. get ready for it!
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA518429
Don’t think of it as a complete design, more a general concept.
LOL just love the comment about another area in which we are lagging behind! Seriously, please point me to anyone other than the USN that has a rotary wing UAV in anything like regular “in service” use!!
Also which Navy are we so desperately lagging behind in land attack ? I presumed you were not really thinking USN TacTom capabilities ……
Jed.
i think TD is simply trying to lay the foundation for why the UK doesn’t need carriers…but if you’re talking about the navies that the UK currently lags behind then you’re talking the French, Italians, Russians and probably a few more i forgot to mention.
the thing that kills me in this whole debate is that the RAF and i don’t mean to be critical but the RAF doesn’t bring anything unique to an air campaign. the one thing might be the Sentienels but that capability was (is) scrapped. other than that the Typhoons limited ground attack capability makes it a poor performer, the most credible ground support airplane you had was sold to the USMC so unless the enemy is kind enough to be within range of land based air (coalition air at that) then the UK is in a bit of a box.
that’s whats so interesting about the Obama defense budget. he proposes pulling US Army brigades out of Europe but made no mention of closing air bases. that would have been the next smart move. but he refuses to do so even though we’re about to divest ourselves of the Afghanistan nonsense…why do you think?
@ Solomon, I don’t think its fair to say the RN is lagging behind the Russians French and Italians. There is allot more to a navy than fixed wing aviation and in the last decade we have completley transfromed and inhanced our amphibious capability, AAW, SSN’s we have alos ehanced a our MCM and ASW capability to a level that no even the USN can match on a per ship basis.
I really don’t understand why the RN does not have a cheap of the shelf capability like the Scan eagle though. However when every last penny has quite rightly gone into providing for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq I suppose it is to some extent understandable.
@TD: you have managed to construct a circular argument. Since we don’t have carriers, the RN lacks long range precision strike and recce capabilities….so we need to buy a combination of things that mostly exist in Powerpoint format to compensate for our lack of carriers, which by the way, we *so* don’t need?
@ soloman ‘the one thing might be the Sentienels but that capability was (is) scrapped.’
Likely to avoid the cuts now.
This http://defense-update.com/20111114_unmanned-systems-unveils-the-orca-tip-jet-uav-at-dubai-2012.html could be a contender for the Uav Istar role on ships especially if cold weather operations were required.
I think with a Uav such as about the oto 5″ gun fitted across the fleet we have the full range of land attack cover for any uk operation and would cost a great amount to do this. Should a missile be required possible the nsm from Norway would be my choice.
Although not formally announced I think it is a given that the T26s will get the Oto Melara 127 – with trials of Vulcano ammo coming a few years down the track. Also, I think they will get VLS tubes for a naval Storm Shadow type missile even if it’s at the expense of hull numbers.
I do believe that the RN is lagging behind in it’s thinking on UAVs – the potential intelligence and future strike capability of these is likely to be the game changer in 20 years. It could make a light frigate / OPV with hanger space a serious asset.
To me it’s not about the CVF or UAVs – but how many F35s do we need. Pure fantasy, but imagine a QE fully loaded with UAVs…
1. Fit Hellfires to RN Lynxs. You get Hellfire attack capability on every ship as per customers operating Sea Hawks.
2. A US-spec (mk41) VLS canister should be able to accommodate a quad-pack of 227 mm MLRS rockets. The Evolved Sea Sparrow which is already quad-packed in a mk41 VLS, is 254 mm in diameter.
Pity the US DoD cancelled the Non-Line-of-Sight Missile program. Maybe the UK can co-develop an equivalent by utilising the Israeli Spike-NLOS as a base. Plenty of export customers.
martin
i think its far from clear the royal navy could best the french navy on an even battlefield.
Against a combined french/italian navy?
Mcm is nice, but without the rest to back it up, its blood spilt in someone elses war.
Td
much the same applies, these are all very nice, but for what?
When i suggest sitting off the coast plinking economicaly valuable targets, i’m accused of war crimes…
Given the carriers are basicaly built and paid for, god help me, surely growlers and hawkeyes are the most cost effective istar platforms?
This post has rapped together 2 issues, ISR and land attack. They are two seperate things. Equipping ships with a reasonably low cost, low impact UAV to prevent the ships helicopter being blown out of the sky at a bad moment is a GOOD idea which can be done cheaply and now.
The truth is if you can fix a target there are generally enough assets around in Western led operations to hit it.
The problem is when we try and arm the UAV’s, that invariably makes them larger, more expensive and painful (atleast cost wise) to lose. It also increases ship impact.
KISS principle please!
Regarding Vulcano, the first variant of the ER round (Vulcano is a family of at least 3 ammunitions: unguided, 70+ Km, IR guided, 70+ Km, GPS [with, tomorrow, Semi Active Laser too] guided round to 120 Km), the unguided 70 km one, has been ordered by the Italian navy in the 2012 planning round. I don’t know how many rounds were ordered, but it’s a step forwards in the right direction.
Funding was also provided for the Vulcano 76 mm development for the ubiquitous 76 mm Strales/Super Rapido medium gun, and following Libya France is reconsidering its options: a share of the next FREMM frigates being built could swap the 76 mm for the 127/64 Lightweight. They talked to Oto already, and the ship can readily take the larger gun.
The 76mm Strales is of course the FREMM’s CIWS, but i guess the french could do without it. Actually, they could put a 76 Strales on top of the hangar like on the italian FREMMs, but i doubt they want to spend the money.
Navalizing the GMLRS is an idea that tickled the fantasy of many: the option is still technically included for the Type 26 (or was until November) and Germany originally wanted it on the F125 frigate along with the 155 mm gun.
Both went to hell, though, and there’s no telling how much it could cost.
Collaboration with the Royal Artillery could be an option: the RA wanted the ATACMS too, but it was removed from the IFPA list in PR11.
A GMLRS with tri-mode warhead and range extended to over 100 Km was also already trialed.
A GMLRS box with the long-range rocket and ATACMS would sure be a great addition.
On ISR and drones, I do not share this great love of the Fire Scout. For all its merits, the US Army let it go and the Navy does not like it that much and is investing to develop and buy the larger MQ-8C instead, turning a Bell 407 helicopter into a drone.
France is experimenting with a Little Bird.
Fire Scout seems to be turning old when still new.
“A US-spec (mk41) VLS canister should be able to accommodate a quad-pack of 227 mm MLRS rockets.”
That leaves the not trivial task (and cost) of converting the MLRS rocket for vertical launch…
“To me it’s not about the CVF or UAVs – but how many F35s do we need. Pure fantasy, but imagine a QE fully loaded with UAVs…”
A good mix would be one squadron of 14 F35C for the more complex tasks, including air defence and policing, and then strike drones.
But it’s still a bit early now.
The US Navy plans to add 4/6 UCAS-D drones to each carrier wing post 2018. That will be real interesting.
The X47B should have carrier trials in 2013 (same year as the F35C, going to be an important year for naval aviation, whatever you think of it) and Air to Air refuelling trials in 2014.
Very serious stuff, especially since the software for automated carrier landing and for automated air refuelling have both been already flight trialed and validated on modified F18s. Promising.
“so that it can only be fired (not sure what the proper nautical term is) at right angles”
Um. On the beam…..
Sol said “i think TD is simply trying to lay the foundation for why the UK doesn’t need carriers”
Then surely this is an argument against all expeditionary air warfare even land?
You’ve got to stop seeing Charlie behind every bush amigo.
one minor problem with uavs, isnt it a very noisey broadcast?
Not the sort of thing you want off a carrier
RE: Jet-tip rotors/Orca. Jet-tip rotors has one big benefit – simplicity – and one big negative – uses up to three times the fuel.
Why not? It’s not as if a carrier doesn’t talk with it’s CAP.
@Observer: I think what @DominicJ was referring to was the bandwidth requirements for UAV’s, which tend to be around 10mbit/sec, whereas Link16 say is 128kbit/sec plus voice traffic. Can’t imagine the average pilot could make up the difference, however many sea stories they are relating :-)
Morning chaps
@Ace, where are you on the large v small rotary UAV debate, smoke me a kipper by the way
@Gareth, its hard not to be swayed by ISO containers isn’t it
@APATS, yes, agree, as with most things like this I think most agree the 100% unmanned era is some way off so these, at least in my fantasy navy, would only complement helicopters, not replace
@Phrank, I agree, truly off the shelf happens only for the most simple of bits of equipment but its about degrees I guess. I wonder how much money has been spent on looking at all the options, what is the cost of reaching a decision?
@Solomon, you are right about needing control of the air for UAV’s but there are grey areas at the margin and circumstances where it comes to risk and politics. Your point about adding more cost/complexity into UAV’s whilst not addressing loss rates is interesting, as you say, negating the low cost disposable argument. You can’t argue with the cost of some of these cheap ‘eye in the sky’ systems though. Naval gunfire support has been used numerous times in recent operations, I still think it is worthy investing in because the instances where we would be in range of a serious threat are low. Your last sentence about the next operation likely being out of the range of land based aircraft is interesting because history shows us the exact opposite is more likely.
@Gareth, thanks for the link, interesting stuff
@Jed, surely you can see the RN’s complete lack of any funded plan for extending ISR coverage beyond the ship and helicopter sensors is a failing, if the Navy of the UAE has them then I damn well want the RN to have them!
@AJ, it was lumped together because the two were described in the Janes article as specific lessons learned. You are firmly a believer in the small and cheap argument then, tend to agree, am a big fan of the Scan Eagle
Aussie has a point. I’m also of the opinion that we’re trying to make our UAVs do too many things at once, turning them into jack of all trades, but master of none.
While the air forces and navies are having fun with UAVs, my prediction is that the biggest winner in the UAV grab is the army. UAVs are cheap enough and light enough that it is possible to get such assets down to company or idealy platoon level. Imagine aerial surveillance not being fed to high command but actually to platoon or even section leaders. Close range firefights could be so much safer knowing where the enemy is moving, allowing you to set up ambushes in advance or even advance scouting in front of a section’s route of advance, or even for marking enemy support weapons for elimination by motar.
Martin.
the UK has one of the most technologically advanced navy in the world, but as currently constructed its a sea denial force. that might meet the needs of the UK but it does not contribute to the free flow of commerce.
To all.
someone wrote that they believe that the UK could take on the French and Italian navies and win. i disagree, the Astute’s could make it hard for them but until the UK has credible at sea airpower, it just can’t compete.
which brings me to this. what happened to the European defense force? i heard about rapid reaction brigades and such but nothing on the sea side in a unified way. is it under consideration? and if it is then that might be the way to go.
i believe that it will lead to further defense cuts on the part of all nations and extreme specialization on the part of member countries (if they hide behind the force as providing for their nations defense) but it might work.
how would the UK respond to such an idea in the naval sphere? would it continue to try and build a balanced force or would it use this as the mythical fig?? it would lead to an additional loss of prestige if followed but it would save money.
Gareth
The also have big benefits in icing conditions. This is an issue for all uavs but as with manned flight helicopters are particularly susceptible to problems with icing.
@ Mark – True. I like the jet-tip rotor concept but the big problem is always going to be the fuel comsumption.
Also, what effect does the jet-tips have on the aircrafts IR image?
TD, I was just having a think about the rotary UAV as I read your comment, from a maritime point of view I was wondering why we have to have rotary at all, given the cost, complexity and flight control problems, as well as the ability to absorb AAA. Has anyone considered an amphibious UAV that can be recovered aboard ship by crane. In the days when the world was black and white and somewhat grainy, and battleships ruled the oceans, every capital ship with an ounce of self-respect had a small complement of sea-planes for observation and shifting admirals/stores. Landing in sea, stormy seas aside, appears less hazardous than a rolling deck.
TD, re: UAV size, the Firescout seems to be at the largest practical size, but I’d go for a higher performance envelope. You’d never send a TH-55 Osage over enemy territory with a couple of bods on board, so why send an expensive and technically sensitive UAV to do the same? Food for thought.
…kipper already in the smoker!
Gareth, jet-tips on your rotors would light you up like a beacon in IR, however you don’t need an anti-torque tail rotor which saves weight and reduces complexity.
I read the link for the Orca and had to chuckle when it said ‘the orca employs a revolutionary jet tip propulsion’ (or words to that effect), revolutionary my a*se, Sud-Ouest tested back in the 50/60’s using a gas-turbine as an air compressor. I believe the only reason it didn’t take the world by storm was because it was a lot noisier than the conventional helicopters at the time and deemed uncommercial for a light utility aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sud-Ouest_Djinn
RE: tip jets. Compound gyrocopter like the Fairey Rotodyne but smaller might be a good compromise. Would a Hermes 450 sized vehicle be too small?
A different Gareth, if you dropped the jet tips, what you’d effectively have is an autogyro with the prop providing the thrust and the benefit of not having a fat bloke seated up front. Simpler than a chopper, relatively quiet and can land on a sixpence (albeit a slightly stretched one).
Sounds good to me!
Totally aside, I see the FLAADS(M)/CAMM/whatever has its new name – Sea Ceptor (http://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/3441).
Guns – Oto Melara’s 127 Lightweight is the only viable option, especially with its Vulcano ammunition. Ignoring all the positive weapon characteristics, this round is in advanced testing for the Italians and is a joint collaboration with the Dutch, who are extremely interested in the Vulcano. Extended range WITHOUT rocket assistance, GPS guidance, a future IR-guided variant for anti ship duties, the effective fire from one gun will be orders of magnitude less than an equivalent air-delivered bomb or missile. The US attempt to develop a guided round is a fiasco – just Google BTERM, Excalibur, ERGM, ERM, etc. This is the best open-source document I could find, updated Nov last year:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNIT_5-64_LW.htm
Naval gunfire support is one of the single most effective weapons systems out there, being far more enduring than any air cover and much, much harder to defeat. With the advent of precision guidance NGS has significantly extended its footprint inshore and is a better option than bastardising some Army rocket system which has a single purpose. NGS could reduce the need for air delivered munitions by a considerable percentage, meaning that fewer but more expensive air weapons can be saved for hard targets of high significance. As we found out in Libya, a single starshell can silence a battery of guns and neutralise vehicles with the threat of imminent morale-shattering artillery fire. Air power cannot do that without exposing the crew to danger, if at all. But Heaven forbid we should learn something from the past impact of NGS in littoral warfare.
The Italians are way ahead of the US on this. Buy OTO Melara.
“Oto Melara’s 127 Lightweight is the only viable option, especially with its Vulcano ammunition. Ignoring all the positive weapon characteristics, this round is in advanced testing for the Italians and is a joint collaboration with the Dutch, who are extremely interested in the Vulcano.”
And may i add Germany, too. They ordered 5 127/64 guns for the F125 in a 70 millions deal and are interested in Vulcano.
The fifth gun is for the “land frigate” they are building on land for training the crews: a concept that the RN has been partially adopting but that the F125 brings further onwards.
They are replicating on land nearly the whole frigate to enable training, to help with their plan of send the four F125 frigates away for 2 years at a time, rotating crews by air every 4 months or so. Also with the help of the land-training frigate, they expect a 24 hours time for changing crews.
Would greatly enhance availability of on-task Type 26 if the RN could adopt a similar approach.
Anyway, back to the original point: i was a big supporter of the 155 mm MK8, but since that train is apparently gone for good, the best solution is by far the 127/64 LW.
@ gabby ‘F125 frigates away for 2 years at a time, rotating crews by air every 4 months or so.’
The navy did and still do this anyway, don’t they? Rotate most of the personnel onboard around when they are away, is this just expanding to doing the whole crew in a oner?
We don’t do this in the RN with the exception of the Gulf based minehunters and the survey squadron. Rotating the crew is not favoured in the RN because the crew coherence and teamwork built up in pre-deployment training would be lost be constantly bringing in new faces. The RN trialled crew swapping a few years ago and found it lowered unit effectiveness. Less of an issue in lower intensity ops (survey) and manageable with the MCM fraternity (smaller numbers who can pre-train in the UK), but not currently practical for FF/DD.
Gabriele, cheers for that, had forgotten ze Germans also had a hand in.
Thanks sr, reason i asked was I remember doing a course with some navy bods and he was saying that he was being flown out to Turkey to meet his ship and quite a few of them did that along the route the ship took. This would have been around 2006/7, about right time frame?
@ SomewhatRemoved: surely NGS requires ships to move a little close to shore? I know the Oto 5 inch can go to 120 km, but the bang from this must be fairly small!
There probably is a gap for something simple GMRLS-like that can fit in a VL and range out to 100-150 km, rather than TLAM. I suppose GMRLS would be the ideal :-)
@ Topman
That would be trickle drafting. Though 95 odd per cent (approximately give or take before some pedant chimes up) of a ship’s company stay with her through out a deployment there are always bods coming or going for a variety of reason.
@ x Righto, seemed to be a few more than that from what he said, but tbh I didn’t really press him on it, it was an AT course ;-). Maybe part of the trial SR mentioned?
While there are some navy types on here at the moment, could anyone tell me what is/was ‘Top masting’ ?
@ A different Gareth – a composite autogyro UAV like the gyrodyne would be very interesting; jet-tip rotors fired up for take-off and landing, becomes an autogyro in flight. VTOL but faster/more efficient in flight.
In what scenario is maritime land attack necessary for national defence? They can’t hit your from their coastline if you cannot hit them from yours.
This naval land attack thing seems to be about Iran + Falklands all over again, and both scenarios don’t justify major military expenses with their severity * probability (expectation value).
Naval land attack is one of the luxuries for a military that can easily be left out in favour of saving taxpayer’s money.
Hint: You probably don’t need it if you weren’t overrun by foreign hordes when you didn’t have it.
TopMast was a drafting scheme brought in the early 2000s that seemed to be the living embodiment of the oft quoted “That’s life in the blue suit – if you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined.”
For national defence Sven, its a marginal capability.
But the over arching strategy is for forward defence, offense, or getting your digs in early.
Why did the German navy trial MONARC?
@Gabriele – I agree that in the order of 14 F35 ls is enough. Although it does seem too early to make such a key decision, the fact is that it is likely to be 10 years plus before we can field more, by which time UAV technology will be in a whole new generation of development.
“We don’t do this in the RN with the exception of the Gulf based minehunters and the survey squadron. Rotating the crew is not favoured in the RN because the crew coherence and teamwork built up in pre-deployment training would be lost be constantly bringing in new faces. The RN trialled crew swapping a few years ago and found it lowered unit effectiveness. Less of an issue in lower intensity ops (survey) and manageable with the MCM fraternity (smaller numbers who can pre-train in the UK), but not currently practical for FF/DD.”
Correct, but Germany is thinking about basically pulling into a friendly port for a day, disembark crew 1, and embark crew 2. Whole.
The F125 has roughly the same crew size projected for Type 26.
Now a Type 23 will set sail, be away for six/seven months, and return.
Wouldn’t it be possible to do like Germany in future, deploying the ship with a crew for six months, then fly in another crew to, say, Bahrain. Crew 1 flies back to Britain, crew 2 takes possession of the ship.
In a 2 years period the ship would never see the UK’s ports, but the crew would be changed every 6 months or so, so for the personnel it would be the same.
And since the crew changes whole, there are no issues given by getting the new faces worked in.
Crew trains (in simulators ashore, the “land ship” mentioned earlier, at least for the best part) and then deploys whole.
This is the F125 approach, with the ship undergoing maintenance/upgrades at her return after 2 years away.
I think it would be beneficial for the overstretched RN to get the most out of the few hulls available.
TOPMAST – TOmorrow’s Personnel MAnagement System – Today! This was the initiative that brought in the Squad System, where each ship was in theory manned to 110%. The extra 10% was shore based and would use the time to undergo professional development or take owed leave. In theory this allowed ships to manage their presonnel more effectively. However, this was tainted by the fact that TOPMAST was a response to a huge slash in shore based billets, in order to civilianise shore posts, reduce costs and fill skill shortages at sea. Squad manning was ineffective largely because the now-civilianised shore posts hid the medical margin, those personnel on long term downgrades who could not or would not be removed from the Service. The squad system was made to work by merging the various 10% squads into single class-specific squads, so we now have the Portsmouth Type 23 Squad, the Type 45 squad, etc.
Gabriele, if only it was so simple we would probably have done it by now! In theory it should work, as we proved with the MCM fraternity, but experience has so far shown that in the larger and more complex hulls the management challenges are significant and it is still preferable to work up and deploy one hull at a time. Simulator training is all well and good for individual skills and teams, but whole ship training will require a simulator sufficiently complex and realistic that you might as well build a real ship. It would be like asking a driver to qualify and be safe on the roads having only practised in a simulator – would you trust them on the road? That’s hugely simplified, but I can only assure you that replacing practical training with synthetic training is not yet viable nor are we desperate enough to go down that route yet.
Rupert, NGS – yes the payload is small compared to a 1000 pounder or a GMLRS and yes we have to go close inshore. Couple of returns for you – so far the real winner from Libya (apart from the RN of course!) is Brimstone – small, accurate and with minimal collateral damage as a result of that accuracy and small warhead. Big bombs are designed to bust bunkers (and other heavy targets), small bombs come to the fore in these conflicts where it is not necessarily state on state. Look at the US and the development of the Small Diameter Bomb, and their predeliction for mounting Hellfire on anything that moves. Plus when faced with the asymmetic threat, the more shots the better so maximise the number of rounds for your money. 4.5″ can be devastating at close range (self defence) but it can also go long (troop support) and if we replace it with a longer ranged precision shell, the options really open up for precision strike, anti-vehicle and effective suppressing fire at ranges up to 120km inland (less 5-10km offshore, hardly a dent really). BUT while 4.5 is accurate, it is not precise, so currently not good enough for collateral damage requirements (i.e. zero) – it is a troop support weapon when used in the land role. A ship is inherently mobile, can range up and down the coast at will (unless there is serious opposition, in which case there are tactics and weapons to defend ourselves), and ships can be sustained at range by the RFA. That’s why I believe it is such good value for money – it gives you options.
And SO, I guess NGS isn’t valid for national defence but then neither are nuclear submarines, frigates or aircraft carriers. Iran manages quite happily with hundreds of RIB’s, jetskis, speedboats and cheap missiles for its national defence, and we’re all taking them seriously now, aren’t we?
Gabrielle, that is what we do with the MCMVs in the Gulf. The problem is ownership, the first ever swap saw none of the 4 involved, 2 in Faslane and 2 in Bahrain fit to go to sea. The 2 in Faslane were both found to be out of date for safe to breathe certificates for the air compressors used to charge breathing aparatus. The chart outfits were a mess and the crypto accounts in one case had just been put in a safe and locked.
Took a while to sort out and eneded up with the procedure being a Squadron led inspection a month before the handover followed by a FOST visit immediately afterwards.
I say good luck to the Germans and I hope they have spoken to the RN MCM community for advice.
@ SomeWhat re T23 Squad
Oh yes that explains that rather odd cap tally I have seen on occasion around HMNB whose exact wording I can’t remember.
I know this is fantasy fleets, but if we ever have some batch 2 T45, I hope they have a hangar big enough for 2 Merlin. One ASW, the other CSAR. Having a CSAR Merlin on a T45 would allow extraction of UK civilians/special forces/downed pilots, etc.
@ John H re T45
It is a shame that T45 wasn’t designed with dual hangers. Like you say it gives options. A spare hanger could be used for UAVs too. One of the ideas I have floated here before is a fixed (folding) wing sea plane UAV. Plenty of space for a crane to get it over the side. The space needed for a MERLIN means such a UAV could be quite a sizeable beasty.
“Simulator training is all well and good for individual skills and teams, but whole ship training will require a simulator sufficiently complex and realistic that you might as well build a real ship. It would be like asking a driver to qualify and be safe on the roads having only practised in a simulator – would you trust them on the road? That’s hugely simplified, but I can only assure you that replacing practical training with synthetic training is not yet viable nor are we desperate enough to go down that route yet.”
I understand the hesitations, and i note that the Germans are, effectively, building more than a simulator, but apparently a F125 on land, inclusive of main gun, small caliber guns, RWS turrets and everything else. So you can say they are almost effectively “building a real ship” for training of the crews pre-deployment!
Will be interesting to see how it works with them, for sure. And i continue to think that it is something to think about. If we always shy away from challenges and cry to get more ships, we do not go very far away. Other approaches to increasing ship availability have to be pursued.
@ Gabrielle, swapping the whole Ship Company is to me less effective at maximising sea days and efficiency than the 3 watch manning cycle. This is done succesfully on survey ships and the UK based River Class OPVs.
@ Solomon – I think it’s really silly to talk about the British and French Navy’s in a fight. I think it’s really silly to consider in a peer or peer engagement in a blue water environment fixed wing aviation having much of an impact. It will probably last for 1 minute and 30 seconds more than Surface ASW platforms. Just a question of how long the SSN’s take to reload.
In terms of EU naval cooperation. There is currently a EU naval task force set up of Somalia but there are no firm plans for Europe to jointly operate naval assets other than vague suggestions that the UK and France would harmonize maintenance periods of their carriers so one was available at all times.
Personally I see close European cooperation coordinated with NATO to be our best long term option. I would like to see the UK take the lead in the Naval sphere providing fixed wing aviation and amphibious assault capabilities to supplement those provided by the USA however I know it’s nothing more than a wet dream.
@apats, some of that sounds like people not used to doing proper handover/takeover rather than a poor idea. I’m no expert but it sounds like decent idea to me.
@Martin.
lets say it were possible. where would the other navies fit into the scheme? what would Italy contribute? Spain? Netherlands? no dog in the fight just curious. defense spending is going down in many but a few countries. surprisingly in the US, we’re just reverting back to pre-war levels so it isn’t in base terms a cut…but more is to come i’m sure.
also, what’s your visibility on Poland and Romania. they appear to be getting some good things done, at least on the military level.
“Why did the German navy trial MONARC?”
The turret was effectively for free, since our artillery branch has shrunk well below the almost 200 x PzH 2000 size.
The better question is why the K130 corvettes had such a (published, not necessarily real) emphasis on land attack (first with the later cancelled Polyphem, now with land attack mode of RBS 15 Mk.3). The answer in this case is likely that the navy wanted new hulls badly (bureaucratic self-interest) and attempted just about every imaginable requirement as justification (the corvettes are gold-plated decoys).
I know the USN tried a similar manning systems on their FFGs and things went south pretty bad because there is no ownership as has been said.
Arguably an order of magnitude different but how does this compare with Whole Fleet Management and the C Vehicle PFI for example?
I think there is two issues with the vessels. I am ignorant on almost everything Navy but I think this is an example of isomorphism and so I can use my Army experiences.
I think that some of the reasons why multi crewed ships go downhill is because of poor leadership and grip. There is no excuse for routine housekeeping tasks to not be done and no excuse for good handovers not to be done. These problems can be nipped in the bud and I am sure they are in the minority in our Senior Service.
The other reasons are maintenance issues that fall outside the scope of one crews deployment. When the pressure is on to perform, or to deploy or to conduct operations and succeed, there is a tendency to ignore what can be put off for tomorrow’s crew. A penny-wise pound foolish attitude certainly but when you are on operations the safety of the ship there and then will obviously trump longer maintenance issues, especially when these will not effect the performance of the current crew. And then the next crew come along and this repeats itself until very big things start to go south.
Vehicle fleets are different. Far less complex and REME seem to be very strict on calling kit back for their regular services etc but then I imagine this is down to the fact that we have more than 19 Jackals and it doesn’t take 12 months and a hundred million to recondition and service one.
With a good crew and a less demanding deployment cycle then it’s probably less of an issue. But the less demanding deployment cycle becomes more and more wishful thinking.
RE: Crew changes. Would a ship of the class stationed in home waters help? New crew would train up on this vessel before transfering to the forward deployed vessel. For the ownership problem, do we have enough personel for two crews per ship, like a SSBN Blue crew/Gold crew split? (is it blue/gold in RN or USN? Showing my civviness here…)
RE: Seaplane UAV.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/seaplane-uav-eyed-as-persistent-ocean-buoy-220337/
http://www.gizmag.com/gull-36-uav/9457/
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/vought-aims-for-us-navy-with-seaplane-uav-concept-195920/
Taken some time for me to get onto this thread, but
– no wonder LM is not too keen to integrate the next version of NSM (JSM) onto “their” plane (F-35)
– the LM guy in the video describes the lowest down of the three missiles as their experimental program and the characteristics almost exactly match “With a 150km range the NSM weighs 400Kg with a 125kg warhead and can attack a mix of land and surface targets”
– just that the Norwegian competitor can be either air or ship (or shore)launched
Further on the small & cheap argument, specifically the TD/ Sol comments “Your point about adding more cost/complexity into UAV’s whilst not addressing loss rates is interesting, as you say, negating the low cost disposable argument.”
– I would very much back Sol’s comments, including the loss rates going through the roof (sky?)if the scenario changes even a bit towards a “peer” adversory
– the ultimate is the (disposable)targeting drones fired through the Russian Smerch system, just like they fire the rockets (admittedly, 300mm is more accommodating for getting that done). The other thing is of course that we don’t have any system, of any diameter, on the ships now
RE “Gabriele, cheers for that, had forgotten ze Germans also had a hand in.”
– even though the Dutch part-funded the development, they in the end scuppered their own introduction into service of the OTO/Vulcano, so I believe (budget cuts; not any problems)
– we would then be the 2nd export customer (which I am all for)
I don’t know where else to post this. The new video for CAAMS/See Ceptor is here. http://bfbs.com/news/uk/mod-unveils-supersonic-missile-system-54418.html
What ship is is shown firing from. Looks very different from the most recent type 26 renderings.
If you can get one for $2m and fit it aboard the ship without compromising operating a proper Lynx I’m sold. But those conversions just make me wonder why not take along a Lynx…
In 2009 the us air force had purchased around 190 predators and 30 reapers with 70 crashes during its operation history which comes to quite a nice bill. And that was mainly due to weather operator error or equipment failure.
@ Gareth J
Port and starboard crews.
@ JS123 – Its the proposed BMT Ventor, a suggestion for the old C3 concept:
http://www.bmtdsl.com/?/196/853/1708
@ x – Thank you. I thought it was a different term.
“What ship is is shown firing from. Looks very different from the most recent type 26 renderings.”
That’s the Venator, a BMT design offered for the C3 requirement, now MHPC requirement, for the replacement of the minesweepers.
Nothing to do with Type 26.
Regarding F125 frigates, some more data i’ve dug up:
24 months mission duration
5000 hours at sea per year (208 days)
21 days endurance between replenishment (Type 26 60 days[!])
Range 4000 naval miles (Type 26 7000 nm)
Crew (110 + 70 berths [50 for troops, 20 for aviation complement])(Type 26 130 + 36 for troops) to be changed every 4 months, with the change complete within a 48 hours period.
Scheduled depot maintenance every 60 months
The training will happen in several different ashore bases, apparently, with each base focused on a particular system of the ship and thus a particular part of the crew, i’m guessing.
They have ordered even working guns, up to the 127 mm, for the on-land training facility.
The RN is working to open an on-land RAS training facility including mock-up of the RAS stations of a Type 23 and of a Type 45; and we have all heard of the Type 45 (and 23, if i’ve understood correctly) training center.
Now i wonder if it is really so absurd to think that at least a part of the Type 26 fleet, given proper training facilities on land and a certain number of excess crews, could be used in a similar way to the F125.
Not saying it is easy and simple, but that it is worth a thought, for sure.
Also note that the same approach Germany is taking with the U212 submarines too! Submarine stays deployed, crews rotate. http://www.defensenews.com/article/20100604/DEFSECT04/6040307/Germany-Retires-6-Of-Its-10-Submarines
In a 1960s paper the late Vice Admiral Louis le Bailly discussed the RN moving to a regimental system divorcing manpower from platforms. He also proposed once giving the FAA to the RM.
Gabby, the full sentence is ” submarine stays deployed, crews rotate, and maintainance gets neglected.” This is going to tempt some people into deploying for so long equipment starts to fail. Ships have to be maintained periodically in a shipyard, even if it’s for something so simple as cleaning the hull of barnacles or replacing the anti-anodizing plates.
Gareth. thanks for the link, the Gull36 looks the dogs cajones.
Mark, re: Predator and Reaper crashes, the US Air Force has a policy of using trained pilots to fly them hence the high crash rate. In stark contrast, I believe the US Army on the other hand utilises an automated landing system and non-pilot trained operator, and has a significantly lower loss rate.
@ AR have you got a link for that? Thanks.
Ace
Up until recently the us army uavs have been quite small more Large model aeroplane type size. Reaper is at fast jet size too very different beasts but still gd for the inter service piloting banter. Weather has been the biggest issue Particularly ice and those sometimes pesky satellite connections. You could buy 2 dozen king aer surveillance a/c for the price of the lost a/c and probably man them with fewer people.
Mark, I used to work on BN Islanders and they used to have a pneumatic rubber boot on the wing leading edges, heater boots on the props etc for de-icing, there’s no rreal eason why these can’t be put on the larger UAV’s, apart from weight and power issues. Given the cost of the larger UAV’s perhaps it’s time to consider proper anti-icing. I’m with you on the KingAir…..would they come with Hellfires?
Topman, here’s the link….
http://www.gizmag.com/gull-36-uav/9457/picture/45310/
Ace rimmer
Power issue is a problem as is tai space and complexity/servicing issues (Eg cost )also do you fly with it on all the time which has its own issues but other methods are on these to a limited extent these have more glider like wing which means light and reasonably narrow, flying in IFR conditions poses problems also from a situational point of view. I’d fit a couple of brimstone to a king aer but I’d be happier calling up some fast air or apache.
@ Solomon – You raise a good point. Other than the UK and France there is little to be contributed by other EU nations in terms of major naval units which is one of the reassons I would like to see the Uk focus on this area. It gives us the ability to maintain the best soverign capability while adding maximum suport to EU operations. Eastern European nations have allot to offer but very little in the naval sphere.
@Gabby Clyde is contracted to provide 282 days at aea ayear with a CLS contract. The 3 watch manning on the other rivers provides 308(i seem to remeber)sea days a year. The Germans really belive that a Ships company that has beeen trained on land at seperate locations can take over a Frigate in 48 hours and sail he safely and operationally. Sorry it just isnt going to happen. German ships fail FOST having already done the German equivelant before arriving.
A 4 month cycle from arriving onboard to leaving again is never going to reach anywhere near an operational capability.
What EU operations? Anti-piracy “task forces” of dubious utility would seem to be the only sort they can safely undertake :-(
@ WF – If you want a few frigates to sail around in a circle and chase some dinggies then the EU task force is great but I don’t see it ever doing naything else. Why its even there when the same Nations contribute to a NATO task force doing the same thing is beyond me. However the EU’s total lack of naval capability could be an oppertunity for the UK if we have decided to pin our future flag on EU cooperation for power projection then surely concentrating much of our efforts on the main area Europe is lacking in would give us the biggest advantage. I know its not going to happen but I can still dream.
,,, total lack of naval capability?
“SM-3 could be integrated on a SMART-L/APAR platform, providing non-AEGIS ships a viable missile defense capability. Germany and the Netherlands have seven frigates that utilize the SMART-L/APAR system, and Denmark will add three more by 2013. Norway and Spain operate AEGIS frigates. France, Italy and the United Kingdom have large surface combatants with the S1850 radar, which is a variant of the SMART-L.”
– these are all world-class ships
– not counting mini-carriers or amphibs, just from the above sub-class the total will be 15, to begin with UK’s North Sea neighbours. That is, in service by 2013 and Germany is adding the F125 expeditionary ships rather sooner than later, which I would also tend to slot above the T26s (first one in 2023?)
@ acc – I see allot of frigates on that list but not much else. The eu is light years away from being able to deploy major us type taskforces a few lhd or lpd and one cvn is completely insufficient for out of area power projection even on a fi 1982 type basis. I think an eu with 4 cv’s and 4 lhd’s should be a minimal goal for the next decade.
@Martin
“@ Solomon – You raise a good point. Other than the UK and France there is little to be contributed by other EU nations in terms of major naval units”
How do you define “major”? Norway, Spain have AEGIS destroyers, Germany + Italy + France + Netherlands have effective AAW frigates, Germany and others have world-class AIP SSKs, Italy and Spain have small carriers.
Now compare that with the rest of the world and you will find no non-allied counterforce. Japan is friendly, PLAN is still obsolete, Indian navy is largely obsolete, USN is allied, Russian navy has extremely questionable readiness and is obsolete.
Against whom should we build our fleets? Martians?
@ so I agree there are some good individual units. However being able to project power not against a navy but against a land based opponent is well outside the eu’s current capability not enough carriers or amphibs to take on the task. Considering the eu accounts for 25% of world military spending this seems silly to me. I agree that no one other than the us has a better capability but I still feel the eu should be able to do more and I think the uk should be central to providing those capabilities.
@ martin – “However the EU’s total lack of naval capability could be an oppertunity for the UK if we have decided to pin our future flag on EU cooperation for power projection then surely concentrating much of our efforts on the main area Europe is lacking in would give us the biggest advantage. ” – Agree but this also includes ISR, AAR, air and sea transport, essentially what we rely on from the US, as well as “major” naval units.
Maybe it’s just the wrong time for it. With most nations tightening their belts, it may not be the best time to go spending. Waiting for the economy to get better before buying might be the best (and only) solution for now.
Hi GJ,
Yes, I agree to this “Agree but this also includes ISR, AAR, air and sea transport, essentially what we rely on from the US, as well as “major” naval units”
By implication it means (rhyming to Observer’s comment) that we should “draft in” the plentiful frigate fleet, forego T26 and concentrate on the carrier/ amphib fleet, to provide not only a sea denial, but also a power projection capability (if and when needed, the “if and when” disappearing in most circumstances through the deterrence provided by the mere fact that the capability exists)
“The Germans really belive that a Ships company that has beeen trained on land at seperate locations can take over a Frigate in 48 hours and sail he safely and operationally. Sorry it just isnt going to happen. German ships fail FOST having already done the German equivelant before arriving.
A 4 month cycle from arriving onboard to leaving again is never going to reach anywhere near an operational capability.”
They are designing land training and the ship itself to make it possible, and i don’t think they are necessarily bound to fail.
But, by the way, i would have built the F125 training center all in one place, honestly, not in 5 or six different locations. I would have built a ship-shaped (literally) training center.
As to the 4 months tour, yes, it is too short. Six would do perfectly well.
But again, you are automatically assuming they are just plain wrong. Might be, might not be. Everyone has its own approach.
If you ask the americans, for example, they will tell you that soldiers have to stay deployed for a full year, not 6 months, to get results on the field, and deploy again after 2 years.
Personally I would build ships which could carry 100+ troops and merge the amphibious and frigate roles into one class. Heavy lift could come from Bay / JSS / Point class RFAs. If you assume 13 T26s will cost 6bn plus 1bn to replace the Albions you could probably buy 16 Absalon type vessels and another 3 T45s…
Ace Rimmer,
With regards to UAVs:
How would you launch the autogyro?
The Carter Copter compound aircraft stores energy in its rotor using small weights at the tips which allows it to spin the rotor up and then ‘jump’ for takeoff and have some control over landing too.
Tip jets in particular would allow for controlled VTOL.
A fanwing is another possibility but I’ve no idea if it has the kind of performance needed.
There is also the Bell Eagle Eye tiltrotor UAV. The US Coast Guard intended to buy 45 of them, not sure if they still do. Whatever the range of it you could perhaps get a bit more by having wings on the outside of the rotors that tilt as well.
A Different Gareth, re: autogyro launching on ship, in addition to steaming into wind, I was thinking somekind of power-drive from the ship, similar to an F1 engine starter. This ‘could’ give the rotors enough power to lift off the ship. I’m sure a company called Benson invented an autogyro complete with floats to tow behind speed boats.
About the F125 and its two-crew system; I doubt it. To me, it looks like a PR bluff. It’s highly likely that the second crew will be cut to save expenses and to extend the lifetime of the ship (cruising as much as planned would consume much fuel and wear out the ship faster than F122s were worn out + double crew costs).
The second crew makes little sense from a mobilisation potential point of view as well – you can train crews more quickly than get a new ship from political intent to fully equipped & in service.
@martin:
Maybe our military spending is in large part indeed defence spending? Defence necessitates no naval land attack.
Furthermore, why should we have the capability? Because the U.S. has it? Hardly, that’s rather a reason against mirroring it.
Because it’s possible? Taxpayer wealth is too valuable for that. The military is not about satisfying mil fanboi dreams, it’s about providing a service to the people as a whole.
Furthermore, NO country in the world and NO alliance in the world exceeds EU land attack and naval capability save for the US.
Nobody can save them from allocating too many of their (and lended) resources on unnecessary military capabilities, and there’s no reason to copy their behaviour.
@ SO advocating a defence budget that can do nothing other than defend your own borders is just plain silly. In the modern world no country is an island. We are all heavily interconnected and inter dependent. The EU and especially Germany relies on imports of energy and raw materials from across the world. There is more to security than simply holding back the third shock army. The EU spends around $250 billion per year on defence. Even just putting 10% of the budget towards expeditionary Naval Warfare could give the EU a solid capability to deploy air and land units any where in the world where its interest were threatened. The increasing view in many EU nations seems to be to cut defence back and just simply let the USA take the strain. However we do not live in a safe world. We need defence. Yes I agree that the USA has taken things too far and it has proven that this is unaffordable. However the EU is going too far in the opposite direction.
Martin, join the rest of the world. Most defence budgets ARE self-defence budgets, only some countries have the luxury, and yes, it was a luxury, of expeditionary forces.
Back to one of the original topics of the thread, proper NGS (with emphasis for “gunfire” as against missile systems) is one of the most globally neglected and cost-effective means of fire support during any coastal operations. And it’s an issue where progress was (apparently) being made until Deck Chairs, 2010 Edition came out. Since there are fitful signs of reconsideration for some of SDSR’s most bluntly stupid decisions (walkback towards P8 wrt a working MPA force, a possible reprieve for Sentinel thanks to Lybia) it would be good with the passage of another year or so to head back to MoD and say, “look, lads, we need an honest accounting on the 155mm program. That way we know whether to move ahead with it again or buy OtoMelara 127s, since SDSR took a whole nine months to become irrelevant in the global security environment.” It’s one of the more important things the current fleet could do for itself. And I like the suggestion upthread (x, was it you, or Repulse?) for a T45 Batch 2 based more on forward support (land attack, NGS, etc.) with two hangars. There’s a number of ships (as most here know, I think) with a big/little hangar arrangement, so pop your UAVs in the latter and go to it.
Repulse,
While I’m thinking of it, there are several different and seemingly concurrent reports that T45 has spare space (unallocated, hot-bunking, not sure which) for about 60 green death as it is. On one of those “Batch 2” types you could make sure that runs to about 60-80, some mix of higher-end FSRT and underwater ninjas. Otherwise my own belief is don’t penny-packet land combatants on shipboard (marine riflemen as a security detachment is a different matter.) Better to concentrate them for the widest possible range of effects. And on that note,
Gareth J. and ACC,
Wotcher: and to ACC @ 1235 above, *this*. The US won’t have its “thousand ship navy,” the modern-day Athenian League suggested early this decade, thanks to a combination of bustling would-be rivals, budgetary decay, and bad choices in the intervening years. But the RN could absolutely be a blue-water leader for a multi-party European security arrangement. Concentrate on the high-low, on low-end MCM/patrol assets that have more high-seas endurance than their (non-French) European counterparts, and on the high end of carrier and amphibious groups, and a real capacity for punching in a coastal bridgehead with a robust brigade. (In the rest of Europe, only Italy is building up any real capacity to do that under varying degrees of fire — France can do colonial policing over-the-shore but only if it’s basically unopposed — and the growing Italian capability is limited by 1) its politicians’ huge and historic loss aversion and 2) the Mediterranean basin, where they can use the “unsinkable carrier” of Italy itself to supply air-superiority cover.) For that matter, if you really want to supply “capability plus” like that and help kick-start British shipbuilding that isn’t just warships, yachts, and oilfield support, work on military sealift capacity, which could “dual-key” for British or allied units. Yes the Danes and Dutch have bits and pieces thanks to their more robust shipyards, but those are good targets for budget cuts. British sealift lets you “operationalise” the Army once it’s out of Germany, offers a major tool to allies that may lack it (and might pay in frigate cover in return) and gets you a hell of a lot more all round than T26.
Just to be clear on that last bit, I don’t mean more LPDs, etc., I mean augmentation of the RFA with something more like the Points, or a return to the naval equivalent of the Americans’ Civil Reserve Air Fleet, ships that really do have steady civilian work more than RFA, but are readily available for emergency duty and configured for it. Should have a core that’s RFA, however, concentrated on prepositioning or fast lift of gear. And in case that sounds like thread-jacking what are they going to need as they Mexeflote their goods to the beach? Gun cover just in case, and eyes in the sky to watch out for small boat attacks or ATGMs pointed at those barges from the bushes ….
“Furthermore, NO country in the world and NO alliance in the world exceeds EU land attack and naval capability save for the US.”
Victory isnt relative
A comparison of expeditionary forces isnt relevent, you have to compare your expeditionary force against the full military of the other guy.
The EU’s mighty expeditionary force couldnt topple Gadaffi, mouthed platitudes over the genocide in Sudan (Never again?) and refuses to even discuss Syria.
Imagine the Israelies lost it and went full on ethnic cleansing, theres bugger all the EU could do beyond whine to the UN, which can pass all the resolutions it wants, only the US has ther capability to enforce them.
Martin
But SO *doesnt* advocate that. The German Army could happily invade france or poland or denmark or austria.
Observer
But due to a quirk of geography, the UK’s (and US’s) defence is amply maintained by a bit of AWACS, a bit of MPA, and half a dozen fighter squadrons.
If we “just” want defence, then we can abolish the army and the surface fleet, along with the bits of the airforce not directly involved with shooting down enemy aircraft or sub hunting.
The British army does not exist to defend the home islands and to my knowledge, no land force has ever successfuly defended these islands.
“Furthermore, NO country in the world and NO alliance in the world exceeds EU land attack and naval capability save for the US.”
There’s no country with greater land attack and naval capability than the 27 separate EU countries. Er. Except one. Probably two really.
Oh dear.
@JS, think there has been various mentions of a T45 batch 2 having space for two Merlins – I’m definately on favour of that. I’m also in favour of the RFA taking the amphibious role.
As far as I can see it, any future “amphibous assault” would be done mainly by helicopter over the horizon. These could be flown from either a LHD, LPH, CVF, escort, RFA or even a cruise liner…
If the falklands is a scenario, would you prefer an Albion with a T26, or 4 Absalon equivalents?
“@ SO advocating a defence budget that can do nothing other than defend your own borders is just plain silly. In the modern world no country is an island. We are all heavily interconnected and inter dependent. The EU and especially Germany relies on imports of energy and raw materials from across the world.”
Turn it into a thought of collective defence and remember the stunning failure of the ’37-’45 Japanese to secure their access to raw materials the military way in comparison to their pacifist post-war strategy and you’ll see my point.
There’s usually no question that interventions and the threat thereof are providing net value by securing the world for our activities (trade, for example).
It’s a childish notion. Just think of the Strait of Hormuz; much of the Iranian effort there is a reaction to the lingering threat from the U.S..
What would have happened if the U.S. had never began plaiyng great war games in the Persian Gulf?
Iran might have been a somewhat authoritarian republic for about 55 years by now.
What would have happened if the CIA did overthrow Iran’s government, but the USN did not intervene during the 1980’S as it did? The despicable aggressor Saddam Hussein would have lost the war during the mid-80’s, and the region would have self-healed.
What if both happened, but OIF did not? Hussein would probably have been swept away by Arab spring, U.S. would have 4,000 KIA and ten thousands of maimed WIA less and would have saved USD 1-3 trillion war expenses.
Even the showpiece of recent major commodity related interventions was a string of gross failures.
Rupert Fiennes two sopts above,
Like Commander Data in a sombrero, I reject your reality and substitute my own ;-) (Sorry, my inner scifi nerd couldn’t help itself.)
The squadron of Absalons have NGS aplenty, but not as much air-defence capability as I’d like if they’re helping guard RFAs further offshore (or themselves), and have to dock somewhere to offload anything heavier than Supacats and personal gear. The Albion/T26 combo is another reason why the Type 26 “Global Combat Ship” must die in a fire. It sucks the oxygen out of precious financial resources that could be much better spent in other ways, and mostly because (pace anti-carrier folk, IXION above all) the Admiralty have a much, much, much bigger frigate fetish than they do a carrier fetish. I’d rather have the RFA ‘phib reserve you describe, led by a Juan Carlos/Canberra LHD, protected by Type 23s with more new kit aboard and T45s (including that pair of land-attack-added models, and all with new guns), and screening for mines and small boats by a long-endurance MCM replacement. (In case I wasn’t obvious, the LHD, T45s, and a kick start to MCM replacement would come out of the T26 budget, and help get British military shipbuilding through the rough towards a proper next-generation, single class replacement for T23/T45.)
RFA should definitely take the lion’s share for amphibious ops and for what the American military, in its usual graceless way, calls Logistics Over The Shore, for bigger and more sustainable forces. What I hope amphibious assault will look like is a “Spanish Inquisition” approach (as in nobody expects), a deliberately erratic mix of helo/tiltrotor assault, fast hovercraft from OTH, “beach-jumper” style dummy feints, small warship raids, even paratroopers. All so you can hovercraft/Mexeflote in the gear for a proper-sized Army force.
RF,
Oh, and since We’re Getting Them Anyway, a touch of actual air cover off a carrier deck would be nice :)
RE: Amphibious lift. What if every one of our “frigates” could also carry and deploy a battalion(?) of troops?
Cross a Type 23 and an Endurance class LST?
An Endurance is about 2/3 the size of a carrier. Pretty big frigate. :)
@ SO – So you position is we should simply sit in fortress Europe and not give a f**k about the rest of the world. The German default position essentially.
What about 1991. If we had not intervened we could have seen Sadam Controlling 40% of the world oil supplies. What then?
What if Saudi Arabia is swept up by some form of Jihadist revolution intent on spreading the revolution right across the Middle East. What Then? I could come up with a dozen other scenarios that would require military intervention. We maintain our military as an insurance policy against bad things and bad people of which there are many in the world. However most are kept in check by the certain knowledge that if they get out of check too much and threaten our security and interest we have the ability to stop them. If all we have are self defence forces un able to leave home then I think you would see a much more dangerous world. Not to mention you would leave a gaping vacuum that China is only too happy to fill. Not sure if you have every tried to speak Chinese but believe me its allot harder to learn than English.
@ Jack Staff – the T26 is almost a like for like replacement for the T23 now. It’s been scaled down massively to projected unit cost of GBP 250 million. The T23’s it will replace will be 35 years old. Those ships ain’t going to be able to run any longer than that.
martin,
They don’t need to run longer than the 35-38 year range. And what the RN desperately, desperately does *not* need is a “like for like replacement for the T23.” I’ll cover that bit first:
– T26 was originally a kitbash of several errant ideas: we didn’t build enough T45s so we need something like them but without the highly effective AAW radar; we need a “me-too” mission bay frigate that’s too much warship to be a (post)colonial sealane cruiser like F125 or Absalon; and because we (Admirals of today) grew up in the post-1967 Cold War fleet, frigates are what we know best
– Though it has indeed been scaled down, both its specs and its costs will creep up again if MoD lets itself be suckered by the Treasury yet again and re-run frigates “fitted for but not with” (unlike T23s which are really coming into their own with Sonar 2087 and CAMM properly installed) will be all RN gets
– Most of the design principles and tech fit for T26 are of the moment — if there weren’t carriers under build in the incredible shrinking shipyard sector you could start turning them out next year. Based on that, if there are any meaningful leaps forward in draughtsmanship (making x-bow hulls, pentamarans, cheaper thorium reactors for major warships, etc. actually work properly) or weapons tech between now and the early/mid-2020s, these ships could be obsolescent within a few years of their launch.
So, why not hold on to world-class, rapidly maturing frigates for as long as they can reasonably float and start in then, a bit later than planned, on a next-generation single class “line ship” in place of T23 and T45? Both BMT’s blue-sky F5 “frigate” design (frigate my hairy left one, it’s a 21st century light battleship) and the BAe UVX come to mind but there are surely others. Don’t faff about with T26, make it a “Global Combat Ship” export model like the MEKOs.
What do you get instead?
– Sell the Albions and get DFiD buy-in (plus the Albions’ proceeds) to build a fourth Bay and keep the yards busy when CVF starts to run down
– Further to that, move towards selling the three oldest T23s (the one in line after that, HMS Montrose, is scheduled to decomission in 2026. Push her on for two extra years to 2028, then start the replacement cycle. That’s sixteen years to get a program for a F5/UVX-style replacement in gear.)
What do you get with the pool of funds for T26 instead, or a large chunk of it?
– Get Sonar 2087 on all ten surviving T23s.
– Buy a Canberra-class model LHD to replace the Albions and Ocean: it has a smaller ship’s crew than a single Albion, can carry more helos than Ocean, and can carry damn near as many troops and as much lane space as all three (Albions & Ocean) put together.
– Buy 2-3 “Batch 2” T45 with VLS silos added for land attack, a feck-off gun up front, and a twin hangar
Then move apace with a Hunt/River long-endurance MCM replacement. The RN needs to go “high-low” in an Atlantic world where the US Navy has mostly vacated outside the Caribbean (other than the Arctic submarines.) As ACC pointed out so well upthread, there are several potential partners who can supply excellent GP frigates where needed, SSKs likewise, and both the Dutch and Danes now have very good “pocket” AAW destroyers under sail or getting there (the LCFs and Iver Huitfeldts.) Concentrate on proper patrol/MCM/presence ships (TD’s SIMSS or the dear old BMT Venator would do very well) and carrier/amphib groups.
The besetting sin of T26 is that it does none of those things, just like the whole “C-number” program and not building T45, on its lovely huge keel with spare room aboard, with VDS, all of which is just a repeat of the planning process that gave us Types 42, 22, and 21 at the start of the Seventies. Not an original thought in the room when, for practical reasons in a world that’s already changed fast from “we were always at war with Afghanistan, or was that Oceania?” a year or so ago, to have some original thoughts.
Sorry, that last clause should read “it’s time to have some original thoughts.” It’s late even on Pacific Standard…
And, though we disagree on the matter, thanks for the prod to get those thoughts out (semi)coherently.
Ref: Sven,
Though he doesn’t know everything, he is quite genuinely immensely knowledgeable and thorough even when he’s got arguments grounded in historical or technical detail wrong, which is not all that often. But he is precisely who he is — deeply rooted in German philosophy with its steely and intellectually detailed iron consistency in arguing from a set of first principles, and a thoughtful son of a place that was at one point run by the Nazis with far too much public consent (just to relate from my own experience, most of my American relations/in-laws are white Southern liberals/leftists who get to live with the legacies of two centuries of plantations plus Jim Crow.) What this position fails to appreciate — other than that, as a technical matter war can be about many other things a society or polity finds important besides classical battle on the (mostly eastern) European plains — is that there can be multiple bad actors in a strategic environment. In other words, just because the American right’s model for throwing its weight around in foolish pursuit of gain doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of other bad actors with their own agendas out there, whose actions must be hedged against. Having looked at the problem from British, American, and Canadian vantage points at various points in my wandering life, I think he’s mostly right about American policy choices in the M.E. But this does not mean that Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey, Iraq, and (back in its pre-Sadat/Mubarak days and maybe again) Egypt haven’t all been perfectly capable of fcuking the region up, with global ripple effects, just as Martin said.
One related thing (a one-paragraph threadjack): I suspect we’re headed into a period of regionalized “cold wars.” I mean one each in the Pacific Rim (Korea to the Spratlys), the Middle East, possibly a decentralized one (disaffected publics v. all comers) in N. Africa. The one in the Americas is more complex but has very deep roots, although at least there seems to be a bastion line along Canada’s southern border for now. From Argentina to the States, via even the Mexican cartels, it’s a fight between the enterprising bastard feudalists who were one main ingredient in founding all those American nations, and the tory-conservative and liberal/left idealists who were the other big ingredient. (The latter are stumbling towards a strange-bedfellows alliance.) There as in N. Africa I’d say it’s internal conflict, though the links jump countries(unfettered rent-collecting and creation of legal/illegal cartel fiefdoms in the Americas, population pressures and political radicalization in the Maghreb.) In the M.E./Pac Rim it’s happening as the regions slowly go “locally” nuclear. Plenty to insure against indeed.
@Jackstaff: I agree with a lot of what you say – never been convinced by the T26. The one thing I would question is the real need for a LHD – I feel whatever this could offer can be served by the CVFs and Bays. A few Absalon types though would allow for close to shore ‘hot’ ops (including shore bombardment etc) without risking your capital T45 / T46 vessels.
“Turn it into a thought of collective defence and remember the stunning failure of the ’37-’45 Japanese to secure their access to raw materials the military way in comparison to their pacifist post-war strategy and you’ll see my point.”
Japans “stunning failure” is rather Americas stunning success.
Japan went to war because the US was breaking treaties over access to resources.
The US/Europe seized them first, and then denied Japan access to them. Japan then went to war.
Its lack of resources crippled its war effort.
In this MoD paper ON UAV’s under the Maritime Requirement part mentions Tactical Maritime UAS Concept Capability Demonstrator that was suppose to be demonstrated late last year? Does anyone know anything of this?
http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F9335CB2-73FC-4761-A428-DB7DF4BEC02C/0/20110505JDN_211_UAS_v2U.pdf
Jack staff , I to am no longer convinced by t26. The original plan for a meety destroyer / light cruiser has been watered down so much that we now end up with yet another medium asw platform just so we can get a few more hulls in the water. A high low mix would be best giving combat power as well as a larger total number of hulls. Admirals who grew up on frigates are just as bad as air chiefs who grew up on tornados.
Dominic, that was wrong. Once Japan secured it’s “Co-prosperity Sphere” it had all the resources it needed.
Problem was it had a defensive mindset and turned to the defence once their regional goals were secured.
You in politics you say?
Jackstaff,
Interesting piece on the Type 26. However, I think you missed the mark by some margin. It’s about the right ship for the right job.
Type 26 is exactly what it’s number suggests, a replacement for the Type 23, as the 23 was a replacement for the Type 21 and the Leanders before them. They have absolutely nothing to do with the Type 45’s, and the Type 42’s which preceded them, and the County class and Daring class before them. The lineage is a clue here – two utterly different and separate roles. It is true we haven’t and will not receive enough of the Type 45 destroyers. However, T26 is going to carry, as has been envisaged for many years, only a point defence missile system. It cannot defend other assets from air attack unless it is in the line of fire, but it is not meant to. It is a general purpose combatant, deliberately and intentionally a jack of all trades and a master of none. So nobody has even raised the possibility that it could sub in for Type 45.
You suggest waiting to see if new developments will render a conventional hull useless. Such a delay will mean the Type 23 will be out of service before you ever bring in a replacement – and hey presto we have lost 13 hulls. 13 hulls which could have been out doing the job they have always done, providing persistent presence and influence with a limited capability which, if exceeded, will need a larger battlegroup anyway. Escorted by Type 45’s. Type 23 was designed for open ocean, hence why the hull is basically a scaled up tuna boat in hydrodynamic design. And please don’t tell me that a nuclear powered or pentahulled escort is a realistic possibility in any but the deepest of fantasy chatrooms.
Sonar 2087 – brilliant at finding submarines in the open ocean. Cock all use in the littoral. An FF with LFAS is pinging away in an environment swamped with noise and with a jagged, reverberating seabed looking for a small, silent SSK. If we are going to go sub hunting in the littoral, we need MPA’s, dipping helicopters, high definition surface search radars and better optics, because the only way you are going to find an SSK is to catch him snorting or fly over the top and see him underwater. So wasting money fitting it to every ship will deny half the fleet a decent gym for little or no advantage.
All of this and more means that for at least the next 50 years, all we need is a large-ish hull, efficient, with good seakeeping qualities. Type 26 at 5400t pretty much ticks that box. It needs space, so new weapons systems, as they are developed, can be installed and the old swapped out without fuss. It needs a centralised command system capable of operating said weapons and sensors. It needs a mast and other physical structures to hold aloft radars and a wet bit to mount sonars of various design (unless we are going to suddenly invent Star-Trek-style sensors in the next few years). It needs a big deck for big helicopters – Chinook is the biggest thing we’ll be flying for years to come. It needs space for a variety of boats and modular payloads, embarked for specialist missions. It needs to be able to go anywhere and support persistent, low-medium intensity ops in the littoral environment. And it needs to be able to look after itself. Type 26 meets all those requirements – and to cost, because we have run out of money. And in doing so, by being flexible and adaptable, it makes it highly exportable as well, because all sorts of national systems can be bolted on where the space and flexibility allows.
As deeply exciting and erotic as large guns and VLS silos and Type 45 might be, just how much have they been used over the last few decades since they were invented COMPARED TO the amount of sea hours put in by little old frigates steaming up and down the waterways of the world? The right ship for the right task.
Multihulls. If you remember, we built one to see if it was a good idea. It wasn’t, so we’re not building any. RV Triton. Nobody else in the world apart from the US operate multihull combatants, and I’m not convinced even they’ve got it right.
Wonder what they saw in the trimaran LCS…
Observer
“Dominic, that was wrong. Once Japan secured it’s “Co-prosperity Sphere” it had all the resources it needed.”
And when did Japan secure its co-prosperity sphere exactly?
Before or after it bombed pearl harbour?
It attacked the Dutch East Indies AFTER pearl harbour because it was without a source of oil.
Pearl Harbour was simply an attempt to force the US to back off long for them to create a defendable resource rich empire.
Or certainly, that was my understanding of matters anyway.
The thing about oil and interventions is that by now the U.S. could have cut its oil demand through efficiency gains and substitutes enough at about the costs of the 1980’s-2002 involvement in the Persian Gulf area. The total U.S: crude oil imports from the Persian Gulf area are only a fraction of the USN’s budget.
OIF added so much to the price tag that the whole interventionism became totally uneconomical.
Russia’s gas and oil trade shows another important lesson: It’s not just the consumer who’s dependent, but also the supplier.
In fact, the ones with the greatest interest to keep trade online should be the exporters – and they are the ones who can deal with troubles most efficiently. They need no amphibious ships and aircraft carriers. Some concrete and stuff suffices to build barracks and runways instead.
It’s a losing proposition to try to enforce raw materials import security through military power. Look at what happened to Japan when it attempted to secure its crude oil imports from Dutch Southeast Asia; its navy was the second-strongest and in many details the best, but they still failed miserably,, almost suicidably.
The way to go is to
* diversify sources,
* increase efficiency,
* keep an eye on substitutes,
* preventively drive up prices through taxes if you want the harden an industrial sector against raw material price shocks and to
* invest into the effectiveness of international order through law.
Especially the latter suffers a lot when individual nations send their ships bullying foreign nations – from 1864 Nagasaki to 1982 Sirte and more. It suffers even more if said ships bombard foreign countries with cruise missiles without the political risk of some KIA for the responsible government.
@”Somewhat removed”; the Norwegians use multi-hull fast attack craft and minesweepers.
@SomewhatRemoved: I’m not convinced by the case for Type 26. If all we need is a largeish hull that has potential, why not just carry on building Type 45’s, perhaps minus one of it’s air search radars? We’re not really in the position to be designing two seperate classes of large warships, not even the USN is planning to.
BTW, those VLS silos have had some serious use with TLAM :-)
But I don’t see many multi hulls for blue water operations
Yes, the Norwegians use small multihulls for operations in inshore waters at high speed and to provide a stable, low-signature hull for minehunting. But both are massively limited on internal space and limited to brown water ops alone; as TD points out multihulls do not do well in open seas. Chinese have catamarans too; same argument. I’m not convinced by trimarans, but then again I’m not convinced by LCS either – too small, too expensive.
We could build more T45’s but that’s a very big hull. I will always support the mantra of steel is cheap, air is free, but unless you are going to have a viable use for that space then there is no need to add it in. I don’t see many 400-seat buses, do you? Besides, T45’s hull was designed specifically for one purpose – to hold the MFR as high as possible. It’s not necessarily an efficient nor a quiet hull. So along with the steel/air argument we should cut our cloth to fit.
Finally – we’re broke. There is no more money. Where are all those TLAM’s going to come from? The UK economy, let alone Europe’s, is not going to pick up in the next few years (decades?) so again, cut your cloth to fit. But I do understand that VLS is a terribly exciting thing to have, and T26 is strongly rumoured to have a large space assigned for a strike length VLS complex, even if in UK service it will just be a better gym than the towed array winchwell.
Is someone going to bring SWATH hulls into the argument now!!
Cheers TD – I’ll pass.
“why not just carry on building Type 45′s”
Why indeed.
I must admit, I really dont get why not.
Strip out PAAMS and its cheap as chips.
Easy enough room for a proper sub hunter, a general purpose jack of all trades, or even a fast green death deployer.
@SomewhatRemoved: no harm in having a VLS complex. It’s probably cheaper than even a multi-function launcher when you factor in life cycle costs, and very flexible.
If dipping sonars are the best way of hunting SSK’s in the littorals, how about say 6 small helicopter UAV’s with sonars rather than a Lynx or Merlin? One pair could be up at all times, able to stalk continuously without having to reel in and risk losing the target
My primary reason for continuing to use the T45 design was merely to save the cost of developing another. Once BAE start, there’s no stopping them :-(
Well, if you insist…
DK Brown was quite a fan of SWATH:
” SWATH stand for Small Waterplane Area, Twin Hull. Such vessels have two deeply submerged cylindrical hulls connected by narrow struts to a platform well above the water surface. The submerged hulls are little affected by most waves which leave the platform level, dry, and undisturbed. In the most severe seas, the SWATH will follow the wave surface with motions still much less vigorous than those of a conventional ship.
In waves, the SWATH will be able to maintain speed better than a conventional ship and because it is much steadier, it is able to operate sensors, weapons, and helicopters when others cannot…The US experimental SWATH, Kaimolino. of only 200 tonnes, has shown seakeeping comparable with that of a 2500-tonne monohull sailing in company. Technically. SWATH is a well-proven concept.”
wf,
On your last sentence, too right. It’s why we need a Royal Dockyards setup for surface naval building (Babcock do not too awfully so far on subs, we’ll judge by further Astutes.) Old-school nationalisation was a destructive pile of pants (and I say that as a lefty :) but it’s not clear BAe isn’t a worse, privatised version of the same thing now.
Repulse,
I’d get Canberra/JC LHD because it gives you an amphibious CP that doesn’t risk a QE-class too close in, lets said QE concentrate on fast air and ISTAR and drone decoys (per the UAV thread), can load out close to 60% of the SDSR’s 1800-strong ARG in one hull and has more lane space for vehicles and kit than any LHD not marked “US Navy” — *and* the well deck to put it ashore. All, even if you have a large British workshare in fitting out and BAe standard cost overruns, for the same or a little less than one first-run T45. Plus it keeps the one “pure” carrier, one LHD, one swing-role carrier complement in RN service for rotation.
SR,
Thanks (no really, for most of it at least) for the detailed opposing argument. I really am going to get back to it but I’m ducking pressures of work just to write this, so it’ll be 4-5 hours. Not trying to ignore.
Nice pic of a SWATH concept from 1985:
http://www.vosper.co.uk/images/newgallery/images/SWATH.jpg
wf, I see your point. In theory the hull is designed, the niggles worked out and it should be an easy build. But I strongly suspect that the hull is not optimised for acoustic stealth nor is the powerplant; it is after all designed for speed over stealth. Fuel economy also comes into play – one of the great advantages of the Type 23 is it’s tremendous range. Plus I still believe the T45 powerplant is a massive fudge, with the two prime movers in different compartments because they too big to fit in side by side, hence we now have two propshafts of different lengths. IEP has evolved since then, so I would argue that it is worthwhile investing in a new hull and powertrain. Also worth considering is the fact that the T45 IEP design is not geared towards flexible propulsion options, whereas T26 apparently has the scope for buyers to specify gas turbines, diesels or a mix.
Just to add to that, one option they were studying along with the trimaran concept was the use of Azipods, combining electric drive, fuel economy and high manoeuvrability. Sadly this seems to have been dropped from the proposals.
http://www.informationdissemination.net/2012/01/uk-lessons-observed-on-libya-sea-based.html
@JS: Perhaps rather than a LHD we could just buy another another CVF… :)
Having a single high end escort design makes perfect sense – maybe we cannot afford additional T45s now, but if planned, executed properly and in enough numbers a general purpose T46 makes perfect sense especially if its delayed until mid 2020’s. What would have been the unit price for a T45 be if spread over a total class of 19 vessels?
In the meantime, we should focus on the MHPC, or even better a MHPC / Absalon hybrid.
Catching up…
but just saw a Stanhope interview excerpt RE Martin’s
“Those ships ain’t going to be able to run any longer than that” putting the replacement cycle from 2023 to 2036″
– but how many, that’s the question
@ Repulse
We should just scrap T26 and buy the design of the Danish Iver Huitfeldt class. Fit it with Artisan, SeaCeptor, and the Oto Melar 127mm. Keeping the ASW fit out and Millennium(s). Faster than Abaslon so good for fleet work too and without gas turbine complications.
@x
More money spent on ships whose roles are already filled?
I don’t know what you are driving at…
So I will guess! :)
T45 is too valuable to waste on the gun line. Even if that gun line is a lot further out thanks to modern ammunition.
There is nothing that T26 will give us that IH doesn’t already do. The design exists. It is a CODAD; diesels are cheaper than GTs. Artisan is available. SeaCeptor is near. The gun is proven. 19 escorts isn’t enough.
x
Except the Danes get that gd value by having the hulls fabricated in estonia and Lithuania which is not uk government policy.
@ Mark
Don’t care! ;) BAE screws us over with the development costs. They are re-inventing the wheel again with T26. I said buy the design not have the Danes et al build them. I didn’t mention the price. Then again if the Danes have the hull blocks built abroad and it works why shouldn’t BAE do the same as long British (English?) yards get all the high end work.
Development costs are tiny for type26 hull. And BAE doesnt get to decide where it can build warships its government policy to use UK yards only for warships. And it government meddling that drives costs up more than the contractors who ever they may be.
I bet by the time BAE are finished it will be a billion. Um. I will be kind I bet it will approach the cost of at least one hull.
I know HMG decides where the work goes, but it is still BAE building the ship. Should I have said if Odense Staalskibsværft have the hull blocks built abroad and it works why shouldn’t BAE do the same? BTW I can just about spell Dane I can’t spell Odense Staalskibsvtyrasdjhg……..
It is odd that we live in country where we have factories and warehouses staffed nearly entirely by East Europeans who send a high proportion of their wages home so money leaves the country, our major ship building centre was to become a foreign country even though they have their government ships built abroad, and yet the idea of having work done abroad in those East European countries is damn near treasonous.
Wouldn’t a major advantage of the Huitfeldt design be that BAE needn’t be involved in the hulls at all? The only BAE yard that’s critical to the RN is Barrow and there’s an adequate workflow planned to keep that open for a long time to come. A&P or Cammell Laird, among others, could fabricate Huitfeldt sections and Babcock could do that and the final assembly too.
Given that we’d have to replace almost all of the systems (missiles, radar, sonar etc, the expensive stuff) would it not just make as much sense to build Type 26 here, especially if we can flog some units abroad?
The T26 is all about trying to keep UK shipyards open rather than the RN. However, how many ships are the likes of Brazil and others will actually want to build in the UK? Maybe the first one or two, but the rest would be linked to a technology transfer deal and built abroad.
Also, is it not fair to say that if / when Scotland leaves the union “UK” defence policy will have to change. Shouldn’t the remaining yards focus on the high end stuff T45 type escorts, SSNs / SSBNs and the odd ‘specialist’ vessel – leaving the rest to be either constructed abroad or commercial yards and fitted out in the “UK”.
Build batches of 6 “T45″s (improving the design with each batch) and 4-5 SSN/SSBNs every decade and you have secured a soveriegn high end ship building capability in a couple of yards – for which I for one would be happy to pay for…
Does anyone have any recent info on the MHPC design? I understand the concept design phase is due to start this year, but it seems to have gone quiet with speculation that any replacements will not come online till the late 2020’s.
From what I’ve read, the high level design is for a 100m vessel of around 2 – 2.5k tonnes. If the design could be expanded to support a medium calibre gun, Merlin (plus Chinook capable landing platform) and upto a company of Marines in overload – could give it a significant amphibious assault support role.
@ Chris B re tech in T26
As I said above we already have the RADAR (Artisan), a suitable PDMS in SeaCeptor, and a very good gun we can buy off the shelf. IH is designed to fly our largest maritime helicopter.
Surely all we need to do for the complex information systems is buy the “light” versions of the systems in T45 and QE. I am sure it is better for HMG to buy high end stuff from Insyte than to worry about metal bashing. Lets face everybody from Lithunia to Turkey to Iran to even Sri Lanka to Singapore builds hull. At the moment not everybody does the high end stuff or does it well.
@ Angus M re no BAE
Well that is a thought too. Actually I am surprised given HMG near suicidal habit of following EU competition rules I am surprised that the modern RN/RFA hasn’t had one new build from abroad. TBH I have no problem with RFAs built in Italy or frigate hulls built in Korea.
@ Repulse
I can see sense in a GP version of T45. But I imagine that our politicians will associate size with capability so that is why I favour something like the IH.
“If the design could be expanded to support a medium calibre gun, Merlin (plus Chinook capable landing platform) and upto a company of Marines in overload – could give it a significant amphibious assault support role.”
And then it becomes much more expensive and we get less of them. I thought the whole points of this design was that it was cheap, low risk and we could have a good few hulls. The RN desperately needs these ships, it would take an enormous strain off of the first rates.
Hi Mark,
I didn’t know that “Except the Danes get that gd value by having the hulls fabricated in estonia and Lithuania”
But then again it only addresses the cost of manufacturing (Australia sails the semi-finished hulls half way round the world and still ends up with sky-high unit costs).
If you think of the share of the development costs vs. the manufacturing costs for advanced (world class?) vessels, p. 14 in the below gives some proportions.
“Should Australia Build Warships?
An economic and strategic analysis
Presented at the RAN Seapower Conference, Sydney, Australia; 1 February 2012.”
You can address that by putting the development effort in the hull and propulsion and getting the sensors and weapon systems off-the-shelf (and tried out somewhere else first)
…which is exactly what takes us back to the Danes: they maintain a naval shipyard for this fitting out and integration
– keeps the critical mass of skills going
– harvests the learning effects within any class being constructed (estimates for that on p.15 in the referred presentation)
Why don’t we do the same? Might get quite a few exports, especially when Navantia is not in the integration business (unlike BAE, the French and the Italians)
Ahh “Development costs are tiny for type26 hull”
– the four-year contract that was not design, but pre-design (concept to help to decide size, manning, what goes onto it) was not much shy of half a bn?
RE ” yet the idea of having work done abroad in those East European countries is damn near treasonous.”
– the Dutch don’t think so, one of their main yards is shifting more and more of the actual building to Romania (but keeping the critical mass for design together and going)
Hi Repulse,
What you are describing (100m and 2.5 kt) is BAM, fitted out as an ocean-going, ie, self-deploying MCM vessel:
• Eslora Total: 93.9 m
• Desplazamiento PC+MF: 2500 t
• Velocidad Máxima 20.5 nudos/knots
• Velocidad máxima sostenida: 19 nudos
• Planta Propulsora CODAE
• Potencia Instalada 2×4500 kW +2×880 kWe
• Radio de Acción: 8.000 millas nauticas a 15 nudos
• Autonomía viveres: 40-45 días
• Dotación Básica: 35 Personas
• Personal Transporte: 35 Personas
• Capacidad NEO: 80 Personas
• Costo: 85 millones de euros (K-130: 130 M. euros)
The extra 45 people on-board will have to be split three ways: MCM, helo crew and support and Marines (not quite a company)
– extend it to 100m and the NH90 becomes a Merlin easily (and the Marines get upped to a platoon)
– each meter added to the base design add about a mln in euros to the cost
If you want the Chinook capable and a full company (and MCM, and gun – which the BAM can take), then we are back to the SIMMS thread
If the BAM dimension is not my idle speculation (warning:I love to speculate), then announcing the T-26 (quantity to be built in the UK) soon and the BAM (import deal)only thereafter would be the normal “good news first, and bad news sink in more smoothly)
– there were murmurings about a European co-op effort in the early stages of the programme
– since the granting of the conceptual design (trade-off between requirements) to Frazer Nash nothing has been heard about the potential joint design with Oz
…so Europe it will be (and they don’t have any spare cash, and hence no hurry; just like us)
Acc
It’s currently a 125m pound 4 year development contract with bae which runs another 2 years which should have done concept freeze in nov last year. The aus ships like ours cost a lot due to the systems we put in the hull not hull costs which are small in comparison.
Brown used the following breakdown 60% weapons/systems, 40% hull (engine, accommodation).
Yes x but you still have to buy the steel a global commodity and the engine the only thing you save is labour costs buy doing it foreign and what percentage is that of the 40%
Thanks Mark, to me it feels that those 4 years have already passed (even though we are only half way through)
RE ” should have done concept freeze in nov last year”
– there was some sort of technical conference in January?
– I think the announcement dates for the outcome as well as Carter’s recommendations have already been pre-advertised (can’t find the anywhere now, but the Feb-to-April stretch?)
No wonder there has been no issuing of the equipment plan across the services, yet, as both will be key determinants re : what gets funded, in what quantities and over what time horizon
Must admit I was thinking along the lines of an adapted modern Thetis class. Ice strengthening would be a good feature and it would have space to expand.
@ Mark
Well how long is a piece of string? Brown based the breakdown on decades work in the field.
Well the Danes do it. And the Dutch do it. And even though Europe is in a mess and they are much smaller countries it could be argued that have been a lot better governed and the defence procurement practices more pragmatic than Britain’s.
x, I would tend to agree with you “it could be argued that have been a lot better governed and the defence procurement practices more pragmatic than Britain’s”
But the reason? I would argue that despite the arguments to the contrary, the armed services of the UK have been living in the land of plenty (and not been forced to take a hard look at wasteful practices).
I tend to follow what is done in places where the budget might be high, but not relative to the mission set:
– Israel, Singapore
– the Nordics (save for Sweden who have been cutting down from a high level, a bit like the UK,and for Iceland – who regardless won the cod wars). In this latter group (budgets not as high as in the first one) it is the realism and focus in setting the mission that not only gives solid criteria for decisions but also stability (at least a decade forward)
@ ACC
Our shipbuilding industry went south for a whole of reasons. A fat order book after WW2 lead to sloppy management. And during the 60s and 70s poor standards and militant unions. Yet we bend over backwards to preserve what we have (north of the border.)
All of these comments about saving money by buying foreign designs are pointless. T26 design phase is well underway with the requirement frozen in Nov last year, i.e. money is already spent. Delays were due to lack of political support, which is funny because that’s who we work for, not ourselves. Buying someone else’s design gets us something that is not compatible with our design philosophy, which is quite different from other navies. Who is to say whether they have sufficient redundancy in systems or appropriate power supplies. The Danish flight deck is big enough for EH101, sure, but it isn’t big enough to land a Chinook, so we’re stuffed when we need to lily-pad our Special Forces. Who can say a foreign design is sufficiently quiet to achieve the ASW role we need our escorts to achieve? How do we know the Ivor Huitfeld (or whatever) has a sufficiently adaptable command system or damage control systems or any one of a dozen key systems that, if incompatible with our operating procedures and equipment will cost millions to refit, adapt or remove? Case in point – the Arleigh Burke class which was so trumpeted in the early 2000’s as an alternative to Type 45 has a totally inferior NBC protection system.
I hate the fact that BAE is our sole defence contractor but that’s what happens when our politicians allow them to do as they wish. BAE is embedded at the highest levels of our government and nothing we can do will change that. It’s a shit sandwich but it’s all we’ve got. We have to invest in UK industry, backwards, unionised and inefficient as it is, or thousands more go out of work and what little expertise we have left goes with them. At least the T26 has had RN involvement all the way through the planning stages so we get what we ask for.
http://www.jonathanwerbeldesign.com/JonathanWerbelDesignAssoc/A%20large%20Cruiser%20Concept.pdf
@ Somewhat
Well if we discussed things exactly as they are there wouldn’t be much to talk about would there? :)
I find your comments about Chinooks interesting. So the MoD decrees T26 must be Chinook capable just in case there is a special forces mission? The Chinook is becoming to naval flightdecks what the main battle tank is to air cargo. Most SF missions require less than a platoon. And if you were to use naval flight decks surely a Merlin with a 750nm range (over 450nm) and a 20kt advantage in speed (Chinook 130kt) would be a better bet? Smaller RCS signature too. I find it hard to believe that the Admiralty who decided to replace the Castles (large SeaKing capable flight deck) with the Rivers with no flight deck considering British territorial and EEZ waters are covered by SeaKing based SAR and are litter with drilling platforms would consider a Chinook capable flight deck a priority. I think the T45 only has that huge flightdeck is because the couldn’t afford to do anything more with the ship. “I know chaps let sell it as Chinook capable…”
As for NBC protection well I am open to being proven wrong here but I thought T45, unlike its European contemporaries (like the Absalon and IH), didn’t have a citadel? I thought it was dropped for cost reasons.
The Danish ship satisfies a whole sheaf of STANAG standards. And it is being fielded by a NATO navy. I know the RN likes to pride itself on its damage control expertise but are you really telling me these ships are so fundamentally flawed and the RN is so ahead of the game?
x,
T45 is fully NBC protected as are all our combatants. SF has a significant contribution to make to UK security both within territorial waters and around the world, and their platform of choice is Chinook – hence the existence of 7 Squadron. Chinook capability has been an RN core specification since T45 was conceived. It is far from a ‘nice to have’, it is part of what we do and a response to the ever evolving demands placed upon our ever shrinking service.
Try reading my comment again. Other navies are not necessarily flawed, just different. We approach the combatant design piece with the advantage of years of experience and our combatants must be capable of high tempo operations. If you satisfy some budgeteers demand for savings by buying someone else’s design, then it may not be fit for purpose and you will have to spend more money adapting it. That’s the difference between being adaptable and capable, versus cheap.
Garath, interesting cruiser concept, though something seems to be missing.
The missile bay…
I would strip out CIWS and replace with 76mms or a missile system, CIWS is getting long in the tooth and can’t counter higher end Eastern missiles reliably anymore. The trend is more towards a bigger gun or missiles to kill high speed missiles further out. The 76mm can also double duty as anti-small craft.
@ Somewhat
I have re-read your comment. If it were academic writing and I didn’t have chance to hold “face to face” discussions with the author I would say you were basically inferring that other NATO navies just were quite in the RN’s league damage control wise. Perhaps you could furnish me with some example of how say the Danish or German or Dutch navies do something differently and how the RN does it differently better. When I have visited other Europe nation’s warships they seem to be strikingly similar to RN vessels. No interconnecting bulkhead hatches between watertight zones below 2 deck. Fire mains and fire fire fighting equipment as the same points as in RN through out the ship; sometimes even sprinklers and gas suppression systems. Often the equipment appears newer. I also assume that fire and flood that occurs in RN vessels is of the same nature and follows the same laws of physics and chemistry as the rest of the planet which consequently means they have to be tackled in much the same way. I do understand what you mean about lessons from conflicts. Take the Falklands for instance and anti-ship missile attacks. The Germans took several lessons onboard from that conflict hence the Brandenburgs were constructed with double skin bulkheads to not only soak up the explosion but also prevent heat from the resultant fire being conducted through to the next zone and starting yet more fires. Fire as you know better than I is the true ship killer. Does the T45 have double skinned bulkheads? Will the T26 have them? Or are some lessons more equal than others? If all these navies really have these subtle difference makes me wonder how the Dutch and Germans can share a ship design. Or the French and Italians. Or the Spanish and Norwegians. The reason why those projects worked because Western/NATO modern warships of fought in common way; whether the enemy is man, the sea, or damage. When T26 is launched I look forward to being underwhelmed by yet another BAE Wheel 2.0 design exercise that has more equipment fitted-for-but-not-with, probably has some intrinsic feature, sorry flaw, that makes me say WTF, and yet I will still take comfort from the belief that the RN knows better than all the other European navies that I am simply missing some profound insight because I have never wore a blue suit.
As for Chinook and SF. Yes I do appreciate that SF do play a very important role in UK defence. Still I wonder at the end of the day which would have been of more real world value. Having a T45 in the right spot for a SF Chinook to lilly pad probably after long feet wet transit (possible refuelled by one of those rinky-dinky FSTA tankers) to deliver its cargo of underwater-knife fighters. Or having in UK waters Rivers with a flight decks so injured survivors can be winched (even more) safely from its decks or to offer a land place to malfunctioning helicopter or refuelling a helicopter taking part in some exercise or emergency. Um. Probably if I were Their Lordships I would go with SF support and its lovely purple tinge so as to seem relevant over more practical and utilitarian activities in UK waters…..
@ Observer – I thinking about an escort which could perform “light” amphibious duties. However, with a change of aircraft it could do other roles; ASW, UAV mothership, etc.
Perhaps the armament/sensors of the Type 23 in the hull like the Jeanne D’arc?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cruiser_Jeanne_d%27Arc_%28R97%29
Helicopter cruiser. Any relation to “Aircraft carrying cruiser”s? :)
Anyway, if you were to chuck a helo onboard a cruiser, I’ll skip the Chinook and go for double anti-sub helos. However you cut it, the CH-47 is just a cargo helicopter, it adds nothing to the escort’s main role. What I mean is you can use sub hunters to drop off your SF team, then go back to sub hunting, while a Chinook would drop off the team… then go for a tea break as it’s totally unsuited for anything else.
What about if you use a modular system pallet, like the C295 pallet? You can have a swing-role helicopter then…
Think we discussed the idea awhile back; @TD, anything in the archives?
Modules tend to take up a lot of space, your helicopter will suffer from a case of ‘fat’. And those hangers don’t really have much room.
@Observer, we call them “through deck cruisers” around here :-)
I am still trying to figure out the subtleties of RN school of maritime warfare. IH is too primitive. The FREMM is too expensive. Yet T26 will magically be just right; it is the Goldilocks frigate! The majority of the world’s submarine forces are small and are less than competent than when compared to US and European forces. Most could be dealt with active sonar. Or should that have to be dealt with by active sonar because these skirmishes will take place in littoral with its peculiar acoustics that reduce the effectiveness of passive systems. In these restricted waters the ASW helicopter will have the advantage over the last-gen (at best) SSK.
After the Israeli experiences in Lebanon the land-based ASM missile is probably a more realistic threat to consider than the small number of submarines world wide. Of course if you have a Chinook full of night-fighting-knife-wielding-ninjas these ASMs can be quickly neutralised.
And another thing……
Has T45 been fitted with the requisite kit to land Merlin yet? If a big bird like Merlin needs special kit I imagine Chinook will need it too.
@x
Risky to equate less expensive and technologically sophisticated with ineffective. The USN just recently learnt that lesson with some RIMPAC/CARAT exercises. Apparently, nuclear subs are at a disadvantage as they can’t simply turn off their reactor, so you’ll still get reactor noise while a D/E sub can just turn off it’s engine and coast on battery power. Result? 0-3 loss. The other side simply could lock on to nuclear subs faster.
@GJ, like the light cruiser concept. Feel that for the RN at present we should be looking at a cheap / dumbed down version of the concept – even along the lines of RFA Argus or a JSS / adapted Bay… Keep the T45 (and T23) replacement primarily for high end escorting, air defence and sea control.
@ Observer
It isn’t the reactor per se but the water coolant feed pump you can’t switch off. Like all kettles boiling dry is bad news. But this problem has been known for decades. Chinese nuclear submarines bang like a drum. Building a nuclear submarine is a feat in itself. Building a quiet one probably a factor more complicated. And that is without having crews who can drive these superships to their full potential. That’s why not replacing the T & S Boats one for one with A Boats is a national travesty.
Actually the submarine threat to the UK has kept me awake all night. The seas are full of these murderous metal tubes. Yet T45, in a time when hull numbers are so reduced, goes to see without a decent ASW sonar unlike its German, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Danish, and Norwegian contemporaries. This means it has to be escorted itself putting greater strain on the ASW assets such as T23 and SSNs. And then I started to worry about those foreign sailors whose governments send them to sea in AAW destroyers that aren’t just as quite as good T45. Poor souls! All that and they can’t even land Chinooks on their flight decks so squads of SF warfighters can be delivered unto their countries’ enemies. (Even though T45 can only do this in theory because it ain’t got the kit fitted.) Oh dear! :)
@Observer, could agree more on the lunacy of the T45 not having a decent sonar or ASuW capability.
It is verging on the criminal – the RN / MOD is too scare to have a real all GP high end escort as they see the Treasury vetoing it or reducing the funds for other things.
If the budget for the T26 is really £6bn, add that to the £6bn already spent on the 6 T45s and you get £12bn… Now if they went with a single class of say 18 vessels (likely what we will end up with), then that’s £665mn per vessel or over a $1bn…
Builing 6 high end escorts (T45 like) and 6 lower end escorts (MHPC like) every decade would give a regular drumbeat of work for the remaining yards. Based on 30 year lifespan – a surface fleet of 36 significant ‘escort capable’ ships.
If the lower end vessels cost in the order of say £200mn each, this would be a 10 year cost in the order of £5.2bn. About 3.5% of the expected £150bn to be invested in military equipment over the next decade.
@x, I know of the coolent system, I’m just taking it as an intrinsic part of the reactor.
@repulse
I always saw foreign sales as a way to drive costs down, and for that, you’d need cheap, effective and reliable. Cheap can be waivered a bit if a piece of kit is known to be effective and reliable. Think of how much “per unit” costs the US would have saved if Congress had not insisted on freezing all outside F-22 sales. Now? They closed the F-22 production lines, so not only do their allies not have F-22s, soon, they themselves won’t have them too due to parts attrition.
Even better if said shipyards can do civilian work on the side.
@ Repulse
Some say we should regard T45 more as a capital ship than an escort. I think the idea has some validity. The RN wanted a T42 replacement, but budgets (and threats) shrunk, and the jump in performance from SeaDart to SeaViper began to impact on the MoD(N) thinking. It looks and performs manoeuvre wise like a destroyer but really it is very much a vehicle to carry SeaViper (and command control etc.) Daring could be construed as the poorman’s carrier substitute. I have wondered whether CVF should be fitted with SeaViper. And I have wondered whether a ship like a (stretched) Hyuga with SeaViper, a modern ASM, a flight of ASaC helicopters, ASW helicopters, etc. etc. would have served us better than CVF.
Haven’t we spent enough on the Navy? T45s, Astutes, and CVFs, F-35s in the pipeline. It’s a lot. Now there’s talk of a new class of frigate.
I’ll be interested when the Navy can manage to not get their boarding teams captured, can stop their submarines either grounding themselves or bumping into French submarines, or to successfully stop some unemployed Somali ex-fishermen from making millions from captured merchant ships. Perhaps some investment in naval backbone is required, not more ships.
@ James re back bone
Do you think RN crews should be put through some form of field training? (Beyond basic small arms proficiency which has to be gained before passing in.) Do you think they need to be more combative?
When these forward presence squadrons and such are discussed I do wonder whether the RN would have suitable personnel to crew them. Whether the Narvik is still there.
Hi James,
I can see and understand where you are coming with your comment.
But: What is the roll-out plan for the army kit from 2023 through to 2036 (not considering whether the the funding will be cut before we get to the “near date”)?
Hi x,
Which Narvik are you talking about?
The Germans would have been squarely beaten, had the ships’ companies from the sunken vessels not been formed into effective infantry – leaving the Gebirgsjaeger free to do the manoeuvre).
@ X
re naval training. Yes I do. I appreciate that sailors are not meant to be fully trained infantrymen, but having spent some time embarked with the RN, and then a year in training with RN officers on the Staff course (most of whom held hopes of a seagoing command in the next couple of years), there is a fundamental issue in that the the RN is not mentally tough enough. They are more consensus operators of high tech equipment, not hard-minded and prepared to get physically tough. Even in ROE debates on the staff course, they were as a service pre-disposed to soft solutions in every case, when the correct answer is that in some cases you go balls out. The attitude pervades to the ratings. I do exempt submariners from those general thoughts: the creed of the assassin from the deep is still alive, and thankfully so.
Frankly, the Navy to my eyes has proved of limited utility since 1982 and the Cold War. I know the arguments about us being a sea-based nation, 80% of the world’s population living within 200 miles of the sea, etc etc. But our Navy is an expensive proposition for what it actually delivers from on or above the surface, and officered by people who don’t appear to have any fire in their bellies. And now they want even more floaty little boats.
@ ACC
I am talking about actions like freeing the PoWs from the Altmark cutlasses drawn.
@ James
Yes my reading and familiarity with the modern RN suggest that since WW2 with automation there has been a shift. It has gone from a service of men doing hard labour to a service of men and women pressing buttons. Some would say sending women to sea, however competent they are performing the technicalities of their role, has also had some effect.
Embarked Marine detachment? In a serious situation, I’d rather lose a marine than someone expensively trained. I’d also rather have a specialist in mayhem on the sharp end.
Can you imagine the loss if a sonar operator or radar operator got stabbed on one of these little side trips?
This is also why I’m a fan of using LHDs for anti-piracy, low intensity operations, it leaves the Navy battleline free of people that do not have a role in battle and keeps the Marines close to their landing ships and in a role that is suited to their training.
x,
I really can’t come back at your comments, sorry, because your approach seems so fundamentally divorced from the reality of our Service. I might have put something together, but you then felt the urge to join in with James and paint the picture of fat sailors pressing buttons whilst being mentally inadequate. Of course, we haven’t done much boarding with cutlasses recently, but I shall make a mental note to have the lads start tarring their pigtails and reinstate flogging.
It is really quite inconvenient that our flabby sailors (and god forbid our less than manly women, tut tut) obviously demonstrate weekly why they shouldn’t be in boats, in case they get captured. And we really are just making a mess of things in Somalia, aren’t we? All those pirates just running about willy nilly, waving their cutlasses at us and shouting ‘look, it works for us!’. Of course if we all ran about waving rifles and rolled in the mud then we’d toughen up a bit, just like those wonderful army chaps. The very thought of is making me want to go for a run! Perhaps we should all go and get shot at in Afghanistan – that’s a relevant theatre of modern war, isn’t it?
I might put something helpful up later, depends if any more ignorant observations appear in the meanwhile.
For the less ignorant, Type 45 carries the Ultra MFS-7000 active bow mounted sonar and has enough weapons for Lynx and Merlin in the ASW role, should we choose to so employ it. No torpedo tubes, because anyone who wants to go duelling with Stingray against a Kilo armed with 53-65 wake homing torpedoes is suicidal. Lucky for us though it does also carry one of the most capable torpedo decoy systems in service today.
@ Somewhat
I didn’t mention fat sailors. If you want to be funny about it it perhaps says something about the RN that its personnel that they can jump from a bit of banter on the internet to a full on attack. Speaking as I find when I visit Portsmouth or indeed when ex-cadets in the Service come back to the unit fatter each time. Or as some of the females do flounce around like they are still 17 it does make me wonder about RN training and the experience of being in the service. It is a sharp contrast to the youngsters who go into the Army who come back a little bit sharper, a lot fitter, and dare I say even mature and respectful. No you keeping having a pop.
As for the cheap shot about women I wrote
“Some would say sending women to sea”
Note I said “Some would say” not “I think” or “I believe”. Many ex-sailors I have spoken with believe that a warship is no place for a women. Are you saying those that went before you aren’t entitled to opinion on these matters? Did I say I agreed with their opinion? No I bloody well didn’t.
It is fucking good thing that RN are still dependent on edge weapons because idiots like you would do themselves and others a mischief.
As for the Ultra MFS-7000 well its intended design purpose is detection of underwater obstacles like mines and with ONLY VERY, VERY LIMITED SUBMARINE DETECTION CAPABILITY. Unlike the ASO94 medium frequency passive/active that can do both shallow/deep searches even has a torpedo warning function. Now just a second I am trying to remember a class of ship that ASO94 is fitted to…I think the Danes fit it to their Absaolons and the Iver Huitfields. Don’t worry. Most trawler men are convinced their fish finders can detect submarines so the MFS-7000 should be just dandy.
As for helicopters, and again I am prepared to be corrected on this I have broad shoulders, but have the T45s had PRISM deck handling and recovery device, a Ship Helicopter Operating Limits Instrumentation System, glide path indicator, gyro-stabilised horizon bar, and electro-luminescent panels fitted so that Merlin can be operated? If not the T45 is depending on a mine detector and just one small helicopter. Though a very good helicopter it can’t stay in the air 24 hours a day through out the deployment. Unless silly me is not privy to some super secret information only known to those who were dark blue suits………
One more thing. I wouldn’t have been as pissed if you had targeted your little rant at James too.
I think what I will do now is so not upset the community here any further and to respect the work that TD puts into the site I will cease to comment.
Final fling……
Observer said “I’d rather lose a marine than someone expensively trained.”
No. Actually the marines are the best personnel the RN has.
I think this throws up an interesting question, one that might help diffuse the tension;
Would you rather see a fleet of expensive multi-purpose vessels, that somewhat sacrifice numbers in favour of escorts that can handle almost any task thrown at them,
or
Would you rather see vessels that individually are less capable, perhaps even specialised, but are produced in much greater numbers.
x seems quite happy to take the piss when it comes to some real life observations as opposed to fantasy fleet shopping, not so keen to take it back. My sincere apologies for any insult, but the thread was pretty denigrating of the RN as a whole and it was an attempt at humour. James and others are just as guilty, but I started with x and neglected to widen the field. Mea culpa.
@ SomewhatRemoved,
what in my post was either factually incorrect (boarding parties being captured, grounding subs, etc), or not honest opinion (the Navy have a lot of money spent on them), or not a sober judgement (18 months with the RN, 6 embarked, 12 with their next generation of Captains)? I’m perfectly prepared to justify anything I say that you take exception to.
My honest opinion is that with the exception of the strategic deterrent (which is hardly a single service matter, although well operated by the RN), the Navy have had a shedload of money spent on them in the last decade, and yet that money is spent on capabilities that are grossly expensive and of limited utility. In addition, I believe that the culture of senior Navy officers is out of touch with war fighting, as opposed to managing.
Christ we’re all adults. So things get a bit heated big deal. I would like to see more Cutlass drill but there we go. I would also like to see more outrageous tashes in the RAF and blockhead cavalry charges in the Army. I think that covers everyone.
I’ll put my thoughts in order – thanks ChrisB for raising a key point. I’d rather have many ships than few. But before I go further, MFS7000 as modified for the RN is a fully functioning ASW attack sonar which is actually slightly more capable than the 2050 on the Type 23. It also has a mine avoidance mode, but its primary function is ASW. So it can go sub hunting if we wish it to, but that would be suicide because an SSK will see it coming, hear it coming and pick up its radars long before it gets to sonar range. Submarine torpedoes have the range advantage over a surface ship, so the SSK wins if we pit ship against sub. However, add in an MPA or dipping helo and the balance changes, for all the obvious reasons that have been repeated ad nauseum in many previous threads. So yes, T45 is designed to be able to operate a helo but if it is not going sub hunting, why worry what the helo can do? Better to have a Lynx that has a maritime attack capability than a lumbering dipper.
Right, James. Backbone is it? Need to stop getting captured do we? Need to have a bit more effect in Somalia? What scares me is that you have been anywhere near the RN and Staff Course, because you clearly went in with your eyes shut and ears stuffed. And the course you mention gives me some idea of who you are, so I’m guessing green.
Captured by the Iranians. Guilty. A totally unexpected threat, in a relatively secure environment, where operations had become routine. A wake up call perhaps. But if you think that we should have been harder with our ROE, then those sailors would be dead, cut to ribbons by Iranian guns. They should not have been there, true, but their reactions were right.
Running aground. Shit happens. The underwater environment is not perfectly charted and plenty of data is old or inaccurate. We have safety margins. It is a part of the environment in which we work. We don’t cruise up and down ferry lanes and we don’t limit ourselves to nice, safe well-known bits of water. The Army don’t march on motorways, do they? It occasionally goes wrong – the RN isn’t the only seagoing operator to get it wrong.
Somalia? We are now in a position where piracy incidents in the internationally recognised transit corridor are almost unheard of; the attacks are taking place hundreds or thousands of miles away – there was one off Muscat last year. We don’t have enough ships to cover everywhere, and when we do catch them if they surrender (which they often do) we can’t just slot them and drop them over the side. Others might, we don’t. So they need detaining, processing, and few countries are willing to take them. Frankly, piracy is not even a naval problem – it’s a commercial one. So now the merchant ships have barbed wire, citadels, water cannon and even armed guards – not our problem. If we really wanted to make a difference, we’d need some sort of long ranged maritime patrol asset to spot them first… The RN is flat out in the Indian Ocean and surrounding waters, it just isn’t trumpeted in the media.
Finally, allow me to raise something else we achieved in Libya. The majority of the campaign was fought using fast air. The air environment was extremely crowded, and needed a lot of control (not being an FC I can’t expand more). When the RAF E3 broke, or the NATO E3 was late, as we have been told it repeatedly did, guess who picked up the duty of controlling all the air in the region? HMS Liverpool, a knackered old destroyer.
The RN has been involved in every single conflict and campaign since World War 1. Including Afghanistan. Sometimes it’s marginal, sometimes it wouldn’t have happened without us. It’s patently ridiculous to suggest we have no backbone. Some people need to accept that we do actually know what we’re about.
James, the problem with Naval mistakes is that due to the nature of the kit in use mistakes tend to be high profile. There was no excuse for the grounding of Astute but when the 2 Sherwood Yeomanry get lost for 3 hours or as I have seen a 105mm gun battery fires on the wrong target it doesn’t make the front page but it is a similar mistake.
So in addition to your 12 months on ACSC where did you do your 6 months embarked?
As for having a lot of money spent on the RN, well either we replaced our ageing ships or we do not. Your problem is not with the RN but with navies in general. Navies throughout Europe have had money spent on them.
We do not want more “floaty little boats” as you call them we want to replace the ones reaching the end of their service life. So we have enough assets for the tasking that is given by HMG.
As for senior officers more in touch with management than war fighting, where do you suggest we go and fight a war, any specifics?
In Somalia there are now only 5 ships in Pirate control down from 17 last year, so yes we are making a difference, not only the RN but also the French, US, Russians, Chinese, Spanish, Danish, Pakistanis and Australians.
Maybe we should send the army in but the US didn’t too to well there and as they have bailed the British Army out in Iraq and Afghanistan as we couldn’t handle it maybe we shouldn’t try.
Nice posts APATS. Very interesting.
“Submarine torpedoes have the range advantage over a surface ship, so the SSK wins if we pit ship against sub. However, add in an MPA or dipping helo and the balance changes, for all the obvious reasons that have been repeated ad nauseum in many previous threads. So yes, T45 is designed to be able to operate a helo but if it is not going sub hunting, why worry what the helo can do?”
The logic to this part confuses me. The helo is what gives the frigate an edge over subs, which is why it shouldn’t go sub hunting or why we should not worry about what it can do?
As for the training part, I said “expensively trained” not “well trained”. The Marines may be the best trained, but their training may not be the most expensive. Slight difference.
@ Chris B – the conundrum of quality vs quantity is an old one and can be applied to all the services of the armed forces. In naval terms it is summed up as the super battleship and the Chinese junk paradoxes; taken to their logical conclusions you can have an invincible battleship (but only one) or you can have a huge fleet but individually they have virtually no capability.
Some thinkers believe what you need is a Hi-lo mix to try and get the best from both approaches – capability and numbers. However, if we follow the idea that the CVF/T-45/T-26 are the high end, we may need a medium option to boost the low end escorts.
This is why I would replace the T-26 with a T-45 batch 2 (possibly without the radars but acting as missile magazines for air-defence via CEC?) and about 6 helicopter cruisers to act a “leaders” for the 2nd rate (convoy?) escorts, which would be something cheap and cheerful like the Spanish BAM, with moderate speed but great endurance, its major war-time role being a Towed array tug and heli-pad for a ASW helicopter. They could be rotated via the cruiser for maintenance etc.
Great post both somewhat removed and apas was hoping you would post.
Also read a gd artical yesterday on the Canadian aurora mpa performing the role of strike coordinator and armed recon coordinator over Libya with a uk team from 148 commando on board for coordinating ship ngs real interesting.
@ SomewhatRemoved / APATS,
the first point to make is that no one, least of all me, in any way doubts the resolve, determination and often bravery of servicemen and women of any service. The problem is the operational and strategic thinking of the senior officers, and that strategic thinking extends to procurement decisions taken at desks in Whitehall.
The simple fact is that the Navy has had an extraordinary amount of money spent upon platforms – whether floaty or sub-floaty or airborne – in the last decade. To an extent, that is a testament to the lobbying power naval officers have achieved in Whitehall. But whether it is an effective use of money for the country is a different matter.
SomewhatRemoved is correct to observe that the Navy have had a part of military operations since time immemorial. but was it an effective, vital, efficient, necessary or just a tag-along part? With the clear exception of the Falklands, I’d argue that it was merely making up the numbers. So, to me, the Navy has proved it’s worth in the Falklands, and in maintaining the strategic deterrent, but in bugger all else. The most effective part of the Navy in 95% of operations since 1945 are the Royal Marines.
That is not the fault of the Navy. Our operations since 1945 have been land-based, mostly, with honourable mentions for the Falklands and one-offs like the Berlin Air Lift. But 95% land-based. That should form a historical basis for future procurement decisions, in conjunction with some smart thinking about the nature of future threats. There is nothing in the future threats to suggest a wholesale change from achieving strategic effect from a mostly seaborne force. The land is still where outcomes are achieved.
I do entirely stand by my remarks on the thinking of senior RN officers. They have grown up in a culture of being peripheral, if newsworthy. Looking through my contacts book, 14 RN officers I was on JSCSC with commanded ships after 2000. I recall them well. One – the son of a Gloucester dustman, he was proud to tell – is a future CNS, hopefully CDS. He had fire in his belly. One grounded his submarine in perhaps the most well-exercised piece of water just off our main submarine base, and in his case it was entirely predictable there’d be some cluster-f*** waiting to happen. The rest were deeply unimpressive, and it is a fact that in the order of merit for the entire course, the lower third was mostly dark blue. The RN has a problem with it’s thinking. It is too managerial, too political, too focussed on toys, and not enough on war fighting.
@ APATS,
6 months as a trial for providing 3 Cdo Bde with a medium recce Sqn. Good idea, not enough cash and the idea didn’t get taken further.
Observer,
Not sure if I’ve explained myself but a destroyer carries the sonar suite for self protection. Frigates use the passive side of a towed array sonar (plus the low frequency active towed sonars) to achieve sensor range advantage over a submarine, thus requiring an ASW helo to prosecute. The destroyer’s air asset is either supplementary to the ASW battle (i.e. it would be tasked by a frigate) or it is used for maritime surface attack, which all combatants can get involved in. A destroyer sonar would really be used in 2 ways, as a deterrent (SSK hears them coming and decides to evade), or for the possibility that an SSK penetrates the screening units and gets close where it all turns into a bit of a close quarters knife fight. In that respect the decision to eliminate Stingray tubes is a bit odd, but I guess we hoped never to get in that situation in the first place.
Mark, yes 148Bty were up in both Auroras and US P-3’s doing NGS spotting with the aircraft cameras, because obviously we couldn’t have spotters on the ground. Actually we really struggled, because 148 have all been poached to do land spotting in Afghanistan so we were really scraping the barrel for trained spotters at many stages of the campaign. But if we got off our backsides and brought ScanEagle into service, we could have spotted from the ships.
I like the fact that James post gave an honorable exception to the Falklands, the only war we have fought since WW2 that was actually in defence of UK sovereignty. No mention of the escort of all Uk armour in to theatre in 91 or 2003. The army would not have gone to Iraq without the Navy to protect it in The STROG, Suez, Bab al Mandeb and Hormuz. End of, would not and could not have gone.
In 1945 after the BEF had been sent home with its tail between its legs the RN and RAF held out against the Germans. So lets sum up Army useful for dodgy foreign adventures of doubtful legality and against farmers or arabs. RAF and RN actually needed for national security. Oh and James as someone who has spen some time at Shrivenham far more recently than you(but feels no need to mention it every post)the HCSC when I was there was Dark blue in the top 2 positions.
mark yes they flew SCAR(C) missions alternating between the aurora and US P3, what was interesting was that authority to engage via either NGS of fast air was delegated to the spotter.
@Somewhat
My view is that it is the very lack of torpedo tubes that makes the helo critical in an ASW situation. In that case, carrying a CH-47 does nothing for area security whereas a ASW helo can do your SF insertions AND ship protection duties.
Observer, Ship launched ASW torpedoes are a defensive measure, if you detect an incoming torpedo get one way down the bearing in the hope you may at least make them cut the wire early. They are not designed to ne use as an offensive weapon, no CO in their right mind is going take their ship within Stingray range of a sub deliberately.
@ APATS,
seriously, the threat from Iraq in STROG / Suez in 90 and 2003? Come on, get real. you may also consider that in 2003 the original plan was for UK to come in from Turkey, after a rail move. The plans were fully worked up, and fully achievable. did not need the RN for that.
I don’t have a downer on the RN at all. I have a downer on the RN consuming a disproportionate amount of money for effect achieved, and on the politics of the RN in Whitehall. The net effect is that a small Navy consumes resources that would be better employed on other assets. If anyone can even for a moment keep a straight face as they explain why 2 carriers (one of which we’ll sell PDQ) with no planes for 5 years is a good investment when we’ve used a quarter of that capability for 6 weeks 30 years ago, and then not since 1945, I’ll be interested in their reasoning. Particularly as our defence budget has a £38 billion black hole, and the majority of that black hole is to equip the world’s 12th largest Navy with kit they won’t use in the manner intended.
@ APATS,
just checked my old notebooks. Sea Crusader transited STROG 4 times for the inload of 1(UK) Armd Div in 2003 on it’s lonesome. We provided security detachments of the RAF to Gib, Akrotiri and Sigonella for some aircraft activity, but no RN assets.
Apas/somewhat
Thank for the info. The article suggested really gd integration between an awac mpa a raf tornado a rn ship and caoc5 to hit a truck with stores in sirte. The reporter suggested anyway that the Canadians were quite impressed particularly with the quality of the spotters who nato said were the best in theatre just though it showed a side of raf rn cooperation that is often not covered and a type of mission not published perhaps well enough and perhaps some lessons learned from previous operation of this type and at least some other options to invasion.
The only thing I’d look to change on type 45 is the gun to a 5inch oto and a Uav of some sort. I can’t recall the last time a western surface vessel fired a asw torpedo or anti ship missile against an enemy sub or ship. Lynx did in Iraq and a/c did in Falklands maybe that’s why there not on type 45 other priorities maybe.
James, so why did we not come in from turkey in 2003? Oh yes we didn’t get host nation support did we? it was not Iraq that was the threat it was any terrorist organisation with a rubber boat and some explosives which could easily sink a transport if it was unescorted.
the Us also recognised this and escorted their transports.
As for carrier capability the QE class will deliver a capability we have not since the old Ark was retired.
we could of course use the money to equip the whatever ranked British army is and send them to sandy countries thousands of miles away.
The Rn may be 12th largest but it is the best in the world at MCM and ASW(including the US)one of only 4 navies with the ability to land an amphib brigade and in SSN terms is in the top 2 nations in the world.
Now James be honest is the British army in the top 5 in the world at anything?
James, suggest you check your note books mate, Hms Cumberland then HMS Westminster escorted every army convoy through STROG.
@ Gareth
That’s why I was wondering what people’s views were on it, as well as trying to suppress an inter-service fire before it got burning (need to take a refresher course in fire fighting presumably).
I’ve thought about this from a Navy and Air Force view, as in is it better to have a large number of limited platforms (like Jaguar was a recce/attack aircraft) or is it better to go the Typhoon route (an aircraft that is supposed to be the be all and end all of fast jet operations).
Ship wise I’m interested if we could make Type 26 more of just an ASW platform, with just a very basic air defence ability for example. I’m thinking “how likely is it that a Type 26 will be deployed alone (no T45 as back up) anyway to an environment where the air threat is high?”.
@Chris B ref type 26 AAW have we not paid for CAAMS (sea Ceptor) now, so as well getting it.
Chrisb
There was obviously petrol in your fire bucket!!
From an a/c point of view you can’t ever really satisfy both the air defence and ground attack regimes truly in a single a/c you can be excellent at one and pretty gd at the other but not truely excellent at both in a single a/c. Youre not saving a Huge amount though by going single type they will both be significantly linked and advanced with systems in both environments. All your really doing reducing the number of platforms and people you need to deploy by going multi role.
A patrol task to the gulf for a frigate could be considered a high air threat like tanker wars
@ APATS,
we’ll have to disagree on Sea Crusader. One of the eastward trips (the first) was a deliberate risk of no escort, but getting there 3 days earlier. Decision taken by PJHQ, my notes say. As it was not particularly of note to me, I didn’t note any more detail. But, I was in the Northwood conference when the decision was taken, so I’m comfortable with my recollections.
As for carrier capability, if we haven’t needed it since the Ark Royal was retired, do we need it now or in the future? I’d say “no”. It would be lovely to have it, but when you’ve got a huge financial black hole, and you haven’t needed it since 1993 as an FJ platform (and even that was not vital – FJ can fly to Bosnia from fixed bases in Italy), then you have to wonder. Ark’s later deployments were all as LPH role, which is precisely what the 2 spend carriers should have been, in service now and affordable, instead of the Sea Lords having some dick-measuring competition with their American counterparts.
If the RN want to excel at MCM or ASW, then crack on. Useful capabilities, and can be done without spending many £billions on aircraft carriers and delayed planes or Air Defence wonder ships that turn out to be very needy of being protected.
Which is why you’d deploy one of your AA frigates. I’m just thinking broadly here, as opposed to any specific example (looking forward perhaps).
I mean if you look at attack aircraft like the old A-6. Wing was designed purely for maximum lift and efficiency in sub-sonic flight, relatively agile for what it was but that wasn’t a prime design concern. Heavy bombload and excellent range were. Save a few pennies by not having to put and AESA radar in a bomber.
@ APATs,
let me in on the secret of this existing Brigade amphibious capability? I can see 1800 men in 3 Battalions, but I can see very little in terms of logistics.
James, indeed,I note you avoided my question and attempted a deflection back to carriers. You were obviously never on the debating team for your staff course.
Yes aircraft can fly from Italy to Bosnia. In 2003 they could not fly from Turkey to Iraq as Turkey said no, the initial air effort in 91 and 03 as well as afghanistan was US carrier air.
general Dannat has come out this week and said we could not do the Falklands again without carrier air. Is he talking BS? Army top 5 anything?
James, well we have Albion, Bulwark, Ocean and 3 Bay Class, each bay can take 24 CH2 or 150 trucks, the 2 LPDs slightly less each can overload to 700 troops then we have ocean and we can use Argus as a helo platform. That prettty much lets us put 3 cdo brigade on the beach. An ability that again only the US and maybe France can match.
Chris
You are right In essence most air combat and the jets themselves will spend 90% of there time sub sonic anyway. Interceptors will be optimised for high speed manoeuvre and climb performance and bvr transonic acceleration. Strike jets generally carry a high internal fuel fraction, higher wing loading for stability at lower altitude and a long subsonic cruise optimised aerodynamically speaking. You can trade these off a little but the subsonic/ supersonic physics are very chalk and cheese.
Maybe then but you would put a aesa radar in a ground aircraft now. Ew and jamming capability would make it a must as would the situational awareness it provides. One of the most under reported things in Libya’s air war was the use of typhoons petronian system to support tornado missions for that reason
Mark, am aware of the differences, hence the point being made. But personally I would see AESA as a luxury. It would defeat the point I think of building a cheaper, dedicated A2G platform. That’s not to say you couldn’t incorporate SEAD/DEAD thinking into its design through other means, but I would avoid the radar personally.
@ APATS,
will Albion, Bulwark, Ocean and the 3 Bays all be in the water, worked up and deployable at the same time? I don’t think so. Without all of them being in place, we don’t have the Brigade ability. And you need to add in Argentina, Russia and Brazil who all have the ability to put a Brigade ashore, at least on the terms of your “everything is available” counting. In fact, Argentina put a Brigade and 5,200 LIMS of containers into Haiti a few years back, albeit in a humanitarian role and against no opposition. Sailed them all from Buenos Aires all the way to Haiti in convoy, all arrived together, unloaded in 24 hours and the ships staged offshore for 7 weeks being refuelled and replenished without host nation support. Then took the 3 Battalions home again. Quite a grown up amphibious capability. Not so sure about China or South Korea, but I think they’re up there too.
As for British Army top 5, well it is your contention. I’d argue (on a man for man / battalion for battalion basis) that we do airmobile operations, COIN operations, peace enforcement and peace support better than all but one or two countries, and arguably better than all countries. I’m fairly sure a British Armoured / Armoured Infantry Battlegroup could best most opposition, particularly in manoeuvre warfare. However, put in 30 Jordanian battalions to our 3 battalions and quantity will have an effect that we can’t match. But there again, the same argument holds true for 30 frigates against our 3.
@ james, the Argentinians have no amphibs other than 2 converted 42s they deployed an army run container ship to haiti. No ramps no lCU, no lCVPs yet you reckon they have as much capability as us? Brazil have 5 amphibs in service, all older and smaller than ours.
The modern Russian navy in terms of amphibs is complex as they have always been auxiliaries and difficult to track.
We would have to be extremely unlucky to not be able to have 5 out of 6 assets within 2 weeks.
Albion and Bulwark alternate each other, don’t they? SDSR says so, so both not available at the same time. As I understand it, Albion is alongside on “extended readiness” until 2016. BBC website quotes Albion’s CO as being sad that she is taken out of service for a while. Ocean’s service life of 20 years is up in 2015, and while that will be extended by her 2013-2014 refit, she’s also not available during that time.
If the above is true (I only have it from reading, not personal knowledge), it does rather worry me that our amphibious brigade capability is not really that at all.
If the snippets I have read are true, rather than “extremely unlucky” as you put it, I think we’d be “extremely lucky” to have 5 out of 6 assets within 2 weeks.
I also believe that one of the Argentine ships (“San Blas”) can operate landing ships, although I am not an expert. Looking at the news reports, that ship plus another delivered the aid to Haiti, with the troops on two other navy ships.
An ex US Army attache to Beijing has provided this assessment of PLA’s 12.000 Marine Corps:
“Without massive civilian support, navy (and army) amphibious lift capacity can transport only about one-third of the total amphibious force and then mostly only over limited distances (out to a few hundred miles). Depending on the enemy, weather, sealift and air support available, and the amount of armor and logistics forces to be transported, PLA marines could probably launch a multi-battalion (perhaps twice the size of “Jiaolong-2010”) amphibious operation in the South China Sea without extensive preparation. “
@ APATS,
just checking on those Bay class ships. We’ve only got 3, so there’s a goodly chance that not all 3 will be available “within 2 weeks”, due to refit or simply being in the wrong place in the world when the alarm rings.
That amphibious brigade capability. Looks like fur coat and no knickers to me, as I thought it was.
Lusty will backfill ocean capability, as an LPH, argus will be very useful and even if we ended up with 1 LPD (albion or Bulwark) 1 LPH lusty or Ocean, 2 LSD plus Argus that is still a significant capability.
So apart form an army container ship, you argument for Argentinian capability is another 2 naval ships carried troops honestly, cant name them or their capabilities but they did it and ran away. Of course we could never improvise like that could we?
Hi James,
We have Lusty to cover that “Ocean’s service life of 20 years is up in 2015, and while that will be extended by her 2013-2014 refit, she’s also not available”
– the two of them limping together, taking turns, to cover the gap to 2016-2018
– not as good as Ocean (no landing craft), but without one of them the whole amphib fleet would be pretty impotent as only they provide the helicopter hangars & facilities in numbers that makes the vertical insertation meaningful (taking place from all of the mentioned vessels)
I’m enjoying this chaps, thanks.
Just an observation on James’ side:
At the start of both World Wars, weren’t loads of RN gold braid (and USN too for that matter) retired pretty pronto for new blood, because they were not deemed up to it? Too cautious: not keen and aggressive enough.
Whilst James is recounting only his own personal experience of just one staff course, from which we are all extrapolating and taking great offence, why would you expect the selection pressures on RN officers today to be much different from a normal interwar environment, where one would expect promotion prospects to be biased towards stoic non-risk takers? The USN has a policy of “one strike and your out” in terms of promotion policy (though they may be reversing that).
Conversely the Army has been running much “hotter” for decades, and should have a different culture.
OTOH James, what did happen in Basra please?
James, Bay class being in wrong part of world well in 2 weeks they can move 6,000 miles. How long would it actually take a brigade to assemble?
Of course you completely ignore the MOd and HMG ability to react to the rising geopolitical tensions which may envisage a brigade level deployment and possible re deployment of forces.
HMG doe not generally wake up in the morning and decide it needs to embark an amphibious brigade in the afternoon.
Don’t know what you mean. The Argies sent 4 ships to Haiti on a 2.5 month deployment. 2 Navy ships with a battalion each on board, a LPD-type ship with some freight and another battalion, and another cargo ship. Probably had all sorts of capability gaps, but they did it.
I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t get all 5 ships you name together in UK waters, all worked up, loaded up and ready to go in 2 weeks.
@ APATS.
3rd April 1982, they did just that.
Ant, the USN at the moment runs a 3 shot selection policy. The Army in the meantime seems to run officer promotion within the regiment, no need to compete with the whole army. you have done you 2 years as mortar platoon commander, well done old chap take a promotion and move on to being xxxxx can you possibly have serious merit based promotion inside a battalion sized organisation? the army thinks so.
James, care to name the argentinian ships? Or were they taken up from trade? We generally try and avoid planning on massive intelligence failures. In the 7 days from 2 April till main TG sailed we would have at least 4 possibly 5 or 6 amphib units but we couldn’t go anyway as Dannat has pointed out, no carrier air, no Falklands 2
@ APATS,
your views on Army promotion policy are completely wrong. Promotion is dependent upon positive recommendations in annual reports (in which 2 of 3 reporting officers are from outside of the unit). All three services have the same “minimum” promotion periods for junior officers, and after Captain (Army) / Lt RN and Flt Lt RAF it is entirely merit-based.
You mention HCSC earlier. On what service or MoD Civil Service background are you basing your knowledge?
One was called the Hercules, I don’t know the name of the other.
James, but the only candidates come from within the battalion! I know several battalion Comanders who are good mates of mine who have moaned about. On DS of HCSC.
@ APATS,
All young officers of all 3 services get promoted on a combination of time and recommendation to the rank of Capt (Army) or equivalent. After that, it is on merit. So, that being a fact, on what basis in reality do you make your retort that “The Army in the meantime seems to run officer promotion within the regiment, no need to compete with the whole army. you have done you 2 years as mortar platoon commander, well done old chap take a promotion and move on to being xxxxx can you possibly have serious merit based promotion inside a battalion sized organisation?”
DS on HCSC with what background?
James, do you deny that army regiments promote from within the regiment up to major? Nobody comes in from outside!
APATS,
It’s the Army who promote, not the CO or the Regiment (to substantive rank), same as it is the Navy who promotes junior officers, not the Ship’s Captain. Thinking back, I was only at Regimental Duty for one of my 3 promotions (2Lt to Lt), and posted to either a training establishment or on the staff for the other 2 to Capt then Maj.
What you have identified is the historical difference between the RN (later joined by the RAF) and the Army. In the former, officers are members of a branch which has positions in multiple ships (or Squadrons). Combat officers are members of a Regiment. For Regiments like the RE or RA, Signals etc there are multiple Regiments, so they are more fluid. But it is entirely wrong to suggest that somehow COs of Army Regiments have promoting power in a way that a Ship’s Captain does not. There’s a reason that across all 3 services the annual report is the “Officer’s JOINT Appraisal Report”.
Are all promotions within the Seaman branch from among Seamen officers? As with promotions within the Engineering Branch? I thought so.
@ James, my understanding that ‘Are all promotions within the Seaman branch from among Seamen officers? As with promotions within the Engineering Branch? I thought so.’ isn’t really the same thing. They aren’t graded against all other inf OFs just those in their Regiment. Whereas all engineers will be graded against each other regardless of unit.
SR
Why would a vessel built to our specificiations, designed by Lockheed and built by Daewoo Ship building be just as good as T45?
James
You say the Navy has achieved nothing since 1982, whats the army managed?
Its fucked up northern ireland, fucked up iraq, twice, fucked up afghanistan, siera leone seems to be doing ok, thanks to a commando carrier sat off the coast.
No doubt we can also make fun of the RAF’s sterling efforts in getting shot down over iraqi airfields.
All three services are in serious trouble, because we have an utterly broken defence policy with no clears goals and a senior officership utterly detached from reality.
Was there an army patrol that got captured without much resistance in Sierra leone?
Indeed, the West Side Niggaz captured 11 british soldiers who’d gone for a drive in the jungle for some reason.
How embarrasing for a British Army Major to be taken prisoner by a 24 year old “gangsta”, at least the navy peeps were grabbed by a nations “elite” military force.
Wow this thread is going downhill fast.
Happens when you start flinging crap. Someone then pulls the flush handle.
The Argies sent 4 ships to Haiti on a 2.5 month deployment. 2 Navy ships with a battalion each on board, a LPD-type ship with some freight and another battalion, and another cargo ship.
How long did they have to mount it, and how did they offload? If you define “amphibious” as “travelled in a ship at some point during an unopposed admin move via functioning ports”, the Equatorial Guinea army is amphibious. I mean, if they wanted to they could charter a ship from Maersk and load some people in her. The story refers to 2004, so long before the earthquake, when container handling was available in Haiti.
By the same standards, I’m airmobile right now – I could buy a ticket and get on a plane.
The Argentine Navy has one LKA, built to a 1943 US design, and a T42 destroyer with some extra bunks.
@ Topman,
no they are graded against all other officers in their branch. There’s several departments of personnel / manning people in Glasgow that do just that. Promotion boards are held in Glasgow on a set frequency (quarterly? something like that), and are cap badge agnostic.
I can clearly recall officers from two other regiments being posted to my regiment to take slots because they needed it for their career profile, and we had to accept them. It is perhaps not routine, but it happens often enough.
@ Alex,
I don’t know the ins and outs of the detail of the deployment. The article I read was in the context of them being able to ship people to the Falklands easily enough. All the more reason to ensure that the port at Mare and Stanley are not completely undefended, because if they can as you say load a Brigade and sail them to Haiti, they can sure as hell sail them to the FI. Perhaps “amphibious” is stretching the definition, but technically it is an operation of force projection across and over the water.
James
The problem is they’d sail from Argentina to The FI without arrousing suspicions and dock at port.
Its then a fairly simple job for 100 blokes to grab stowed weapons and charge down the ramps, seizing the town.
However, at this point, stealth ends.
They’ve maybe 20 minutes until the alert fighter is launched and arrives, I’d suggest they use this time set set up air defences.
Its possible that a few launchers could be hidden on deck (in an iso box?), and just need a few minutes to open up, but little margin for error.
The ships crew then need to seize the docks equipment and begin unloading the supplies, lets hope its all working and the controls are the same as those used in Argentina (and no islanders manage to wreck their cranes).
The duty Frigate is going to arrive in about 6 hours, by which point, they need a credible threat on shore to keep that at distance, it cant simply shell the ship from extreme range without knocking out half the town.
You’ve then got three days until the submarine turns up and sinks your cargo ship.
More than enough time to clear the ship of all its cargo, but to what end?
You’ve dug in at Stanley, but the UK’s pouring reinforcements through Mnt P, well, I say pouring, as fast a 7 C-17s can drop off booties and paras.
A week later, your isolated force surrenders Porto Argentina to the Mayor of Stanley.
In my view, its simply much too dangerous, entirely reliant on the guard ship being off in the distance, a strike fighter not already being airborne, or an officer with a sense of humour not taking a patrol out for ice cream in Stanley, on foot, in full support fires kit.
Theres very little room for error, you’d need a ship with a reason to be going, you’d need the UK to not consider it worth taking precautions, and you cant break off without looking guilty if things go wrong.
Landing in Stanley and heading straight for Mnt P presents a whole host of other problems, attack too soon, and you dont have the resources to hold the airfield, wait too long, and its a blood bath trying to take it.
Then of course, theres the randoms, like attacking on the same day the base had planned exercise “repel full scaled assault”.
@DominicJ: what would worry me (in addition to the fact that the Falklands QRA have bugger all air to ground capability) would be a RO-RO docking in Mare Harbour, which could rapidly disembark enough forces to overrun MPA. If you hold MPA, you will eventually hold the FI, because even if a T45 turns up offshore to deny it’s use, you have fixed it in position and made it vulnerable to both warships with ASM and submarines.
Another argument for a battery of MLRS in MPA, methinks :-)
@ DominicJ,
not all this again! Stretching back several weeks, it was my contention that this disembarking in the port was something that would only be done after a successful operation to close down MPA by SF. Whether that operation is successful or not is a debatable point, but on the assumption it was successful, then there’s not much to stop an orderly if hurried disembarkation. But we went round and round on that one for several hundred posts so no need to rehash it all now.
(And remember, the ship – soon to be T45, was not going to be close to the FI. The patrol area is vast – most of the SA). But let’s not open up this whole can of worms again!
Dom, this is not an action movie or book. Anyone working on that tight a schedule and no alternates or cutouts is insane. It’s a one trick pony and a debatable one at that.
If you think you can get a unit of 100 men into action without semi-chaos, you obviously have not seen military ops before. It’s semi-controlled chaos.
James is right, a planned approach would have SF shut down airfields, comms relays, power plants, radar and take out the harbour guards 1st. And SF as in real SF, not glorified Marines off a freighter.
Nice Command and Conquer scenario there Dom! Now we have a 100 men seizing the islands against 1500 souls as opposed to the previous operation which saw several hundred men take on 80 men in a hasty defensive posture.
I can see the Argies going for that. Yeah. There are more men on the island, but we shall attack with less men! They’ll never expect it Capitan Blackadder. They will be overcome with surprise and faint.
erm, what?
100 men would seize the dock.
Dock then used to unload rest….
And i repeatedly said ‘much too dangerous’
“And i repeatedly said ‘much too dangerous’”
Is this more of your Murmanskesque thinking out of the box?
@ Observer,
“It’s semi-controlled chaos”
A very good description of land warfare, and probably most air to air dogfights. No matter how good the planning, you have to rely on men (women as well now) acting and reacting individually to their understanding of the plan, to threats they perceive to either themselves or their comrades, to their own individual fear thresholds, to battlefield “friction”, and to a whole suite of Rumsfeldian known knowns, knowns unknowns, unknown should-be knowns, and unknown unknowns. No computer can do that, no plan can cope. It is training, knowledge of people and capabilities. Who knew that Argentinian marine first on the gangplank would fail to lace his boot properly and so trip, causing a pileup? Who could have predicted that a forklift truck operator would have left that pallet of stores on the dockside obscuring the arc of fire of a LMG that otherwise could have taken out the first 15 marines on the gangplank? It’s the “my kingdom for a nail” reality. Only training, drills, trust and self-confidence can help you get over these things.
The two things that separate the Army / Marines from maritime and air-based assets are a multitude more individual “platforms”, known as people, and typically a lack of ability to control them all once battle is joined.
@ James, thanks for that. I did wonder if they had branch promotion boards similar to everyone else. But I take it on the whole, you still fill xyz regiment post with someone from that regiment?
It appears we are not the only navy with ISR capability gaps:
http://www.informationdissemination.net/2011/01/maritime-isr-gaps-again.html
Wow, go to work for a day and look what erupts.
DomJ quoted ‘All three services are in serious trouble, because we have an utterly broken defence policy with no clears goals and a senior officership utterly detached from reality’. Really? Or is it our political leaders that have no concept of military necessity or the consequences of continued cuts in spending? And are they being well advised – I refer of course to the Army and RAF dominated post of CDS which hasn’t seen a representative of the Senior Service since 2003.
I’d happily place a bet with all and sundry, right now, that in 2015 the RN will come out of the next defence review with new money and better investment. The RAF will probably get scraped, the Army will be hammered. You cannot project influence around the world, of ANY form, with land based aircraft or ground forces. You do it the same way we have been influencing the world for hundreds if not thousands of years – from the sea. I love the arrogance of those who think history teaches no lessons.
Plus it’s high time I changed my name – SR wasn’t really doing it for me.
Sorry Gareth, that article seems a bit slanted to me…
@Dom, I’m not saying a Falklands 2 is impossible, it is very possible, considering that the “invading” nation has a much larger supply of troops on hand and a shorter supply line than Britain, though it’s suicidal international politics-wise. No, what we’re trying to tell you is that no one plans ops like it’s an installment of Mission Impossible: Falklands.
Small, self contained objective points, not one situation relying on another relying on another. The chain is too easily broken. The Marines shouldn’t be worried about air and sea intervention, SF teams should have either screwed up the planes or the runway and the Navy ambush the guardships. Any leaks in plan, let the Air Force back up with airstrikes. None of that “you got 20 min or we all die” bullshit.
@James
Thanks, I’ve lost count of the number of times something went tits up even on a basic exercise. Once, a relay team from my unit even forgot to bring the rebro antenna…(“I thought you brought it” situation). Cut half the company off from upper command. Some teams rerouted through another platoon’s comms, the rest, another team was dropped midway and their radio set used as a temporary relay.
In war, expect even the most basic things to screw up. Think Bravo-two zero.
“I love the arrogance of those who think history teaches no lessons.”
“You cannot project influence around the world, of ANY form, with land based aircraft or ground forces.”
— Someone needs to go back and read their history books again.
@S.I
You might be a bit too pessimistic. It’s not the politicians that want budget cuts, it’s that they don’t have the money to pay for what they have now. I think it’s likely that in the short term, ALL services will face cuts, not only the AF and Army.
And I’ll take the bet on the 2015 budget. Armed Forces budget is a single chunk, not penny packeted out to “Army/Airforce/Navy” subdivisions in the budget, so the whole force will get funding if there is a budget increase. It’s only subdivided later at a lower level.
As for the AF and Army not projecting power, I was not aware that the US/British Navy led the drive to Bahgdad. What did they use? Land Battleships? :)
SI, can you define ‘project influence’
@ SomewhatRemoved,
you may be correct in your assessment of future needs and balancing of Services (but I wouldn’t agree with you). But you forget the final factor of “politics”.
I’d be hugely surprised if the result is as you predict. Frankly, I can see the Navy being cut further (and probably a big casualty, like 2nd CVF, or F-35, or the new floaty little frigate class), because there’s not many votes in the Navy anymore, and the Army has the political wind under its’ land-based sails after needing itself white in Afghanistan.
Whether that is a good or bad thing in military logic is not the same as saying that it’s a more likely result.
Not needing, rather bleeding. Why is my spellcheck so ruddy autocratic? Didn’t even offer me the chance to put it right.
Anyway, the Army has been “needing” for a decade or so.
“You cannot project influence around the world, of ANY form, with land based aircraft or ground forces.”
Now that’s a silly thing to say.
@ SI ‘I’d happily place a bet with all and sundry, right now, that in 2015 the RN will come out of the next defence review with new money and better investment. The RAF will probably get scraped, the Army will be hammered.’
Is that really what you think will happen or just what you hope will happen?
Phil, he’s right, you can’t project influence with a land army.
Look at how Germany didn’t project influence into Finland, Holland and France or Russia in WWII, or the French army not influencing Europe in the 100 Year. You obviously need ships. And heaven forfend China invading Tibet being claimed as a ground invasion, obviously only ships can project influence in the Himalayans.
Reports today that the USN did not want the RN or MN in the fleet that sailed through the straights of Hormuz. They saw very little value of it and we had to beg to be involved, if you believe what you read – now that’s influence…
Fact is Europe is safe from large scale invasion for the foreseeable. We are also not going to go round the world imposing Western values on or invading other countries anymore. It’s going to be small scale interventions and securing our global territories and interests. That is going to require the ability to project (lite) power globally, global presence and diplomacy. The current balance of UK forces does not cut it for me…
“We are also not going to go round the world imposing Western values on or invading other countries anymore.”
Oh really? I provided three recent quotes from David Cameron about three different countries that show we are still very much up for interferring in the internal matters of another state. It might not be to crown a King and set up a House of Commons, but it’s essentially the same process. Intervention in the internal affairs of another state.
As I have been banging on about for ages there is no change in the grand trend.
“Reports today that the USN did not want the RN or MN in the fleet that sailed through the straights of Hormuz. They saw very little value of it and we had to beg to be involved, if you believe what you read – now that’s influence…”
I’d be willing to bet it’s some hard charging American officer who hasn’t done the Tact Course shooting his gob off and that has been inflated and distorted. Or it might be that they were ready to sail and the rendezvous with the Fr and Br vessels delayed it so he was moaning about having to wait etc
America right now is global power number one. But, Iraq and Afghan have really shown the limitations of her power if she won’t mobilise for full war. As other countries catch up over the next 50 years Europe will become more important to both China, India and the US as the continent will represent the tipping point. Unless the US wants to mobilise for WWIII it needs allies, it cannot go it alone against the real big players like China and Russia. Yes they could destroy the PLA-N but then we have the situation of a strategic asset being destroyed, and the Chinese have nuclear weapons.
Phil
“Is this more of your Murmanskesque thinking out of the box?”
No, it was James thinking…..
I think sailing into an occupied port is mass murder. Hence my like of going over defended coastlines.
SR
“Or is it our political leaders that have no concept of military necessity or the consequences of continued cuts in spending?”
It was the army shouting down anyone who suggest MRAPs for Afghanistan back in 2006, Drayson was just a good little boy who said what the mandarins told him too.
The government shouldnt be cutting funds, but the officership still puts its fingers in its ears and denies its happening, defending assets it doesnt today at the cost of those it needs tomorrow.
The Navy has scrapped 8 Destroyers since 2008.
They cost some £40mn per year to operate.
Had it scrapped those 8 destroyers in 1998, it would have saved £3.2bn
Thats enough for 4.9 Darings.
Accounting for volume and secure funds, and we would probably have 10 Darings with full kit, not 10 declawed.
Dont get me started on the armies serious demands for a lynx portable MRAP MBT.
“I’d happily place a bet with all and sundry, right now”
You’d lose it.
I wish you wouldnt, but reality makes no allowances for what we want.
Observer
“Look at how Germany didn’t project influence into Finland, Holland and France or Russia in WWII,”
How did projecting influence into the UK work out for them?
Not brilliantly…
When was the worlds dominant power not also the worlds dominant naval power?
The US? Nope, unheard of naval dominance
The UK? Nope, Naval Dominance
France for a century or so?
Well, they werent really the worlds dominant power, they dominated Europe, but could never really translate that into controlling much else, because the further they got from Europe, the greater the naval weakness crippled them.
Spain, naval dominance, and Britians usurption of that dominance broke them.
Ottomans? Why didnt they get past Vienna?
Because it simply wasnt possible to walk, and sailing was impossible, christian flets would have inflicted massive losses.
Constantinople, naval power.
Rome, became and empire when it learnt how to to fight at sea.
Carthage, lost the western med, at sea.
Persia, couldnt expand ecause it couldnt control the sea.
Any I’m missing?
The Khanate I suppose, but they failed in Japan, because of water.
For all Prussia and Austria and Russias might on land, we, with out tiny army, dictated the terms of Westphalia.
Repulse
Thats pretty much the problem I try and point out.
The US could have done it without us, and quite possibly wanted too.
Could we have done it without them?
Would CdG have weighed anchor and waved whilst the crew mooned the revolutionary guard and shouted “come and have a go if your hard enough”, safe under the protection of a T23?
Phil
And what does EUrope offer in a war against China?
3 Armoured divisions that need someone else to provide the logistics and will last the better part of a day against the 30 divisons China throws at them?
I find your use of nuclear weapons most confusing, chinas going to nuke san fransisco and invite existance ending US retaliation because it loses a modern day midway?
“How did projecting influence into the UK work out for them?
Not brilliantly…”
Pointless contrarian statement.
“When was the worlds dominant power not also the worlds dominant naval power?”
USSR, Rome, Germany, Persia, China.
“And what does EUrope offer in a war against China?
3 Armoured divisions that need someone else to provide the logistics and will last the better part of a day against the 30 divisons China throws at them?”
Oh look, more sound-bite crap from our Politician.
“chinas going to nuke san fransisco and invite existance ending US retaliation because it loses a modern day midway?”
You just don’t get it. It seems to be beyond your understanding. Think like them for one minute. Think like Russia, think like China. An aggressive Western super-power destroys your Navy, it can only be the prelude to more attacks on the country and they have just destroyed your entire ability to influence the war in a conventional manner. If you want to stave off defeat you simply have no choice in the matter.
DOm, really. I seriously dislike telling others to stop talking, it smacks of elitism, but in your case, you really are doing nothing but carping, and not only carping, but carping on pretext. Can you at least learn more of the topic before opening your mouth?
“How did projecting influence into the UK work out for them?”
And UK is the entire world? 2 of the 4 I mentioned almost ended up with the whole of europe under their control and you do not call it influence? I call your views blinkered and biased.
@Phil, the countries you list were regional dominant military powers yes, but global? China could be, if it invested in it’s navy which seems to be what is happening…
““Reports today that the USN did not want the RN or MN in the fleet that sailed through the straights of Hormuz. They saw very little value of it and we had to beg to be involved, if you believe what you read – now that’s influence…””
@Repulse.
I say let the idiots take point if they want to. Me? I’d rather my men alive and non-stupid. If the US wants to take the bulk of the casualties, go right on ahead, reserves are best used after the frontline is seriously engaged and after the important targets are identified after all.
Repulse, China doesn’t need a navy, it’s connected by land to most of where it needs to go. Only exceptions are if they wanted to invade the US, Australia, Phillipines, Indonesia, Japan or Taiwan.
Remember how Marcus Aurelius lost to Augustus Caeser?
I’m spreading the net wide.
USSR was a globally dominant power. She had fingers in pies all over the world from Korea, Vietnam, Africa and the Middle East.
Rome was indeed a global power as perceived at the time. Her only rival after Carthage was Persia.
Persia was a global power since she sat astride important trade routes, bridged east and west and was Rome’s only real headache for a long time.
China was a massive and powerful state by the standards of the time. No they weren’t projecting power into the Roman Empire but from the perspective of the day China was far more powerful than any other single entity in the rest of the world.
And of course there is Genghis Khan, who I don’t believe had much use for a Navy yet still carved out the largest Empire in mankind’s history.
I am simply stating it is not a hard and fast rule that a powerful country needs a powerful navy. We could go down the World Island route and argue that whoever controls this, effectively controls the world, and does not need a Navy.
Marcus Antonius, sorry, slip of the mid.
Strange, I’m getting Deja vu. Didn’t the US go down this topic before in the 70s? Except it was said that the Air Force could do everything the Navy did? And look at where the USN is now, still alive.
Let’s be realistic, none of the 3 branches can stand by themselves, they all have their weaknesses and strengths, and anyone who says one can do without the other definately does NOT understand the strength and weaknesses of the individual services.
Surely, navies are only enablers? Decisive effects are achieved on land (the vast majority) or occasionally sometimes from the air. I’m struggling to think when any navy of any nation has had a decisive effect in the last century.
Enablers are important, and need funding, but can a case be made that the possession of a powerful navy is the single capability that achieves decisive effect? I don’t believe so.
Hi Observer,
I am surprised by the statement as you are writing from within that region “China doesn’t need a navy, it’s connected by land to most of where it needs to go. ”
– China needs a navy exactly for the same reasons that we do (dependent on the rest of the world and seaLOCs)… and they are building it in a big way (even though somewhat lagging in thinking and technology; to borrow a statement from a US Admiral “more carriers, please, they make nice targets”)
– whereas wanting to go anywhere by land? Not likely (some S. China sea islands; even Taiwan has been co-opted though opening the mainland for investment by their industry)
“Enablers are important, and need funding, but can a case be made that the possession of a powerful navy is the single capability that achieves decisive effect? I don’t believe so.”
Nonsense James. The undeniable logic is that Britain floats, therefore it MUST be defended by a Navy.
The Army is entirely TA and can only be moved in amphibious warfare vessels as part of a nostalgic battle-fleet and the RAF job can be done by the FAA and the RLC which would be the only part of the Army left as an active component.
Afterall, it was the Navy what won WWI. It was the Navy what won WWII. It was the Navy that was going to win WWIII.
*parody ends*
China shares a border with 17 states (a quick count on Google Earth). Two of them are land powers and have engaged China in the past and all three feel threatened by one another.
As China has grown so has its Navy, but that entire force would be effectively useless against the two biggest potential state threats she is up against.
I doubt very much that the Chinese are not very aware of this.
@ACC
Yes, in economic terms you are right. The situation that’s being batted about here is probably closer to total war than normal world daily functions. China wants a Navy for 2 reasons.
1) Territorial defence/SLOC.
2) Spratleys.
3) Prestige.
Beyond this, there really isn’t much else it can be used for. Invasions are out of the question, territories are already set, and invading tends to get the world to react badly. And China’s current strategy is soft power anyway.
If China was to turn aggressive, they would strike on land, where their biggest advantage is, not put to sea in an anemic navy, and be honest, no matter how much ship construction they do, it can never outmatch their land manpower advantage.
… failed maths, 3 reasons… :P
James
“Surely, navies are only enablers?”
Yes and no, as I repeatedly say, I dont think the army should be abolished, but it should be curtailed.
Why did France and Spain lose the Americas?
Because the UK severed the link between them.
It didnt matter how mighty Spains army was, if it couldnt get the Florida or Kent, it couldnt beat the UK there.
It could trounce us in Spain (Bismarks “I’ll have them arrested” comment always makes me chuckle), but if we didnt want to fight in Spain, it was powerless to make us do so, and powerless to prevent us seizing its over seas possessions.
“I’m struggling to think when any navy of any nation has had a decisive effect in the last century.”
The Atlantic convoys that kept the UK in the war?
The White sea convoys that kept Russia in it?
The Mediteranean convoys that kept the Egyptian Defenders in the North African War?
The Mediteranean patrols that kept the Axis North Africa armies starved of material?
The Entire pacific campaign?
Of the three “fronts”, one was fought entirely on land, was entirely on sea, was a bit of both, but all three were utterly dominated by sea based logistics.
A tank without fuel is useless, fuel without a tank, at least you can chuck it at them and set them on fire.
We cant afford both, we can either have an army that cant operate past dover without begging for help from our masters, or a navy that cant operate past 25 miles inland without begging for aid.
Phil
Which is exactly why we should go big Navy.
BECAUSE **WE CAN** AND CHINA / RUSSIA / INDIA / GERMANY / FRANCE / ARGENTINA / BRAZIL cant.
@Observer
You’re missing the single biggest reason. It starts with a T and ends in an N.
@Dom
The Navy did not defeat Germany. The Soviet Army and western Allied armies defeated Hitler. They drove into Germany, beat almighty shit out of it, occupied its bombed out streets and took physical control of the country. There was no doubt Germany was utterly defeated. When enemy soldiers are walking around every town and city in your country rounding up your soldiers you have lost.
The Navy as James has said, enabled that to happen. HMS Nelson did not sail down the Rhine. It’s a well established fact.
The Pacific War is slightly different. But ultimately Japan was defeated by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the atomic bomb. Until the bomb was dropped both sides were preparing enormous land forces to fight the Battle for Japan. 40 US Army Divisions, 6 USMC Divisions and a Commonwealth Division. The USN enabled the US to be in the position to do this. But it was the ground forces that were to bring about the decisive and unconditional defeat.
Until the atomic bomb changed a lot of things. I mean if you really want to be an obtuse twat you could argue that the US could have simply developed the B36 and the atom bomb and 5 years after Pearl Harbour start to defeat Japan entirely from the air. No Navy or Army needed.
Phil, yup, sorry T was supposed to go with the Spratleys, missed it out.
Phil
“The Navy as James has said, enabled that to happen.”
And without the navy, it would not have happened, could not have happened.
So, whats the arguement?
Without sufficient naval assets to protect the UK and keep sea lanes between the UK and America/Russia/Egypt open, the war would have been lost in 1942.
Without sufficient naval assets to force French beaches in the north and south, and transport and supply several armies, there would have been no liberation of France, and no occupation of Germany.
Without the Navy, there would have been no invasion of Germany because the UK would have lost years previously, and yet you insist the navy is less important than the army.
The Army had its chance, it was a disaster, and it took four long years before the UK was ready to face Germany again on the ground, four long years where the navy was all that stood between us and defeat.
Sorry, but thems the facts.
Without a navy, the UK can lose a war of survival in an afternoon.
“And without the navy, it would not have happened, could not have happened.
So, whats the arguement?”
Allow me to use a metaphor to help ease you into this realisation.
A boxing match. Who wins? The guy who constantly blocks, dodges and dances? Or the bloke who lays down the punches? You cannot lay in the punches without blocking and dodging, but you cannot win the match just by doing that.
The Navy is an enabler, the ground forces more often than not representing the point of decision. No D-Day would not have happened without the Navy, but without the Army it just would have been 5,000 ships in the Channel blowing shit out of a small strip of French, Belgian and Dutch coast.
Your knowledge on this whole issue would embarrass Wikipedia. Which, along with Command and Conquer, is where you seem to get most of your arguments from.
@ DominicJ,
there is only one decisive effect. By definition. Everything else is enabling, or supporting.
If you recall, I stated above that enablers are important and need funding. But not to the extent of denuding the force which will deliver decisive effect, if we are sensible. Which force that will be is scenario dependent. Some are nuclear. Most are not. The combined judgement of Whitehall for decades is that the decisive effect in non-nuclear scenarios is not maritime, which is why the vast expenditure on CVF is an aberration influenced by an unholy combination of a naval CDS and industrial policy designed to keep work in shipyards in Labour-voting constituencies.
Phil
“A boxing match. Who wins? The guy who constantly blocks, dodges and dances? Or the bloke who lays down the punches? You cannot lay in the punches without blocking and dodging, but you cannot win the match just by doing that.”
And yet you refuse to accept the British army got its arse kicked in Northern France and had to run for its life! Abandoning the French to their fate and relying on the RN to evacuate it and prevent a rout turning into a slaughter and invasion.
“No D-Day would not have happened without the Navy, but without the Army it just would have been 5,000 ships in the Channel blowing shit out of a small strip of French, Belgian and Dutch coast.”
And where have I suggested forever forswearing any and all land power?
I’m happy to reconstitute an army when we need one, secure behind the channel we can wait for 4 years, building an army. Like we did last time.
Better that than the army gets annhiliated in an afternoon and theres nothing left between our cities and our enemies.
“Your knowledge on this whole issue would embarrass Wikipedia”
Of course chuckles, and yet you cant provide examples anywhere of me being wrong.
Whereas the entire pacific war was ended without large scale ground warfare, which you deem impossible.
“Which, along with Command and Conquer, is where you seem to get most of your arguments from”
You’ve got me, I’m secretely supreme pontex of the brotherhood of NOD, designer of stealth tanks and those groovy alien bombers….
“And yet you refuse to accept the British army got its arse kicked in Northern France and had to run for its life! Abandoning the French to their fate and relying on the RN to evacuate it and prevent a rout turning into a slaughter and invasion.”
Never said any such thing whatsoever. Nice try though.
“Better that than the army gets annhiliated in an afternoon and theres nothing left between our cities and our enemies.”
Surely the Navy would defend us then?
“Of course chuckles, and yet you cant provide examples anywhere of me being wrong.”
I have done several times. Do you not remember when I told you I would not post evidence unless you actually addressed the evidence?
“Whereas the entire pacific war was ended without large scale ground warfare, which you deem impossible.”
The war was ended by the atomic bomb. I said that in my last post. But if it was not for the A Bomb then 47 allied divisions were poised to invade Japan and finish her off. Delivered by the Navy and helped by the Air Forces.
“You’ve got me, I’m secretely supreme pontex of the brotherhood of NOD, designer of stealth tanks and those groovy alien bombers….”
I’d bet.
‘Whereas the entire pacific war was ended without large scale ground warfare’.
You need to get back in the DeLorean and return to the actual 2012, not the weird alternate 2012 you are in, where Biff runs the casino.
I think reading the Ladybird book on the Pacific war may improve you understanding somewhat. Iwo Jim/Guadalcanal/Burma/Okinawa would be good starting points.
“And yet you refuse to accept the British army got its arse kicked in Northern France and had to run for its life!”
By the German Navy?
James
“which is why the vast expenditure on CVF is an aberration influenced by an unholy combination of a naval CDS and industrial policy designed to keep work in shipyards in Labour-voting constituencies”
I’m fairly sure if you combined the historical army and navy budgets, you would see that the “Big Army” of 1945-present in the aberition, not the norm.
Influenced by an unholy combination of conscriptionism, big statism, and a victorious army.
The Army went from 200,000 to over 5 million in four years during the first world war.
How many new ships were built?
With a big navy, we can train an army as and when we need it.
The reverse is simply not true, and without a big navy, we can be conquered.
@ DominicJ,
you are a little too trenchant in your criticism of the Army in 1940.
1. Years of underfunding in the 1930s.
2. Deployed 11 Divisions, mostly by channel steamer. By contrast, the French had over 100 Divisions, and the Germans something like 140 Divisions, of which the main strike formations were equipped for and trained in manoeuvre warfare.
3. Spent 90% of the Battle of France on the least active wing of the combined British / French / Belgian forces, withdrawing to conform with the French collapse to the south.
4. After the French collapse, those 11 Divisions potentially faced one hundred German Divisions, of which 42 were moved north.
5. Belgians to the north ordered to surrender.
In those circumstances, a withdrawal through Dunkirk seems sensible. It became chaotic.
Dom, wrong. Without a Navy, you can be INVADED. CONQUERED is when you don’t have an Army to drive off invaders.
And with the trend of your assertations, I would have to question the statement that the Army being larger than the Navy is an anomaly.
Ed
60,000 Allied men fought 30,000 Japanese soldiers on the ground at Guadalcanal
Over a million men died at Kursk.
I’m sticking with no major land battles in the Pacific.
“With a big navy, we can train an army as and when we need it.”
So the enemy would just take a 4 year breather and leave us unmolested as we re-build an Army? That’s not how it worked out in practise is it Dom.
“I’m sticking with no major land battles in the Pacific.”
Manchuria Dom.
“Influenced by an unholy combination of conscriptionism, big statism, and a victorious army.”
And that annoying Cold War thing we had going on for 50 years. Just so inconvenient.
Moron.
14 Brigades and he says it’s not a major land battle.
“Over a million men died at Kursk.”
Using your tactics back at you Dom, the world has 7 Billion people. Comparing this with one million, I say there is no major land battles in Europe too.
Forget it guys, he’s in a world of his own and will twist whatever he wants to suit his brainwashed idealogy. No point discussing things with him, worse than a lawyer twisting words.
@ DominicJ,
you’re not seeing straight. We currently have a tiny Army, simply because we are not going to be invaded anytime in the next 4 years.
We have an expeditionary Army, because that is what our political masters want.
What on earth are you actually going to do with your big Navy? Sail a frigate up the Sangin River? Razz up a Libyan rubber boat? Hold a cocktail party in Sydney harbour?
The Navy was right sized for its’ current relevance. It’s getting far too much spent on it now. The most useful thing CNS could do right now is to admit that CVF + F-35 is the wrong balance of expenditure. Wouldn’t you rather have 10 additional frigates which can actually find the growth area in potential adversaries navies – SSKs – than a single enormously expensive CVF with some enormously expensive planes that won’t be in service for another 10 years? I would, and spend the overall savings on some land-based (Army or RAF) capability that is useful in 95% of all scenarios, rather than 5% of scenarios.
James
I’d have ran long before the BEF did dont get me wrong, their position was utterly hopeless and its a miracle (well, the heroism of those that stayed behind) that as many of them did managed to get out.
But it doesnt change the fact that it was a disaster.
Observer
“CONQUERED is when you don’t have an Army to drive off invaders.”
When was the last time Britain defeated an enemy invasion on its soil?
I’m thinking the Danes in 1066?
Right before the Normans invaded and won.
We have a poor record of winning once the enemy lands.
“I would have to question the statement that the Army being larger than the Navy is an anomaly.”
So would I.
Better funded, was of course, what I meant.
Until we are actualy at war of course, when the army gets masses of funding.
Okinawa: 150,000 killed or wounded. I’d call that a major battle and you a fool.
Phil
“So the enemy would just take a 4 year breather and leave us unmolested as we re-build an Army? That’s not how it worked out in practise is it Dom.”
Nope, thats why we need the Navy….
“Manchuria Dom.”
And how many British soldiers were involved?
“And that annoying Cold War thing we had going on for 50 years. Just so inconvenient.”
Whch is now over…
Observer
“14 Brigades and he says it’s not a major land battle.”
In the context, no, it wasnt.
James
The RN as it stands is far from optimal, but no, I dont think we should cancel the CVF and increase the escort fleet.
Escorts escort things, without things to escort, escorts are a bit of a waste.
Nor do I agree with “forward presence”.
Fleets win wars, not ships. See Force Z for my reasoning.
“I would, and spend the overall savings on some land-based (Army or RAF) capability that is useful in 95% of all scenarios, rather than 5% of scenarios.”
But the army is useless unless it can be delivered to its war, and that has to be by sea (or air, which is a none starter)
At the very least, that means shipping, the Points are already at full capacity with standing commitments and Afghanistan, throw in escorts for those in a proper war.
Far more likely, it means forced entry.
“Nope, thats why we need the Navy….”
I would bet my money on the enormous continental land power in control of the world island beating the little island nation even if it had a massive Navy. We were lucky the Soviets held out or that would have been what happened. Germany would have been able to concentrate against us.
Navy or no Navy.
“And how many British soldiers were involved?”
Probably very few but we weren’t delimiting the conversation to British forces. You can’t make any sense of the war by not addressing the wider context and issues.
“Whch is now over…”
Indeed! Which is why the Army is on form to be precisely half the size it was in 1990.
“Fleets win wars, not ships. See Force Z for my reasoning.”
Fleets don’t often win wars Dom. That’s just it.
“Fleets win wars, not ships. See Force Z for my reasoning.”
Which is why you need an Air Force. Operating for airfields seized by who? The Imperial Army.
Read more, think more will you?
Liberal Party?
Sigh…
Escorts can also be used for SLOC duties solo or in pairs.
Of course, you would argue that WWIII would start, the big Russian Navy and it’s ally the People’s Navy will swoop down on single ships with their super battleships and kill everyone before landing hordes of raving Mongol horsemen on English shores…
@Phil.
I’ll go one further and say fleets have sat out more wars than they won.
“Liberal Party?”
Conservative Party.
You know what I find really ironic about the world situation now? If Iran really rattled their sabers hard, the US is going to have to go back into Iraq, just after they left it…
Dom’s conservative? Thought with his anti-army raving, he would be Liberal.
That’s a bit of an old fashioned political leaning these days, the Liberal anti-army stance.
Observer
I’m not anti army, I’m merely pro truth.
The British isles has a poor history of winning land wars on its own territory against enemy forces.
Whereas we have a near unblemished record of crushing them at sea.
Hitler, Napolean, Philip, all would have had easy victories if they could get ashore.
But they couldnt.
The reason they couldnt, is they all needed vast land armies to defend against each other, leaving only limited funds for a navy.
We didnt need the vast land army, lacking land borders, so defended ourselves with a vast navy, which the contintal powers could match.
If I’m wrong, fine, someone offer some evidence I am and I’ll gladly change my tune.
I’m quite happy to be convinced (note, I was once a “Big Army” fan and thought everyone should have a long range rifle, Now, navy and PDWs all the way), but you’ll need to offer some evidence.
“The British isles has a poor history of winning land wars on its own territory against enemy forces.”
I’m all for history offering us lessons but I draw the line at 1066 being a useful model for how Britain could defend itself on home territory in the 19th and 20th centuries!!!
“We didnt need the vast land army, lacking land borders, so defended ourselves with a vast navy, which the contintal powers could match.”
Your quite right, we did defend ourselves with the Navy. But we certainly did not defeat Napoleon with it. That was done by large ground forces. More evidence that ground forces are usually decisive and other arms are enablers.
“Whereas we have a near unblemished record of crushing them at sea.”
Err, we really don’t. And it’s interesting to note that when France could concentrate on denying the seas to the RN and not have to fight another continental land power in the American War of Independence, she managed to do so.
“but you’ll need to offer some evidence”
You’ve got some neck!
Phil
“Your quite right, we did defend ourselves with the Navy. But we certainly did not defeat Napoleon with it. That was done by large ground forces”
But not our large ground forces.
The alliance we dominated (and constantly reformed) went into the 6th coaliton with 800,000 men, 53,000 were British.
And it was Vienna we dictated, not Westphalia, whoops.
“And it’s interesting to note that when France could concentrate on denying the seas to the RN and not have to fight another continental land power in the American War of Independence, she managed to do so.”
All the more reason to ensure fleet dominance no?
“But not our large ground forces.
The alliance we dominated (and constantly reformed) went into the 6th coaliton with 800,000 men, 53,000 were British.”
You know I know this because I remember arguing it with you some time ago. And I remember your position was what an influence our Peninsular Campaign made against the war. But this argument I suppose does not fit in with the current opinion so like the good politician you’ve changed your tune and hoped nobody would notice.
“All the more reason to ensure fleet dominance no?”
We can no more afford to maintain a fleet that dominates China or India or even Russia than we can afford to build an Army that does the same. This is why we have alliances, and burden share. It’s also why we have nuclear weapons.
When did maintaining a balanced force go out of fashion
I don’t think it has. People just have different ideas of what balanced means.
I’m struggling to think when any navy of any nation has had a decisive effect in the last century
USN and RAN subs versus the Japanese merchant marine came close, at least. They were never able to move the oil from the Dutch East Indies after they seized them, because the tankers were sunk, or the rice from Burma, etc. (In fact, they moved the big ships to Borneo not because they wanted to base them there, but because they were near a source of fuel oil.) The whole grand strategy of the Co-Prosperity Sphere was based on maritime trade, and the submariners sank it.
By the finish they’d pretty much denied the Sea of Japan, which had serious effects on the Japanese economy internally as a lot of transport was in coastal shipping.
But we never really had a large army and instead relied on coalition’s.
In the Napoleonic Wars we use to sent support in the way of men (but not to much) and used to supply with weapons due to the start of the industrial revolution from the ease of mass manufacturing.
This is quite similar to other wars where we relied on coalitions such as both World Wars, Korea, Gulf 1 and 2. This was due to us not having a large standing army and instead of trying to produce one. We would send in our forces which were slightly better trained due to the smaller nature of the forces and provide most of the supply lines and naval support through the use of naval blockades.
But with the advent of the Human Rights and the world media who can view everything an armed forces does has changed how we would handle insurgencies.
What I think there should be is a good balance between the three services (easier said then done). Maybe a core fighting element in the Royal Navy and then have other ship elements such as the SIMSS that TD suggested. This could mean they could do the humanitarian, anti-narcotics, anti-piracy and other roles. Then the core fighting element could operate in more dangerous waters for what they were designed for.
Just an idea?
And my knowledge on the other services is pretty limited at the moment so I am not going to even try and go there!
Phil
“so like the good politician you’ve changed your tune and hoped nobody would notice.”
I’m curious, are you annoyed that I’ve changed my opninion full stop, or that I’ve changed it and still think you’re flat out wrong?
I’d also point out, not really changed much, we still had a tiny army and controlled to giant armies of the coalition.
“We can no more afford to maintain a fleet that dominates China or India or even Russia than we can afford to build an Army that does the same.”
Why cant we?
We spend more than Russia and India, and have none of the direct threats they face.
If Russia/Indias admirals can do better than ours with a third/tenth of the budget, perhaps we should hire them?
“If Russia/Indias admirals can do better than ours with a third/tenth of the budget, perhaps we should hire them?”
This sums up your shallow knowledge. So you think if we grafted a Chinese admiral as head of the fleet or whatever he is called, all of a sudden we’d be able to build more ships for the same money?
“I’d also point out, not really changed much, we still had a tiny army and controlled to giant armies of the coalition.”
I’m not annoyed in the slightest. But your position on both subjects is untenable. You argue navies are decisive yet recognise the contribution of the enormous land armies in defeating Napoleon over our piddly offering.
If navies were as decisive as you state then the need for that coalition would have not come about.
I’m glad Alex came in with the Japan merchant marine, and what it meant for the outcome.
Been keeping my head low, too much hot lead in the air. Dom almost got to the point at the beginning: tanks no good without fuel. Hitler had to send 157 divisions to get some more (while the other side shipped theirs in) and they only just escaped from the trap (read the “interview notes of Rommel’s captured deputy, who had been sent in from the General Staff planning side; he compared the N. African campaign to a pique-nique relative to what was going on in parallel in southern Russia)
– well there was no more (of oil), and the rest is history
Kursk casualties and the Danes playing the part of Norwegians; that all goes under (Dom’s) artistic license
“I’m glad Alex came in with the Japan merchant marine, and what it meant for the outcome.”
Japan remained undefeated though. At the start of August 1945 you have a country completely unbowed and unwilling to capitulate.
The choices normally would have been 2:-
–Contain and blockade Japan and starve its population to death in the largest, costliest and most grotesque siege conducted by mankind.
–Finish off Japan by land invasion.
As it happened, there was a window of opportunity, drop 2 A-Bombs in a massive bluff and hope it brings them to the negotiating table saving the lives of millions.
The Navy on its own could not have defeated Japan except through the most frightful blockade and starvation that the US simply had no appetite for.
Well “Japan remained undefeated though” if you have lost all offensive capability (since Leyte Gulf) and have to use a 60 kt battle ship for a kamikaze action (for lack of fuel)… at least we get to Dom’s 1 m casualties (the estimated cost of land invasion, using Okinawa as a data point as they only had small atols to go by otherwise)
Phil
“This sums up your shallow knowledge. So you think if we grafted a Chinese admiral as head of the fleet or whatever he is called, all of a sudden we’d be able to build more ships for the same money?”
I wasnt being entirely literal Phil.
If Russia can field a mighty fleet for a third of the cost we can, perhaps we should try and find out why, and copy them?
“You argue navies are decisive yet recognise the contribution of the enormous land armies in defeating Napoleon over our piddly offering.”
Yet despite our “piddly offering” Napolean surrendered to us, personaly, not Prussia, not Russia, not Austria, not Spain and we dictated terms to everyone.
Why?
It certainly wasnt because of our mighty army.
“If navies were as decisive as you state then the need for that coalition would have not come about.”
Why not?
I have no problems with coalitions, simply with being the junior partner in one.
An army lets us be junior partner, a navy, senior.
“Japan remained undefeated though. At the start of August 1945 you have a country completely unbowed and unwilling to capitulate.
The choices normally would have been 2:-”
How about option three, go home?
Seriously, why not, they were no threat to anyone, what would be the point of a bloody ground campaign or a genocidal seige?
To make them admit they lost?
Seems an expensive butchers bill for little practical gain.
@DominicJ,
the Russian fleet is (I suspect) a real can of worms. It may have large numbers on paper, but what proportion can they actually put to sea? Once at sea, what is their capability?
The reasons our Navy is so expensive are multiple, but off the top of my head:
1. Cost of ships, all built on over-running budgets, mismanaged procurement, etc etc. If you want a cheap ship, either don’t put all the toys in it or buy it from Korea or someplace like that. “Got to be made in Britain to a British design” adds in lots of cost.
2. Cost of personnel. Our forces are paid an awful lot more than Russia pays its’ forces (plus pensions, housing, schooling, etc etc).
3. “Eyes bigger than our wallet”: we don’t need 2 CVFs and F-35s. We could make do with a pair of much cheaper LPHs.
James
Spot on.
DJ
Your point about Japan well made, a simple blockade would have sufficed, indeed after Okinawa a large part of Japanese govt wanted to quit Section of Japanese army objected so much so that they tried to kidnap emperor before abdication.
I said abdication;- I meant surrender, After A Bombs.
The A bombs forced the Jap govt hand they knew they were stuffed and were desperately looking for a way out already.
“Yet despite our “piddly offering” Napolean surrendered to us, personaly, not Prussia, not Russia, not Austria, not Spain and we dictated terms to everyone.”
It’s back to school for you. Your homework tonight is to study the Congress of Vienna. We certainly did not dictate terms to anyone. A consensus was reached.
“I have no problems with coalitions, simply with being the junior partner in one.”
Well that’s tough shit because we have always been the junior partner.
“How about option three, go home?”
Because that would have extended the war indefinately and the US administration and military had no stomach or appetite for it. The world was sick to its bones of war and the US was no different. It is why the USN option of containment and strategic bombing was dismissed. The deadline was: Japan surrenders within 1 year of the defeat of Germany.
Going home in total war is simply not an option. Japan did not consider itself defeated – it knew it could not win but it thought it stood a chance of a negotiated settlement and eventually, round 2.
A simple blockade simply would NOT have sufficed. There was no desire to extend the war and see it last decades. And there was no desire to starve millions of Japanese to death either despite what the wartime propaganda would have you believe.
The practical gain was victory and an end to war and a definitive end to the death and destruction and misery and pain.
james
but one and three are both solveable problems.
Smarter procurement and a bigger navy budget, we can beat everyone (except the us) on quality and quantity.
“Smarter procurement and a bigger navy budget, we can beat everyone (except the us) on quality and quantity.”
We want 8 and we won’t wait!
Smarter procurement. Just like that! You want more complex weapon systems, and you want more of them, and at the same time you want the procurement process to become simpler and better.
I want a space base.
I want a Death Star, then nobody could mess with us, though BAE would probably leave the silly hole leading to the reactor core in place and it would be fitted for but not with CWIS.
The Death Star will be operational imminently.
But unfortunately the Tie Fighter programme is over running.
@DominicJ,
what are we going to do with the world’s 2nd best Navy? Apart from the strategic deterrent and the associated towed array frigate, most of the Navy seems to be dedicated to supporting land ops, because, oddly, that’s where the need is. Having several dozen frigates and destroyers available at once (with more in refit, training, etc) is the answer to a question I hadn’t noticed anyone asking. Even for the FI we don’t need more than about 8 (4 each T45 and ASW frigates), plus a flat deck, ideally 2, and even more ideally carrying lots of helicopters not fast jets.
My ideal Navy:
2 flat tops crowded with AH-64 and load/troop carrying helicopters (whichever is longest-legged).
Amphibious shipping to put a Brigade ashore over an undefended beach (2 battalions from the air, one out of landing craft). That could be one LPD and a cruise type ship with a helicopter spot for 2 x Chinooks or 3 smaller helicopters.
4 x T45
4 x ASW frigates
Squadron minehunters
One survey ship.
6-8 SSNs
3-4 SSBNs
Keep 3 Cdo Bde as it is, and get some AH-64 into the FAA.
….which is pretty much what we already have. I don’t follow details of every Navy ship, so if I’m wrong on exact numbers, forgive me.
phil
smarter procurement, not ‘ phils usual ignorant mouthing off procurement’, did it even occur to you to ask?.
James
offer an alternative to the US as coalition leader.
I dont suggest (many) more escorts, i suggest submarines, in case we need to fight at sea, carrier air, in case we have to fight in the air, and masses of missiles to distract the enemy long enough for a couple of commando brigades to land.
Your fleet wouldnt stand a chance middling opposition without us support.
James so to do the Falklands we would need every single escort in your hypothetical Navy available at once. Standing commitments at the moment see 1 FF/DD as the FIPV, one in the Gulf, 1 on anti Piracy, WIGS on anti drug ops(though we sometimes sub an RFA here). 1 as FRE and 1 as TAPS. So with one on station and 1 on way back plus training and the ability to actually have some escorts available for contingent tasking and refit cycles we really need to maintain current numbers at 18. that is without any contribution to NATO standing forces.
The 3 survey vessels we have are pretty much continually deployed utilising 3 watch manning with Echo and Enterprise spending 2 years plus east Of Suez.
We have 4 MCMVs deployed permanently in Bahrain and with crews swapping every 6 months we need at least another 4 in UK for crew training prior to deployment and also for standing Op Pike tasking in support of the Nuclear detterent and other standing tasking ensuring Q routes in and out of major UK ports remain clear.
That is without getting into the QE debate but General Dannat came out and said that the Falklands could not be done today without maritime fast air.
“That is without getting into the QE debate but General Dannat came out and said that the Falklands could not be done today without maritime fast air.”
The point i was going to make.
“smarter procurement, not ‘ phils usual ignorant mouthing off procurement’, did it even occur to you to ask?.”
You’ll have to try and type sentences that make grammatical sense. Then I can answer them.
@ DominicJ and APATS,
I probably underestimated the numbers of T45 / frigates needed (I’m not an expert on RN commitments), but even doubling those numbers only leaves us with the same capability we’ve got today.
However, the substantive point I’m making is trying to address what some on here are trying to do, which is to substantially increase the RN’s contribution to overall defence. That can only be done by increasing the current level of ships. What are we going to do with that increased capability. If there is a valid set of tasks beyond those we currently do then fine, but what are they?
I’m not falling for economic bankruptcy or the serial underfunding of land forces so that we can “offer an alternative to the US as coalition leader”.
T45 (for anti-air) and TLAM (for deep strike) together comprehensively void the argument for a carrier at all. Let’s have lots. What I do think we need is a better answer to a hostile ship closing to Exocet range but outside Harpoon range*. Currently, we’ve got three hopes: that an SSN is lurking undetected, CIWS, and Bob.
* or us sailing within land-based Exocet range.
For those who commented some fifty or so posts ago, I believe those changes will happen, but am not hoping for it as that would be counter to the general pro-Services attitude I maintain. Still, loyalty to one’s Service and all that…
I believe the outcome of SDSR 2015 will be as I said for the following reasons. The Army is, IMHO, mired between two unsustainable extremes. One remains the significant proportion of armour and heavy artillery still based in Germany as a Cold War legacy. The other is the COIN focussed capability developed in Afghanistan, where infantry have swung away from the light role and into the mechanised role, with an array of vehicles that will have no useful role in an expeditionary force (Mastiff to name but one). In other words, the focus has been on surviving IED’s rather than true manoeuvre warfare, a capability the Army once had but has now lost. I had the pleasure of a number of visits to Army establishments last week and throughout the feeling that the Army has lost its focus was very prevalent. With the drawdown from Afghan in 2015 and the justified final exit from Germany, the Army will find itself unable to justify continued maintenance of a heavy COIN capability and will lose it.
The RAF have won a few tricks as a result of Afghanistan and Libya, but did so at huge cost. Supporting the Libyan rebels must have been a staggeringly expensive business, flying aircraft from the UK to theatre and dropping hugely expensive Storm Shadow and Paveway weapons to neutralise, in some cases, just a single tank. When the pro-Gad forces then abandoned their armour and jumped into 4×4’s, they became indistinguishable from the rebels and thus targeting became almost impossible. Typhoon blooded its claws and Astor may have won a reprieve, but I believe the RAF overall can do better with less and therefore will probably be trimmed next time around, but not suffer any major cuts.
The RN came out of Libya best of all three. Our lack of carrier air power became a major argument in Government, press and wider communities alike (I count TD highly in there). The impact of a single destroyer conducting NGS and airspace management on the front line highlighted the endurance and persistence of warships, and whilst Charles de Gaulle supported the carrier air arguments, Apache from OCEAN was hugely successful and achieved strong results. The MCM community once again found itself up threat clearing the sea lanes, and SSN’s contributed both TLAM and persistent surveillance, gathering key intel on the land campaign. All of the shortcomings in the RN exposed by SDSR 2010 were brought to the fore, and all of these capabilities, unlike a specialised COIN capability, can be deployed anywhere in the (considerable) littoral environment for influence purposes.
My final point is based on a number of comments made by visiting senior officers and non-Service guests whom I have heard in the past 18 months or so, all of whom talk of the renewed interest in the maritime argument in the heart of Government. By all accounts DC, unlike his predecessors, gets the need for maritime capability over land striking power and therefore I hope to see this in three years time.
@ JDBTx,
re the Falklands and Gen Dannatt. He was a fine boss to me once, a very smart man, and someone whose passion for his service still allows him to make those sorts of judgements. I’m not going to claim that he has got it wrong, but let me be cheeky and try the following on you:
Scenario: FI 82 revisited, exactly the same force numbers on both sides, but with both sides having their modern platforms.
Would you rather have 2 CVs with Harrier operating alongside the T45s? Or two LPH loaded with AH-64 and load-carrying helicopters, alongside the T45s? Not at all cut and dried. If the T45s were well handled, not a single Argentine plane would get near the Task Force, and all of those helicopters provide both a rapid battlefield strike capability and a carrying capability we did not have in 82.
So, in the presence of the T45s, it appears that the choice is 36 or so Harriers, or about 24 each AH-64 and logistic helicopters. I know what I’d choose.
James what a blaise conclusion that TLAM and Sea Viper void the argument for carrier air. TLAM cannot provide CAS and Sea Viper is not designed to engage aircraft miles inshore.
Why did you pick Exocet, only MM40 block 3 actually out ranges harpoon and the only users are Greece, UAE, Peru, Qatar Oman and Morroco.
There are much scarier ASMs out there. The problem with a max range ASm engagement is that you actually have to find the opposition. Which is where AEW, organic helos on surf search etc all come in to play.
James, well I would have 18 Harriers and some AH64 and a few Chinooks because a CV is flexible enough to do that an LPH is not.
@ SI ‘Still, loyalty to one’s Service and all that…’ Your not joking.
Your offer (50 posts up) I’ll take, chances of it happening virtually zero.
@SI
The move to concentrate on Afghan is part of a deliberate strategy by the Army called OP ENTIRETY. Funnily enough, the Army thinks its right to concentrate on winning the war it is currently fighting first.
The plan is to re-generate capabilities that have been placed on the back burner.
IMHO it is the right thing to do. It’s a medium term thing.
Dannat, 2009
“The first has been the immense efforts undertaken by Land Forces to place the Army on a campaign footing for Afghanistan. Op ENTIRETY as it is known has had far reaching effects across all Lines of Development but it has left us better placed to ensure that the forces we deploy to Afghanistan are as well trained and equipped as they possibly can be. Some sixty-eight separate measures have been implemented and their breadth is an unmistakable signal that Land Forces are putting real substance behind Defence’s principal effort – namely by that of success on current operations.
And the second major project has been the work we have initiated to better deliver the tasks laid upon us in the most recent UK Defence Strategic Guidance – and as an aside I would like to place on record that in my view that Strategic Guidance represents the most realistic and relevant policy guidance we have received for many years. This will entail fundamentally rebalancing our force structure to be optimised for the most likely medium scale enduring tasks and intervention operations. This has entailed a move towards a force structure based on our deployable modular 2* HQs, optimised for stabilisation, but with one serving as the Divisional warfighting and Major Combat Operations (MCO) spine. Sitting beneath, but not organic to these 2* HQs, we are aiming to generate six identical modular ground-manoeuvre Brigades each with a broad mix of heavy, medium and light capabilities, with extensive organic combat and combat service support and command support capabilities, and all fitted for, and when necessary fitted with the extensive suite of additional assets that we have now become accustomed to devolving to the Brigade level on current operations. I am confident that this will leave us with a truly robust force structure capable of conducting both enduring stabilisation at Brigade level and Major Combat Operations at Divisional level, and all optimised for the hybrid threats that we experience today and will in the future. But let no one be in any doubt – warfighting and the calculated use of force underpins all these activities, and the preparation of our people. The British Army is first and foremost a fighting Army, but we are savvy enough, to know when to fight, and when just to provide security.”
@ Phil, Afghanistan has unbalanced quite a lot of military capabilities, the RN is extremely worried about the effect it has had on amphib ops as Royal has been too busy to allow large scale amphib exercises.
Well james 24 apaches and 24 logistics helicopters I assume you mean chinook would require pretty big ships in the 50K tonnes up size current ocean and lusty can accommodate about 5 chinooks each. So id go with cv with 18 harrier and 18 chinook. Apaches gd but much much more vulnerable in a high surface to air threat environment.
Navys and air forces can deter, coerce and contain an enemy easier and in more politically acceptable way than armies iraq from 1991 to 2003 showed that. It may leave unpalatable regimes in place but nothings perfect.
If you want to remove an invading force or invade occupy and run a country (storming Normans explanation for not going to baghdad in 1991 rings loudly here)you need a big army. But its unpalatable and difficult to explain to the UK electorate.
A balance of these too is required in which I think for the next 10 years the first option will be most used. But one thing is very certain if we do another iraq or afghan the same way as we did only with better equipment then we deserve everything we get. A different way of stabilising a country using a different force mix of assets employed need thought about before we do another one what ever it maybe.
“Afghanistan has unbalanced quite a lot of military capabilities, the RN is extremely worried about the effect it has had on amphib ops as Royal has been too busy to allow large scale amphib exercises.”
Well Afghan has been our Main Effort for three years now. It comes as no surprise that it has skewed things.
3 Commando is now out of the HERRICK rotation so it should be able to get on with its job now of providing the Amphib TF. Likewise 16X can get on with ABTF.
@ APATS,
I pick Exocet as that and Harpoon are the only anti-ship missiles I know by name! If there are scarier ones, please feel free to substitute. The point is that there is a potential “threat zone” to our ships that exceeds the range of Harpoon (currently our longest-ranged self-protection).
I don’t think my conclusion is blasé at all, on two levels:
1. AH-64 is a far better CAS platform than anything the RAF or FAA flew in the CAS role. That’s “better” as in responsive through a much simplified chain of command, choice of weapons systems of different effects, extended loiter times to ambush, can integrate with land forces in combined operations, more pervasive in having forward FARPs rather than returning to remote bases, can be used as an ABFAC and ISTAR asset as well as CAS in the one mission, can speak to the local tactical commander, and crewed by pilots who have a real understanding of how the land battle works.
2. Fleet air defence at sea is far better achieved by T45 than by CAP. Apart from vagaries such as weather or the CAP being at the wrong end of the racetrack when the threat arrives, it can fire far more missiles more quickly, with a greater hit probability, and track far more targets than any pair of CAP fast jets.
To retake the FI, I’d rather trust T45s to keep the Argentinian aircraft away from the fleet and then the landing zones and have 24 AH-64 for strike missions and 24 logistic helicopters for load lugging, than 18 Harriers to keep the Argentinians away, and a limited strike capability and limited logistic capability.
The difficult bit is not shooting down Argentine aircraft, it is the land battle. Let’s stack the deck in our favour.
Phil, indeed I was not saying it should not have, was actually agreeing with you.
@ Mark,
make it a big LPH. Don’t the RN always say “steel is cheap and air is free”?
12 AH-64 and 12 Chinook on one LPH is a capability a Brigade can really use for battlefield manoeuvre. 4 AH-64 and 4 Chinook on a CV along with 18 Harriers is not so useful from a land perspective.
APATS,
I meant ABFOO, not ABFAC. Brain knew it, fingers disobedient.
@ James, a lot of your examples in point 1 aren’t unique to AH 64, FJ can cover not all of the list but most and some that aren’t there as well.
Above comment not meant to start pissing competition.
James
CV has the capacity for 40 a/c of any variety you so wish to put on it indeed it can have up to 25 chinook on board at any one time.
And a unsupported apache raid into enemy territory which is what a falklands op would be was shown when the yanks tried it in 2003 iraq war 33 apaches deployed 31 damaged or destroyed.
MY two happenies
1st lesson of Libya that less than £300 was spent ( by the treasury presumably) so this is a done deal on the way forward for military op given the billions spent from reserves for Iraq and Afghanistan
2nd lesson Brimstone good
3rd lesson CFV or any would have been nice but not essential
4th lesson the RAF can make long range strikes from UK soil reducing overall costs using air to air which will be greatly enhanced with Voyager
5th lesson NATO is a waste of time if it doesn’t get its act together, if its not the Belgium’s with bullets its now the Germans withholding their AWACS …..(p.s. they will get a kicking for that in due course such as everybody withdraws their forces from German territory)
6th lesson guns on ships can be useful hence DDG 1000 goes up in respect but LCS probably goes down And DG51 definitely needs some attention
7th lesson where did the Danes get that from (respect dudes) and what can you do with an F16 if you try hard
8th lesson we (Brits ) are stuck with the conclusion if we don’t sub for US capabilities no one else will, but if we can just figure a way to make them cough up the dough this could still work
9th lesson WE have no real idea what the SAS did, but they did, and that means any ideas about the actual nature of appropriate conclusions is b*************T
10th still probably right to conclude that with new faster helicopter technologies and tilt rotors and UAVs the carrier is a good way to leave future options open
11th lesson THE Arab League will be stronger next time, and stronger the time after, and then etc Hmmmm maybe we should be working out how we work together so that when AFRICA GOES APE SHIT we’re prepared.
?
@ Topman,
until the RAF (or FAA) will allow pilots to communicate with ground commanders directly, allocate them exclusively for use to a particular unit, equip them with Bowman radios, commit to 100% coverage in pairs, troops or squadrons, arm the fast jets with CAS-optimised weapons, and train the pilots to call for indirect fire, manoeuvre to loitering positions, and have the flexibility to advance or delay planned actions depending on the movement of land-based units or of the enemy itself, or to follow specific targets based on ad hoc information from infantry section commanders (“the man in the red shirt appears to be the commander, getting into a green Landcruiser, hit that when the vehicle is clear of the school at grid YT 363841*”), then FJ CAS will always be inferior to CAS from attack helicopters.
*what’s that in lat/long when you’re flying a FJ at 5,000 feet AGL at 500 mph, trying to do 17 other things at once? A bit bloody difficult to work out is the answer.
I tried live CAS at Srebrenica, acting as a link in the chain from pilot to Dutch Battalion Ops Room. A bloody mess. A fortnight later, the Dutch CO came to the HQ to take part in a post-op debrief. Our unanimous conclusion was that the difference in procedures and perceptions between services, let alone coalition partners’ procedures in different services introduced enough friction that the poor result was a foregone conclusion. About 2 minutes was the friction we reckoned, and those two minutes just could have made the difference between weapons release on target – stopping the Serbs at the critical moment – and the pair of CAS aircraft recovering to base weapons still on the wings and 6,000 men and boys being murdered. And that was on a sunny day with months of time to get it right.
The CVF is apparently expected to be able to embark 12 F35C AND up to 30+ helicopters (most of which would be Merlin, navalized, but also Chinook and Apaches) plus 600 soldiers.
CVF’s hangar can take 20 non-folded F35B (the C once folded is a bit smaller, might fit a couple more) or up to 45 folded Merlins or Sea Kings.
Lots of space.
“Fleet air defence at sea is far better achieved by T45 than by CAP. Apart from vagaries such as weather or the CAP being at the wrong end of the racetrack when the threat arrives, it can fire far more missiles more quickly, with a greater hit probability, and track far more targets than any pair of CAP fast jets.”
Seriously?
So we have, like, got it wrong all the time believing that fighter jets and airborne early warning make for the best tool for controlling the sky?
With all due respect, it is a lie. It is just not true.
“4 AH-64 and 4 Chinook on a CV along with 18 Harriers is not so useful from a land perspective.”
Again, seriously…?
Harriers do suck that much now? You learn new stuff every day!
The fact that they carry more weaponry, at a greater distance than an Apache, and the fact that they can arrive faster is universally believed to make the Harrier an excellent CAS deliverer.
And i’m inclined to continue believing to it, regardless of you saying the opposite.
@ James I believe now they can talk to each other from ground to air, they certainly have more information to be exchanged through something like ROVER. Allocation to a specific unit would never happen for anything more than a short space of time (for various reasons).
‘arm the fast jets with CAS-optimised weapons,’
Such as ?
‘commit to 100% coverage in pairs’
I don’t think that possible even now with any asset. Unless I’m misunderstanding what you’ve written.
‘and have the flexibility…’ I would say all that happens now.
I don’t think it’s case of either or, but I don’t agree that AH cas is always going to be better than FJ it all depends on the mission. For example AH64 ISTAR is good for what it does but in the grand scheme it gives you little extra. Tying down a pair FJ to one particular unit would rob them of their best asset, flexibility. They couldn’t be used in any other way such as a better ISTAR platform.
James, so all the calls for Fast Air ans succesful prosecution of dynamic targets in Libya that I saw were just lucky, against. Should we get rid of GR4 from Afghanistan and sack FACs? An AH64 may be the optimal solution but fast air is a useful alternative. What an AH64 is not is any sort of alternative in establishing air superiority and preventing the guys being either sunk in their ships or bombed on the ground.
I missed the post about a 45 being better than CAP, Ok CAP works in conjunction with AEW to be up threat, a combination AEW and possibly a picket gives waning to vector the CAP and launch alert birds. The basic principles of layered air defence! It gives you the ability to engage missile carriers before they launch their missiles!
@ Gabriele,
Harrier are only useful from a Land perspective for keeping enemy aircraft away, and for delivering CAS. Outside of those 2 roles, they are just noise in the sky.
T-45 can keep enemy aircraft away, at least in the scenario under discussion (FI). AH-64 is an order of magnitude better at CAS than Harrier ever was for a number of reasons, and I’ve practiced it with both.
So, how many troops can Harrier deliver to a key piece of terrain? How many pallets of stores or ammunition? How many wounded can it evacuate? Can a bunch of Harriers move the Divisional reserve formation to a threatened flank? Can a Harrier undersling equipment to move it? No.
If the best tool for controlling the sky is a CAP, why the bloody hell are we spending billions on T45?
I think you may misunderstand the premise. With T45s present, and given a choice between 2 CVFs with fast jets, or 2 LPHs with a good mix of helicopters, which would you have? For me, it’s the LPHs and helicopters every time.
@ APATS,
given unlimited funding, let’s have all of these things. But given financial reality, we have to take some grown up judgements about the best apportionment of funding, balanced against risk and probability. I’m a firmly convinced that T45 + LPH with lots of helos of various sorts is a better investment across a broader range of scenarios than CVF + F-35.
Was it Dannat or was it Jackson?
Anyone got a link?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9046826/Britain-could-not-reclaim-the-Falklands-if-Argentina-invades-warns-General-Sir-Michael-Jackson.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9046476/Britain-faces-impossible-battle-if-Argentina
james we are discussing the Falklands and no Air Defence Destroyer ever dreamed off can stop enemy aircraft bombing our ground forces once they are inland. the enemy can fly round about routes to reach the troops. Hills etc get in the way of the radar and the missile isoleth is not that large.
The best solution for fleet air is the layered approach as I have already explained. If the enemy can launch an ASM outside of SAm range and turn away you spend all day shooting down missiles, CAP lets you engage the missile carriers.
You also refuse to accept that whilst 2 CVF could also support helos, 2 LPHs cannot generate any fast air. For any TG commander it is a no brainer.
The quote I posted? It was Dannat. On RUSI webpage. I’m on my iPhone so I guess google a sentence and you’ll get the speech. Full of interesting tidbits about wider strategic issues.
Oops not my quote then!!
@ APATS,
I’m perfectly aware LPH can’t support FJ! Of course, CVF can support helos as can LPH, but there’s the small matter of about £6 billion extra costs for the ships, and £5 billion extra costs for the F-35s.
In this particular scenario, why would we try to shoot down Argentine aircraft over the islands, when we could take them out 50 miles west on their inbound route? As the Captains of the 1982 AD destroyers repeatedly asked for permission to do? A screen of 3 up / 1 back T45s could cover – with overlaps – about 200 miles of airspace, which by Google Earth would give the Argentines an extra 130 miles (260 miles return trip) to fly to try to get around them, and as we know, they didn’t have the range.
I’m getting really frustrated with this blog. Defence is all about a balanced view of risk taking across a broad range of scenarios. What we actually have is a bunch of people trying to create a perfect single service at the expense of the other two.
@James: T45 has a radar 30m above the sea. That gives us a radar horizon of 25km against a sea skimming missile. A Yakont SS-N-26 travels at about 0.8km/sec. This gives well under 30 sec to engage and destroy, especially if the T45 is the other side of the formation being attacked. Alternatively, a non-whizzy, off the shelf Sea Harrier F/A2 or an F18 can both attack the missile launching platform whether it be an aircraft or ship, provide us with hundreds of kilometres of warning and are able to engage an incoming missile multiple times before it’s within range of a SAM. Which do you think is more effective?
Personally, I think T45 is a bit of a blind alley. However big a ship radar, against the worst threats it’s bubble is very limited. Why bother having a radar with a range of 400km against high flying targets, when one of 200km will give all the cover you are likely to lose, and instead buy a couple of E2’s with the money saved?
BTW, Russia just sold Yakont’s to Syria. I daresay Venezuela is next, who knows where next :-(
s/lose/use :-)
“What we actually have is a bunch of people trying to create a perfect single service at the expense of the other two”
Hear hear!
@ wf
An AD asset will always be threat-side of an air threat in comparison to those assets it is protecting. Saying it may be on the wrong side is saying that our threat assessment is wrong.
An AD ship will have the capability to hoist a sensor, mostly by helicopter (I believe that long term, a towed lighter than air 24/7 platform is a better solution). A sensor hoisted to 143 metres gives 16 times the sensor coverage. A helicopter at 500 metres would cover the nearest coastline of Argentina at a range of 400 kilometres. Datalinks between radars and in-flight missiles are now standard.
Given the range of ASTER 30 is 120 kilometres, which anti-missile missiles launched from Harrier or F/A 18 would give us multiple opportunities to engage it before an Aster 30 could?
@James
I do agree on the part of the bias towards other services. I won’t rename the worst offender, but I can assure you he’s not the majority.
On the other hand, some of the solutions you proposed are not really the most ideal. The best defence against a fighter is another fighter, reason being the kinetics of the situation. A ship is a stationary platform, so it’s engagement envelope is smaller due to 2 factors.
1) No momentum transfer.
2) Working against gravity.
Aircraft can extend a weapon’s range by accelerating and by flying higher, allowing for more momentum to be transfered to the launching platform and by working with gravity for fuel efficiency, while a SAM missile has to climb up, slowing it down and increasing fuel usage.
For CAS, the weapons I would use would be hellfires/rockeyes (yes, I’m old fashioned) and JDAMs. Standoff weapons. No point risking a 100M pound fighter at what is essentially knife range for aircraft.
Actually, the only argument against removing carrier air is the CAP (Combat Air Patrol). CAS can be done nowadays with TLAM missiles in “loiter” mode. The US SC21 program found out that TLAM volleys can cause enough “shock” damage to an invasion force that it will stop an invasion cold, mainly by destroying MBTs and mechanised transport, so TLAM CAS does work, but the CAP is sacrificed as a result, not a good thing.
Unfortunately the project was shelved due to the end of the Cold War.
+1 on the “more ships” though. I would go as far as to delay the carrier for more frigates/destroyers and try to temporarily operate harriers off LPHs. Those escorts have more “non-war” utility. Hardly ideal, but budget is tight.
Pity about the Harrier sale though..
James, i am not trying to create a perfect single service, I have never envisaged anything other than the force composition envisaged in the SDSR.
Please do not post rubbish figures, as we went throu exhaustively a few weeks ago the NAO report in sep 2010, before any extra contracts etc were signed and 14 months of building work done on CVF put the figure for cancelling both carriers at 1 Billion and the death of British ship building. the 6 billion figure was the complete cancellation of carrier strike, including no money for F35 or GR4 replacement until 2025. So it may well turnout that you do get a stonking great 50,000 tonne LPH originally designed to be a carrier.
The Argentinian Fighting hawks can AAR refuel from the 2 c130s and have a range of 1700 miles. They can enter the islands airspace from whichever direction they choose.
The enemy do get a vote!
@wf
Everyone is banging on about how good T45 is in the AAW role.
I strongly suspect that your calculations have not gone un-noticed during all those years of concept, design and manufacture and that perhaps, because we won’t know until one either gets hit or they’re all decommissioned, people are bigging it up because threats like that are well within its capabilities.
BTW James, you know why they call it the ASTOR 30?
Missile intercept range is 30km.
“Aircraft can extend a weapon’s range by accelerating and by flying higher, allowing for more momentum to be transfered to the launching platform and by working with gravity for fuel efficiency, while a SAM missile has to climb up, slowing it down and increasing fuel usage.”
This is true, but it is also true that these shortcomings can be overcome on a ship because the weight and dimensions of the missile are not such constraining factors. So the missile can carry a more powerful propulsion system and more fuel to more than make up for the advantages of the planes speed and altitude. And to my untrained eye that seems to be precisely what happens since the longer ranged naval SAMs (STANDARD, SEA DART, SEA VIPER) tend to be much bigger than the AAMs, even the long ranged ones like PHEONIX and METEOR.
“Missile intercept range is 30km.”
Wiki gives a max range of 120km for ASTER 30 and I suspect the real figure is further out and terribly classified. 30kms is no way right unless you’re privvy to classified info which you have now divulged which means you will now have to be shot. I think an ironic punishment would be to shoot you with an ASTER missile at 120Kms.
@Phil, that’s true that the boosters are getting bigger with better range, but the intercept speed problem still stands. The longer ranged missiles work around the problem slightly by climbing very high first, then discarding the booster and diving on the target, but the boost phase is still very drawn out and obvious.
@ Observer,
I agree. Given unlimited funding, let’s have CVFs and F-35s up the ying yang. The more the better. But, “unlimited funding” is not on offer.
So, with limited funding, how do we cut our cloth?
@ APATS,
what “rubbish figures”? Your pear is not the same as my apple. From scratch, cost of CVFs + F-35 is about £11 billion combined. We’re not at scratch now, so your costs are different. The fault is in the initial decision making, at the “scratch” point. I’d like to take those costs out of the personal pensions of all of those in Whitehall – now mostly retired – who made that decision.
Frankly, I’d like the F-35 programme to be shit-canned (as it may be by the US, at least for B and C variants). Then we can turn our CVF platforms into proper LPHs. Don’t stop to look in the F/A18 shop window, head straight on down to the helicopter aisle and pick up lots of Chinook, Merlin, anything else that takes our fancy. Job lot of marinised AH-64. The sooner F-35 dies a death, the better for the long-term of this nation.
Phil, 120km is for things like Badgers and Backfires. 30km is the quoted figure for a small AShM. As I said, why do you think they called it ASTER 15/30?
I believe that Observer confuses range with isoleth which is an acceptable ability to protect assets within that isoleth by engaging threats against them regardless of approach vector etc.
“As I said, why do you think they called it ASTER 15/30?”
It seems pretty retarded to advertise a weapons limitations in its name. Any figure in the public domain I don’t find credible. Anyway, even a nuke wouldn’t do much damage at 30kms.
Other factoids, the launcher SYLVER 50/70 etc represents the height of the launch cell. 5.0M, 7.0M etc.
“that’s true that the boosters are getting bigger with better range, but the intercept speed problem still stands.”
Really because Nike Zeus SAM was hitting 8,000mph at 100,000 ft and that was back in the early 60s.
Yes it was bigger but it proves it can be done with 50-60 year old know how.
@APATS, which part of the difference in ranges for a bomber and a AShM showed that I don’t understand the difference?
Phil, you want to find enough space on a ship to fit the Zeus?
“isoleth”
Isoleth – a new word for me today.
Anyway, I thought all these capabilities were SECRET and everything in the public domain conjecture, informed or otherwise?
“Phil, you want to find enough space on a ship to fit the Zeus?”
No need to now. My point is that 60 year old missile technology could hurl a missile pretty bastard fast. I imagine that there isn’t much of a problem today with energy.
Observer, i posted before I saw that post, yes detection range and max engagement range are very different things. An undetected launch of a sea skimming missile can only be engaged when you actually detect it and then we are back to radar horizons etc.
Hi RW, good lessons there, but ten is a good, rounded number
– was it so that the Germans actually helped to substitute for any crews taken out of Afghan so that there were enough of AWACS up in the air near Libya, at all times?
Phil, a SM3 block 3 has a theoretical range of 270NM and a ceiling of 750,00ft against a ballistic missile.
I ask this question high threat surface to air missile,aaa and RPG environment would you rather a helicopter or a fastjet?
The us marines have shown for decades you need both fast air and attack helicopters not one or other. If we can’t support a land deployment with sufficient of both. Some of us too get feed up with land sea or air the army rules. In reality no one want the army in there country and the yanks are feed up digging them out of a hole not to mention the uk public being feed up with coin full stop over and out
@James, answering your points in turn:
“An AD asset will always be threat-side of an air threat in comparison to those assets it is protecting”. Usually, and this applies to a CAP too.
“A helicopter at 500 metres would cover the nearest coastline of Argentina at a range of 400 kilometres”. I’m not aware of any helicopter based radar with that sort of performance. Either way, the radar horizon of a helicopter at 500m is about 100km. Assuming we are using a Sea King ASAC 7, the maximum altitude is 3000m, so it’s horizon is 225km. An E2 however would have a horizon of 415km, flying at 10000m. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_horizon
An fighter aircraft can transit 200km up threat in 20 minutes. It can then see a minimum of 150km+ further with it’s radar. AMRAAM can range out to 75km from the launching aircraft, I would assume Meteor can range out 100km plus. So, instead of a 100km bubble, assuming all our T45’s have ASAC7’s or airships rather than ASW helicopters, we have a bubble 300km wide at least: we could push the fighters out further if necessary and sink or shoot down every launching platform before they can launch.
We can also deploy fighters to visually identify and warn unknown targets, rather than instantly shooting them down. I’m sure you know of the Vincennes incident in the Gulf, but Invincible nearly shot down a Brazilian airliner with Sea Dart on the way down south in 1982 after misidentifying it as a AR recce plane.
I can understand your frustration with some of the comments here. But we’re not all making ad hominem attacks, and not all hyper CVF advocates either. But our military history over the last 50 years has shown that against a serious air and missile threat, there’s really no substitute for carrier air. That may change, but it’s unlikely to be soon
“Phil, a SM3 block 3 has a theoretical range of 270NM and a ceiling of 750,00ft against a ballistic missile.”
Well check it out I was right.
Better than Nike Zeus and half the size.
@Phil, full disclosure before sales :) Otherwise can be sued. And APATS is right, the defence envelope is set at 30km, which is the range most of the intercept tests were carried out.
If you wanted a Zeus, I’m sure you’ll love an ABM-3.
With it’s nuclear warhead. :P
@Phil, so you want to give the CAP role to T45s now? Which was the original point of the thread…
Work now, back later. :/
“@Phil, so you want to give the CAP role to T45s now? Which was the original point of the thread…”
I don’t have a clue. I don’t know enough about the system.
I get the old detection range thing, but when a plane fires a missile, and a ship fires a missile, the effect on target is the same.
Ideally I imagine planes are better as they can push further out if they are well supported and there’s more time to get leakers – but a couple of T45s represent an awful lot of AAW capability once the targets are in the engagement envelope.
@ wf,
which anti-missile missiles do any British carrier-borne aircraft carry? Genuine question (and ignorance on my part).
James: Sea Harrier F/A 2 carried AMRAAM: it was the first UK platform to be cleared for it back in 93, all the UK’s original buy was originally bought for it. It’s Blue Vixen radar was the basis for the Typhoon’s ECR90
“Given the range of ASTER 30 is 120 kilometres”
In a word. Bullshit. In no condition ever you would intercept a target at the marging of the missile range.
A realistic engagement distance for a big target flying high is given as 70/80 Km.
The only live tests against Exocets done with Aster so far saw interception of the Exocet at 7 and 9 Km and target drones were downed 30 km away or little more than that.
While it PROBABLY can do it at greater distance, you don’t want to plan on the ASSUMPTION that it will always work, and work at its maximum range if not past it.
How far does a Challenger gun fire?
How far does it kill its targets? The record is 5100 meters, i believe.
A missile with a range of 100 km does not kill stuff at 100 km like a 120 mm gun does not kill at 10 km, because at the limits of its range the missile has no power and no kinetics to maneuver to actually hit the target if it does as much as turn to the side.
I also wish people would stop dreaming of LPHs and LHDs cheap as fish and built for nothing. Acknowledge reality: they are expensive too.
LPH(R) program budget for a single ship, before it was put on hold and effectively cancelled in 2006, expected to need to spend 700 million pounds to get a single 20.000 tons LPH.
And that’s before politicians delay it by 1 year and cause the cost to increase, like they did with CVF and with so many other things.
If you want to play fantasy fleets, you have to do it with realistic and updated figures, not by translating Ocean’s cost in today’s money. That is not quite how it works.
Also worth noting that the Daring has 48 missiles, of which only 32 will normally be Aster 30, and there is no currently available mean of rearming at sea.
Again, submarines armed with TLAM need, at best, a safe, quiet harbor and RFA Diligence alongside in order to embark new TLAMs after they fire the ones they have aboard.
There is many factors to be considered, in all things and in all scenarios.
HMS Ocean cost £154 million and one would imagine the effectiveness of Aster 30 at range is likely rather top secret
James, ASRAAM is the basis of CAAM so it has an anti missile capability and meteor is designed to have an anti missile capability.
We also forget that most ship v missile engagements will be a combination of hard kill and soft kill, at the moment RN soft kill e.g decoys deployed from the ship are considered to be extremely efficient(watching what I type).
2Td yes ans she has been a nightmare, no militray CBRN built in and power plant has been rubbish. Sh spent a week at anchor off Malta during OUP with no power then limped to Souda for another week.
“In a word. Bullshit. In no condition ever you would intercept a target at the marging of the missile range.
A realistic engagement distance for a big target flying high is given as 70/80 Km.”
You have no more idea of the actual range and envelope of Sea Viper on the T45 than I do.
So stop the chest thumping you’re as ignorant as everyone else on here as regards to that matter.
@Gabriele: there was a Kircudbright story that one errant fin round made it all the way to the Isle of Man, skimming the waves. But I’m not sure how much stock to put in that :-)
She may have been problematic but taken over the last 18 or so years I think she has been rather a bargain
Would it just be better to have a load out similar to a US Marine Aviation Combat Element (the difference being our equipment) then you would get the benefits of both AH and FJ with the logistic element also? (operate CVF like how the USMC loads out their LPH)
For eg:
12 x FJ (what we do have at that point)
8 x Apache
8 x Merlin
4 x Chinook
4 x Wildcat
Ali, sounds good enough to me, obviously you could tailor for specifics but as a general air group seems extremely capable.
Phil it is not as secret as all that, have a look at something like SM-2 Medium Range Block III/IIIA/IIIB, RIM-66K/L/M and you are in the ball park
“You have no more idea of the actual range and envelope of Sea Viper on the T45 than I do.”
I know the distances at which Sea Viper actually shot down stuff and you can know it too going back to read the reports of the firing trials. And i also know that there have not been any trials against targets more than marginally supersonic.
And i’m telling you that the official french position is that a realistic engagement distance for PAAMS is 70 km.
It is already “expected” and “assumed” that despite it never having been tried Sea Viper will shoot down multiple highly supersonic anti-ship missiles (it only shot down 900 km/h Exocets, no trials at all against Mach 2 Sunburn or Mach 3 Bramhos, no trials against Yakhont-equivalents, no anything) and now people here want to also “assume” that the missile has probably twice the official range or some other top secret capability or whatever.
In no other field of speculation on military matters, on this site or elsewhere, people seems to be willing to take as much risk as with Sea Viper.
People will rightfully note all the difficulties and risks of deploying with the screwrider MK1 instead of the MK2 which is obviously necessary, and then, on another thread, suggest going against enemy airpower only with SAMs, and doing it by assuming that said SAM will work to the max of its promises and even past them.
For you it might make sense.
For me it does not.
It remains pleasant, but also somewhat funny, that while almost any bit of kit of the armed forces is savagely criticized for all and any limitation, there is such utmost confidence in the Sea Viper.
And also that, all of a sudden, the fact that Apache flying hours cost more than Tornado GR4 hours, the fact that it needs lots of maintenance, and all other drawbacks that so often are discussed in other circumstances are all happily forgotten when Apache must be part of the justification for doing away with fixed wing air at sea.
Oh, coherence.
@Gabriele: no, I’m not impressed with Sea Viper thus far either. Plus my inner MCSE says anything running on Windows 2000 is crap :-(
Gabs was your, you have no idea post directed at me?
@APATS,
Unless I am looking at the wrong sources:
ASRAAM is only currently cleared for Typhoon and GR4, neither of which are carrier capable.
CAMM is not in service until 2016, and very little development work has been carried out on its’ possible role as an ASRAAM replacement.
Meteor is not in service until 2015, and not initially expected to be fitted to RN helicopters.
Asters cannot be replenished at sea.
Sea Wolf is a 1960s concept, 1970s design that remains in service, but has been sold to Brazil. Despite being ACLOS, it is radar guided by the launching ship we can therefore be assured that the main parameters, possibly even the radar modes, PRIs, PRFs, acquisition sequences, etc are well known by Argentina. And can thus be countered.
And most ships have CIWS. Better hope that the weather is not so bad that the missile has a better radar view of a big ship standing 25 metres tall than the CIWS has of a small missile at sea level. Or that the launching platform or wingman does not simultaneously launch a HARM missile at the CIWs.
I’d say that the RN are really sucking on the hopium pipe in terms of anti-missile defence. And yet, they want to spend £11 billion on a CVF and some aircraft, which in the way Britain makes its’ way in the modern world, is not “core business”.
@Ali: yup, a Wasp class would be nice, although since it’s rapidly approaching CVF size, it’s unlikely to escape the “carriers are too expensive” criticism :-(
James, you question was UK carrier based aircraft, as we have none I assumed you meant aircraft we would get?
As for the rest, well Sea wolf has just had the SWMLU upgrade with an extra sensor added, CAAMS is based on the AAMRAAM missile and of the 11 Billion spent cancelling both gets 1 back and doesn’t get you 2 50k platforms.
@APATS
I was talking to Phil, who attacked me for not being into the PAAMS more than he is.
Of course not, but there is reasonable info around, as you seem to know.
“ASRAAM is only currently cleared for Typhoon and GR4, neither of which are carrier capable.”
It had to go on the Harrier, though. We know how it ended.
“I’d say that the RN are really sucking on the hopium pipe in terms of anti-missile defence. And yet, they want to spend £11 billion on a CVF and some aircraft”
One would easily object by telling you that F35, which is getting ASRAAM, can use AMRAAM and will get Meteor in due time;
Replacing the AEW Sea King
And providing the carrier to embark them on
solves the problem and gives complete, layered defence to any task group.
US: AEGIS + AEW + carrier air
France: PAAMS + AEW + carrier air
Italy: PAAMS + AEW + carrier air
Tomorrow, finally:
UK: PAAMS/Sea Viper + AEW + carrier air
Wasp class average cost $750 million, perhaps £550 million.
CVF cost (for one, second not playing) £6 billion.
Ability of Wasp class to operate in a range of scenarios: big. Ability of CVF to operate in a range of scenarios: less big.
Do you get a well deck in CVF? Do you get the ability to transport 1800 soldiers and put them ashore by air and landing craft? Can you put ashore 50 armoured vehicles or enough logistics to last a combat brigade for two months? Can a CVF also operate as a 600 bed hospital? Can you spend 39 months from first steel cutting to entering operational service on a CVF (and 18 months from first steel to launch)?
Gabs you literally do not know for certain anything you have said is right. Which is a pretty shaky platform for so firm a declaration as ‘bullshit’ don’t you think?
@ James – “Would you rather have 2 CVs with Harrier operating alongside the T45s? Or two LPH loaded with AH-64 and load-carrying helicopters, alongside the T45s? Not at all cut and dried.”
Sure, in the magical world where, thirty years later, we face an enemy with an air capability that is an order of magnitude more backward, vis-a-vis British forces, that was the case at the time.
Half a dozen aging skyhawks versus the shiniest in 21st century AAW Destroyers, why not load down every flat-top with land-attack helicopters!
However, we did not procure carriers to re-fight the Falklands.
last wasp cost 2.3 billion Jmaes and writing off second CVF is just stupid.
The well deck on a wasp is not compatible with air ops, average amphib op speed 1-2 knots average flight ops speed 20 knots plus, they carry precisely 2 LCUs compared to 4 on Albion or Bulwark. the hospital capacity of 600 means no combat ops.
@james: I’m assuming you can’t find anything wrong with my figures from earlier :-)
I know Wikipedia declares the cost of a Wasp as 0.75 billion USD, but that’s not the programme cost. That’s 1.8 billion
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/lhd-1-program.htm
Unless you plan to buy off the shelf from the US, I’m willing to bet that cost would be equalled in pounds in short order, particularly as the USN has moved to the America class without a well deck and the Wasp’s are no longer in production. Given CVF is producing carriers at 3 billion each, after several years of stretch of the contract…they are looking rather comparable
‘the hospital capacity of 600 means no combat ops.’
Wouldn’t that be enough, if it’s not what is the normal bed space catered for?
topman, it means that normal messing for marines is turned in to low priority wards!
@ APATS,
I don’t know the ship-per-ship cost for the 11 Wasp class, but the Pentagon declare an average of $750 million. Who knows, perhaps they are bullshitting.
I’m not sure that writing off the second CVF is so stupid. It is Government policy that it is not entering service, and sale is a possibility. I’ll eat my hat if we ever have two at sea at once. Maybe if we all buy a lottery ticket and give any winnings to the MoD that will happen.
I’m clearly not saying that a Wasp can do all of those things at once. But you need to look at the “utility across a range of scenarios” argument. Looking at the scenarios, you may (or probably not) find one to which the only answer is “CVF + fast jet”. You’ll find lots to which “remarkably flexible large flat top” is the answer. And CVF is not remarkably flexible Fast jets or helicopters, that’s your choice. No embarked military force. No hospital. No logistic transport.
Now, how many times have we needed an aircraft carrier since 1945? I mean, when only an aircraft carrier would do. And not just one, but we’ll buy two and only ever use one. And we’ll faff about for long enough, and change our minds often enough that we’ll have a 10 year gap between being carrier capable with fast jets. And we’ll choose a type of fast jet that daily becomes less likely to ever make it into service (that tail hook design was inspired, wasn’t it?).
do you know, I think there’s a distinct possibility at this rate that the next RN fast jet will make its’ maiden flight from an RN carrier in 2032, on the 50th anniversary of the last time the answer was “only an aircraft carrier will do”. And we’ll have beggared all 3 services on the vanity of some hopefully long dead ruddy Admiral from the 1990s.
@ wf,
Wasp Class costs (according to Federation of American Scientists, fas.org). In millions:
Wasp $822
Essex $403
Kearsage $353
Boxewr $341
Bataan $731
Bonhomme Richard $761
Iwo Jima $795
Trent Loft $1,500
James, the DOD lump all costs together with development in first of class generally we live in 2012 so you claiming that average costs for a vessel with the last 1 built in 1999 being relevant is just a fairy tale.
So tell me when the wasp class 2LCUs would have been more useful to UK PLC than a CV.
You then cite the UK armed forces ability to get by rather than have the correct kit as an example to flaunt current world military thinking about the importance of Carrier Air Power.
“Which is a pretty shaky platform for so firm a declaration as ‘bullshit’ don’t you think?”
I do not think.
Dreaming of Type 45s shooting down things at 120 kms and ensuring air defence on their own like it was suggested is bullshit by all accounts.
“Wasp class average cost $750 million, perhaps £550 million.”
In dreamland.
FY2011 cost was over 3413 million for one. http://costofwar.com/en/publications/2011/analysis-fiscal-year-2012-pentagon-spending-request/
Also, ship’s crew is well over 900, rising to well over 1200 with the aviation personnel added.
Ship’s crew for CVF is less than 700.
Running costs also go against a Wasp option.
And it costs 3 billions to busy US yards, and as part of a large class with a relatively high number of hulls built.
Building a Wasp in the UK yards would cost a fortune and two thirds.
@James: the US tends to do all sorts of weird stuff re budgets. JSF cost for example, excludes engines (!), and many items are declared “government furnished” and excluded from the costs. I daresay LHD-8 cost 0.75B, but that was probably just the hull: engines, systems etc were probably all “extra”!
The 3413 millions is not for a Wasp, obviously, but for the current LHA/LHDs of the America class.
There’s no point in looking back at the costs of a ship built 2 decades ago. Better to look at what a similar ship actually costs today.
Was it that easy to build a Wasp today at those prices or comparable, everyone would want one.
Instead, even the small Cavour cost 1,5 billion euro, and that doesn’t even cover all of the bits.
Gabs you’re talking bollocks. You just don’t know. Nobody who does would blab it on a blog either.
Phil, Gabs costings are correct not sure what you are getting at, I often disagree with him but his costings are correct,
@ APATS / Gabriele,
I laid out the procurement costs of each ship above. Wasp was not out of production at the time of the CVF decisions (2004), so it should have been considered.
Gabriele,
CVF complement including air wing is about 1,600. Wasp complement varies depending on role, but from 1,240 (hospital ship) to 1,560 (helicopter assault) to 1,730 (fast jets) to 2,890 (Marine Brigade embarked). From fas.org.
Anyway, projected costs for CVF are going to be about £7 billion (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13218582), which is a £billion more than when I last looked. And we’re only going to get the use of one.
Is there anyone here who wants to declare that is good value for money? Or that the decisions made back in 2004 were good ones? Or who, if they had the gift of foresight, foreknowledge of the F-35 disaster and their hands on the MoD’s wallet, would not turn around and say “Christ on a bike! Let’s order a couple of Wasps from the Yanks. We’re only going to use the sodding thing once in 50 years, and we could do the job with something cheaper anyway“.
James, 1600, try 980!
I’m talking about his insider knowledge on the real capabilities of SEA VIPER. ie, he hasn’t got any.
I don’t know James but I live in 2012.
“CVF complement including air wing is about 1,600.”
Including max size airwing and embarked Joint Forces HQ.
On a normal day the ship crew of CVF is 682 men, perhaps 760 after CATOBAR conversion and overmanning procedure.
An everyday crew for a Wasp is over 1000 men. And they eat fuel at an obscene rate.
That BBC article is also outdated and incorrect.
CVF cost is 5.2 billion, and conversion budget is 900 millions, with estimates of the effective cost going from 800 to 1200 million.
The only stupid decision on CVF was the delay imposed by Labour government.
Without that, the CVF would still be sticking roughly to their original cost, as certified by NAO.
1-billion-pound-stupidity is a fault of government, not of CVF, not of the Navy, not of carriers, not of industry.
The labour decision cost 1.3 billion over 10 years
@Phil: very few (or any of us!) have an idea of the real abilities of Sea Viper. But the fact is a) T45 radar cannot see anything sea-skimming until 25km out and b) a missile moving near sea level has to deal with 4 + times the air density, and hence the drag, of something up at the tropopause (11000m). Yes, I know supersonic flow is not the same, but it’s not that different (don’t ask me to find the tables, I’ve got no idea where they are!). The range will be far less for a low level target, and that’s that.
@ APATS,
we all live in 2012. I recall sending Gen Freddie Viggers up to the MOD from HQ LAND in 2001 with a brief I had written for a quarterly meeting of service 2 stars, with a whole section on why he (on behalf of the Army, and in conjuction with ACGS) should argue that proposals for new carriers should be argued against. He did, as did his RAF counterpart. Unfortunately the then CDS – an Admiral called Boyce who later became known for his single service mindset – closed down the discussion.
It’s been apparent to many for a decade that CVF is a total waste of money.
“Wasp complement varies depending on role, but from 1,240 (hospital ship) to 1,560 (helicopter assault) to 1,730 (fast jets) to 2,890 (Marine Brigade embarked).”
CVF in LHA role has an expected crew of 1000 and 600 soldiers embarked.
In aviation role she will have 1500 to 1600 men aboard, with 36 jets and 4 helos.
Wasp has 1700+ in aviation role and in said role only carries 20 Harriers.
Wasp is and will always be manpower intensive and extremely expensive to run.
Wf
I am sure what you say is true. I haven’t advocated any performance figures for the missile, I just pointed out Wiki lists it’s range as 120kms. I don’t argue that’s right or wrong, just that nobody knows so its a bit strong to start calling bullshit and talking like you know. When you don’t. Not you. You know what I mean.
Gabriele,
even on your figures, it’s around £6 billion, and for that we’ll use one. But we’ll have to spend another £5 billion to fill it with planes. so £11 billion is the cost of the capability.
Even if a Wasp cost £1 billion, we’d get a lot more utility out of it in its’ various configurations than we would from one CVF and 18 F-35. We’ve already got lots of helicopters, buy a few more and we’re still in the 1:9 cost ratio. That buys a reasonable amount of fuel.
No-one ever did answer the question as to whether CVFs can deliver embarked military forces, act as a hospital, or land logistics through a well deck. Come to think of it, no one answered the question as to the ability of Harrier (or F-35) to under sling loads, to move the Divisional reserve to a threatened flank, or to act as ABFOO/ISTAR/strike asset all in one mission. Is that because there’s an embarrassed silence?
@ wf
we’ve always had Divisional reserves. I can remember being part of the UKMF reserve for a part of bold Guard in Schleswig Holstein in the 90s. My troop was redeployed underslung from Chinook about 80 kms to overwatch a threatened flank. Quite fun, and there were several dozen top quality RAF box lunches in the back of the Chinook that my crew and I raided while the Loadmaster was not watching us. He was most upset when he discovered, and no we didn’t clear up the empty wrappers. Unhitched the wagon, mounted up and buggered off sharpish.
@ APATS,
how often do we need full on maritime air defence? In a proper high threat environment? Of course, we want it, but given hundreds of other competing claims for limited money (and given overlapping capabilities such as T45, where’s the logic that says we fully fund one capability at the expense of many others?
james, just been for a glass of wine on my balcony, yes am not currently based in UK, You are right and i apoligise profusely. How about we have a cease fire so posters who have previously completed courses which other posters have done but as still serving do not mention. None of us talk about?
Hi Gabby @11:18,
you got your Wasps and Americas mixed up (for price)
– I agree with your general reasoning for the total cost, including operating them
So, I go to bed and wake up to see the handbags have been out :)
I do like that the debate is passionate but like all umpires I have to tread a fine line and so, with a dash of reluctance have taken a broad tipped red pen to a number of recent comments that were getting a bit personal.
Apologies if I have thrown the baby out with the bath water
Inter service rivalry it seems, is alive and well !!!
“how often do we need full on maritime air defence?”
Well, last time a british ship had to shot down an anti-ship missile was in 2003.
“even on your figures, it’s around £6 billion, and for that we’ll use one.”
The easy solution is to use the second too, as i believe will be done.
“Even if a Wasp cost £1 billion”
Which it does not, especially if built today.
LHDs being built today range from over 3 USD billion for an America class, to 1.8 USD billion for a Camberra/Juan Carlos.
“No-one ever did answer the question as to whether CVFs can deliver embarked military forces”
I did. CVF is currently projected to work as LHA, embarking 12 F35C and up to 30 helicopters from Apache to CHinook, passing by navalized Merlin transfered from the RAF.
Embarked Military Force put at 600 men.
Which are 600 men housed at very comfortable standards.
On Cavour soldiers are embarked in rooms of 21 small beds each, and on the Wasp or even America accommodation is much more austere. You can no doubt squeeze a lot more troops onto a CVF if you really want. CVF should also have a good share of undesignated compartments that could be used for additional accommodations. Earlier figures were for 1800 berths. At built they’ll have between 1500 and 1600, but more can be added.
And of course, there’s surgical rooms aboard, and an hospital role is more than feasible as well.
Compared to Ocean, CVF can do more in all areas, save for the ramp leading on the poonton at the back.
However Ocean usually embarks 6 L118 and perhaps 40 Land Rovers, all stuff that can and often is slung from helicopters. You can do it on CVF as well.
I don’t know if any consideration has been given to fit the ship boat recesses with davits big enough for LCVPs. Ship boats are a chapter that has never really been revealed about CVF, the little that’s known is what is seen in some images released by the ACA.
At the point in which we are now, it absolutely makes no sense to babble about cancelling CVF and “buy LHDs instead”.
@Gabriele: seconded.
James
“If there is a valid set of tasks beyond those we currently do then fine, but what are they?”
Forced entry
“I’m not falling for economic bankruptcy or the serial underfunding of land forces so that we can “offer an alternative to the US as coalition leader”.”
To be fair, I think the airforce gets the worst of it.
My view remains, the British Armed Forces are incapable of all but the smallest task without massive US support. I see only one way to change that.
If you dont consider a US VETO over UK military action a problem, then yes, theres little reason to support my views.
SI
“dropping hugely expensive Storm Shadow and Paveway weapons to neutralise, in some cases, just a single tank.”
I thought paveways were fairly cheap?
I’m sure I read $40,000 plus bomb.
A javelin anti tank missile is three times that!
“My final point is based on a number of comments made by visiting senior officers and non-Service guests whom I have heard in the past 18 months or so, all of whom talk of the renewed interest in the maritime argument in the heart of Government. By all accounts DC, unlike his predecessors, gets the need for maritime capability over land striking power and therefore I hope to see this in three years time.”
Interesting, I’m certainly aware of the utter disaster everyone thinks Afghanistan to be, but I’d not really heard anything about what was going to replace it, beyond my own yelling/whispering into MP’s ears “Any war that lasts over 180 days is an electoral disaster”.
James
“The point is that there is a potential “threat zone” to our ships that exceeds the range of Harpoon (currently our longest-ranged self-protection).”
At the end of the day, the Royal Navy doesnt expect single ship duels.
Air or Submarine will destroy enemy ships long before they get into missile range.
In a perfect world, yes, ships would have fearsum anti ship missiles, but theres always more.
(Why arent you wearing three sets of body armour? Well, I’m expecting the first two to save me….)
“1. AH-64 is a far better CAS platform than anything the RAF or FAA flew in the CAS role.”
“2. Fleet air defence at sea is far better achieved by T45 than by CAP”
“To retake the FI,”
Your right, but only in the Falklands, due to very specific reasons.
Imagine refighting the Gulf Wars, without fast air.
T45 could protect the landing areas, the rear supply dumps and rest areas. But the road to Baghdad would be dominated by Iraqi ground attack migs, highway of death in reverse.
Apache couldnt attack their lines if their lines were protected by Air Superiority Fights.
James
Thats one of the reasons I think the MRB’s are such a good idea, and I wat them attached to the fleet and air assets that support them for joint training, a lot.
Gabriele
In a permissive environment, helicopters are much better. They just are.
Topman
But Ground forces dont want a 3 hour window next wednesday for air support.
They need it when they need it.
Why shouldnt a CAS pair be assigned to a particular commander, and be sat in their aircraft, ready to take off with 30 seconds warning, hammer the after burners all the way and provide CAS where and when its needed?
The IDF put basicaly everything under Brigade staffs for their foray into Gaza and it worked brilliantly.
The support arms did what they were supposed to do, they supported the teeth arms.
James
“If the best tool for controlling the sky is a CAP, why the bloody hell are we spending billions on T45?”
Because it costs £2.5mn per day to keep a fighter pair airborne 24 hours a day.
James
“I’m getting really frustrated with this blog. Defence is all about a balanced view of risk taking across a broad range of scenarios.”
Except your force falls apart the second the US stops doing the heavy lifting.
Which doesnt seem safely balanced.
Observer
“The US SC21 program found out that TLAM volleys can cause enough “shock” damage to an invasion force that it will stop an invasion cold, mainly by destroying MBTs and mechanised transport, so TLAM CAS does work, but the CAP is sacrificed as a result, not a good thing.”
I’m not sure I’d say they found it, speculated perhaps.
The British Force that retook the falklands lost well over 20% of its transports on the atlantic conveyor, didnt stop us…
James
But once you ignore wasted money thats already spent, the Carriers and their aircraft are remarkably cheap.
All of you
Chill out dudes.
@ James – “It is Government policy that it is not entering service, and sale is a possibility. I’ll eat my hat if we ever have two at sea at once.”
Two statements there, neither an entirely accurate understanding of statements made.
It is government policy that it has not yet been decided what is happening to the second CVF, because the transitional process that is the 2010 and 2015 SDSR’s (leading to FF2020), have not justified allocating budget to more than one carrier given current budget and current commitments.
Your hat is quite safe, for the most likely scenario using the second carrier is that it will be rotated in and out of service with the first, to ensure a [[permanent]] capability to mount carrier operations rather than only eight months out of twelve. We did not after all keep BAOR in Germany only eight months of the year, and while you might believe the situation is different it is really not, it is about maintaining credible threat to reinforce the British negotiation position. A relevant priority in all situations and all times. This is even more important when you consider the need for the 12-18 month deep refit required every 5-7 years.
RE “The IDF put basicaly everything under Brigade staffs for their foray into Gaza and it worked brilliantly.”
– area-wise a miniscule expanse to be covered, pre-charted to the last house and shed
I don’t think you can generalise from that one. However, a long time ago I posted a link to their 5-tiered UAV architecture for persistent battle field coverage. In that one the brigade commander has his own, directly controlled assets.
– as we will only “ever” field one brigade, the problem does not arise?
@ Dom J
‘But Ground forces dont want a 3 hour window next wednesday for air support.’
I think that’s a bit of an unfair generalisation. Sometimes there are other priorities. Not every commander can have everything they want When the want, demand outstrips supply for nearly every sort of air support.
‘Why shouldnt a CAS pair be assigned to a particular commander, and be sat in their aircraft, ready to take off with 30 seconds warning, hammer the after burners all the way and provide CAS where and when its needed?’
They do frequently stand ready to scramble, but really for one op. Although it does happen for pre planned major ones. Not every time for reason I’ve put above. They might do but only for short periods, tying a/c to specific units for long periods of time (weeks) doesn’t happen. It leads to the FJs not being used in the best manner possible.
Why should commanders have a theatre asset assigned to their operation at all times? That’s an insane way to run a war. The Russians wouldn’t believe their ears. We used to book AH and I think for fast air there were duty planes for different areas. I’m not sure you could bag these. But even booking AH didn’t guarantee you it if something more important came up.
For some idea of the air support delivered to a us marine brigade it consists of
Marine Aircraft Group (MAG)
40 AV-8B
24 F/A-18
4 EA-6B
6 KC-130
32 CH-53D/E
12 AH-1W
48 CH-46E or V-22
12 UH-1N
I doubt we have such a capabilty avaiable.
“Why should commanders have a theatre asset assigned to their operation at all times?”
One of the Complaints/Defences used at Wanat was (in my understanding) “other units kept stealing all of my resources”.
If each brigade has its own UAVs, they cant be borrowed by the divison for other purposes.
Well, I suppose they can….
Perhaps they were stolen for good reasons. No one likes it but tough. They are the Army’s resources, not Major Disasters.
Late to the party, and picking up on James comment re: Apaches “Job lot of marinised AH-64”. According to Air Forces Monthly (or Combat Aircraft Monthly) the Apache did not perform any where as well as the combination of Gazelle and Tigre used by the French and its short comings in terms of being handled on by the aircrew and crew safety were exposed and it would need additional and likely significant costs to navalise to a standard where it would be safe.
Personally I think there is more legs in a gunship version of the Wild Cat with the BAE Gama turret fitted and weapon pylons for LLM, Brimstone, Hellfire and CV-70 rocket pods.
Or for the totally wild idea (which almost certainly deserves to be shot down and ridiculed) why don’t we tell the Russian’s that we love them, and ask to pay to navalise the Ka-52 Alligator (folding rotor and tail, anti-corrosion and lash down points), and then agree a license for total UK construction, replace the Russian Mil Data Bus with a NATO compliant one, recycle a modified version of the Merlin radar, use an off the shelf OE turret, and fit a BAE sourced gun and glass cockpit, a Western engine, and NATO standard weapon pylons. Buy 40 of them and we are sorted, especially if we can fit 4 IR A2A missiles in similar way that the Russians fit 4 Igla on the Ka-52.
BTW why has no-one built UCAV based on the harrier, it seems to me that we could have kept back 3-4 GR9’s as development platforms and once they were working got Boeing and BAE to do a LRIP of say 24 UCAV’s which will have been a lovely addition to the FAA (I know that they cannot do A2A but I am dubious if we will ever see more than 12 fighters on CVF ever, they may be enough but seems a bit of waste of resources and far too few if we are looking at providing both CAP and CAS at the same time).
Hi Tubby,
The Alligators will be flying off the 4 Mistrals and westernatisation has already been done:
” A Turkish-specific, NATO-compatible variant of the Ka-52 called the Erdogan was developed in cooperation with Israel’s IAI to compete in Turkey’s attack helicopter competition, but lost to Italy’s AW129T Mongoose”
– source: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Russias-Ka-52-Alligator-Scout-Attack-Helicopters-05150/http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Russias-Ka-52-Alligator-Scout-Attack-Helicopters-05150/
To complicated to land a harrier ucav it would require f35 b level software development. Personnelly a humming bird for light attack recon and vrep could be a goer for the carriers
Mark, what do you think of a Hummingbird and one of those LM Vigilance pods as a replacement longer term for ASaC
“Mark, what do you think of a Hummingbird and one of those LM Vigilance pods as a replacement longer term for ASaC”
This is the most promising and realistic use for a big drone for the moment. I thought about it.
The issue is that the radar is on the drone, but the two operators and the consoles would have to be on the ship, and receive the radar data in real time.
And we are talking of a radar which generates a lot more info and data than a Lynx radar on a Reaper that looks 60 km away or so.
Is it feasible to sustain such a flow of data, and in real time? I think this is the big problem braking the idea.
One constraint of flying both fast jets and amphib helos off the same CVF will be that the Carrrier group has to come much closer to shore than if the Strike and LPH roles were able to be kept separate.
In the much discussed FI scenario this would mean the whole fleet would have to come into San Carlos and not just the amphib element. The CVF would not be able to hang back like Hermes and Invincible did at a safer distance because the helos would then be too far away to be useful for amphib support. In this rather scary scenario its probably a good thing to have BOTH well directed F-35C AND T45 providing the necessary air security as the enemy would throw everything they had at the carrier.
Although I have used the familiar FI example it looks to me as if this constraint would apply to contested amphibious operations generally.
The answer is of course to have the ability to surge both CVFs for a short period: one in close as an LPH and one hanging back to provide air cover and Strike. Looks like we are stuck with the compromise solution for the moment however :(
Peter
Agree Gabby, the robustness of the data link is a key constraining factor in simply attaching a radar at one end and the operators at the other but then the operators in a Sea King don’t look at a raw data feed, they look at a synthetic display that has some very clever software behind it and interact with it via a number of interfaces.
So if we can get this display and two way control information down a robust data link then maybe it becomes viable.
After all, its how we do it with other unmanned vehicles
How much data the radar operators actualy use?
**please dont shoot me**
Dont they just get the circle with the spiny line and the blobs?
Couldnt all the processing to generate that be done on the UAV?
If they need to change any settings, surely they can upload new settings to the UAV in real time?
**I did say dont shoot me**
The US are developing a common data link. Spec indicates that it can handle all sorts of data types and sensors, including RADINT. Throughput 137 Mbit/s. I don’t know if that is adequate for the radar in the LM Vigilance pod, and of course the datalink is still being developed. But, it’s an indication of what data links can and cannot handle in 2011.
http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes-C4I-Systems/AN-USQ-123-V-Common-Data-Link-Navy-CDL-N-United-States.html
Currently Would be a strong option particularly if you perhaps had say a merlin airborne with operators as a sort of link 16 relay as opposed to sat com controlling several hummingbirds. Only concern maybe any delay in feed on the anti ship missile engagement. Hummingbird doubling as both a land and sea logistics transport Uav and the basic recon role would be we’re I’d start buy an austere buy to test its viability and incrementally upgrade would be the way to go
One further thing power consumption of the radar maybe a show stopper don’t know what power requirements the system has
Sorry, I got my links mixed up. The US datalink is already in service. The European datalink is in development, and is aimed to have a throughput of 300 Mbit/s.
http://www.eda.europa.eu/Libraries/Documents/ETAP_TDP1_4c_-_Executive_Summary.sflb.ashx
“So if we can get this display and two way control information down a robust data link then maybe it becomes viable.”
Fact is that it is a quite big if, i suspect. Times are probably not yet mature: no one has tried doing anything like this, with a system like AEW+Cerberus, yet, for what i know.
Maybe the americans will fix the problem: i suspect they will be dealing with this issue on a possibly even larger scale with their mega radar-airship plan.
It will be interesting to see if they are successful or if they meet doom.
“In the much discussed FI scenario this would mean the whole fleet would have to come into San Carlos and not just the amphib element. The CVF would not be able to hang back like Hermes and Invincible did at a safer distance because the helos would then be too far away to be useful for amphib support.”
Not sure that San Carlos makes for a good comparison: there was no LPH back then, either. The issue was somewhat less felt because there were relatively damn few helicopters anyway!
True, a CVF for an amphibious op will have to come closer, but i don’t think it is so big an issue.
It is the very last thing i worry about, personally.
Good points Mark and James, its the commonality of the radar with the F35 and the ability of the Hummingbird to fly higher than a Merlin and for much longer that kind of makes this a very interesting prospect.
Think of the aircrew savings and they are very small so for a given mission duration, might even be a useful space reduction.
Just thinking out aloud but I wonder if you could operate a pair from a T45 to extend the operational bubble, overland perhaps, then net everything together with sea and land based Aster/Sea Ceptor
Thats a very tasty combination with complete commonality between land and sea so its a capability that would have dual use
A week or so back I posted in the OT-LS&A that the Italian ASaC Merlin is now flying.
“commonality of the radar with the F35”
Caution there, we don’t actually know if said commonality exists and how extensive it is. Vigilance apparently is a development of the AN/APG-80, not the 81 mounted on the F35. There will be points of contact, but who knows if meaningful or not.
If they exist, it is very good, but we don’t really know.
Also, the Vigilance weights nearly 300 kg and does not provide 360° view in its current form.
Then there’s the issues of Power, Cooling, Datalink.
“Think of the aircrew savings”
Would they really be substantial? Keeping a Reaper in the air, since crews switch every four hours, actually requires more men. It might not be so straightforward.
The idea is good and fascinating, but the realism of it is still questionable. A lot of problems to solve before it is a viable alternative.
TD
If we replace the fort 1 class rfas with a similar ship with a similar helicopter capabilty eg up to 4 sea kings you could operate them from that as one of these will be attached to any real task force. I think hummingbird only just lost out to kmax for the usmc but an is quick entry to service now and we could have a play with for a while
AESA technology itself could provide the answer:
– the transfer rates James quotes were upped already 2 and 4 times in 2006 in trials by Northrop Grumman (I could not find other results, from only a year ago from plane to ground well over a Gig/s was achieved.
Aviationweek had a good snippet where this is going:
“Moreover, while the initial testing looks at AESA radar arrays on smaller tactical aircraft, there’s also the potential that large arrays–such as the MP-RTIP radars planned for the Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and E-10 multi-sensor command-and-control aircraft (or an E-8 Joint Stars upgrade)–could pass even more information at higher rates.”
RE: Harrier based UAV. It was my understanding that the F-35B landing software was tested on a test Harrier, and as it is supposed to be virtually hands-off, using it for a UAV shouldn’t be too difficult.. or am I being too optomistic?
Just on the quoted ranges for Aster, 120km for Aster 30 and 30km for Aster 15 are not just “Wiki numbers”, they’re the standard ones quoted in public by MBDA for Block 0/1 eg :
http://www.mbda-systems.com/mediagallery/files/ASTER-family_background.pdf
Yes, there’s all sorts of caveats about such figures, but for the purposes of talking about these things on a blog, they’re good enough as a basis of discussion.
El Sid, max range is not effective range. The 120km quoted range is probably only applicable to slow, large targets like Badger turboprop bombers with a huge radar signature and low agility.
The 15/30km missile intercept range was IIRC also from one of their technical publications. I’ll go look it up, but what I did remember was that the effective missile intercept range was part of the missile name (ASTER 15/30).
If you’re talking about maximum effective range though, even one of the anti-ship missiles was touted as an “anti-bomber” missile. Can’t remember if it was the old Gabriel or the Harpoon. Easy to do if your target was a lumbering turboprop.
I still owe you an article on Airships TD. But….events get in the way! It’s half done.
For the long term, I believe that the most cost effective way of providing persistent airborne surveillance over a ship or task group could be met by unmanned airship(s).
Some parameters: Blue Kestrel surveillance radar (as per Merlin) weighs about 85 kilos for the 4 main components of the system. Call it 100 kilos including cabling, mountings, etc. It can operate from -40 to +55 degrees C, and is cleared for unpressurised use to 10,000 feet. At 10,000 feet, you have a horizon of 106 nautical miles.
Blue Kestrel consumes 170W on mean operation. Standard home photovoltaic panels also by coincidence come in 170W versions, so I am confident that the technology in airship solar panels can generate more than enough power over the greater surface area of the top of the gas envelope. That leaves night times, and a generator producing 200W won’t weigh more than 50 kilos. 12 hours of generator operation will consume about 10 litres of fuel. Add in another 20 kilos of mounts, cladding, and the total weight of the generator + fuel package is going to be around 1000 kilos for 100 hours of generator operation. A datalink is going to weigh about 30 kilos, roughly 50 kilos including mounts and cladding.
All up weight of payload of 1220 kilos gets you 8.3 days of operation. Call it 7 days.
How big an airship is needed? One cubic metre of air weighs about 1.280 kilos, so using Archimedes’ principle the airship would need to displace just under 1000 cubic metres of air if filled with helium.
One huge design consideration: towed or with engines? I believe engines are better for higher altitudes rather than towing (steel cable for 10,000 elevation will weigh about 4,500 kilos for crane-grade cable, and Lord knows what effect a towed airship would have on sea-keeping), and of course the airship is independently relocatable without having to be towed to a new position. Short cable tethers of perhaps 100 metres could be provided for port visits to save the engines.
3 pod engines provide adequate coverage, and based on a souped up paramotor design, weigh in at about 100 kilos each. Fuel for 24/7 operation (x3) would be about 200 kilos / day (still researching that – it’s ballpark but not more than about 10% out). So the weight for 3 pod engines operating with fuel for 8.3 days is just over 1900 kilos.
All up payload weight of 3120 kilos, plus the weight of the envelope itself (which depends on the size of the envelope). To hoist 3500 kilos into the air requires an envelope of around 2750 cubic metres. In simple geometry, that is 14 metres cubed, but of course the airship would be shaped as a hybrid lifting wing, so around about 22 metres long and 6 or so broad. That’s quite big.
However, compare to costs of a helicopter or E-2, plus crews, etc. Initial research indicates you could buy such an envelope for about £1.2 million, and the cost of engines / radar / datalink is probably going to put another £5 million on that. Call it £6.5 million, in comparison to about £20? million for a Merlin. Hourly running costs minimal in comparison to Merlin, and surveillance is persistent, so you don’t need so many platforms.
A “spare” surveillance airship of that size in packed away state would take up less than an ISO, and could be launched from an RFA ship in under 4 hours.
Shooting down an airship is a lot harder than any other aerial platform. It requires top attack in most cases (ripping holes in the belly does very little, as the helium atoms look down at the hole and think “nothing to do with me – I’m trying to rise”). A gas envelope of the size described will have tens of thousands of internal compartments, so you need thousands of pieces of shrapnel to have a discernible effect. The biggest worry is the engines packing up, but that’s also a worry in a helicopter.
@ James, what about the equipment cabin how is that protected? If it’s got engines and it’s at 10k ft I would think it would be an easy target to just hit that part and then leave it floating.
max range is not effective range.
Oh I’m well aware of that – that’s why I said “there’s all sorts of caveats about such figures”. But people had just got a bit petty about sourcing, so I thought it was worth posting the manufacturer’s public figures as a starting point.
You’re right that the original names were based on range against anti-ship missiles. However I’ll refer you to p577 of NIGWNWS 5th ed., which quotes 30km against missiles and 70km against aircraft at one point during the development.
I’ll just say that ranges are not set in stone, and it can be quite useful to use old names even when things have moved on in the real world.
On the subject of anti-bomber missiles, you may be thinking of the various stories mooting Kh-31 derivatives as AWACS killers?
@ Topman,
only one engine is required to ascend / descend as a design principle, so your attacker would need to take out all three. I’d hope the RN would not sit idly by while an attacker had an unmolested run at three engines with 3 missiles, after all we’ve got those jolly expensive T45s and their missiles. It’s also not fundamentally too different for the existing Merlin, except only one missile may be required to take that out of the sky. Merlin engines generate a lot more heat than souped up parameter engines, and the whole platform is a much bigger radar target to boot. I’m not sure that a wildly manoeuvring helicopter is going to out-run a missile either, and (at the expense of more payload), DAS can be fitted to an airship. The cost of replacement if lost is less, and of course the lives of helicopter crewmen are not at risk.
It’s not at all risk-free, I would not claim that. But in comparing similar risks across platforms, and looking at both acquisition and through-life costs, the modern airship makes a compelling case to be looked at very hard for persistent ISTAR missions on both land and at sea. Sea is much more complicated, with needs for station-keeping and the ability for the “mother platform” (i.e. a ship) to host a control station, etc etc. Over land, and especially for ops such as Afghanistan (imagery sensors, comms relays, etc), the ability to use static tether makes the argument for at least looking at the solution even more compelling.
El Sid, actually I remembered the AShM SAM from the proposed design purpose of the launcher on a gunboat. Anti-ship/Anti-bomber. It was in the 80s though, almost 30 years back, and the memory’s the 1st to go :).
Can’t seem to find the old quotes on interception ranges now, they must have updated their websites to look better as tech matures. Nice to find someone who knew that the numbers at the end were missile intercept ranges though, vindicates my claims that the original numbers were ranges.
Just a slight quibble on perforated airbags James. Helium will leak, even if it’s a hole on the bottom, Brownian motion will see to that, so you will lose lift over time, just not instantly.
Good point james, I think a merlin would be more useful overall, but I take your point about cost and risk. Particularly as they are very cheap. How large before being inflated are could a ship have more than one? I’m thinking RFA could put up quite a few if needed. Or if too risky a more warlike ship.
@ Observer,
I think it is called “graceful degradation”, which probably cannot be realistically applied to a Merlin hit by a biggish missile. Of course, I remember Brownian motion from my schooldays (and in those days, the practical demo was done by the science master puffing smoke from his pipe into a little box – the PC brigade would have a fit these days at the idea of a science master smoking on campus).
I don’t have the links on this computer, but modelling, studies and tests have shown that it takes multiple missiles to take down an airship of reasonable size, and even then it’s a slow motion event.
@ Topman,
not trying to curry favour with TD at all, but having visited both LM in the states and Hybrid Air Vehicles in the UK, we’re talking iSO containers. One ISO for a “deflated complete kit” for the sort of airborne surveillance airship I outline above, maybe a big 44 tonne box body plus two more ISOs for one of the giant StratSats.
Can you get an ISO on the deck of an RFA? I think you can.
I thought that you might. First thing is half a dozen of this things floating over the coast of a Libya type op. I would think they would give you a large amount of info about what was happening on the coastal road.
Edit should be ‘thought that they might’
@ Topman,
yes, agree on starting out with static / tethered airships as the Services get used to using them. As I said in a post well above, long-term a maritime airborne surveillance airship could prove a good bet, but there’s a reasonable amount of workup and technology demonstration needed first.
Could spawn a whole new class of fairly cheap ship, possibly RFA. “ISTAR mothership” class. Flat top for half of the length, hangars for ISOs and UAVs, a couple of rocket ramps for UAVs at 45 degree angles, open working space for airship L&R operations, and a couple of dozen control stations for the control staff. And tethering reasonably easily achieved through big concrete blocks dropped overboard in the littoral.
I would go with self-powered than tethered too, I’m not that fond of the idea of increasing my radar signature, so send the airship off ahead to scout and hide the destroyer in the back with it’s AShMs. And having it untethered also allows them to be placed as remote “sentry posts”.
Though you could always change “mobile” to tethered by simply tying a rope to a block of concrete or something.
James
Any ideas on the operating limits for launch and recover of a airship from a ship in bad weather. Are they better or worse than a helicopter and the protection required on the airship especially if tethered buy a cable for lightning strike potential would be a concern along with ice build up on the airship itself especially in the polar/atlantic regions. Also if you flying a airship tethered to ship your going to be spotted at quite some distance away. They may have a place but not sure as a replacement capability they would be my first choice.
The cost of actual helicopter operation from the Defence Aircraft Capitation Rates gives a significantly more normal price for helicopters below 3-4K per hour but gd luck getting those in the public domain.
@ Mark,
Operating Limits. I’m not an airman, so my own knowledge is not informed by practical knowledge. From what I have researched, and sat in on various meetings, medium-size airships and medium-size helicopters are about equivalent in weather limits. Recovery is not such an issue: you leave it up there until you’ve got a gap in the weather if it is that bad. Given a Met section somewhere within the fleet, you should have the data available to make a planning decision for the recovery window. Launch is a little more complex, but what Hybrid Air Vehicles recommended was a tethered, controlled launch into wind to allow the airship to attain about 100 metres altitude, and then an electronic cutaway of the short cable with ascent selected on the engines: it goes up and away quickly at no risk to the ship or airship. Of course, you need to select an operating altitude but that is the same for a helicopter.
Station-keeping in heavy weather is of course not as easy as in no weather, consumes more fuel and so on, but again is about the same for helicopters. There’ll be a limit as to what is possible.
Re lightning, I’ve no idea how the Navy work around that, but imagine that pretty much the same considerations as they apply now would also apply to airships. The advantage that airships have is that you’ve got a lot more tolerance for delaying decisions than you do with a helicopter with people embarked. At 10,000 feet you are above most lightning.
I don’t recommend tethering for altitude operations. Apart from the weight of cable and any effects on sea-keeping for the towing ship, that 10,000 feet of cable is going to pretty effectively point straight at the ship on anyone’s radar screen. For port visits, I think a 100 metre tether is about right. High enough to not interfere with port operations, low enough to potentially attach a RAS-style hose to pump the tanks full of more juice. There’ll be a swept area of cable hazard on deck as the airship drifts about with the breeze, but that can be countered with some yellow or red warning paint in a 5 metre circle on the deck.
James
On the lightning it is a consideration in weather up to an altitude of 50K ft. So that will be a consideration with sensitive equipment on board indeed the merlin is the most advanced all weather particularly cold weather helicopter in the world. This requires particular attention in regards to airships which are non metallic and I cant stress that enough. The tethering was were I had a particular concern that would have been unique. If you load a lot of ISTAR and possibly DAS ect on an airship there comes a point where such equipment become power hungry and cost escalates to the point where they arent cheap to lose it will be a fine line to balance.
@ Mark
i’ll bow to your lightning knowledge. However, as I say an airship is not a perfect solution, but given handling characteristics and limits in weather equivalent to medium size helicopters, I still think that there are some powerful arguments for an organisation such as dstl to do some serious investigative work into overall capability, performance and cost-effectiveness in a range of scenarios / conditions. Airships are right there in the mix along with helicopters or platforms such as E-2, I’m sure of it. And we are going to need a Sea King AEW replacement within 5 or so years.
James has a good point with airships. to take it a step further though far more low tech, if you look at the FI and san carlos the Argentinian aircraft flew over the force at low level. what about some airships tethered to rafts as barrage balloons with high tension steel wire to ruin a pilots day. Adds to his workload, worries about SAMs dodge AAA and avoid steel wires.
Always been a big fan of airships for support roles that require persistence.
@ APATS, barrage balloons now that would be a blast from the past!
@ APATS, I’ll offer you this in civility, and also a chicken nugget for our ever-patient host to start salivating over.
Airship, in an ISO, on a mexeflote….
Is that X-rated enough for TD?
stop it :)
an ISO with a compressor a few gas tanks, a coil of cable and a roof that detaches like a camper van on steroids!
Before Christmas I mentioned a US Army RFI for a “small” blimp for land units – probably carrying something like Argus-IS and transported by a single vehicle, system weight <2500lb. OK, not as fancy as some of the things mentioned here, and not as capable, but it's the kind of thing that could fit on a frigate or other forward-deployed vessel and do a useful job with either a radar or visual imaging payload.
@Observer – that's a new one on me. Sounds the sort of weird creative thing the Israelis would have done – they were a bit short on SAM technology back then, they do gunboats, and it would fit their doctrine to get even more SSMs on the Saars.
Thanks ACC, I know it a pipe dream but it seems to me that if we got on well enough with Russia to buy equipment from them that a NATO compliant navalised Ka-52 would be a good investment for the FAA, as I think that the cost of upgrading the Apache’s to operate seamlessly from HMS Ocean/CVF would risk any upgrades to the Apache keep it fit for its prime mission.
@everyone
I am sure I must be a bit slow on the uptake, but I just realised apart from the unique proposition of mixing large numbers of helo’s with CATOBAR fighters, CVF has basically turned into a RN version of the US America (which is what James is arguing for and given the sunk costs already, keeping CVF is cheapest way now to achieve it) – basically we are likely to get 40ish F-35’s in the medium term with between 6 – 12 permanently based on the active carrier, and as Gabby said the RN can fit up to 30 helicopters along side 12 F-35C’s, so I would imagine that RN version would be a mix of Merlin’s and Wild Cat’s, possibly 12 – 16 in total which would not be far from a typical air group on a USMC LHD. From wikipedia the typical air group of a Wasp is:
6 AV-8B Harrier II attack aircraft
4 AH-1W SuperCobra attack helicopter
12 CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters or 4+ MV-22 Osprey
4 CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters
3-4 UH-1N Huey helicopters
So the FAA equivalent would be:
6 – 12 F-35C
4 AH-64 Apache’s on loan from the AAC
12 Merlin’s a mix of HM2’s and HC-4’s, plus 2 Merlin based Crowsnest’s
4 Chinook HC5’s on loan from the RAF
3-4 Wild Cat’s
While I am not crazy how things have worked out and would have preferred the F-35B and preferred a virtual off the shelf purchase of something like Cavour, it doesn’t seem such a bad set up as the idea of using CVF as dedicated strike carrier with 36 F-35C’s permanently embarked.
@Gareth
Thanks for the info, it sounds like if there was a decent market for it, that Boeing could have developed a UAV derived from the Harrier – maybe they will if the F-35B is cancelled and the USMC switches entirely to the F-35C or the F/A-18 E/F
Towed Arrays,
serious question. How much do towed arrays (anti-sub) affect ship-handling? Unless it is a state secret in which case no one say anything, how much typical cable is paid out? Is there a garage-type housing for the coils of cable and the array itself, or is it drums on the back of the deck? Am thinking of a similar concept for a small airship with about 2,000 feet of cable / power supply and a small surveillance radar. Have worked out airship size would be about 3 metres by 1.5 by 1.2 with a 100 kilo Blue Kestrel type radar, and a horizon of about 39.96 nautical miles with the cable at 45 degrees, or 52.28 nautical miles from a dead stop. Not bad for a frigate, and maybe only £2-3 million.
james not sure about 2087 but 2031 meant keeping speed down to about 3-9 knots lower during deployment, course changes carefully considered to provide bearing changes on a passive only system. 2087 can be active and deploys a body as well not just a tail. In terms of size imagine a 1 car garage.
Off topic but I read something today about fibre optic sensing being used to replace passive sonar, interesting stuff
@ James, just thinking out loud; would a drum used for gliders launch be an alternative option?
I should have said optimal detection is at 3-9 knots you can sprint and drift.
APATS,
1 car garage is about right for a deflated system. Could even be modular. Still, would need datacomms (gig ethernet OK) to a 2 console system for the operators somewhere on board.
I’ve no idea how useful a frigate would find a 50 nautical mile horizon AESA search radar. Maybe another type of ship would. I know it’s possible.
The problem with the towed array “garage”is it feed through the quarterdeck out the stern which puts it under the flight deck.
Towed arrays, how much cable is played out probably also depends on how deep is the thermocline barrier in that part of the ocean. Part of the reason for towed arrays is to look beyond the layer.
Beyond the speed limit, you also can’t make hard turns or risk tangling the cables, so no sudden “knuckle in the water” manouver
@Topman: winch launch for gliders is predicated on having a wing which needs velocity to provide lift. An airship wouldn’t work in this regard. Perhaps some sort of vertical catapault?
RN trialled Scan Eagle on a ship several years ago, there’s a photo in the long UAS paper on the DCDC site. Incidentally it is officially ‘UAS’ not ‘UAV’, do try and keep up at the back.
As I understand it GMLRS uses GPS, if correct then a moving platform should not cause any problems. Another advantage is that you can have ‘designer trajectories’, enabling optimum approach to the target and simulatneous impact from the same launcher, the record sim impact is apparantly 9 msls on point targets along a ridge line fired by RA.
All MLRS rounds are in sealed tubes that function as the launch tubes, for dumb munitions precise aiming is essential, for smart it probably doesn’t matter too much. The only real mechanical stuff is loading a pod of 6 rkts into the launcher, having either got the lnchr to where the pods are sitting or putting the pods alongside the launcher. But I doubt that anything less than an aircraft carrier would be able to handle pods from the magazine up to the launcher. Each tubed rkt is some 300 kg, a bit shy of 2 tonnes for a pod of 6, which makes 1000lb bombs look a tad pissant. Of course you could have smaller pods for naval use.
The great benefit of loitering munitions are not just a very fast response, but the ability to engage moving targets. An extremely difficult problem for indirect fire.
@Obsvr
UAS is a system. UAV is a vehicle.
Think SAM -> Firing unit/Radar unit etc.
I thought the current trendy nomenclature is RPAS :)
Re: Harrier UAV
Why when there is all that lovely ogin to take off and land on?
@TD
Remote Piloted Aircraft System?
Really Potted Acromyn System? :P
And Harrier UAV? Think I missed that one.
btw the word Harrier is mentioned 30 times in this comment stream.
I read somewhere last year that, in anticipation of Fireshadow coming into service we were running our GMLRS stocks down to 1200 rounds. I hope they meant 1200 pods rather than rounds – that would be a bit more reasonable IMHO.
http://cgblog.org/2012/01/24/a-truely-low-cost-maritime-surveillance-aircraft/