Is this a new low for the senior officers and civil servants at the MoD?
F35 Leaks
If the report that Thomas Harding has supposedly seen and reported on was actually marked ‘Secret’ then releasing such protectively marked information is a serious breach of the Official Secrets Act and should be investigated as such.
If we cast our minds back to the famous leaked letter from Liam Fox to David Cameron, not a single person has been bought to account for that.
Is this now normal behaviour, is this the standard of conduct that should be expected of senior officers and civil servants because that document would not have been released to Joe Bloggs in the pub, then it really is a sad day.
As soon as the potential for a change in model from F35C to F35B the well oiled campaign has been in full flow, blog posts, tweets, letters to the editor and think tank musings from all the usual suspects have been involved in a concerted and coordinated campaign to persuade those in the decision making circle to ‘do the right thing’
We all know the F35C represents in isolation a set of improved performance figures and lower initial aircraft sticker price but those in the campaign simply do not comprehend that the decision is about overall cost and impact to the rest of defence.
Regardless of the decision, which for me is exactly and precisely nothing more than balance and cost, yet again, the grown ups in the MoD have cheapened themselves by talking out of school.
In my last post on this subject I suggested that Mr Hammond should go on the warpath against the leakers and spinners but I think this latest episode has shown that certain individuals on that document distribution list need to have a little attention from the MoD Police.
The rioters have felt the full force of the law and lenience for them, no matter how trivial their actual crimes, was in short supply.
Perhaps we should take the same approach with those responsible for this.
EDIT
Another take on this from Sir Humphrey, click here
Simon, I think FA2 was made obsolete by the lusting for CVF/JCA at all costs, hence it was sacked off on the basis of jam tomorrow
If you read all the early transcripts and material from the early days of JCA/CVF and even today, outer layer air defence never seems to get a mention
TD,
That’s because you can’t provide outer later air defence with jets without a high AEW capability.
The time to target is too slow.
e.g.
Detect at 200nm, scramble FA2 at 400 knots average against a slow (400 knot) threat – intercept at 100nm in 15 minutes.
Compare with:
AEW detected incoming threat at 200nm.
Wait.
Wait.
Fire Mach 4.5 Aster 30
Intercept at 100nm (sneaky) in 90 seconds.
@ACC: AMRAAM needs midcourse guidance to be effective at anything other than short range. These signals are usually transmitted via the sidelobes of the fighter radar controlling the engagement. Given that ship radar would be ineffective past the horizon, you would have to assume the only way of gaining that data would be via ASAC7, if we could retrofit a datalink to it
@TD Outer layer defence does not get a mention in the same manner that a MBTs ability to engage another MBT may not be mentioned. It is a given that this will be one of the primary roles of any carrier based aircraft.
TLAM and Storm Shadow are all well and good but the enemy get a vot as well and the only way you have to kill the aircraft that want to launch their version at you once airborne is a fighter aircraft.
If I remember rightly (which to be fair, I usually don’t) wasn’t the issue with the SHAR that the engine upgrade required was very different from the GRs? And as TD has pointed out, there is a significant lack of documents where the FAA screamed blue murder about the loss of SHAR.
And just to stir the shite a little in the opposition direction, only a couple of weeks I saw a comment from a US Navy pilot, I’ll see if I can find it again, who basically said that the difficulty of Carrier landing vs base landing was somewhat over stated, at least in the case of reasonably skilled aviators.
Chris B,
The FA2 was the old Harrier I airframe so the refit of a new engine may well have been more difficult than shoving it into the Harrier II.
Interesting about the carrier landing.
Hi wf,
I would assume you are right for the UK with ” would have to assume the only way of gaining that data would be via ASAC7, if we could retrofit a datalink to it”
- in the US they can do fighter-to-fighter hand-offs after launch (F-35 becomes a force multiplier?)
@TD: the FA2 decision was made immediately after the RAF took over administrative control of JFH, more than half a decade before *any* spending would have been required for JCA or CVF assuming an in service date of 2012. Not a valid excuse IMHO
@Simon: the entire point of having a fighter available is that it can fly a CAP up threat. It would be sitting 100NM off the fleet, with a radar that can detect threats another 100NM away (even if they are at low level) and with missiles that can reach out 50NM. Threats 200NM away would be engaged within minutes. Meanwhile, the Aster and T45 would see targets pop up momentarily, then would see nothing until the missiles appear on radar at 20NM, whereupon they would 30 secs to engage before they hit. Feeling relaxed?
@Simon: “interceptors” are not becoming “strike aircraft”, strike aircraft and interceptors are becoming multirole
@TD: given we can only launch TLAM from subs at the moment, we might be a bit optimistic to assume we would both compromise the stealth of our “ace in the hole” SSN and be able to sustain the multiple attacks required to keep a runway out of action over a period of days or weeks. Given the density of runways even in third world countries, without real time recce of such locations, I think that’s a problem that would be very hard to solve. These Storm Shadows we are going to use: do we have a spare Vulcan to launch them from?
@TD – I’m afraid not. Carrier Strike has never been about hopping onto a ship occasionally and I have access to the “earliest” documents you like, dating from 1996 onwards. Outer layer AD is not mentioned now because the current “owner” of the capability and budget finds it easier to pretend taht T45 can do it and there is no need for a f/w maritime AD capability.
No other carrier operator in the world pretends that you can live on land most of the time and then embark occasionally, so why should the UK? Conversely, ship-based air can and does disembark and provide the equivalent to land-based capability on a regular basis.
You still have not explained why if embarked carrier capability was a core requirement of JFH (which it was), that capability was arbitrarily cut, while retaining a much larger Tornado force that was required to deliver only a small TELIC det – certainly not the Defence main effort.
As for lusting after CVF/JCA, remember who owned the SHAR aircraft and budget at the time of retirement and owns the JCA budget.
@ Simon – I think you’ll find that the air-to-air role is still a major part (and performance driver) of their role. It’s not that the need for AD has gone away, it’s that multi-role capability (something the FAA has usually done) is more useful than a single role capability – something the RAF is only just grasping. If you want to understand that better, try this – Sea Hawk, Sea Venom, Scimitar, Sea Vixen, Phantom, NOT Buccaneer, Sea Harrier. All capable of multi-role and trained as such. Then compare and contrast – Javelin, Harrier GR1-9, Jaguar, Lightning, TSR2, Tornado GR, Tornado F2-3 and Buccaneer. All operated and trained as single-role capability. Typhoon has only had the GA capability funded in extremis.
Obviously, Hunter does not fall into this category as it was a superb aircraft, but like Sea Hawk could only do day A2A as no air intercept radar.
wf,
1. That’s great if you get the threat axis correct.
2. You’re burning aviation fuel at 100t a day for every CAP (150t for F35).
3. I’d be using ASaC to give me 200nm visibility.
Still relaxed.
@ wf
There’s nothing “temporary” about the need for attacking aircraft such as the Entedard (or however you spell it) to pop up to 5,000 ft, twice, in order to first scan for targets and then to get them locked in.
As for the missile engagement time, without completely accurate data about the height of the radar above the waterline then it’s difficult to be certain, but against an Exocet you’re looking at somewhere between 90-140 seconds, depending on which numbers you use for the radar height.
@ Simon,
Not entirely sure about the SHAR to be honest. One torygraph article that I though had the needed info in fact was full of shit, including two golden nuggets that “Harriers shot down 80% of Argentine aircraft over the Falklands” (try about 30%, the majority of them Daggers) and this from Mr.S.Ward;
“All Harrier versions are very slow compared with other fast jet attack/fighters. The GR9 will therefore be unable to get close to an attacking aircraft in order to engage it and will be unable to escape from any fast jet fighter seeking to attack them,”
Which would beg the question that if the Harrier were such a slow and useless piece of tripe, how indeed were he and his comrades able to score so many kills in it?
Still trying to find that quote about carriers.
Simon, You are both half right, dependent on the threat you tend to use both.
APATS,
Ever the politician
Chris B, Harriers scored kills in the FIs as they had a state of the art 360 degree engagement heat seeking missile and the Argentinians did not.
Ugh, can’t find it now.
In a nutshell what the chap was saying is that all that business about a moving deck etc and the ship moving forwards but with an angled deck is basically just comparable to making a crosswind landing in a normal aircraft, that the shortness of the runway is something fairly common to even civilian pilots who routinely “touch down” in only an actual short portion of their runways, and that all this is supplemented by the “meatball” and being talked in.
I think he said the hardest part is remembering on the glide approach that the throttle now controls your altitude and the pitch of the nose controls your speed.
NAB, I should have said JFH and ultimately carrier strike was predicated on baseline plus surge, early entry via the deck and transition to land bases for the long haul, hence why STOVL was always the preferred choice because it supported this model.
I am sure I read in evidence that 1SL was specifically asked about JCA and air defence and his reply was very very firmly on the strike element, hence being able to slide FA2 out. Will have to dig it out.
No arguments from me about sea based personnel transitioning to land based easily but the problem with that is it doesn’t come free, hence the baseline plus surge model.
This is what JFH and therefore CVF and therefore Carrier Strike and therefore CEPP is based on, the ability to maintain a kernel of permanent sea based capability with the ability to surge should you need to using personnel and aircraft that are usually land based and therefore cheaper all round.
The Tornado v Harrier capability has been done to death but are you sure Tornado stayed at exactly the same level post SDSR and as we know support to Afghanistan trumps any existing requirement except the deterrent. I always thought it would be better to save both and reduce them to make savings but you only save the big bucks by deleting entire types, not a slice off the top of both.
So therefore it was actually a very easy decision to make, Tornado could support Herrick to the planned end date PLUS provide other capabilities and capacity for ‘elsewhere’ and crudely put, JFH could not.
The need for big savings and Afghanistan therefore was a higher priority that keeping a capability that has been used very rarely in the last 30 years where it was decisive precisely once.
Not ideal, I wish it hadn’t happened, a real loss.
But
Understandable and logical
You know as well as I do, project CVF has been numero uno for the RN and a whole range of other capabilities and quantities sacrificed on the altar to pay for it
TD I think the reason FA/2 was despatched in 2006 was that it was decreed that it coudn’t land back on with full weopon load (up to 4 x amraam) in hot and high climes. Lots of money dropped to a watery grave to save the A/C. Unfortunate as I and others have said before the FA/2 radar/missile combo was second to none. Last FA/2 sortie before retirement was FA/2 V F15 (Lakenheath 48 FW) over Wales. Guess who won.
@Simon: -
- aviation fuel is cheap.
- Threat axes have be covered by ships if aircraft are not available: this is why Sheffield was all on her lonesome 20NM away from the carriers, acting as a radar picquet in the absence of AEW.
- Aster has a maximum range of 70NM if it’s target obligingly sits at medium to high level only. If it dives when engaged, Sampson will lose it before the seeker on the missile acquires
- What do T45′s run off? Fresh air?
@ APATS
You have to admit that Sharkey’s quote, although intended for a modern context, is still a little sensationalist. By his quote the SHAR should not have been able to get close to the Daggers, which per his quote should have slaughtered the hapless Harriers.
@ Simon
While searching for the original quote I came across this one instead, which will have to do for now;
“It was the same with carrier landings. Long before actually landing on a carrier we practiced at an auxiliary landing field. We went over the routine again and again and again, getting comfortable with the procedure. As with dive bombing, the first attempts were tense, scary, and flashed by much too quickly. Again, the immediate concern was doing it safely more than doing it well. But, as usual, there comes a time when things slow down and you “get ahead of the plane,” so you can make it do what you want, rather than just reacting to whatever is happening. Then out to the ship to do it for real. Make six OK landings and you’re qualified”.
wf,
- AVCAT is cheap. Shifting it 4000nm is not!
- And the ships that cover the threat axis that cannot be covered by CAP would use what to take out the threat?
- Sampson may lose the target but ASaC won’t.
- For every T45 I’m running you’re running a carrier and a squadron of jets.
The third point I’m not sure can actually happen at the mo. i.e. Aster targeting hand-off to ASaC.
Perhaps we should stop this. I will yield that for long range engagement you need jets, simples. However, in exchange, will you yield that a fleet can be (and currently is) defended by Daring?
Simon, What I meant is that there is rarely a hard and fast answer. Let us take a generic CVF task group poised off the coast of country Y. Before entry into the area of operations and a posture decide upon considerations will include.
Enemy Capabilities. (most likely or most dangerous COA)Will they simply launch an attack without further warning? Will there be gradual escalation.
1. Number of air bases and ability to suppress them is the threat axis readily identifiable?
2. Are the enemy night capable and what is their combat readiness.
3. What type and number of aircraft and missiles do they possess. If they have the ability to reload then then tragetting the aircraft is a priority if they have very few ASHM then the missiles can be engaged.
4. Is there a valid sub surface threat which may prevent 45 being outside of the screening ASW units to act as a picket?
5. What capabilty does the enemy air defence network possess is a strike possible utilising organic fast air from the CVF or should TLAM be used?
Own capabilities. (what is my mission)
1. How many aircraft do we have a vailable, flying hours available, AVCAT, AEW assets. can we maintain 24hr CAP, do we need to?
2. Do we have logistics support to sustain the effort, AVCAT, Ammo etc or are we time limited?
3. Do we have a stand off strike capability against enemy air bases and defence network, is that from a TLAM SSN or air launched weapon.
4. If we use the SSN for a TLAM launch does it adversely affect our ASW ability.
5. What sort of missiles do the enemy have, what sort of seker do they use, how is our soft kill capability against this missile, how far out would we expect to detect it.
6. what is the ROE for closing radar contacts would and hostile intent will I need a visual ID vefore shots are fired.
7. what is the current PPI.
Once you have looked at these factors and many more you decide upon the screen layout, use of any attached submarines, possible use of a radar picket. posture of fixed wing air, alert status or CAP, day only or 24 7.
So you see there are no hard and fast answers.
@Simon: I would agree a fleet can be defended to a degree by ship SAM’s only. But I would aver that against a serious threat, you require armed aircraft to threaten and/or take down the launching aircraft.
I would assume that if Aster goes below the horizon, we would lose datalink to the missile as that would be coming from the T45. It would certainly be nice to have a datalink in ASAC7….
@Chris.B: both the USN and USMC “fly the ball” to landing on their land bases most of the time, although they don’t use arrestors, in order to maintain currency
APATS,
When I play these things out in my mind I tend to consider an enemy that has almost exactly the same assets as we do. This means we almost always need to engage at arms reach – the limit of our reach and hopefully out of theirs (this is what we did in the Falklands with our carriers).
At the 300nm (for 24-7 cover) or 600nm for SEAD this means we’d need to police up to 600nm of enemy coastline (assuming a straight coast).
This means 2 x CAP (at least), which is the entirety of the aircraft we’ll deploy on CVF leaving precious little to actually do the SEAD operations that precede an invasion.
This is where T45 comes in. Allowing us to screen attacks whilst fully utilising our strike capability.
This is the first step in an invasion/assault/retake. I haven’t even got to steps 2 and 3.
Perhaps I’m assuming too much from the enemy?
Just as a spot of reality…
Given Defence Planning Assumptions state that UK ONLY operations will be at SMALL SCALE
What UK ONLY scrap do we envisage getting into that requires the following layers
Offensive counter air from at the very least TLAM, plus maybe Stormshadow
Air defence from carrier borne fast jets supported by airborne early warning, again, sea based
Area air defence from T45 (the same ones that can shoot golf balls down from a gazillion miles)
Air defence from Sea Wolf/Sea Ceptor
Close in defence from Phalanx
Soft kill, ECM etc
6 layers of the onion
Answer that and they answer this one
Defending what, at what scale, again, UK ONLY
Just wondering
@ wf
Then that’s hardly a difficult thing to introduce for squadrons that are ear marked for Carrier Landings, along with deliberately using runway approaches that will incur cross winds in order to keep skills up to a high order.
TD,
Full scale naval engagement with the blockade that Brazil cook up when they side with Argentina following escalation of the Falklands issue?
Think Defence,
Well the obvious answer is the Falklands.
The second answer is any country(given our inability to see strategic shocks coming) I will not use an example that can afford a squadron or 2 of Sukhois or Migs on teh open market. purchase a few ASMs and know how to disperse aircraft!
Also where does it say small scale UK only?
Defending an ARG putting a couple of Royal Marine Commandoes ashore is hardly large scale.
Also answer me this?
Why should we not be providing this capability as part of a NATO or EU force?
Damn fine counter APATS
However,
The Falklands assumes that the other layers of the onion have failed, namely diplomacy, defence and deterrence.
If I had to spend a pound it would be across those rather than to reinforce failure by planning for a glorious retaking of an occupied islands so although I can see some validity in the Falkland Islands for that argument it is rather thin.
The point I am making is that the scale at which we need all that where we will stand alone is very limited but your point about offering that at a greater scale as part of a coalition is equally valid
@ TD / APATS,
leaving your points aside, and taking TD’s statements about UK only at small scale (i.e. Bn size intervention – a Brigade is medium scale), there is an implicit logic that states that if Carlos Fandango gets ashore in Bn or greater strength, then we have no counter.
In the real world, it would not work like that. He’d need to put a Division or more ashore before we acknowledge that we cannot kick him off, and we’d be going balls out and throwing every unit we can find onto STUFT and sailing them south.
But, the budgets follow DPAs, and that is where we have a problem.
@ NAB ‘while retaining a much larger Tornado FE@R that was required only to sustain an equivalent det on TELIC.’
Not really, planning assumptions had it tasked at a greater rate to do both Telic and Herrick with 8 surge to 10 at the same time. The phrase at the time was ‘duel ops’ various issues got in the way and it didn’t happen but it wasn’t done, as suggested, to somehow knock the JFH and by default the FAA.
‘All operated and trained as single-role capability. Typhoon has only had the GA capability funded in extremis.’
Some of those a/c you’ve listed are multi-role and trained for such. And I’m not sure the first list is so multi role as you suggest. The lists are in a/c terms generations apart. It makes comparison a little weak.
James, I am on your side on the FI being easily taken. My thoughts were more laong the lines of an unprovoked attack on a CBG possibly dispatched South as a show of force. It was in this sort of scenario I would advocate the layers of defence.
TD,
While sidestepping the ongoing (dark) blue-on- (light) blue argument I just want to take on the specifics of your argument
1) The current defence posture statement is wishful twaddle, ginned up by two specific High Tory/financial sector/Right Sort of Chaps Dontcherkow named Cameron and Osborne, regardless of what other members of their own government, party, and species at large may think, because wars are another one of those grotty things — even against the likes of Hitler or Nappy or Kaiser Bill (just go read one of Niall Ferguson’s apologias) — that crimp the style of finance by imposing public debt.
2) Doesn’t even take UK only scenarios (although I could list a non-Brazilian scenario in Those Islands and a sudden collapse of Nigeria round about 2020 when the French say “hey, this ostcolonial mess is on you” and the only flat deck the Americans have in the Atlantic has loads of marines but only six fast jets and none of the neighbours, watching the big kid on the block have a psychotic break are keen on basing rights. Add to that it will take time as lives are lost to gt two or thrr squadrons of Tiffs set up on Ascension and enough refueling capacity in place even with American or French help if they’re not busy elsewhere.) All you have to do is alter one factor: subtract the Americans. At that point, as you have to introduce British ground forces by logistics over the shore and the only other meaningful carrier navies are France and –solely in the Mediterranean basin where the “unsinkable carrier” of the Italian mainland can back them up — Italy, it’s an issue. Algeria implodes? Well, God help us, but even if you commit the crabs and Armee de l’Air in the US’s absence they will be busy clearing the skies of enemy jets and “shaping the strategic environment” by bombing sexy stuff inland rather than clearing the sea approaches and securing the beachead in three dimensions. (I’m not assuming an Iraq-style occupation here, just an effort to rescue expats from potential massacre and tilt the fighting in favour of a faction HMG and allies approve.) Likewise if Cyprus goes south in Greco-Turkish conflict after another debt crisis or two (all those SSKs on both sides? Again landward air forces trying to interpose between will be busy and the Russians are refitting Kuznetzov because they’re aware you need air cover for your sub/ASW assets.) Or if Morocco goes south after Mohammed VI and gets into it with Melilla and Ceuta with Gib in the firing line. Or the Russians in the 2020s decide they want to own the gates to Europe’s Arctic passage — Finnmark and Svalbard — and the Yanks no longer wish to risk Armageddon over two bits of tundra. Or Libya explodes again and your Opfor is smart enough to keep Euro expats “for their own safety” but things get fluid and their mercenaries run amok and you have to act fast. Or Angola implodes with similar provisos to the Nigerian scenario. I haven’t even gotten to the Horn of Africa yet. Or a post-chavez government friendlier to the US that still decides they want the Antilles’ oil. And so on.
The thing about introducing a kitted-out carrier task force into that mix, for the UK, is a bit like physical rehab, relearning skills and possibilities lost for some time. When you actually have a flat top with more than half a dozen SHAR, plus amphibs attached, that’s actually at sea, your capacity to react quickly (in days to a week) with a range of capability is much greater than before. Flying in Spearhead is bold and maybe necessary. But in terms of what you can airlift behind them *quickly* with UK assets (or UK plus a little bit of French or US aid) to a hostile environment pales to owning a sea lane, taking a beachead, and rolling out an Army brigade, a big ‘un, with proper kit that in an attack of sanity and recognition your carrier group gives you “door kickers,” you have prepositioned on Points for such an occasion. And for lesser included cases its good old fashioned escalation dominance in one convenient package. (You don’t use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but you can bloody well bludgeon a snake to death with it whether it’s a Burmese python or a garter, and some of these may be smart enough to slither off.) When you have to maximise effect from straitened resources, that’s a lot of use from one formation.
APATS,
I’m not entirely sure your scenario is that likely – what would it achieve or gain for Carlos Fandango? We’d be seriously pissed off, and he still would not have the islands. Also, if he were for some reason to try it on against a CBG, I think he’d have more success (= damage done) with a submarine attack, with the added bonus of a chance at least that his submarine will escape and he can deny all knowledge.
@TD
1SL at the time was Alan West and the phrase he used was along the lines that he was “content to take risk at this time”, but this was not meant to imply he was content to lose the capability forever. In fact it assumed a T45 ISD in around 2008 and a CVF/JCA ISD in 2014.
At the time, the Navy were very sensitive to the accusation (guess where from) that Fleet AD meant defending the carrier, which was usually followed by the phrase “self-licking lollipop”, when in fact it also means defending the wider fleet (amphibs, MCMV, strat lift, troops ashore)and with varying demand over time. However, they were right to emphasise strike as that is the primary role of a carrier (or at least one with more than a handful of aircraft). It’s just that the Fleet defence one is there too for at least some of a campaign. One of the reasons the ships are big is so that they can do both, comfortably.
Tornado vs Harrier has been done to death post-SDSR and as I suggested this is not to re-open that debate. However, we’re not talking about the SDSR decision, rather the decision made in around 2007/2008 (a full two years before SDSR) to reduce the JFH FE@R, when at the time the large Tornado force was only committed to TELIC, whereas the relatively smaller JFH was committed to both HERRICK and carrier.
I am well aware that post-SDSR the Tornado force has also been reduced, but that is not the point – the reason JFH could not sustain embarked or “elsewhere” capability post 2007 is that it’s FE@R was cut then. Funnily enough, a decision which much later contributed to the “Tornado rather than Harrier” decision in SDSR.
Finally, I fail to see how a land-based component is somehow cheaper all round. You still pay the personnel and you still pay for the aircraft, or is this based on the other myth that they’ll be so busy training to do CV-embarked ops that they can’t do anything else?
@Simon – carrier positioning on Corporate was dictated by a relatively weak position regarding aircraft numbers coupled with a lack of AEW. Had we had a half-decent AEW capability, the carriers would have been able to close and either use a longer CAP, or a CAP plus alert, or even a pure alert posture.
You are also falling for the myth that QEC will only ever embark 12 aircraft. That is a planning assumption driven by the current owner of the JCA budget (guess who) and not how you would actually conduct that sort of campaign. If you are going up against an enemy with capable jets and aircrew, let’s be quite clear – you’ll be taking as many jets as you can squeeze aboard! An analogy is to suggest that when facing an enemy with a capable air force, you would deploy only strike aircraft and leave AD to SAMs around the airfield. Does that sound like good tactics to you?
This is the reason QEC/JCA is viewed as a debacle – you have people whose entire interest lies in demonstrating that you don’t need to go to sea in great numbers, doing the planning. Is there not a slight conflict of interest there?
However, much easier to bash the navy who bought a ship that’s too big and too expensive (must be as it’s so much larger than the CVS), rather than examine who keeps b8ggering about with the CONOPS for the aircraft.
People talk about the “capabilities” that the RN has “sacrificed to pay for QEC”. The reason they have been fought so hard for, is that they are an intrinsic part of maritime capability, without which the other elements, particularly anything to do with operating away from the UK and projecting power are much diminished to the point that their utility in anything other than constabulary operations is limited. And remember – QEC will consume about 6.5% of the total procurement budget (£54Bn) of programmes post Main Gate according to the last NAO Major projects report. The T45, Astutes and QEC comprise about 24% of that total (£13Bn). Typhoon, A400M and FSTA account for 61% of that total (£33Bn). Perhaps people ought to talk about the “capabiliities sacrificed to pay for the RAF”.
Just a thought……
@Topman – IIRC Tornado wasn’t ready to operate from Khandahar much before 2009 when it finally went out. In any case, 16-20 from a total of 140-ish GR4 (I know that’s not the same as FE@R) is a bit easier to accept FE@R reductions in than 16-20 from a for of 67-ish, surely?
As for teh aircraft list, I appreciate the generational gap. However, my point was to try and demonstrate that the FAA have always had a multi-role ethos, whereas the RAF have not necessarily had the same, in fact going so far as to single-type stations. I’m afraid I struggle to think of any of the RAF aircraft listed that had a true multi-role capability or trained for as such. Happy to be corrected – this is not intended to be an RAF are evil rant – but maritime air is I’m afraid something that the RAF just don’t get and have little interest in doing so.
@ NAB,
those programmes added together consume 85% of the procurement budget, which in my simple soldier maths means there is 15% left to pay for “everything else”, not all of which goes to the Army. And it is the Army + RM who achieve the decisive effect in most operations, or at least that is the plan. Not all operations since WW2 certainly, but most.
@ NBOT
‘IIRC Tornado wasn’t ready to operate from Khandahar much before 2009 when it finally went out. In any case, 16-20 from a total of 140-ish GR4 (I know that’s not the same as FE@R) is a bit easier to accept FE@R reductions in than 16-20 from a for of 67-ish, surely?’
It was ready yes there were other issues. With it covering (or at least planned to cover) both it needed an uplift in FE@F (who made that up I don’t know!) the kit was waiting around for quite a long time to go into theatre. The diamond fleet stood up, logs ready, extra engines through ROCET sat waiting. Not to get back into the afore mentioned debate but if Harrier was in neither theatre and GR4 in both, it would be logical to increase the latter’s and decrease the former’s. Possibly but it’s set to work load if it drops off so does FE@R.
Yes in larger numbers than the FAA in a historic sense we were able to go single type in more things for example in the 1950′s. From a logistical effort (and other reasons) it made sense to go single platform where possible it was done quite on purpose. The GR did strike, recce, SEAD, nuc role and anti shipping. The F3 did SEAD and AD. Buccs did anti shipping, nuc role and strike. I’m not going through the rest, just to say I feel it a little unfair and unbecoming of yourself to say ‘something we’re just grasping’ it’s not new.
This isn’t a ‘we’re whiter than white’ I just feel that things are looked at (speaking generally) with an already predetermined view. This then gives huge weight to certain evidence and other point ignored and the pudding is then over egged. To be controversial but genuine, I don’t think the RN’s interest in air is as great as it is stated online either.
Hi James, the 85%(those programmes added together consume 85% of the procurement budget, which in my simple soldier maths means there is 15% left to pay for “everything else”, not all of which goes to the Army. And it is the Army + RM who achieve the decisive effect in most operations) is past main gate only & major projects, not of the proc budget
- other than Typhoon, they are all about expeditionary/ power projection that make up the 85
- I agree that army/RM are nowhere to be seen: recce wagons will come in with low profile because of very low numbers from 2015, PASCAT has pretty much disappeared from the radar screen. Other than UAVs and tactical networks, what is there actually in the works?
@ James. Correct. I’ve said earlier that the army/RM have perhaps not got their fair share (other than through UOR and that’s a separate debate). However, you will hopefully now agree that QEC is not the cause of the squeeze, rather some other large programmes…..
@Topman. I didn’t mean to decry the range of air to surface roles – of course there are many shades. However, in general I hope you’d agree there have been “air defenders” and “strike (inc SEAD) role specialisation.
My point re the Harrier / GR4 was that in 2007 when GR4 was in only one, then surely it was easier to absorb e FE@R reduction in taht force rather than in JFH.
I am absolutely certain that some senior RN don’t understand what the potential of QEC/JCA is and are nowhere near as “air-minded” as they should be. That is not however an argument for effectively disbanding the FAA, rather one for re-educating their Lordships.
The Public Accounts Committee has been probing the carriers today.
No decisions yet on whether to switch back to the F35B. No explanation as to delays announcing a decision or in answering a number of questions. No costs for all the reports and examination of the available options. No estimates of costs for any aircraft.
Investigation of the various recent leaks has apparently been instigated though.
@ NaB
‘However, in general I hope you’d agree there have been “air defenders” and “strike (inc SEAD) role specialisation.’
Yes I agree to certain extent it’s more complex than my brush stroke earlier, different skill sets even under just ‘strike’ can be quite challenging regardless of service. On the flip side a more ‘basic’ dual role needn’t be the be all and end all either.
Not to be awkard for the sake, no I’m afraid I don’t. In terms of FE@R although other areas come into it,one of the main areas, if not the, is a/c availability. A/c available for carriers ops (in pure availability sense) is no different than an exercise in the US to FE@R numbers. I said these points are rarely spoken of it’s all looked at through one view point all ready set in stone.
Absolutely I agree, I just wonder how often that is ignored conveniently or otherwise and that lack of interest spun into some sort of vague but never ending RAF plot to wipe out the FAA. I never really see balance, how often do you see the times there has been support given to the FAA (and the AAC for that matter) frontline or otherwise, brought up to balance the debate? Very rare indeed.
In fairness to James there are a few things that ought to go on the shopping list for the khaki: a sensible 8×8 family to supplement any remaining Warriors and Fire-Belching Chobhamized Castles of Death (TM), a rationalisation of mortars and ammo, and for their friends with the Fairbairn-Sykeses, PACSCAT back on the agenda (since that’s of a piece with a combined-arms power projection “package”.) All of which is to say, in a rebuilding period after grindng the Forces down to a nub in two sandboxes, the procurement budget is too low. If this were any other country — like for example the US or Canada — I would’ve said Hammond’s public plea that CATOBAR was unaffordable was not self-flagellation but rather a play to *get* the money out of the government by going round the sofa to various, old-school french cuffed patriots in the 1922 Club and their attendant newspapermen. Of course this is Britain we’re talking about, where bewailing institutional poverty and decline is a kind of inverse snobbery about how great things once were to fall so far. But elsewhere that (saying there’s not enough dosh in order to acquire said dosh) is how things are often done.
The glacial testing pace with B and C alike (maybe more so with B since, despite flaws, it’s landing on ships already) borders on the criminal. Allowing the carrier business to become (by the mid-noughties, long since) the “floaty things to land F35 on” business likewise. The complete lack of testicles on the part of the government to say, “look, you lot in DC, if you want us to cover the Atlantic for you jointly with France while you retrench into the global East, you’re going to need to get a fucking move on and give us more early production slots at a price we can pay” still more so. Don’t get me started on the dragging this out rather than building a marinised Typhoon or Son-of-Harrier (both of which, especially the latter, could’ve seen exports) which means, on top of the Sandbox Wars, there’s now no money assigned for a new LPH which means the carriers need to double up as a light fleet carrier (ca. 20-24 fast jets) and an LPH (with at least RM plus bayonets and bergens, kit stowed on on auxiliary JSS) in the same hull despite the fact that hull’s hangar space shrank in planning from the 50 that would’ve accomodated such comfortably to a smidge over 40 if you pack tight. Ye gods.
And back on the specific topic of aircraft purchase rather than the politics of leaks I’d rate, again, three reasonable possibilities now:
- C all ’round, promising loadsa-loadsajam tomorrow, well, erm, 2025, ish, sort of. Makes everyone happy with bright promises but just to get sweary again it is meaningfully fucking useless for both flavours of blue because a lot of middens are going to hit the windmill between now and then with an American hyperpower vastly less inclined to shovel them up unless there’s meaningfully large amounts of oil (even there DC would rather have passed on Libya) or Skeery Mooslims or Chinese ambition involved.
- Divorce Italian style: B enough for a carrier wing (ca. 50, I suspect when Rafale M ends its build life that’s all the French will have for CdeG), plus A enough (ca. 90, on paper at least, so around the original 138 figure with some other government to foot the bill) for RAF post-Tornado.
- A dangerous outbreak of sanity involving **putting CATOBAR on effing HMS Queen Elizabeth and not sodding about like you’re going to sell the thing as per SDSR** and then her sister as well, with Rafale to get a wing aboard at least one of them, and some whole new saga ref: FOAS for the light blue. This is just going to end up pouring on lighter fluid, but I do find it interesting the degree to which RAF plans to skate on past Tiffy to new-and-shiny despite destroying their own budget lines a couple of times over with the former, as though nothing had happened. That more than any other detail of the light-and-dark back and forth irks me with regard to the RAF position.
This is all rather sad its back to we want the c version because the airforce did us over in 2008 rather than what we want the capability for and this is why said a/c delivers it. Well it wasn’t 2010 or 2008 or 1998 that doomed the harrier force the date was 1988 yes that long ago.
Back then the raf took the decision for harrier gr5 and the navy wanted the falklands wonder updated to fa2. From then on they were never compatible and never ever effective on their own for anything like what we really wanted. What we should have done is in 1991 is gone for 100 av8b plus to replace all harrier variants and jaguar and then had tornado as a strike fighter a/c in gr1 and f3 essentially two fleet of a/c. Typhoon could then off been tornados replacement. However the germans did for that with their wobbliness of increasing it range so we got essentially a f18 hornet with a f15 supersonic performance in a European fighter and a great big mess to sort out.
This takes us to my current thinking and the LAST change to sort this out or we end up in the crap again for 2 decades. I see it either two ways JFH was done for due to FE@R never good enough to really do whats required and near really a gd enough a/c either. So if the f35c is the choice deemed the one then quite simple the entire fast jet needs to be f35C and we need to do that between now and 2030 only way it works.
Would require about 160 a/c 8-10 sqns allowing sufficient pilot numbers and fleet size to allow sufficient FE@R to be q land strike and carrier ready with sufficient surge capacity who operates it I care not but ideal say 6 raf 3 rn sqn. This would be done by starting the f35c buy now tranche 1 typhoon go as planned tornado held to 2020 in DPOC role with typhoon tranche 3 order diverted to both Saudi and oman allowing us to integrate paveway 4/brimstone only on typhoon and running tranche 2 jet through to OSD of 2030 and a full f35 buy achieved. This doesn’t mean e2 hawkeye and ucavs on ships thats essentially pointless. If your doing large strike packages the only a/c to support that is E3D nothing else is event in the same ball park and with the stragetic ISTAR triad we have information centric air operations by 2030 carriers get seaking stuff transferred to merlin for task group pop up defense.
Option 2 is we go with the B version and have the carriers operate as a us marines style evolved expeditionary strike group (see bold alligator for direction) as door kickers in the go anywhere first responders in the shape of about 4/5 sqns, 90 a/c and the RN and RAF learn to play nice and operate similar to JFH nature. Tornado goes quickly about 2016 typhoon gets to 5 sqns asap gets conformal, and all tornado cleared weapons asap with a aesa radar upgrade late this decade numbers stabilise around 100 this force compliments the b for larger operations and provides Q. Possible future replacement of typhoon pushed past 2030 to early to think about now. ISTAR is as with option 1 but perhaps an osprey or two for long range assault.
Dont know if anyone has the balls to do either option but someone needs to make a decision apparently we cant at present due to election on may 1.
BB,
No surprises on all fronts then
I wouldn’t have thought it earlier, given the semblance of methodical work (five separate work lines for investigation, etc.) on the subject, but it is now starting to look like CamerBorne are drowning in their own flopsweat and hoping, like optimistic third-formers, that the exam they didn’t study for will go away if dadders calls the school. Nick Price’s report on the Army has gone missing as well. I would expect some degree of conflict between the two (structuring air power around the carriers or not vs. the Army looking to maintain fighting weight and personnel size at the end of a saecular era of Cold War occupation and post-imperial brushfire wars.) Even in better economic times. But this really is starting to look and sound like a train wreck, where a plan to look “reasonable” by slicing Defence to bits for savings while going softly-softly on other hits at public funding (the assault on NHS in England to free up opportunities for American health-management outfits with British shareholders to step in and make pots of money) is coming unraveled. And, more generally, an approach to austerity that hasn’t been (per Chris B.’s sensible comment in the five-percent thread) about bringing the economy back to life but rather about rehabilitating the borrowing power of the b(w)ankers who helped set all this off under Gordon the Toad. If Defence gets (don’t say the word aloud, it’s so foul) a stimulus, lots of other departments and private industries that aren’t about “blowing things up” will want the same and then the wolves are well and truly at their heels. But they can’t not do something, not in front of the party elders, because that will reek of yet more incompetence and unfitness to lead. Bad day to be an old Etonian in politics, then, I expect.
I wonder if we’re being set up for a dual purchase of F-35Cs for the Navy and F-35Bs for the RAF? Or Perhaps F-35Cs for the Navy and F-35As for the RAF?
One thing is now clear. If we buy the F-35C, the role of the Tornado is ceded to the Navy. I am sure this is unpalatable for the RAF.
It seems that the F-35 in either A or C guise can effectively substitute the Tornado. While the F-35B may not be as capable as either the A or C in terms of range, if it fulfils the requirement it will be significantly better than the Harrier.
When the UK cancelled the TSR2, we opted for the F-111 instead, which was the first swing wing fighter/ bomber to see service. It was revolutionary at the time. It went through similar teething troubles and budget escalations, but when it finally came into service it proved its worth for several decades in both USAF and Australian Air Force service. It has been a formidable strike aircraft.
We binned our F-111 order and went for the Phantom at a time when the Phantom was halfway through its lifecycle. As good as our Phantoms were, they needed to be retired long before the USAFs F-111s. I believe the Aussies kept their F-111s in service until 2010.
So, I think we should stick with the F-35 whatever happens – any talk of buying Rafaels or Super Hornets is ridiculous – these aircraft are well past their prime and will have only a limited shelf life. I don’t think we should worry about which version we buy, because all will achieve their goals.
In choosing one version over another, we need to think about cost. A lot of the criticism is based on unfounded waffle. The B actually weighs less than the C. It uses only marginally more file when making STOVL landings as opposed to CATOBAR ones.
@ jackstaff ‘ sailing past typhoon onto new and shiney ‘ how did you come to that conclusion?
Sorry about the site going tits up this evening
Am going to have to get my arse into gear this weekend and get it upgraded
Might have to drop it back to a vanilla format for a short time just to give us some breathing space
re; some of the stick for the RAF for not being interested in certain missions. Wasn’t the whole purpose of the Jag’s to be dedicated to ground attack and recon?