A handful of images from the RAF
A Tornado GR4 aircraft with 617 Squadron based at RAF Lossiemouth is pictured fitted with the Storm Shadow cruise missile, directly under the fuselage.
This long-range air-launched and conventionally-armed missile equips RAF Tornado GR4 squadrons and saw operational service in 2003 with 617 Squadron during combat in Iraq, prior to entering full service in 2004. Post deployment analysis demonstrated the missile’s exceptional accuracy, and the effect on targets was described as devastating. Based on this performance, it is arguably the most advanced weapon of its kind in the world.
Feasibility studies on a possible UK requirement for a Long Range Stand- Off Missile were originally commissioned in 1982, and work was eventually subsumed in 1986 into the NATO seven-nation Modular Stand- Off Weapon programme. This project was however aborted, and the UK subsequently withdrew. With the end of the Cold War the UK’s continued need for a stand-off requirement was reviewed and endorsed as part of the ‘Options for Change’ exercise. An international competition was launched in 1994 to meet the UK’s Conventionally Armed Stand Off Missile (CASOM) requirement, and seven companies responded
A Tornado GR4 aircraft with 617 Squadron based at RAF Lossiemouth is pictured fitted with the Storm Shadow cruise missile, directly under the fuselage.
A Tornado GR4 aircraft with 617 Squadron based at RAF Lossiemouth is pictured fitted with the Storm Shadow cruise missile, directly under the fuselage
A Tornado GR4 aircraft with 617 Squadron based at RAF Lossiemouth is pictured fitted with the Storm Shadow cruise missile, directly under the fuselage.
“clearly, you haven’t had the pleasure of a good Cavalry shagging” – “I thought the cavalry were all mouth and no scarlet trousers?”
Are two sentences that should not have followed each other.
@Mark
The whole question of what comes after Typhoon now looks an open one to me.
When we were going to have the F35C the idea that by the mid 2030s we might end up with an all F35 fleet as the Typhoons bowed out seemed plausible. One type of manned FJ supplemented by various armed unmanned platforms co-developed with the French.
Now we are committed to “B” for the carrriers it seems to re-open the question of what comes after Typhoon. Is the “B” capable enough to be our only manned FJ? If we do buy some “A” or “C” does that re-open the can of worms that is logisitic support for multiple FJ types?
I can’t help feeling we might do better with a limited buy of “B” for our carriers only and then get into bed with the French to design a successor to both Typhoon and Rafale. That would allow a degree of common architecture with the complementary unmanned platforms.
Only problem: the French are even more skint than we are. And I think although Congress will probably see F35 into service what comes next for Uncle Sam is just as doubtful. (Obama has dodged his own liquidity crisis so far becuase of all the capital fleeing from Europe flooding into US treasury bonds. When that lot finally unwinds get ready for some seriously messy spending cuts)
Time for a creative hook up with Sweden and Brazil perhaps? Sea-son-of-Gripen could yet turn out to be the last man standing.
“why would you want to replace old typhoons with new ones post 2030… F35… more tha 50 will be ordered. “
Of course the B is capable enough. It’s one of the most modern and capable warplanes ever built and it’s going to be carrying ordnance that even 10 years ago the RAF would have given their right arms for.
It’s a perfectly decent plane. Yes you can throw around numbers and say how the other models are marginally better in this characteristic or that. But B counts in the biggest characteristic – it will exist and be in service.
We act like a few nautical miles here or a bit of thrust there actually makes that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. These Bs are modern, capable weapon systems when coupled with everything else. They are going to kick some arse.
Those outboard stores loolook plopping like the ones on my mid-80s Airfix Tornado GR.1. Are they?
Peter
There would be less logistics burden of adding the f35a to the b fleet than was the case of operating the gr4 and f3 together.
As Phil points out the b is very capable and could in theory meet pretty much all uk requirements. However the Italian route would offer value as son of typhoon replacement. Can’t ever see a uk French son of typhoon this country is now inextricably linked to f35.
@Peter
I agree with Mark and Phil on the Typhoon/Lightning point.
The B may not be quite as capable as the C, but it’s still far ahead of most other options out there. If we want to head down to one type of aircraft post Typhoon then the Lightning will still be around, probably even in production for many years to come. It will undoubtedly get cheaper in all respects as the years roll by, plus even buying some A or C variants will still provide a lot of commonality.
I do agree with you though on the prospect of seeking a rather limited buy of Lightning B and relegating them to carrier ops only, this is for several reasons.
-Their role as a RAF asset has hardly got a look in recently what with
all the media speculation on the
future of our carrier aviation.
-Also I really don’t think we will get anything like the numbers
required for both the RAF and Royal
Navy roles simultaneously.
-Finally I’m not sure why the RAF is justified in having this kind of
capability at all. I seriously don’t think they are ever going to use
them in the kind of rough, dirty, ad hoc ways the Harrier was because
of it’s expensive and complicated nature. Hypothetically the navy
could when needed operate it’s fast jet squadrons on land with ease,
so what’s the problem!
@TD Why do you say that the anti radiation missile has had it’s day?
The number of Typhoons in the fleet is far less relevant than the number on the “line”. You are probably looking at around a third of the total fleet on the line so for Typhoons lets say that’s 40 frames. Now divide that by 5 and you get 8 per sqn available (not necessarily all serviceable!) for flying on any given day. That number is unlikely to increase for Ops without a huge cost penalty so in this climate 40 is your lot. So if you want to send 8 frames off to support an Op then you will have to rob them off 2 sqns as any given sqn will need aircraft back in the UK for training/currency and perhaps QRA (depending on how the fleets are managed).
This is the problem that is destroying the RAF at the moment. The number of flying hours for each fleet is determined by the pre-paid maintenance contract. So lets say for a generic, fictitious example the Typhoon has 25000 hrs of flying per year bought and paid for. You then have to calculate what that gives in capability:
If each pilot needs 15 hours a month to be current and (often more importantly) competent then if there is 20 pilots per Sqn, 5 Sqns that is 18000 hours used straight away. Your OCU will need more hours for both pilots and instructors so that can easily be another 3000 hours gone leaving just 4000 hours for exercises, ops, trials and royal flypasts etc. That is less than 70 hours per month per sqn so very restricted.
These figures above are just for how you plan, the reality is even more complicate. Of course you can not order each pilot to land the second he/she gets to 15 hours so some will get more, perhaps a lot more. Weather, serviceability etc will mean some will get less than 15 hours some months too and lots of other variations each for the sqn to manage each month. When you add in something like Stormshadow then the crews will have to fly stormshadow specific training flights on top of normal currency eating more hours.
Then, engineering wise it can get really difficult to manage the aircraft hours. For example, each aircraft will be scheduled for its turn to go back to the OM for major servicing. The OMs are not daft so they put huge cost penalties into the contracts if the RAF changes the order of aircraft going back so therefore the schedule will not change. So what you get is “go fast” and “go slow” aircraft on each sqn. The “go fast” aircraft are the ones that for whatever reasons (have been broken, waiting for spares for weeks/months etc) have under used their hours and a due to go back to the OM for servicing. These aircraft you need to fly everyday to burn all the “pre-paid” hours off because those hours are lost when it gets serviced (they don’t get added onto the hours post service) and that is easier said than done. Then you have aircraft that are the opposite, they have been the best aircraft on the sqn, hardly ever broken so they have been flown regularly but now only have 20 hours left before their service which is 5 weeks away. So you have a perfectly serviceable aircraft that you can only fly 2 hours a week! Again there are endless variations of these issues and lots of things that get affected by them.
I hope I have demonstrated that aircraft availability, combined with aircrew (as in trained and ready) is the limiting factor not total aircraft numbers. I have only scratched the surface of the factors involved but I would say it is the biggest thing affecting the RAFs operational output at present. The figures I used were all made up but I believe they are representative of reality.
Can anyone tell me why we would use a med-range cruise missile like Storm Shadow when we could use our Tomahawks (up to 1550 miles)? Seems like a daft use of scarce resources to by a duplicate and inferior missile. Are we really likely to need to hit targets beyond that range? Does anyone know the cost comparison of both weapons? I also read once that F35B can’t land with Storm Shadow??
@badrobot: Storm Shadow carriers are considerably more common than nuclear submarines, since we still haven’t deployed ships capable of carrying Tomahawk. In addition, SS is used for attacking air defences which may be far from any warship.
Whether we should have bought SLAM-ER rather than Storm Shadow is another matter. 1 billion for 900 SS is a bit more expensive, but it’s not a complete waste of money. Personally, I think having both a ship and air launched cruise missile that has a restricted range compared to Tomahawk (400-500km) makes good sense as we could potentially carry many more of them, and the extreme range of the former is overkill for a lot of tasks
I am a supporter of Tomahawk on Astute, but no Astute can deploy at 500mph. That is why you also need an air launched cruise missile. Also Tomahawk is a one trick pony with one conventional warhead. Whereas, air launched can be as small as a dual mode Brimstone, rising to 500,1000, 2000lbs LGBs & even MOABs.
Don’t forget that SS and Tomahawk are different weapons, what with SS having the BROACH warhead for better penetration of hard targets.
Trouble with submarine based weapons is that you can’t fit that many in and once they’re expended, you can’t send the sub back to port for a reload because it’s likely needed to stay on task. The aircraft can keep flying back to wherever it is they came from and coming back for repeated attacks.
Horses for courses etc.
As we missed a trick in NOT buying both SS and Scalp-N, let’s not repeat, but get both JSM and NSM (not sure when the ship-launched NSM will merge with the newer design…J for joint)
RE “Whether we should have bought SLAM-ER rather than Storm Shadow is another matter. 1 billion for 900 SS is a bit more expensive, but it’s not a complete waste of money. Personally, I think having both a ship and air launched cruise missile that has a restricted range compared to Tomahawk (400-500km) makes good sense”