Or, why it does actually make a great deal of sense.
Cards on the table, I think the decision to switch back to the F35B is a good one.
Like Marvin the depressed robot in a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the general reaction to the decision has been to adopt a sloped shoulder air of resignation, oh, ok then, it’s not ideal but better than nothing.
‘I suppose we will just have to get on with it’ is the majority view but I think it is entirely positive news and instead of sulking should view it as such.
In this post I am going to try and make sense of the decision, standing back from the mud-slinging as much as possible and then follow it up with a look forward on how we can extract maximum benefit from CVF/JCA in the future.
The choice of aircraft and configuration of the aircraft carrier is intimately connected so when people complain that the CVF is tarred with the JSF brush it seems to me to be completely missing the point.
So what were the options?
Contents
The Rafale and F18 Option
Both of these are fine aircraft.
The Rafale is arguably the more advanced of the two although I suspect it is better in some areas and worse in others and both are current generation aircraft (despite their histories) with the latest F18’s benefitting from lots of development money since it was first introduced.
In performance terms there does not seem to be a great deal between them.
However, what goes against them both is;
- They would both require all UK weapons to be integrated, not impossible, but significant time and cost penalties would accrue
- Both have or would have minimal industrial benefits for the UK at a time when the policy of the government is to pursue and export and manufacturing led recovery
- Both would of course need CVF to have catapults and arrestor gear with all the attendant additional costs
With both, the UK could have benefitted from collaborative training with either the United States or French naval forces and shared logistics and supply chains to mitigate the additional costs.
We also have to ask whether either would have been that good value for money anyway, however ‘cheap’
It is at this point that we enter the murky world of trying to determine unit costs of aircraft, which as I have often said, is almost impossible for the simple reason that specifications and what is included changes between each set of published figures, even for the same type. Trying to compare two different types is even more fraught.
A relatively recent deal might at least provide some insight.
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) purchased 24 F18’s for about £62 million each but this figure, a simple division of total by quantity, is difficult to extrapolate for a UK purchase because the cost profile is spread over a number of years and includes all sorts of non-equipment and support costs. The RAAF is already an F18 user and would not require many of the cost items the UK would, weapons integration for example.
Comparing this to the F35 is difficult because at this stage we simply do not know beyond broad estimates what the programme cost would be for a UK F35, of any variety.
However, in general terms, compared to the F35, I think it would be fair and reasonable to assume that the unit cost of an F18 would be less, but other programme costs would add to the bill, reducing the differential, perhaps to the point that there is very little difference between a similar number of F18’s and F35’s.
Although one might define the two billion Pounds invested in the F35 as part of our Tier 1 Partner obligations as ‘sunk costs’ in this scenario, the final bill for buying F18’s would at least have this as a line item for information purposes, surely?
Any cost differential would also have to be weighed against two other factors, longevity and capability.
Capability first, again, without delving too deep into the minutia does anyone actually think a brand new design such as the F35 is going to be inferior to the F18?
It stands to reason that something developed from scratch, using the latest design and technology will be superior to one from a generation earlier, no matter how that earlier generation has benefitted from incremental improvements. Some might see that as hopelessly optimistic or swallowing the Lockheed Martin Koolaid but I just see it as a logical outcome of progress in product design, the same progress we see across the entire world of product engineering.
So we would be buying an aircraft that would likely to be somewhere in the same ball park cost wise as a Typhoon but with lower performance in most areas, with little if any industrial benefit (which indirectly lowers the cost) and all the cost penalties of CV operation, just to get something on the deck of an aircraft carrier, a capability that has been strategically or tactically essential very few times in the modern era.
That the Joint Combat Aircraft is meant to fulfil a joint requirement is also often overlooked by F18 advocates.
The F18 offers more or less nothing that the Typhoon does, except operation from an aircraft carrier.
It would therefore cease to be a joint programme and I find it unlikely in the extreme that the Fleet Air Arm could sustain on its own, an aircraft like the F18, without making huge sacrifices elsewhere or eating into the other services programmes.
Not likely in the extreme.
The final nail in the FAA/F18 coffin is that of longevity. If we ordered today, it is unlikely that any UK F18’s would be operating from the deck of a CVF before the early 2020’s by which time even the most optimistic estimates would give us perhaps a decade and a half before it would potentially need to be replaced due to obsolescence issues.
We would have all the pain and cost of bringing into service and maintaining it, for less than 20 years lifespan and then have to do exactly the same; this is not a sensible use of scarce defence funds.
Similar arguments exist for the Rafale, with some differences at the margins but fundamentally the same.
There have been a number of proposals for an interim purchase of F18’s or Rafales and a migration to a, by then, mature F35C towards the end of the 2020’s. Whilst having some potential benefits you simply can’t get away from the cost issue of buying twice.
Another interesting proposal is the Sea Gripen or even Sea Typhoon but both of these exist only in PowerPoint and although offering many industrial benefits they would both leave us with a much greater time gap and with an uncertain, but likely high, development cost.
This leads me to the conclusion that if we are in the market for a new flying machine to deliver against the requirement for the Joint Combat Aircraft, the F35 represents the logical choice.
So which one, B or C?
C v B or Coke v Pepsi
Having discounted all else, the decision comes down to the F35B or the F35C.
This seems to have taken on an almost religious air but it is not the case of right or wrong, just balancing costs, capabilities and a myriad of other factors to come to an opinion on what is more appropriate for the UK.
I would like to emphasise that it is about the UK, a point that many of the more strident advocates of the F35C or F18 also downplay.
We are not the US, have a completely different set of budgetary constraints and issues and should not aspire to be either.
Future Proofing
Detractors of the F35B often point out that given the CVF’s projected lifespan of 50 years it is likely that the aircraft carrier will see multiple generations of aircraft and therefore by going for STOVL and not catapults we limit our options in the future to an, as yet to be designed, STOVL UCAV or a successor STOVL aircraft.
By hitching our wagon to the USMC instead of the USN we will not be able to move with these times.
I just don’t see this, on the 50 year lifespan number first, no doubt that is their projected life but as a comparison, the HMS Ark Royal commissioned in 1955, the one before the next one, would have been still in service during Operation Telic in 2003, not having been decommissioned in 1979 at less than 25 years old. The most recent HMS Ark Royal was in service for 26 years so if CVF stays in service for double the life of the two previous generations of Royal Navy aircraft carriers then fair enough but it will be doing much better than the two before it.
By the time it goes out of service, the Tornado will have been in use for over 40 years; the F18 was introduced in 1983 and via continuous improvement will still likely be in service for another 15 years or more.
Why do people therefore think that the F35 will be out of service before a CVF is sent for recycling, the trend is for longer equipment cycles, not shorter?
In looking far into the future there is also the option of UCAV’s to consider, unmanned combat vehicles are likely to be autonomous but there are significant technical and ethical issues to overcome and one of the features of unmanned systems is their significant range and endurance which is not limited by having on-board aircrew.
As the US concentrates on the Pacific theatre and countering a rising China, the ranges needed are equally immense. The X47B demonstrator, for example, has a range in excess of 2,000nm because these kinds of programmes need to demonstrate that range; the Pacific is a big old place and sophisticated anti-access technologies being fielded by the Chinese such as their anti-ship ballistic missiles which are specifically meant to deal with US carriers means strategic need meets technical requirements quite well.
The US is therefore looking at very long range UCAV’s because it knows in the Pacific it needs them and they must be able to fly from their CVN’s. The UK is very definitely not the US, has very different strategic aspirations and challenges and should look at equipment programmes through a UK shaped lens. Does anyone think we are going to be standing shoulder to shoulder with the USN in the Pacific theatre against the Chinese?
I know we must always be mindful of unknown strategic shock but I find this highly unlikely so to use it as a reason to spend more money we don’t have on a CV F35 seems unreasonable.
Industry
The UK is the only Tier 1 Partner in the Joint strike Fighter Programme, significant sums of public money have been invested and in return, there will be equally significant industrial and economic benefits for the UK.
We need not be somehow ashamed of this, British industry and technical knowhow will be a big part of the F35.
The difference in industrial benefits between a C or B purchase is relatively modest, on face value with the Rolls Royce ‘LiftSystem’ the UK would accrue greater benefit with a larger B purchase but without seeing the detailed agreements it would be impossible to quantify because the design, manufacture and integration work is split between the UK and US.
By confirming the F35B as the chosen aircraft for JCA it may well make the F35B a more attractive export proposition with its attendant industrial benefits for the UK.
Other elements of an F35C purchase such as the electromagnetic launch and recovery system would need to be purchased from the US with no industrial benefits, this coupled with the reduction in LiftSystem quantity would see a net loss to the UK so one might argue the F35B provides greater economic benefit to the UK for a given spend.
Range
The F35C offers greater range.
The JSF KPP for the F35C states a combat radius using internal fuel of 600 nautical miles using a USN mission profile and for the F35B, 450 nautical miles using a USMC profile.
It is clear therefore (accepting potential differences in flight profiles) that the CV variant offers much more range than the STOVL variant, some 25%.
When operating helicopters in support of ground forces CVF will have to be much closer to shore but when engaged in strike activities or defensive counter air this extended mission radius or endurance is extremely valuable.
There are however, a number of mitigating factors that although not negating this advantage do go some way to mitigating it.
When operating CV aircraft in order to provide a margin of safety operators may choose to return with a greater fuel load than in the KPP, thus reducing the effective real world range. STOVL does not have these concerns so can maximise the fuel carried.
Ranges can be extended using external fuel tanks or airborne refuelling using land based aircraft although this also applies to the CV variant of course.
Something else to consider is that the F35B will operate from conventional concrete runways much more often than the deck of a CVF. This isn’t based on dismissing naval aviation but a reality of the joint nature of the aircraft fleet and the operational reality of the Harrier. One thing I have never seen is the projected range figures for both the F35C and F35B variants when using land bases but I wonder if the differential would be the same or different?
The F35C is a clear winner in this area but as with payload and bring back weight, perhaps not as significant on operations as imagined.
Payload and Bring Back
The USMC KPP for the F35B states a short take off of just under 183 metres (137m for the UK JCA) with enough fuel for the KPP mission profile, 2 AMRAAM and 2 1000lb JDAM’s and a vertical landing bring back weight equivalent to enough fuel to safely land with an appropriate margin whilst carrying the same 2 AMRAAM and 2 1000lb JDAM’s.
The KPP also states that this will be carried out with a 10 knot wind over deck (WOD), at sea level (funnily enough!) and in a ‘tropical day’ to allay some of those East of Suez scaremongers.
The standard payload whilst performing the stated KPP mission radius for the F35C is also enough fuel for the mission and 2 AMRAAM but instead of a pair of 1,000lb JDAM’s, a pair of 2,000lb JDAM’s.
CVF has a deck length of nearly 275m.
I am not sure what the maximum payload for short take off is; it would be dependent on many factors, but CVF has some room to spare moving up from the KPP distance and of course, a ski jump.
Maximum weapon load for the F35C is 8,160kg and for the F35B, 6,800kg.
Targeting pods and defensive systems are often carried externally and would eat into this payload but with the F35, most of these are integral to the design so the useable weapon load is high.
Again, the F35C is the clear winner.
But (you knew there was going to be a but)
6,800kg is thirty Paveway IV’s or over 130 Dual Mode Brimstone (not including pylons)
It is a silly example but the point I am making here is that perhaps the real world difference might not be that significant, especially when one considers the rules of engagement in likely operations will demand greater accuracy and smaller explosive yields.
Absolute payload differentials between the two variants therefore become less of a major concern.
If we are going to use the F35B to carry Storm Shadow then the vertical landing bring back weight limitation may result in us dumping million pound missiles into the sea if they are not used because Storm Shadow is a large missile weighing in at just over 1,200kg, self-evidently, not a good thing.
If they hang up on the pylon then the implications might be even more serious so Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL) is designed to use wing lift to increase the maximum landing weight and consequently, the bring back weight for unused munitions. SRVL has been in development for some time and Lockheed Martin was awarded a $13m contract in 2010 to integrate it onto the F35B.
SRVL also lowers stresses on the engine and other components so might be used as a matter of course, or at least it provides the option to do.
I don’t think the final increase in maximum weight that is enabled by the latest iteration of SRVL has been released (I might be wrong on that) but the target was between 900kg and 1,800 kg. At 1,230kg one Storm Shadow might be possible within those boundaries but not two. If we ever do introduce the Naval Strike Missile that is being developed for the F35 then at 450kg, a pair would be within the SRVL lower limit.
The Selected Precision Effects at Range (SPEAR) Capability 3 is proposed as a medium range cruise missile, almost a mini Storm Shadow, possibly using a bomb glide kit. Although there has been a lot of speculation not much has been officially released but I think it would be safe to say, it will not be anywhere near as heavy as a Storm Shadow.
Storm Shadow is arguably, the major problem for bring back and the F35B but again, in the real world, how likely are we going to be using F35B to launch Storm Shadow anyway and how many of those sorties are going to be aborted mid-air or hang up?
Beyond this there are also issues with the weight of pylons and this might impact on the bring back weight, I understand the KPP is based on a clean wing and no gun.
Bring back weight remains a serious challenge and the payload differential between the B and C on paper is not insignificant but its operational impact might be not as limiting as the naysayers would have us all believe.
Flexibility and Surge
It is accepted that operating STOVL aircraft and helicopters is much more efficient and easier than operating CV aircraft and helicopters. It is how we have operated for many decades after all and the move to CV would have required a great deal of very time consuming and very expensive work up.
This would have delayed the introduction of the capability and absorbed a much higher proportion of the aircraft fleet to maintain currency for both deck and aircrew.
Sortie rates are generally accepted to be higher with STOVL although this higher sortie rate may be countered in some scenarios by the greater endurance with CV. The F35B Key Performance Parameter for sorties rates is 4 surge and 3 sustained and 3 and 2 respectively for the F35C.
The CVF and JCA concept is designed to enable flexing of the tailored air group depending upon requirements. The norm will likely be a small number of F35B’s supplemented with varying types and quantities of Merlin, Chinook, Apache and Wildcat. The surge is much easier, because of the training requirement for deck landing and take-off is less with the B than C.
Some have suggested that the rolling vertical landing (SRVL) technique (UK only) that may be used to increase bring back payload in certain climatic conditions make deck operations as complex as CV and thus decrease this flexibility but SRVL will only have to be used in limited circumstances, if the bring back payload exceeds the USMC KPP of fuel; two 1000lb JDAM’s and two AIM-120 AA missiles. If it is used as a matter of course for other reasons then the large deck of the CVF and the extremely detailed simulation, coupled with a massive well of STOVL experience will mitigate any problems.
I find this claim that SRVL provides all the complications of CV with none of the benefits rather difficult to accept given the limited circumstances in which SRVL will be needed, of course, SRVL is not without penalty but it is hardly doom and glom either.
Advances in avionics, landing aids and synthetic training environments could reduce the need for CV training but it seems doubtful that this will ever reach anywhere need the small training requirement for deck operations on the B model.
In short, STOVL makes it quicker and easier to surge aircraft onto CVF should that surge ever be needed, which would be unusual in any event.
So what if CV needs more training, it is a fair enough question to ask.
The problem is that it would take a disproportionate slice out of the training calendar because the UK will have only a modest fleet of F35’s. This would therefore reduce the effective numbers available for use because more would be used for training.
The vast majority of time the UK JCA will be operating from conventional land bases, operations at sea will be the exception so we should look at allowing the largely land based aircrew to transition to sea as easily and cheaply as possible, CV does not do this, by STOVL does.
A mission might see JCA operated from CVF and transition to a land base, this land base might have been damaged and this is where the concept of operating from forward bases can be useful. The Harrier proved the operational viability of operating from forward bases or temporarily damaged air bases in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although not likely to be used often, and the definition of austere might be interesting to look at, it is something that the F35B can do which the F35C cannot.
This basing flexibility is at the heart of the intentional performance trade-offs with STOVL. As an example, when planning the KPP for STOVL operations the USMC calculated that across the most likely operating environments there are eight times as many runways in existence that can be used for the F35B compared to the F35C and this is before we even examine the options for expeditionary airfield construction. The USMC is very firmly wedded to the concept of expeditionary basing and although the UK is less so, it is something I think that we need to reaffirm as a key advantage of the F35B.
Given the weight and vertical thrust of the F35B operating it from the deck (or flat space) of any ship other than one specially designed for it is not viable but emergency recovery is something that can be done with an F35B. It would likely result in damage to whatever it landed on and take that ship out of normal operations but given the value of the pilot and aircraft this might still save a lot of money and provide an option to save a pilot. This is not a hugely significant advantage of the F35B but it does provide options that are not available to the F35C.
CV makes CVF more specialised, STOVL makes it more flexible.
Interoperability
This always seemed to be a rather weak argument in favour of the switch and many believe it was just cover for the Anglo French defence cooperation agreement.
However, it is certainly true that a CV optimised CVF would enable US and French navy aircraft to operate from its decks and vice versa.
In reality, this is harder to achieve than say.
Different aircraft require different equipment for maintenance and launch/recovery and there have been some concerns that for the Charles de Gaul, the deck might not have the strength to accommodate the F35C.
Assuming that the F35B provides no interoperability with allies is also incorrect, the USMC will be operating the F35B and other Harrier using nations such as Italy and Spain will also likely introduce the F35B. An increased number of F35B’s will reduce the unit cost and with three European nations potentially operating it the opportunities for interoperability seem greater. Those who see European cooperation as both a good thing and inevitable should see three nations with the same mode of operating fast jets at sea is better than two, all we need now is for the French to buy F35B!
We also have to ask beyond if, why.
It has already been made very clear that the agreement on interoperability between the French and UK would amount to no more than coordinating refit periods. The US Navy might find it convenient to operate its F35C’s off a CVF but just how realistic does anything actually think this is.
Come on, really.
It might be equally convenient to operate UK F35C’s from a USN carrier but for what reason, do they not have enough aircraft or something?
I think this one is a score draw between the F35B and F35C; we will have interoperability with the F35B, just with different nations and forces.
Carrier availability for the UK is far more important than interoperability with allies any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Risk
If the F35B is cancelled then we have nowhere to go so in this respect it represents a higher risk option. If we were to go for the F35C and it was cancelled then a fall back of F18, Rafale or maybe even a development of the Gripen NG become possible.
It was risk that underpinned the original decision to switch; the F35B was looking shaky, under ‘probation’ and surrounded by rumours of cancellation. The publication date of the SDSR meant that some decision was needed within the publication schedule.
Two years later and the risk profile has changed considerably, despite still having many challenges, much progress has been made and the F35C is now having its own collection of problems.
All new aircraft developments have their attendant risks; it seems from the outside looking in that both variants have their own collection, with most of them overplayed by an agenda driven media.
Ultimately, risk is cost, if the risk that the F35B is cancelled it will be very expensive but then it would also be expensive if the F35C was cancelled.
When I read the huge volume of materials posted online that proclaim the F35 to be a lemon, every change in specification a disaster and every setback a double disaster I tend to glass over. It is easy to slag off the F35 because it is expensive, it is late and it is in the public eye but is this any different to other ultimately successful programmes?
I just don’t think it is and I find it simply unbelievable that the Western World’s top aeronautical engineers and companies will not make it a success.
The simple truth is any transformational programme with ambition has risk, the F35 is not a simple incremental improvement to an existing design.
That is not to say it is out of the woods, significant challenges remain but let’s not assume that simply because the aircraft has developmental problems in the middle of its development programme that the sky is going to fall in and we are gambling the family silver on a 100-1 outsider.
AEW, AAR and COD
One of the potential additional costs of CV was the likely need to develop an airborne refuelling capability for the F35C to support recovery refuelling. This could have been extended to provide additional range for a strike package without using land based AAR.
The need for Carrier Onboard Delivery for CVF has never been widely discussed but the need for airborne early warning should be obvious. The current system, the Sea King ASaC Mk 7 goes out of service in 2016 and the successor programme called CROWSNEST has now been confirmed as having secured funding.
By going for a CVF aircraft with catapults and arrestor gear many thought the road would be clear for a purchase of the E2D Hawkeye and even the C2 Greyhound for the COD role.
This was always fantasy.
In the vast majority of operations the RAF’s E3’s will be used for wide area airborne early warning and control with a CVF based solution for shorter range gap filling and in very few operations, this wider area deployment.
The contribution of the Type 45 and the impact of potential UAV based technologies should also be considered when looking at this issue.
The potential for a CV AEW and COD aircraft was the weakest argument for the original switch to CV.
Cost and the Final (again) Decision
This is of course the ‘big un’ and whilst we might discuss the finer points of bring back weights or UCAV’s the decision to revert to the F35B was very much about the Pound notes.
The bottom line of F35 costs is this, we simply do not know beyond estimates and something else that people often do not appreciate is this, JCA is not yet passed Main Gate and thus, no budget has been allocated for the demonstration and manufacture phase, in short, we don’t know how much each one costs and we don’t know how much we have to spend.
I do find it rather bemusing to watch the massed ranks of internet forum members, bloggers and think tank researchers clutching at the definitions of LRIP and flyaway, open source documents and internet information to try and get some sort of meaningful comparison between different deals, different aircraft, different nations and different systems. Most of this information is hugely complex and hugely commercially confidential; hence the degree of variability of that in the public domain.
This is difficult with aircraft in production, let alone those that are in development.
One of the first posts I published on Think Defence was a question, does anyone actually know how much the F35 will be.
The short answer was very few people, if any.
Which leads me to the conclusion that cost comparisons can only be made in very general terms and we should leave detailed cost comparisons to those in possession of the actual figures.
I can’t do a post about this subject without being a bit of a smug git, I am sure you will allow me just a little bit of ‘told you so’
On August 7th 2010 I said
Therefore, for cost reasons, the F35B is the right choice.
On September 13th 2010 I asked the following questions;
- How does changing the design and construction of CVF at this late stage save money
- How does adding several hundred million pounds for catapults save money
- How does maintaining those catapults for 40 years save money
- How do the extra catapult maintainers wages, pensions and other costs over 40 years save money
- How does the extra cost of maintaining perishable carrier operations skills save money
- How does scrapping the 3 F35B’s we have purchased as part of the operational evaluation phase save money
I finished that post by asking this
Am I being thick?
Because I could not understand how the leaks coming out of the MoD prior to the publication of the SDSR that trailed the switch to the F35C were characterised as some sort of cost saving.
I was genuinely puzzled and so it turned out I wasn’t being thick at all, it was the other people!
Several times since then I have asked the same questions and came to the same conclusions, the F35B is actually the cheapest option, not in isolation, but across the whole of defence.
Although it is only a gut feeling because I do not have sight of any detailed costing, I have remained constant on that and continue to do so.
Events would seem to vindicate that opinion.
This conclusion was not based on being omnipotent or ultra-wise but on the simple fact that it was exactly the same reason that the F35B was selected in the first place and although there was some cost growth, not much changed since.
One can imagine the costing spreadsheet used to support the decision was incredibly complex with many scenarios and permutations.
In my Forward to Plan B post last month I tried to summarise where costs would lie;
Deck Crew; estimates vary but a solid assumption is that conventional carrier operations need more deck crew that STOVL; shore accommodation, welfare, pensions, pay and all the other capitation costs we know about. Some of these can be mitigated with sharing arrangements but fundamentally, it is an additional cost.
Flight Crew; although synthetic environments and the F35’s flight control systems hold a great deal of promise, the assumption must be that maintaining carrier qualifications will require more aircraft, more aircrew and more time. This drives up cost or reduces availability. Where that relationship settles is open for discussion but the basic assumption should be we will need more time/crew or accept less mission availability and reduce the ability to rapidly surge in a crisis.
Catapults and Arrestor Gear; no sensible option exists other than the US EMAL’s and associated recovery equipment which is an additional capital cost and significant through life cost. Certainly cheaper than steam but still a considerable extra cost although the risk of it failing to deliver seems remote.
Recovery Refuelling; if we operate the CTOL F35C we need a means of safely providing emergency recovery refuelling but given that no customer exists for the F35C except the USN and they have plenty of other options we would have to fund that ourselves. This would not be an insurmountable problem but at what cost?
What I didn’t cover was the cost of actually converting the CVF to accept catapults and arrestor gear or factor in the number of aircraft used to deliver against a set of mission requirements, this latter variable was part of the rear guard leaking that took place recently.
CVF was supposed to be adaptable; many critics have latched onto this and assumed that converting to catapults and arrestor gear would simply be a case of opening a compartment, dropping in a bit of kit and hey presto. There is no way, they claim, that the reported multi billion cost can be correct, it is a conspiracy by the Carrier Alliance to inflate costs and squeeze yet more money from a gullible MoD.
The estimate from the US that was reportedly much less is interesting but again, caution must be exercised and those apples must be compared with apples.
Whatever the figure and however it might seem incredulous the simple fact is it must be taken as correct. It may well include a high degree of risk cost, it might well be erring on the high side but surely this is actually a good thing because it displays a cautious approach to cost growth that most would agree has been absent for many years at the MoD.
I suspect there was some degree of artistic licence with the word ‘adaptable’
If the project was going to take another decade to come to fruition then scope for even further cost escalation should be obvious to all as well.
On the cost comparisons between individual aircraft, maybe the additional maintenance cost of the F35B is neatly offset by the additional maintenance and CV operating costs of going for the F35C, if so, the cost of conversion then becomes a big issue.
What is a major issue is how this cost estimate proved to be so wildly wide of the mark and when reality dawned, it was obvious there was no other choice, unless that is of course, carrier strike would be pursued at the expense of other services and other projects.
Again, not likely in the extreme
On the issue of needing more aircraft for a given mission set then to this I would simply ask a couple of questions, in what circumstances and how old were the assumptions behind those missions.
To that I would comment that the UK armed forces post SDSR have shrunk, we have accepted we will be doing less with less, CVF and JCA is no different.
Decisions Decisions
The MoD has had some time during which to analyse every last aspect of the decision, unlike before the original reversion was made.
For me, this was an unforgivable mistake, making such a fundamental decision, setting wheels in motion and incurring huge cost before a level of assuredness had been achieved that the decision was the correct one, based on detailed analysis not finger in the air guessing.
Without knowing the full picture, being privy to all the briefings or information provided to Liam Fox and his advisors we can’t pin the blame but the simple fact is, a decision was made on incomplete evidence.
In all fairness, the cost, but not the decision was always subject to further investigation, the SDSR was actually quite clear on this. Soon after, questions were tabled in the House of Commons to which the MoD had no answer, time after time, and not just on carrier strike, an MP would ask an SDSR related question to which the published answer was ‘dunno’
Alarm bells should have been ringing in the press and opposition benches.
Again, without sounding like too much of a smug git, I have written several times about this uncertainty. In my smug git party were a small number of commenters on specialist forums who had a similar view so I must say thank you to them for helping me to understand I was not in fact being a lunatic.
There was a huge degree of hubris behind the announcement and in the mutual backslapping that followed, where the talk was of being a proper navy, assuming our God given right to be second only to the US Navy and returning to the glory days, none of the professional commenters like defence journalists or think tanks actually questioned any of this.
Last month, whilst the rumours and leaks abounded of a reversal I said that the decision would not be about aircraft variants or ‘cats and flaps’ but about the MoD’s financial credibility and the obvious need to regain it because that is the MoD’s most precious commodity.
The announcement by Phil Hammond on changes to the F35 variant was part of that mission to regain credibility and the recent statement to the House of Commons on MoD’s budget being bought back into balance was another.
The decision to revert was therefore all about cost but how did the original change of heart happen, how was such a fundamental error made.
Books will no doubt be written one day on this subject but I have a theory that says the change decision driven from the top down; influenced by a number of factors but ultimately made on the basis of false assumptions and politicians, aided by a derelict defence establishment that did not exercise enough rigour in challenging those assumptions.
That theory starts with a solid understanding and operational analysis of the F35B and a STOVL CVF concept as applied to defence planning assumptions and operational experience.
In the middle is what I think was a fundamental misunderstanding of this concept in the minds of politicians, the defence select committee, media commenters and even some in the services. So whilst it seems that this flexible arrangement of blending command facilities, fixed wing and rotary aviation to meet the demands of a wide range of mission requirements was firmly bedded into the original concept for CVF and JCA, in the minds of others it wasn’t.
An example of how this manifested itself is the continual reference to having the capability to embark 36 aircraft. 36 aircraft was the most demanding compliment and seen as something of an unusual scenario against many, not the norm, but it is often referred to.
The disconnect continued throughout the SDSR period, perhaps the words ‘Carrier Strike’ played part of this misunderstanding, strike was one of a number of missions.
We based our decision to opt for the F35B to fulfil the Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) requirement on many years detailed operational analysis, all of a sudden, and to the surprise of almost everyone in the project team, the switch was announced. There is only anecdotal evidence to suggest this element of surprise in those involved but if true is quite telling and would reinforce the notion of a rushed decision making process.
Where did the push for the change come from and on what evidence was it made?
I suggest it came from the top down, a political decision from Liam Fox, advisors with vested interests and influenced by an extremely vocal Royal Navy lobby, a media environment which often paints the Royal Navy as a ‘victim’ and a range of senior service personnel who saw the opportunity for greater capabilities, bragging rights and some degree of service aggrandisement.
They had a collective rush of blood to the head and reverted to typical MoD behaviour, hoping that funding would be found for the second CVF and praying that quick estimates would turn out to be correct, pushing further decision out to the future and being seduced by all the capabilities on offer.
The decision was made before the detailed analysis was completed, as I mentioned above, this is not news and was explicit within the SDSR that costs would be determined via the means of a multi-million Pound study.
The estimates were wholly incorrect, as estimates sometimes are.
The detailed and exhaustive operational analysis that was carried out post SDSR by the people with total command of all the facts would have also made quite plain the operational impact of only having one hull and the likely cost driven impact of the switch on all sorts of capabilities across the services.
Reality met aspiration and so, we are where we are, there really was no other choice to be made.
Summary and Look Forward
The decision is made, no point in sulking or moaning about it and I for one think it was the correct one anyway. I still find it rather exasperating that the original reversion decision was made that has cost us two years and a lot of money but it is water under the bridge now.
We should now look forward to maximising our investment and that will be the subject of the next post.
Crowsnest will have a radar horizon of more like 250km rather than the E2′s 400km, but given the relatively short range of the F35B and the limited numbers we are going to get, this is probably good enough.
@The Other Chris: I suppose that could be an advantage, but I see the main advantage as being that we can afford more of them. If we have an accident like GWII, or one is shot down, it’s not a disaster.
Assuming we go Merlin, it’s just AAR we have to worry about. Perhaps we could arrange a drogue out the back of a HC3, with the F35B using some thrust vectoring for station keeping?
If we were in a situation like the FI where we needed to provide AEW above a relatively stationary position like San carlos could we not design a barge, pontoon on a few anchors with a big balloon mounting a search water radar and 30k feet of cable?
@APATS: we need to protect the amphibs before they land first. @James is a big proponent of airships, but they aren’t going to last long against fighter support IMHO
APATS,
that’s dangerously close to an airship…. (my article remains embarrassingly half completed). But yes, in essence a converted cargo ship could launch and tether a pretty massive blimp and provide more than enough power over about 15-20,000 feet of combined power and data cable. See http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=3507
On a “cheaper and affordable” scale, a pair of aerostats tethered to West Falkland sea cliffs with 5,000 feet of cable and a genset in the mooring (daily fuelled up on a contract by local farmers) gives you a lot of AEW 24/7 for not much cash.
WF, Well they would give you a longer detection range allowing SAMs and CAP to engage would be quite difficult to target at the height they are at as the fighter would be high and close within Sea Viper range.
On the subject of the continued F35B short range rants it has a longer range on a strike mission than F18E.
@James: good for peacetime, not going to last long in wartime. Plus, we had better have the self destruct handy, they had to shoot down one during the 80′s off the US when it started drifting towards Cuba
http://www.duckkeyonline.com/duck_key_community/duck_key_archives/fat_albert.htm
wf,
you may be surprised. A properly constructed airship takes a huge amount of ordnance to shoot it down – literally dozens of fragmentation head missiles, or thousands of rounds of gunfire. It also has a “graceful degradation” crash pattern, due to the compartmentalisation. There’s also some reasonably effective decoy systems available – hanging radar reflectors and heat sources on sacrificial extremities is just the start. There’s not much in a big bag of helium to attract standard A-A missiles anyway, so any potential adversary is going to need to re-programme optical seeker heads to look for centre of mass rather than heat sources.
They are not the panacea to everything, but in certain roles, they have all sorts of cost / simplicity arguments in their favour.
James,
You and my old lecturer would have got on like a house on fire. He was “Mr Airship” – nearly got himself (or his cameraman) killed if I remember correctly doing some tree top filming.
wf,
“Fat Albert” had 4 internal compartments, in comparison with modern designs that have many hundreds and in some cases well over a thousand. Fat Albert still survived 3 major incidents and got reflown, however.
On balance, for our AEW needs, I think it is certainly a candidate. £5 million cargo ship as a mobile launch / tether platform, <£5 million for the gas envelope and infrastructure, plus whatever a Searchwater radar costs.
Some quick calculations show that an aerostat mounted Searchwater radar flying at 10,000 metres from an anchored cargo ship 200 miles off the Somali coast can see from the Horn of Africa nearly as far south as Mogadishu, 24/7 and barring routine maintenance, 365.
I’m wondering whether NATO would welcome an unsolicited bid from a private company to provide “radar surveillance services” for the anti-piracy drive, or if a private company will be allowed to buy a Searchwater.
Reaches for spreadsheet…. FBOT, stand by to provide a quote for some re-engineering of a freighter’s cargo hold.
James,
I guess the pirates only operate when the wind gets up a bit?
@James, given that the radar will be the same as the helicopter, not much saving in capital costs. Even a small cargo ship has running costs, plus a larger crew than a helo and it’s maintenance staff. No contest!
I thought our job was to put the wind up pirates?
wf, well if it can go higher than 15,000ft and stay there 24/7 it gives a capability that is expensive to replicate via helo. How many cabs would we need and highly trained flight crew? Neither of which can be used for anything else.
wf,
helicopters operate at 10,000 metres?
I’d be interested to see your working that 24/7/365 operating costs of 4 helicopters (to cover for the reduced radar horizon that helos can achieve)* are the same as a reasonably small cargo ship (crew of about 15) over a year. If you need a ship to land and host your helicopters, include the running costs of that.
Other costs e.g. ATC, ops room, are netted out as being equal, less the fact that you’d need four times the payload operators in the four helos.
I don’t know, your proposal sounds ruddy expensive to me.
* Radar horizon at 10,000 metres is 228 nm. Radar horizon at 3,333 metres (roughly 10,000 feet) is 134 nm, so you’d need four helos to cover the same area.
I don’t think this airship AEW is a bad thing especially for land-based AEW.
It could also work from a frigate; just roll it out on the flight deck, blow it up and let it go (oh, tie it down first).
It’s just got to be cheap hasn’t it?
You could take it a step further and make it silver and flat and use it to reflect coherent radar a bit like winching a mirror into the sky.
@James, Merlin ceiling is 4500m, with radar horizon of 270km. But I thought we were still refighting the FI, rather than following pirates. For the latter, a blimp sounds great to me. Why not combine with tourism?
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/piratecruise.asp
)
wf,
no money in fighting the FI, it’s all Government work. NATO is rich and stupid, it is an enduring operation that cries out for persistent ISTAR of the surface, but the nations that can do it are all a bit pressed with other commitments. Absolutely ideal for some capitalist piracy with monthly charges and success fees for every skiff spotted in less than one hour. Plus it’s warmer in the Indian Ocean.
First pass spreadsheet says £1.1m revenue / month for hardware and ship crew costs works out over 24 months with a £5m ship, £7.5M aerostat, crew of 15 Filipino matelots. Need to know radar and integration costs, and costs of payload operators, but my sense is it comes to less than £30m all up for 24 months. I think NATO is good for £50m, particularly if the US, France and Italy can stop the expensive surveillance.
James, need some FP bods onboard, the pirates bound to find out and decide to have a go. Some operators to push out the data as well?
@James, you’d probably need two ships to maintain your contractual commitments. Assuming the pirates would stay dumb might be foolish too: what’s wrong with those cheap Filipino’s deciding to take a bung to sabotage the ships engines, or attach a portable jammer to the radar?
I still prefer razing their bases and hanging the survivors. I bet the Russians would do it for 10 million if we won’t…
APATS,
yes yes, working the details.
Just seen that there’s a ruddy great island off the Horn of Africa. May not need the ship, but sacrificing coverage of the further south regions. However, data can be sold to the CIA wanting to keep an eye on the Yemeni interior….
wf. Ship+Island for double the coverage, not at double the cost. May need to factor in some Gurkhas for FP as well.
All a bit of a lark, but I wonder if there is the genesis of an idea here? Would be fairly complex, not easy to put in place quickly, but what are the costs NATO incurs in providing already patchy surveillance?
@James: I suspect the island would screw your FP costs. Static, with a long perimeter: what happens if they mount a maximum effort and the RN/USN cannot arrive in time? Imagine the employment tribunals after the fact…
James, ISTAR on anti piracy is quite multi national, the Ozzies supply MPA and Luxembourg funded some Fairchild SW 3 aircraft to fly as MPAs out of the Seychelles last year.
@James: I know the school fees are crippling, but couldn’t you just get a consulting gig from the EU explaining why the Euro will last for ever or something? Captain Euro was still around last time I checked
@James
I know the US has a pencant for wasting money, but they’ve spent around $1bn on airships over the last 5 years or so and got basically nothing.
LEMV is a good case in point. $500m budget for a short programme to build a prototype vessel, integrate radars and EO/IR turrets. They’re already about 50% behind schedule. I’m thinking that there’s some hidden technical issues in there that aren’t going away – or they’re simply incompetent.
Best to hope it isn’t windy off the Horn of Africa either.
Hannay,
LEMV is not an airship but is a hybrid air vehicle, which requires to actively fly and is not naturally lighter than air. There have been demonstrators, but LEMV is five times the size. The difference between a LEMV and an aerostat is huge. They are not the same type of vessel at all, or only about as related as a bicycle and a Formula One car in that both have rubber tyres.
Aerostats will fly in any conditions so long as they have enough air displacement. Shaping counteracts yaw in blustery wind, twin lines help as well. The biggest engineering challenge is the power, data and security tethering. Always has been. Launch and recovery tends to be a bit agricultural as well, but its’ only done once in a while so no need to over-ealborate.
@ The Other Chris
“Apologies for barging in and upsetting the apple cart with my clap trap (although if it keeps cropping up… no smoke without fire?)”
– Presumably you’ve never heard of a smoke machine; a device designed to artifically generate smoke, usually as part of a theatrical performance, for the purposes of convincing people that a fire is in progress when in fact no such danger exists.
“Regardless of the source, the bulk of goods that enter and leave this country do so through a port. We’re not connected to the European transport infrastructure directly”
– This is where the problems begin. You’re looking at ferries and short haul container/freight journeys as being a major obstacle to overcome for trade. As far as haulage companies are concerned, a trip across the channel in a ferry is just like driving another leg of a road journey, except that the road is moving and the truck stands still for a change.
‘We are an Island’ meant more 200 years ago when everything was carried in sail barges. In the 21st century ‘we are an Island’ means that it takes 5 hours to reach Cherbourg from Southampton.
In addition, the nature of our balance of payments is poorly understood, largely because of the amount of money that moves in the “shadow banking system”. Our economy is a lot healthier than people give it credit for. For example, we import more steel than we export in tonnage terms, but because we export high quality steel and generally import shit steel, financially I believe our Steel balance of trade is actually positive.
“This is because whether we trade predominantly with Europe, the Commonwealth or BRICS in this vision, the goods (including the device you’re reading this post on) will more than likely enter the country through a port.”
– Coming back to this point again, yes, a lot of our stuff does come in and out of ports. But the issue from a defence perspective is really how far are those goods travelling, and through what environment? The over whelming majority of our food and energy imports travel less than 400 miles through probably the most benign maritime security environment in the world.
Using the George W. Bush defence of “more and more of our imports come from over seas” as an argument for a Navy centric armed forces is fallacious. The majority of our major (and certainly all our “vital”) sea trade lanes could be covered by helicopters of an expanded HM Coastguard.
Similarly we move on the Islands that shall not be named. The argument that we should spend £6-7bn on two aircraft carriers and another £5-6bn putting planes on them (plus all the crew) just so we can reclaim the Islands in the unlikely event that they are taken away again is putting things arse about face.
For a fraction of that money you could put some tall and shiny radars on the Islands themselves, a few missile batteries, and a bollock load of soldiers. If you really want to get serious about defending the FI then you want a Maritime Surveillance/Patrol aircraft and some helicopters, not an aircraft carrier.
Now I personally think the Navy has a lot of utility and by no means would consider its dissolution as a truly viable option, but some of the arguments put forward as to why we should swing to a Naval centric armed forces really push the boundaries of facts/sanity, re; “If we’re predominantly living in a Maritime world, our defence equipment needs to be capable of being used from a Maritime position”
Further
“The French and the Americans can focus their attention on air and ground knowing that Britain can handle a lot of the heavy lifting at sea and in the emerging AirSea Battle arena. Instead of trying to supply a small percentage of ground forces and a handful of ships, provide what we would do best: secure sea lanes for logistics, carrier and sea based stand off strike,”
– So the assumption under pinning your maritime force is that France and the US will sacrifice their maritime power, because we’re going to cover them after all? I don’t think so.
I keep hearing the ‘Germany is a large land power, Poland is a large land power, etc’ arguments, which people seem to make while being completely oblivious of the fact that Germany is notorious for enjoying NATO protection while choosing to routinely not play ball with NATO. Imagine if Libya had required ground forces to intervene. We would have rung Germany up as the major provider of land forces under the “Other Chris Agreement” and… they would have hung up on us and pretended they were washing their hair for the next six months.
And to take up the idea of what it is we do best, we have three things that the Yanks are always after; air to air refuelling, special forces and Mine CM. None of those really involve aircraft carriers.
Finally;
“We should accept the best role in the world for us: Maritime power with our smaller Elite land forces that can rapidly support our Allies where needed”
– Technically speaking, we already are a Maritime Power despite our reduced (reducing?) size. But we have also proven ourselves as a very capable air power and land power. We have tanks that are the envy of most of the world, fighting men whose calibre is globally acknowledged, and some of the most sophisticated and capable aircraft anywhere in the world.
We already, in our current balanced force structure, bring a huge amount to the table. Only the US really has more to offer than we do, and being that the US is the major “contractor” of forces for its operations, that makes us the default number one supplier in most cases.
The way forward for us is to strengthen our abilities in all three mediums; land, sea and air. That means Type 45 and 26, though TLAM on Type 45 would be a nice addition, Astutes and now CVF, though I’m still very sceptical of that project. It means developing Typhoon to its full multi-role function, which should include not just AA and attack, but also its recce functions and a maritime strike ability. It means the development of our airborne ISTAR with things like Air Seeker. And it means developing our land forces with things like FRES, Warrior upgrades and new Tanks, artillery and land based ISTAR.
Under no circumstances should we, in the forseeable future, allow any one service to dominate the others. General shifts to match operational priorities (such as Afghanistan) are fine, but the idea that we should “navalise” everything would put a lot of additional cost into the system for little overall gain, and actively handicapping many bits of kit when not in “naval” service.
TD,
I didn’t actually say that this is a very good piece… you knew it would throw gunpowder into the fire though… sneaky
I’d like to add my thoughts following all the wonderful conversations I’ve had on this site about B vs C, etc, etc, etc.
There are two reasons that STOVL F35B is the right choice:
1. It decreases short-term costs but delivers a credible solution.
2. It provides military flexibility.
Many of the other issues that keep getting banded around never seem to have much substance. Yes, E2 would be expensive, but you don’t have to buy it. Yes, CATOBAR offers easier AAR but that’s not the point. Yes, there is a training issue, but not one that cannot be overcome with some lateral thought. Etc, etc, etc.
The first point makes my stomach churn. It makes me loath every cell in the politician’s bodies because we had to make short-term cuts. That means we have less money in the future for education, health, and helicopters for the Army. It should never have been a good reason, but it is. Tough!
The second is (to me) irritatingly true. F35B means we can deploy them on QE and on any future LHA/LHD/LPH if we so choose. And (primarily down to Mark) it shook me into realising the capabilities that Voyager actually gives us when F35B are land-based. Fly 900nm, refuel, do a 450nm radius strike, refuel, fly 900nm home – a 1350nm strike range that can only happen because of land-based tankers – and that’s in “easy mode”.
I think therefore my concern is not about STOVL/CATOBAR it is simply that the Royal Navy will not have quite enough copter capability without a third aviation hull or before Albion and Bulwark are replaced with the LHD’s they should always have been.
I will therefore start campaigning to keep HMS Ocean (in reserve) even when both QE and POW are delivered so that this nation can truly support a brigade sized amphibious force because as it stands, with Lusty and Ocean being replaced by CVF, I really don’t think we can.
One point and one question (no sarcasm):
“Technically speaking, we already are a Maritime Power despite our reduced (reducing?) size. But we have also proven ourselves as a very capable air power and land power.”
Happy to agree, but i would argue the statement is true in the past tense, with budget pressures meaning it loses its relevance in the coming generation.
“We already, in our current balanced force structure, bring a huge amount to the table. The way forward for us is to strengthen our abilities in all three mediums; land, sea and air.”
Just to check, this balanced force you are talking about is the FF2020 structure which almost certainly includes two stovl carriers and an 82,000 strong army?
I ask because i do genuinely believe that for britain’s interests this is the appropriate balance.
Open question to anyone in part prompted by Simon above.
Will Ocean support F35B, is the deck strong enough for landing will the lift take the weight and does the hangar accommodate them. If only for an Atlantic Conveyor type transport role?
Jim, She used to be able to carry harriers in a ferry role. I think 16? She does not have a heat resistant deck. I do not know if they were stowed on upper deck or hangar. Also f35B is bigger and heavier.
@ JDBFTRX
“Happy to agree, but i would argue the statement is true in the past tense, with budget pressures meaning it loses its relevance in the coming generation”
– I think the quality of our subs, Type 45, Type 23, plus the potential of Type 26 would secure our status on the seas, while our fleet of Typhoon, supported by A400M and C-17, makes us a very strong air power. Not many aircraft that can go toe to toe with a Tiffy, and certainly not in the hands of our likely enemies.
“Just to check, this balanced force you are talking about is the FF2020 structure which almost certainly includes two stovl carriers and an 82,000 strong army? I ask because i do genuinely believe that for britain’s interests this is the appropriate balance.”
– No, I meant our forces already have a reasonable balance to them. FF2020 is relatively similar to our current force so it could probably be described as a balanced as well, to a degree. But I would much rather see the CVF and their air arm traded out for other things, such as MPA.
Thanks for everyone’s comments, with this one I tried to look at a number of issues through a wide angle lens. The decision on the F35 is not just about range or bring back weight but a broad range of financial, capability and industrial issues that all have to be considered.
Welcome a couple of new commenters as well.
APATS hit the nail on the head; this is about UK specifics, not some internet fantasy about operating a mini me US Carrier Battle Group. We should compare ourselves to the USN with an in built inferiority complex.
Monty raised a good point about ‘what if the F35B is cancelled’ and whilst I find that extremely unlikely, arguably, the F35C is more vulnerable, it would leave us and a few others with a serious headache. The whole USMC expeditionary air strategy would be in tatters and CVF would be somewhat compromised, anyone else find this a realistic risk?
Simon, can you explain where you think the article in unbalanced and expand on your picking my dodgy maths apart! As for basing a decision entirely on costs, so what, explain what is so bad about that, I don’t think it is just about short term costs either. It is exactly basing decisions ‘Not on Cost’ that has got us to where we are, a little fiscal realism seems a wholly good thing to do, at least to me. I would add that when operating Chinook it does not necessarily mean operating the ship to within 50nm of a ship, CVF will be an aviation operating platform, those aviation things like helicopters can use other platforms closer in to refuel and operate in different phases, going back to CVF for maintenance etc, like APATS covered. You are right in this though ‘you knew it would throw gunpowder into the fire though’
Wf, when I said that AEW etc was the weakest argument for CVF I meant in the context cost v capability v reality. Not arguing with capability but highly unlikely that we would have been able to afford E2’s etc on top of the other costs.
NaB, point taken on the lifespan of ships but whatever the reasons, the simple fact remains that the previous two generations were in service for significantly less than the 50 years being planned for CVF. This combined with the trend for longer service lives of complex equipment like fast jets means that the assumption that CVF will automatically have to accommodate an F35 replacement, a CATOBAR one that, does not seem a certainty to me. You never know though. Not arguing with the size of CVF by the way; big equals flexibility. I also agree about including DLOD’s not being applied consistently, they should be, again no argument from me. DPA’s, interesting point but when they change, and crucially, come with changed budgets, then fair enough, for now though, they are what they are.
Mark, thanks for the update on the F35C’s max payload with all fuel, didn’t realise that.
Lord Jim made a perceptive point that should the option exist, land bases will always be used, exactly but as NaB said, they aren’t free, exactly like sea basing.
A different Gareth asked if the F35B when operating in conventional mode from long concrete runways could be a viable replacement option (if a one for one replacement is the way to go) for Tornado, interesting point and one worth exploring I think.
The Other Chris said he was amazed why we don’t routinely design stuff to be capable of operating from the sea, in general terms, hear hear, although I would add that it always adds costs upfront and in almost all circumstances compromises the design, as Mark, Hannay, Chris.B and Topman illustrate perfectly. Interesting point though.
Alex makes a cracking point about a DROPS truck and stopping distances, puts a lot of the discussion about SRVL into some sort of perspective!
Hannay, slightly off topic (as ever) but the UK-France collaboration on UCAV’s and the point about two’s company and three (or more) definitely being a crowd is spot on but have you seen the news stories recently that the French have been extending invitations for others to join in, no doubt because of their government shareholding in EADS. I really don’t see this staying as a partnership for long and will eventually turn into a multi nation consortium.
On the whole E3/E2, FI and 4000nm operating range, the simple fact is this. Our strategy revolves around the very sensible approach of diplomacy, deterrence and defence. Taking them back indicates a catastrophic failure of the first three stages in our strategy so any money should be allocated strictly in that order. Having E2’s is a costly luxury that pulls funding from other areas and would therefore ultimately compromise at least the ‘deter’ and ‘defend’ legs of the strategy.
Wf, I would argue that the RAF’s greatest contribution to 1982 was the Hercules resupply operations (not forgetting the GR3’s, pilots on SHAR, Nimrod, Vulcan, and other stuff) but that’s for another post!
Paul, I agree, am a big fan of the multi role medium transport type aircraft, C295 as per your example
Jedi, stop being smug, only I can do that on this post thank you very bloody much
Jim, good question about F35B and Ocean, I don’t think it would but am sure some of the more knowledgeable people on here will oblige.
Great stuff everyone, thanks
TD,
Welcome home.
“It is clear therefore (accepting potential differences in flight profiles) that the CV variant offers much more range than the STOVL variant, some 25%.”
650 / 480 = ~1.35 –> 35%. And that’s with double the payload!
When I say “costs”, I mean short-term costs… which goes with the short-term politics and less VFM that the UK gets with almost everything we do or procure.
I therefore don’t agree that the whole decision that “got us to where we are” is based on basing decisions. That’s certainly some of it though as I conceeded in my last post (flexibility).
I agree that CVF will currently (assuming no LPH/LHD/etc) be the maintenance facility, but that’s all your eggs in one basket. In addition my concerns are that we only have 6 (and that’s using Bay as front line) copter spots for things like Chinook and Apache if we choose not to bring CVF further in. I think this last bit is the bit we don’t agree on and after recently debating this I’m still not convinced. I’d very much like to explore an approach/tactics that would land and support a brigade on a hostile beach with CVF at 50nm vs 200nm + LPH.
Chris B et al
There has been some interesting trending about the use of marinised kit.
It has occurred to me that we probably spend far too much time and energy not having joined up thinking in our services.
I’d have the Chinooks flown by the AAC (which seem to be able to embark off ships), we have Apaches that are part marinised. Our other two main helicopters, the Merlin and Lynx are available in both marinised and none marinised formats.
Then there is talk about issuing the RAF with F35Bs that might/might not fullfil their needs for a GRA replacement for the Tornado. It certainly doesn’t fulfill deep strike requirements.
The carrier isn’t a strike carrier, it should have been. We should have EA capabilities and ASW AS&S capabilities too but don’t.
Just maybe we should be modelling our whole armed forces on the US marines. I don’t mean copy them but do we need separate services, with their competing overheads. Can standardisation, integration and costs be better managed with one service and fewer ‘types’.
Its clear that the USMC has operated in Afganistan, well away from their watery comfort zone, and it is also clear from Iraq and Afganistan that some of their kit was wrong (AAV) but overall it was a pretty comprehensive achievement.
++++
Sea Typhoon = an idea that is long gone, and anyway why on the heck would it EVER have made sense to develop this when there was the option to join the Rafal development. Sorry the idea seems less relevant, likely or affordable that me suggesting that we should buy some B2s for deep strike.
TD
“Wf, I would argue that the RAF’s greatest contribution to 1982 was the Hercules resupply operations (not forgetting the GR3’s, pilots on SHAR, Nimrod, Vulcan, and other stuff) but that’s for another post!”
Well one things for sure I doubt the C17s would be able to resupply without refueling……. and we cant do that.
Opinion 3
The problem with marinising everything is the amount of weight and in some cases drag you add to various aircraft etc, which is entirely wasted for all the time that the vehicle is not operating from a deck. Powered folding tails, powered folding blades, rotor brakes, points for landing cables, special intake shrouds etc. All of this is stuff that adds weight and affects performance.
It’s like the old argument about making sure any FRES vehicle can fit in and be carried x amount of miles by a C-130. You’re constraining the design for the sake of a capability with limited use.
@ ChrisB –
“I think the quality of our subs, Type 45, Type 23, plus the potential of Type 26 would secure our status on the seas, while our fleet of Typhoon, supported by A400M and C-17, makes us a very strong air power. Not many aircraft that can go toe to toe with a Tiffy, and certainly not in the hands of our likely enemies.”
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, i was really referring to the second sentence when i talked of ourselves as a proven capable in the past-tense rather than the future:
“Technically speaking, we already are a Maritime Power despite our reduced (reducing?) size. But we have also proven ourselves as a very capable air power and land power.”
Specifically that our budget won’t permit us to remain a broad-spectrum Great Power across all three domains; land, sea, and air. Thus a focus being needed in future to preserve a narrow-spectrum power-projection function, which i think FF2020 has provided.
Hi Jedi, agreed “Thus a focus being needed in future to preserve a narrow-spectrum power-projection function, which i think FF2020 has provided”
- but wrong words were printed on the label on the tin?
- or, shall we change it to “will have provided”?
both i think.
@Chris.B.
Consider: if we can only get a reduced capability FRES into theatre in time on the back of a C-130, that FRES is infinitely more useful (and cost effective) than a model that doesn’t fit and that we have to leave behind in a garage.
Could you elaborate more on how much capability is lost by qualifying our equipment for deployment via air or maritime assets please? Quantified discussion would allow considered selection of equipment e.g. a 15% reduction in range, or a 5% reduction in sortie rates may or may not be considered acceptable if it means availability is 100% across both a year and operation type.
@ JDBFRTX
From my perspective, the only “Great Power” in existence now is the US. I would classify us as a moderate power, capable of taking on another moderate power under the right circumstances, while adding a lot of value to any coalition that we enter.
Trying to match the United States in any one domain is, to me, a fools errand. Not least because we have no need to match them. What we need is to maintain a broad spectrum of capabilities, such that we can contribute to various coalitions in whatever capacity is required of us. That might be contributing land assets to an operation like Herrick. It might be contributing naval assets, as we do off the coast of Somalia. Or it might be contributing air assets as we did in Libya.
I feel like the last year or two have showed just how capable and diverse our current military is. I think that balance is how we should progress.
@ The Other Chris
Without all the physical data I’m afraid I can’t give you quantified numbers. That’s just beyond the scope of this.
But you’re talking about significant weight additions in the form of things like tail folding assemblies. In the case of powered rotor folding systems not only are you adding weight to the overall aircraft, but specifically you’re adding it to the rotor assembly itself. The added weight in this case directly effects the responsiveness of the rotor to the application or removal of power (through added inertia), which can be very detrimental in emergency flight regimes.
A much better solution is to simply equip the Navy with the equipment it needs in the first place.
In relation to your question about FRES, the scenario positied about being rushed to theatre on a C-130 is unlikely. Your comprimising the width, height and weight of the vehicle, thus its carrying capacity, armour protection and performance, all for the sake of the possibility that in some extremely rare circumstances you might need to lift one by C-130.
This is simply not a viable way to go about designing a vehicle. Given the other options available (sea, C-17, A400M, commercially hired An-124) it simply doesn’t make sense to let such an extreme deployment example compromise the entire vehicle over the full range of its operating requirements.
If C-130 deployment of vehicles were something that the British Army did a significant amount of, and expected to do over the remaining life of the vehicle, then the argument might have merit. Currently it does not.
@Chris.B: I would have thought that tail and blade folding would benefit air transport as much as sea compatibility, and hence be worthy of inclusion. Given that the rest of “navalisation” is more materials related, plus design for corrosion, I doubt there’s as much impact as you describe (barring fixed wing CTOL, where cat-and-traps obviously has a big impact on design).
Most rotors these days are CF/Kevlar. Sand erosion and modification required thereof has more impact on rotor weight than “navalisation”
@Chris.B.
At the moment we’re debating nebulous characteristics e.g. compromising height/weight to fit in a C-130/A400M and this smacks of the F-18 vs F-35 argument where on analysis F-35 does not come out of the examination all that compromised after all!
Given the Joint Warfare publications in recent years expressing a desire for more rapid, mobile, combined and expeditionary style land warfare, why are you so set against ensuring our military kit can be deployed by air and sea without hoping their’s a nearby friendly port we can sail our chartered Ro-Ro’s up to?
In these discussions we need to quantify how much these potential mobile capabilities “compromise” a design for a given set of roles so that we can make an informed judgement as to whether we’re willing to accept that compromise, else we’re discussing vaporware.
@wf
I would also imagine the u/c would need strengthening and the surrounding stuctures amoungst others, but I couldn’t list them in detail. Never the less, I known it weight to an extent on the Merlin that Army were keen on it not being put onto the Merlin when it was brought into service, because it would impinge on range and load, but I don’t know the figures as to how much so or how much it would have cost.
@ wf
“I would have thought that tail and blade folding would benefit air transport as much as sea compatibility, and hence be worthy of inclusion”
– The difference is that for air transportation you can afford to just disassemble the helicopter (remove blades etc), load her up and then reassemble at the other end. It’s an operation that only needs to be conducted once at each end and is not time critical, as it would be on a ships deck.
“I doubt there’s as much impact as you describe”
– Tell that to the pilots who have their range and speed reduced, along with the throttle response of their helicopters, all because of the off chance that they might, might, be called to be used on a ship one day for a few weeks.
@ The Other Chris,
“At the moment we’re debating nebulous characteristics e.g. compromising height/weight to fit in a C-130/A400M and this smacks of the F-18 vs F-35 argument where on analysis F-35 does not come out of the examination all that compromised after all!”
– Except that with that debate we can clearly see that the F-35 meets the performance and often exceeds that, of the F-18. You can’t seriously be arguing that adding weight to a helicopter would have little to no effect?
Again, I can’t give you specifics because it depends precisely what equipment you want to add and where you acquire it from, but for example a folding rotor blade system alone would add probably 250kg. That’s just the start.
And all this for what purpose? So that once every five years you can use the helicopters off a ship?
“Given the Joint Warfare publications in recent years expressing a desire for more rapid, mobile, combined and expeditionary style land warfare, why are you so set against ensuring our military kit can be deployed by air and sea without hoping their’s a nearby friendly port we can sail our chartered Ro-Ro’s up to?”
– Because you’re hampering the performance of other vehicles and equipment throughout their entire service lives, just on the off chance that they might be needed for maritime operations. I struggle to see this scenario that you forsee whereby an entire British expeditionary force approximating that of OpTelic would need to be landed over a beach from an Amphibious task force, or even that you would be able to fit one on the task force in the first place.
To me it seems sensible to give the Royal Navy the equipment that it needs (incl. reserve airframes) to conduct whatever operations it has to. I see no reason why everyone else should have their normal operational capability downgraded on the altar of making up for Naval short falls.
Of course you can add weight and improve performance. We’ve both agreed on the F-35C as a first common point. You also have the AgustaWestland AH1 sporting Arctic, Desert and Maritime certifications and the airframes arguably outperform the Block II Apache.
If the UK had the USA’s budget I’d happily advocate specialising in equipment so we can eke out every last piece of performance percentage at the maximum levels. We’ve still not agreed on how much of a performance loss (if any) we suffer by taking into account and leveraging what the other services can do for each other.
For instance the AW101 HC3, HM1, MCH-101 and M401 models do indeed vary in their top end figures, however the operational performance figures such as top cruise, recommended cruise, best endurance speed, hover altitudes, etc, all remain within the same ranges. The Japanese and Italian models listed here have folding equipment as well.
So given that we can’t afford to maintain equipment back at the depot gathering dust, and given that our service doctrines are mandating far closer operation with a Blue Water access philosophy, it makes perfect sense to accept a (small) performance hit at the bleeding edge of the envelope in some cases.
We accept this as operational performance remains close to baseline (in some cases superior). Meanwhile we ensure we can bring maximum force to bear in as short a time possible regardless of means and where required.
References:
- JDP 0-01 – British Defence Doctrine
- JDP 0-10 – British Maritime Doctrine
- Finmeccanica – AW101 Maritime
- Kawasaki – MCH-101
@ The Other Chris
“Of course you can add weight and improve performance”
– Providing you’re adding new engines, yes. But when you’re not, you’re just adding dead weight, then no you’re not going to improve performance, you’re going to hamper it. If you increase the weight of an RAF Merlin by 250kgs then you’ve just eaten up 6% of its payload carrying capability, which it then has to spend the rest of its life lugging around just because on a special occassion you want to put it onto a ship. That’s ridiculous.
“So given that we can’t afford to maintain equipment back at the depot gathering dust”
– What equipment is going to be sitting around at depots? The kit will be used elsewhere for other roles. The rest of the armed forces outside of the Navy have been known to get up off their arses and occassionally do things after all.
I don’t understand why the Navy simply can’t have its own kit, optimised for its own purposes and requirements, and then leave everyone elses kit alone. If they feel like they need more helicopters or different types of helicopters, then it might be an idea to actually cough up some of their budget for these items instead of expecting everyone else to accomodate them at a later date.
The idea that you should build an entire force with operation from the sea in mind is just absurd.
Building a force that can interoperate is hardly absurd. I have also, at no point, suggested prioritising one service over another as intimated, nor suggesting any one service is less important (remember, my own expressed opinion is Army numbers are dropping too close to the red line). Am I sensing defensiveness for preferred service?
But I can see the Lady is not for turning (in the figurative sense).
There’s a decided lack of quantitative analysis of evidence to back up the counter and the same arguments continue to resurface (we should specialise kit and cough up more non-existent budget to build up multiple equipment pools for example).
I’m sure we’ll express our differences of opinion again on this topic in future threads.
I’m sorry but we need to get this point out of the way first;
“Am I sensing defensiveness for preferred service?”[sic]
To be blunt, if you’re going to pull the preferred service card then you should have done it long ago, way before you stated a desire to write an article about how the UK should shift to a maritime focused strategy while arguing that all kit produced for the armed forces should be marinised.
If anyone is pulling a service bias here, I’m afraid it’s you.
“Building a force that can interoperate is hardly absurd”
If we’re talking weapons, comms, etc then fine. But forcing every other service to spend limited budget money in order to marinise all of its equipment, along with the performance penalties that go hand in hand, just because you envisage some obscure scenario where an OpTelic sized force will be deployed onto a beach somewhere once every five years, then yes I do think that’s absurd.
“I have also, at no point, suggested prioritising one service over another as intimated”
You clearly stated earlier that you want both the other services to marinise basically their entire inventory, while advocating that the UK switch to a maritime strategy. I’d say that’s putting one service ahead of the others.
“There’s a decided lack of quantitative analysis of evidence to back up the counter”
Do you really need the precise figures? Is it not enough to surmise that several hundred kilos worth of hydraulic equipment, structural strengthening, flotation devices etc, none of which contribute to engine power or lift, will have a negative effect on the performance of helicopters?
That to me seems to be quite self evident.
We’re comparing apples to slightly heavier apples, not oranges (F-35) to banana’s (F-18).