A commentary from Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham and Air Vice-Marshal Andrew L. Roberts in support of filling the maritime patrol aircraft gap.
Introduction
Following the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR 10), the planned Nimrod MRA4 fleet was scrapped. Four years later, it is clear that this is a major loss of capability. At a time when our maritime interests are so obviously of higher profile, the need for a Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) is now a topic for Government attention and brought into sharper focus by the recent events surrounding the disappearance of Flight MH370, in which a very large area of the Indian Ocean needed to be searched. A variety of MPA from several nations participated in the search, led by the Australians. Britain could not now undertake such a mission were a similar tragedy to occur in UK waters.
Ships, submarines, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Experience strongly suggests that modern maritime warfare, especially ASW, is best undertaken using a ‘layered approach’ with a mix of platforms. Even with the latest technology, this is likely to continue to be the case. There is no cheap panacea. MOD has now acknowledged (1) that cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4 has resulted in a significant capability gap. Because of the need for a combination of rapid response and reach, we believe that, at least in the short and medium term, this gap can be filled only by airborne platforms. As SDSR 15 approaches, it is timely to review the options likely to be available for filling the gap.
Read more
http://www.uknda.org/uknda-commentaries.html
No shit. Now decide what you want to sacrifice to pay for it.
I’ll sacrifice £3b of the current contingency for program introduction, then reduce ongoing contingency accordingly for operation, thank you very much.
“Now decide what you want to sacrifice to pay for it.” – The Kavalry.
And if that doesn’t cover it, half the travel allowance for civil servants/local government employees. All stationery to be mono instead of colour. Fine people for stupid 999 calls. The list goes on.
From the link “acquire an effective long-range MPA capability (preferably with an air-to-air refuelling capability) should be set in hand without delay.” ‘P8 it is then ,I will will take two dozen but the light blues will man and pay for it’ signed First Sea Lord Z ( it is a plane operating from land after all don’t you know, mines a gin and don’t spare angustouras )
More likely to be a trickle buy.
6 to begin with to get an IOC for MPA up and running. Then a drip feed of one or two more each year.
The clever wrinkle will be to raid the budget lines for Sentinel and Sentry as those platforms are managed out of service by 2020.
Ultimate fleet of 15 MMA at FOC for all three capabiities?
Now I hear you all saying: why scrap Sentry, the airframes have years left in them. But by all accounts the mission systems don’t so there is a big cost avoidance there if we can eke them out for another few years and then get rid. And while the airframes may have life in them they are non standard, as are Sentinel. Eliminate both types and there is a really big slice of opex to go towards the new single type MMA.
What’s behind your thinking for 6 airframes initially?
A baseline figure of 5 P8 has been bandied about quite a bit since 2010.
@ Hohum
I don’t accept that we have to give up anything to operate a small fleet of P8’s. we are currently underspending by £1 billion a year. we also have a £400 million a year contingency budget and an additional £800 million in un allocated funding per annum.
Most of the risk from defence programs has been removed and with projects like CVF coming online that risk will reduce further.
we currently have three active trained crews on seed corn that we pay for as well. a small fleet of 5 P8’s is well with in our means. we can supplement then with Reaper’s using Seaspray 7500 e pods as well.
Sure it’s not the MRA4 fleet of 18 aircraft but its likley good enough for what we need. The P8 fleet could be supplemented by some more aircraft post 2020 as a Sentinal repalcement as well.
I tend to agree that buying the P-8 makes by far the most sense for the UK here. A proper MPA with the full suite of weapons is something that the UK really does need and nothing else offers to get it with as little risk. I know people will raise many of the usual points against it but the small risk associated with those things are a good deal more acceptable than the more open ended risk of trying something new. I think P-8 plus something like LRASM is a pretty important capability for the UK moving forward.
Though I have to admit I would be very interested to see how a program for a European MPA would work out.
On the E-3 thought I was fairly sure I saw somewhere that the UK was updating its E-3’s to the latest standards. I would have to think they will be around for quite a while.
The figure of 5 or 6 would be seen as the minimum to get an IOC up and running. Five has been a good number for Sentinel. With brand new commercially based airframes there’s no reason why we should not be able to generate 2 or 3 deployable + 2 or 3 on maintenance, training and force generation, with the ability to surge 100% for short periods.
Obviously more is better. But that probably comes from folding other tasks into the mix. Assets can then be surged in whichever direction needs them at any given time.
I agree with Jeremy that we could choose to keep E3 Sentry going for a long time yet. But if P8 MMA can be made to deliver an 80% AEWC capability then for me E3 becomes vulnerable as a niche capability. The world has also moved on in terms of networked situational awareness. Our Fast Jets will all have networked radars which talk to each other, to the AEWC, and to the ground. And Crowsnest will also be forward deployable and networked. Doesn’t that make us less reliant on the functionality of E3’s big airbourne radar?
When the land-based world looks more dangerous and unpredictable than it has for years (Ukraine, Iraq/Syria, Libya, Palestine, west Africa) it seems a bit self-indulgent to be fetishising over a maritime patrol capability that we don’t need.
If we as a nation have a billion to spare, I’d rather we gave it to the Single Intelligence Account so that we can better monitor the real threats.
The point about maritime is that the Russians are spending just as heavily on regenerating their naval capacity as they are on their land forces. How would we respond if they started picking off islands on either their East or West coasts? Or put a naval blockade on the Baltic states?
It’s also about posture and credibility. Russia respects force. If they come to think we don’t care and can’t protect our CASD they will make conclusions about our resolve and be more inclined to take liberties against us in other realms.
But you are right in the sense that we cannot afford to purchase a full scale maritime only system. We can’t afford 20 P8s (or Kawasaki P1s) just to chase Russian subs round the North Atlantic. Sentinel and Sentry replacements and upgrades will have similar issues of niche specialism and affordable critical mass. Hence the attraction of migrating towards a Joint Force MMA with the critical mass to generate enough force elements for all 3 tasks. Purple times.
I don’t see how the P8 can get anywhere near 80% of an AEW1. Nowhere the near the crew for one. C3 rather than radar being what it most often ends up used for, hence having up to 19 mission crew compared to the P8’s 3. Also on the point of radar the P8’s while probably not terrible for detecting planes is a league below the AEW1’s and only has a 120 degree viewing angle with limited aimability. Whereas E3 can do 360, from ground to the stratosphere and the last upgrade much improved it against stealthy targets.
I’m sure at some point the basic P8 airframe might get a look in, in the future for other uses like AEW/ISTAR/whatever, being 40 years younger than the now out of production 707 and the previous 767 based replacement programs being killed off in the US, although Japan did get it’s E767, (basically E3 systems with on a 767), there’s already the E7 wedgetail AEWC on a very similar 737 airframe. AEW1 will need replacing eventually but we’re nowhere near there yet. One problem at a time.
More generally; P8 is the quickest way to close a glaring gap(one you can argue is going to grow once we field QE) and we should take it. No reinventing the wheel or multi-decade programs please. Buy it, crew it, field it and move onto the next gap.
Its not the airframe I am refering to as a possible 80% solution: its the system. I’m not an expert and the comment is made to stimulate discussion. But I’m talking about networked sensors building the overall air picture. So the mission crew on a P8 can potentially see a much bigger air picture than what their own aircraft’s sensors can detect. No reason why that can’t include input from radar carrying Reapers as well as Fast Jets and Crowsnest Helos. No its not the same as an E3. But could it be made good enough?
On an AEWC mission presumably all 5 workstations would be used for the task? How does an E2D cope with so few bodies on board? And again how much of the task really needs to be done in the air these days? We’re not talking about manipulating multi-squadron strike packages. And won’t the air picture also be shared with ground HQ where you can have as many bodies as you like?
‘we are currently underspending by £1 billion a year’
But they do not know where that underspend had come from, so I would not spend it just yet.
‘P8 is the quickest way to close a glaring gap’
It’s probably the most expensive, but I don’t think it’s the only quick one available.
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/us/aeronautics/mmro/p3mlu.html
‘This is an affordable solution that Lockheed Martin has proven can be installed in 11 months’
If we went for the P3 that would give us time to choose a common airframe for a Joint Force MMA, the French and Germans would be looking for an airframe for the MPA role at about the same time. We could choose an Airbus frame and go from there.
On another note, could we not use the sentinel airframes to retire our E3’s in the 2018-20 time frame by using a system similar to the Erieye radar system, to reduce running costs?
Ref the underspend the comment about not knowing was what they told a Parliamentary Committee some time ago. I find it diffuclt to believe that (a) they didn’t have some pretty strong suspicions about where the underspend came from and (b) they’ve not been working on it since and they don’t know a lot more about it by now.
After all not knowing is not the same as not wanting to share information in public before you’ve decided what to do about it.
‘(b) they’ve not been working on it since and they don’t know a lot more about it by now.’
So it might not be an underspend after all. And if it was maybe it’s already been allocated such as the announcement for Sentinel etc at Farnborough.
If it’s just a phasing between accounting years that might be true. The cost is simply deferred and hits you in the next year. So you carry the cash forward to meet it, which is what the Treasury has agreed to.
But if that in turn pushes other costs back (ie the whole project plan has moved to the right) then the lump of spare cash at the beginning is available to spend, so long as you remember to provide for an overspend in the last year of the project, which could be 5 years down the line, and could be provided for by bringing another project forward.
The devil is in the detail. Which is why its really good that our last 2 SoS have had a strong business background and are capable of asking hard questions about just such matters, understanding the answers and making informed decisions. So yes, I expect any truely surplus cash will be spent on one useful thing or another.
Does anyone know how much it would cost to upgrade RAF E3 AWACS to the latest standard? Seems a shame to throw away good kit because we cannot be bothered to update it.
John
Its not just the capital cost of the upgrade to think about. Its the ongoing opex of running separate fleets of handfuls of aircraft, each with their own maintenance and support infrastrucure. We already have 2 such fleets in Sentry and Sentinel. We risk adding a third if we go for a boutique buy of ASW-MPA.
I’m not saying P8 MMA is a magic bullet. But we would be fools not to have a good hard look at whether it can do a job for us across a number of manned ISTAR capabilities. Separate squadrons and separate mission crews of course. But the same aircraft and the same maintenance support.
The Crowsnest kit is described as being designed to Ro-Ro the Merlin HM2. If the P8’s baseline radar fit really isn’t up to the requirment of AEWC would addtional radar pods mounted on the external hard points be enough to make it so? We should at least look into the question and get an indicative costing rather than just saing “P8 isn’t an E3” and moving on.
E2 copes by having to control fewer aircraft(an air wing not an air war), downlinking to the all up CIC on the carrier and it copes in it’s role but it doesn’t match up to E3 performance and capabilities wise.
Could the P8 do it, sure at some level, but it’d be a kludge and very inefficient(not OTS). You’re replacing a dedicated aircraft with more than 4 types and achieving worse overall performance and more vulnerability(Jamming, ASAT weapons, sheer bandwidth requirements, huge emissions, sensor gaps). Not to mention to make it feasible would require some serious investment; multiple system/aircraft upgrades to multiple types, new systems, training, new satellites(a lot of them, to provide necessary bandwidth and coverage) and so so much software to be written. Look how difficult it’s been to get it going on a single type(F35).
Also the current Reaper radar would be useless for detecting planes. Although I’d imagine a a drone equipped with a AEW style radar is probably on a drawing board somewhere.
Networked distributed sensors are the future, you’re absolutely right there, but it will be additive to the E3 or future AWACS not it’s replacement. Even when the eventual time comes and all aircraft have 360 degree sensors, there’s always going to be a use for flying the biggest A2A radar you can as high as you can, just physics.
Networked and distributed sensors are great but covering a large area, as completely and persistently as an AWACS does, requires lots of them, because by definition they have to be small not to compromise the host aircraft in it’s primary role whatever that may be and those small sensors can’t be everywhere. Size matters when it comes to radar, everything else being equal; bigger is better.
When you have lots of aircraft in one place for other reasons already(hot war), you may as well take advantage of those airframes and any intel they can gather but for general wide area surveillance go for one big radar/airframe not lots of little ones.
On adding more radars to P8 to create a dual A2A/A2G capability the US tried with the E10 MC2A and gave up. Apparently interference becomes a big problem with that many radars in one place. The plan was to create a single plane or at least single type for AWACS/ELINT/JSTARS etc etc, but it got cancelled. It’s a great idea IMO, just going to cost a lot of money no-one wants to spend.
The AEW1 has the latest radar upgrades (RSIP) btw.
Why are our maritime interests suddenly more high profile at this time as opposed to any other time????
If the vice admiral cant explain it can anyone else justify that assertion?
Not saying we do notvhave maritime interrests, just why now are they more high profile.
I don’t think they’ve taken any greater precedence over other domains, just a lot happening with the Navy atm and this SDSR will have a lot of Naval issues to deal with. So it’s what everyone talking about.
Chuck – you may be right in terms of the technical dificulty and associated cost. And it would be a big waste of capital if we did end up putting a massive radar disc on top of every ASW-MPA. Like I said I’m no engineer and just to study the question before rushing out with a big cheque book.
But I do have a couple of points to consider from your answer:
We now only have 7 squadrons of Fast Jets. Best case I can imagine we might get back to 10 or 11 squadrons one day. The chances of our ever deploying more than 2 or 3 squadrons on an Op is minimal. So our sovereign AEWC requirment is already scaled to an Air Wing rather than and Air War. As such it may be E3 that is out of place. Any future system doesn’t have to meet E3 capability. It has to meet the UK Requirement. Which may no longer be the same thing. (If its a larger coalition operation then there are other players in the game who can bring the tools: not just the USAF but also the dedicated European NATO AEWC fleet.)
“(If its a larger coalition operation then there are other players in the game who can bring the tools: not just the USAF but also the dedicated European NATO AEWC fleet.)”
Sounds much like the excuse for our MPA gap atm. ‘our allies can deal with it’.
btw, our E3 fleet is a big part of the NATO surveillance fleet you mentioned. Also, we have a huge sovereign airspace to monitor ourselves – hence our drive to get AEW capability in the first place. Without it, there would be just as big a damming gap in capability as there is with the gap re MPA, one which a T45 or a bagger could not hope of filling.. sounds familiar re the MPA gap?. Naturally, a large space of unmonitored airspace is not as scary or concerning to sea centric minds..
The P8 doesn’t have the capacity, nor the range of types of systems, range in endurance, and range in electric reach.
The E3’s are in constant use, and they are pretty much a flying HQ, and are usually – along with the R1 – our first response to a crisis. Look at our responses to the crisis’s over the past…
The USN has so far not gone ahead with any plans to develop P8 into a E3 equivalent, if anything, the USN are looking into ground/shore mapping radar, which would mean P8 could eventually replace Sentinel, which would be a step up re crew and sensor capacity.
ISTAR is one of the UK’s major core capabilities that is often in high demand by our allies, more so than most others. Its one of the key areas we would be contributing to in any coalition, more meaningful than a handful of ships, tanks or tonkas we can afford to send on our limited naval and air transport.
If there was anything Europe (that means us) should be building up (aviation wise) as the US reduces its European presence, is those specialist areas… EW, ISTAR and Tankers.
If anything, we should be expanding on this, rather than thinking of cutting A to resurrect B whilst having a sore gap in A. Which will eventually mean cutting C…. and so on.
I agree we need MPA just as those senior officers and general opinion on here.
But don’t go into that route of cutting one major capability for another… that’s how we got into this mess.
I still think we’ll end up following the USN/RAAF model, a smaller number of large platform (P8 or whatever) with unmanned. Then again, cost may halt that.
Fair point. If it just won’t meet the requirement then its not worth going there. But note I wasn’t arguing to gap the capability: but to scale our capability to the UK requirement, whatever that may be.
Maybe as some have said a 737 Wedgetail will eventually get us the maintenance commonality benefit while still being specialised enough to perform the role better than a P8 would.
@DN
“the French and Germans would be looking for an airframe for the MPA role at about the same time”
With both countries being effectively in recession in the last quarter and MPA and maritime attack now being an absolutely secondary role to the German Navy, I can’t see this happening. It could only be some “let’s feed Airbus some contracts” type of action, but there is really no necessity. Btw, Airbus currently has no appetite for half-assed European procurement projects after the commercially disastrous A400M.
A much more realistic option is the UK developing a ro-ro MPA capability for the A400M. But there is not even a concept study and there are no hardpoints.
An outside bet to me is a V22-MPA. If we could create a Boeing-BAE partnership with the latter leading in development of a SV-22 (which would also be interesting to the USN), this could be a commercially more viable alternative. I can also see operational advantages through being able to more easily forward deploy those VTOL-planes on small islands.
But, let’s realize there is an unstoppable push to a “anglosphere-solution”. And this clearly is the P-8.
@RT
I absolutely support your views about the points of conflict becoming more widespread.
But we will not send troops to Ebola-infested West Africa anytime soon. Palestine is out of our capabilities, and Israel is more or less a friend. Iraq/Syria? I guess in 2013 we have sufficiently made clear that is none of our business, and we waited too long to support the moderate FSA anyways. Same applies to Libya.
The only real shithole is Ukraine. If this would pose a real problem to the UK, it would basically be a NATO problem. I cannot see Turkey going to war with Russia over Ukraine, contracts aside. I cannot see Germany going to even a small conflict with Russia over Ukraine, they are in full appeasement mode, regardless what Merkel says. The left-wingers are already ceding Crimea to Russia. Neither will Sweden, for that matter. And as Putin absolutely knows this, the alliance is practically checked.
Involving the UK in a Ukraine-operation would involve blocking three distinct Russian fleets and around 800 combat aircraft, all of them effectively closing the theatre of operations.
@McZ
Can’t fault your logic on the present crisis but what about future ones and how much notice will we have under the present system to plan for and actual commit to some form of action be it humanitarian response or otherwise. Granted some of recent events are out of the blue so to speak , a large group of rapists kidnapping hundreds of schoolgirls for instance but Russia’s dissatisfaction at a pro-western Ukrainian government and how he could destabilize them? I seriously doubt , even at just an anti-terrorist level , the Western intelligence agencies share very much information so although across the Western world tens of thousands of people are employed to gather ,analyse and disseminate information to their respective governments that is not a pool of information we can dip into we must gather, analyse etc it ourselves (even if the same is repeated dozens of times by various other countries agencies) . So a £1bn would go a long way to us being better informed of what we face.
@McZ – An “SV-22” would be incapable of handling a MPA mission without massive support because it hasn’t the “legs.” The only real alternative for the UK that I see is the P-8 or a P-3 rebuild (unless you’re waiting for AIRBUS to come up with something useful), and the P-3 airframe itself is old tech. Unless the rebuild can fix the reported aerodynamic issues of the P-3 airframe, your pilots will will wear out before the aircraft does. In addition, the P-3 airframe has little room for growth.
Its worth considering that there is none so blind as those that will not see.
The trajecctory of Russian actions from Georgia to Crimea to Donbass is now very clear. The Baltic Republics are right to feel very nervous indeed. I’m sure our Intelligence professionals are saying all the right things in their briefings. But do our politicians seriously understand the extent to which NATO members are now at risk? Do they care? The failure of EU members to impose full arms embargo and economic sanctions on Russia so far is not encouraging.
Successive professional heads of the Armed Forces have pointed out in public and in private the weaknesses in our armed forces resulting from SDSR10 in particular and the previous 20 years in general. But do our politicians really understand that an upward trajectory of military spending is now required?
Cameron has made some promising sounding noises so far but actually done nothing substantial. The forthcoming NATO summit will be a fascinating event. How much hot air will we hear and how much action or real intent will result?
I’d note as well that history hasn’t ended. And 2014 feels horribly like 1935 to me.
We’ve been lucky to have had nearly 70 years of relative peace in Europe. Every previous period of peace has ended in a major war sooner or later. The success of the EU in promoting peaceful co-ooperation between its members is indeed notable. But Russia isn’t in the European family, doesn’t want to be, and isn’t going to join the love-in any time soon whether we want them to or not.
McZ,
My main point is that the world is currently pretty unstable, with those active conflicts or bubbling tensions merely being the current flavour. Others are available, even if they won’t involve the UK. Common to them all is that MPA is pretty irrelevant, and yet up thread we have people arguing for us to spank out a billion or so on this capability, merely because a retired Admiral (famously known as a remarkably unJoint DCDS(EC)) writes an article. As Mandy Rice-Davies once said, “Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
MPA is of course useful, no one would say it is not, but it needs to take its’ place in a wider set of priorities. No where do we currently face a sea threat. Saving lives in our sea search area is all very nice, but it is not naturally a military function, so if the nation thinks it really important some other Ministry such as Transport should fund it, and either operate their own fleet of MPA or buy in services from the MoD. They do not, so I conclude that there’s no appetite for such an expensive service.
If there is a spare billion, spend it where it will have the most positive effect for Britain. That might even mean a transfer of that billion from Defence to health, to fund some new drug, or as I said above, into central government intelligence. Don’t just spank it up on MPA because an old Admiral says so.
The use of low freq radar on aew aircraft may become more important in the future for detection of low observable aircraft/missiles in the future. We may have an option to migrate AWACS to a330 aircraft we have 5 spare a/c in the tanker contract.
From what I’ve heard e2 is always relegated to secondary tasking such as aar toe line control ect when e3 is on task.
Perhaps instead of attempting to shoe horn in a p8 aircraft we should just go for an 80% gd enough capability and keep the large Istar aircraft we continually use.
I’ve read here and elsewhere that the Russians no longer have the capabilities that they did as the Soviet Union in the old Cold War days and that they no longer present a credible threat in the open ocean. I would submit for consideration that they don’t have to provide the level of threat that they once did because we stopped planning for the threat. The USN re-purposed then retired the S-3 Viking fleet because the threat of massive numbers of first rate Soviet subs to our carrier groups “disappeared.” Likewise, the UK retired the Nimrods for the same reason when money came up short.
The problem is that the threat didn’t “disappear;” it merely went on hiatus and returned in smaller but no less capable numbers. With Putin sending patrol aircraft down both coasts of the US and around Alaska, stealing Crimea and otherwise bullying Ukraine, and spending money on new first rate submarines, the threat to shipping, our naval forces, and even our cities from Russian submarines is very real and growing.
And where are we? The USN is fielding the shorter-ranged, high altitude P-8 with less loiter time to replace the longer-ranged, low altitude, long loiter time P-3* and helicopters have replaced the S-3 on our carriers. The UK doesn’t have a MPA at all. And the Russian leadership is growing more aggressive, and the Chinese are making a big push to develop a true “blue water” navy.
Just saying that we stopped considering the long term threat when it was merely reduced in the short term. Life is good, huh?
*(I’m not saying that the P-3 didn’t need replacing, nor am I saying that the P-8 isn’t going to be a very capable MPA.)
Interesting that there are a quite a few comments on “an old Admiral” says so yet this was co authored by an “old Air Marshal”. Also we like to talk about the Russians and the threat that they present in the eastern Ukraine which is over 1500 miles away and happens to have most of NATO between us and it yet we seem to want to believe that they will play nice in the Atlantic.
A lot of people on here like to over egg the Russian pudding and the simple fact is that they currently lack the forces to cause NATO issues in any sort of conventional conflict but they are modernising and rebuilding.
The area where they could cause us issues and embarrassment is in the Atlantic as a single or small number of modern SSNs can cause chaos out of all proportion to their force levels.
As SR points out, support to the SSBN is and should be a number one priority and this will become even more important given the modernisation of the Russian Fleet. As I have illustrated in a previous post they are no more capable of closing the Atlantic than they are of rolling across Europe but their options for causing “mischief” by submarines at sea is far greater than any effort to role across Europe as it can be deniable.
Reference the MPA/MMA debate, people already use them slightly differently, in Libya the 148 battery Spotters who were airborne in MPA had the authority to call fire from Naval platforms. As we move towards longer ranged guided weapons launched from all 3 environments and with a recent history of ops in uncontested air space this role may well evolve and grow. Other sensors and future fits could indeed see a Patrol Aircraft (PA) evolce which can be used in both maritime and land Environments.
It is no coincidence that closing the MPA (gap) has support across all 3 services at high levels.
Just so I understand this correctly apas given this statement “, support to the SSBN is and should be a number one priority and this will become even more important”
Would it be the RN position going into sdsr 15 that regeneration of a fixed wing mpa would sit ahead of commissioning pow, f35 purchase or like for like replacement of type 23 from a funding perspective.
@ Mark
MPA is an RAF platform :)
However to make myself clear I am talking about items not currently in the Defence equipment plan. We have enjoyed an MPA holiday helped both by a decrease in the threat and assistance from our Allies. if we do not want this holiday to continue beyond 2020 as the threat increases and our Allies grow tired of supporting us with their ageing platforms then we need to make a decision in 2015.
Looking at your list of “options”, we are going to commission QE and buy F35, we are going to replace T23 but I would prioritise MPA over bringing POW into service on a full time basis yes.
@IXION
Why are our maritime interests suddenly more high profile at this time as opposed to any other time????
I’m not sure anyone’s claiming that are suddenly more high profile, perhaps a better way of putting it is priorities have been subsumed to Herrick over the last decade or so. This may be relevant from 2012 :
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmdfence/110/110we02.htm
Incidentally it puts the cost of the E-3 fleet at £99m/year, current OSD is 2025.
[The MoD’s] assessment of current and future threats is informed by past experience and the prevailing and anticipated environment. It is therefore not static. These threats in the maritime domain include but are not limited to:
Submarine Threat ***and the proliferation of modern submarines across the world. ***.
Surface-borne threat—Globally present (ranging from Homewaters, the Falklands, Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Aden and Far East) that require layered force protection of deployed Forces. ***and extends to such disciplines as Warfighting to Counter-Terrorism, Counter-Piracy and high-threat Counter Narcotics operations.
Air Threats—deployed maritime units contribute to the compilation of the air picture and complement shore-based aircraft both in detection and interception of air threat crossing maritime areas.
Threats to Resource & Energy supply—such as the risk of mining/attack in strategic choke points such as Straits of Hormuz or support to MMO for Fishery Protection.
Threats to UK Borders—counter drugs operations and preventing illegal immigration.
Threat of Pollution/Environmental disaster, including major weather events.
In relation to each of these threats, the purpose of maritime surveillance is to identify them and support effective decision-making at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels.
…Future Maritime Operational Concept (FMOC) lays out the strategic context and trends that the UK may face up to 2025. Although threats such as Fast Attack Craft; Improvised Explosive Devices; Submarines; and Mines are similar to those faced now, the new levels of capability and complexity of the threats bring increased risk to the UK. Understanding the “Pattern of Life” ie normalised activity in the maritime domain and new threats such as Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) and Electro-Magnetic Pulse devices may proliferate and have to be countered. Maritime surveillance will continue to play an important role in the key Military Tasks and is an important capability to link strategic intelligence to actions at the tactical level.
Thanks apas thought you might mention its a raf platform. But I would agree that it should never of been a holiday in the first place. It probably needs to be new money I just don’t know from were it coming or what we don’t buy to get it. I would also say it either comes back this sdsr or it never will.
For an Airbus A330 MRTT derivative for MPA/MMA how long till a minimum of 6 in service?
For an Airbus A400M RoRo derivative for MPA/MMA how long till a minimum of 6 in service?
For an Kawasaki P1 derivative for MPA only how long till a minimum of 6 in service?
For an Lockheed P3 rebuild for MPA only how long till a minimum of 6 in service?
For an Boeing P8 derivative for MPA only how long till a minimum of 6 in service?
The Yasen SSN has 2 in the water ,2 on the stocks and 6 more to follow at 1 per year.
The Borei SSBN has 3 in the water ,2 on the stocks and 5 more to follow at 1 per year.
Type 093 SSN has 3 in the water ,2 on the stocks and 5 more to follow at 1 per year.
Type 094 SSBN has 5 in the water ,1 on the stocks and 1 more to follow at 1 per year.
These are new designs using the latest technologies .
If we are to counter them we need a layered defence sub surface with the Astutes , on surface with T23s and above with an MPA .
Whatever we decide to do, a study from CentreForum (July 2014) warns about half-baked approaches:
“or example, the recent purchase
of the USAF’s RC-135 RIVET JOINT electronic intelligence gathering aircraft has
locked the UK into through-life support with the USA’s L3 Communications. Whilst
this ensures that the RAF benefits from USAF investments in RIVET JOINT, it also
means an open-ended UK exposure to American support and upgrade costs.
Any deviation from this fleet support and upgrade approach rapidly renders an
asset procured in this way non-standard, much more expensive to support,
[foot note 51]
and
prone to unexpectedly early obsolescence.”
– the footnote makes it clear that the cancellation of the Project Eagle for the RAF E3s is deemed to have had the listed effects (lesson to be learned)
Only evidence I can find for a number of 5 or 6 being used for a purchase of an MPA is around the 2011/2012 mark when there was discussion of a £1b being found “behind the sofa” around the various defence forums.
At the time, P-8A early production costs were being being bandied around the $200m mark (£125m, though £200m has also been mentioned). I can’t find any official statements or leaks for a number of 6, so I’m guessing the figure came out of internet debate via a division of the £1b with a little left over for facilities and operation.
MRA4 was canned at the point where the program could only ever deliver 9 aircraft.
What level of aircraft purchase should we be aiming for? How many are needed?
We can then attempt to work out the price afterwards.
Context is MPA in the Nimrod sense initially, but don’t let that stop you discussing variants on the platform!
Another aspect to consider is the “Project Airseeker” model.
Feelings on Rivet Joint aside, the USA/UK joint program improvement model has been described as “ground breaking” with the Airseekers joining the Cousins Fleet in being stripped down and rebuilt every four years with the latest combined Anglo-American kit.
Rivet Joint is a bit more “special” than Poseidon, however a similar “continuous capability improvement program” with joint contributions may be worth considering?
@ToC
I only mentioned 6 as bare minimum to cover the N Atlantic to start , if all six available (as if) 1 10hr (unrefuelled) flight per day on intense operations should allow us to cover the North Sea(2 planes per day) GIUK gap(2 planes per day) and a catchers mitt for all points south (2 planes per day). That would still leave gaps in coverage but we have the T23’s and the SSN’s to assist but only a few due to other needs.
To cover our area of interest Europe needs to deploy at least 60 at a minimum from the North Cape to Cyprus.
@TOC – I’d say you need 4 for the Northern Approaches, 4 more for the Western Approaches, 2 for the Falklands, and 4 for contingencies if you want to be fully prepared. This covers maintenance downtime, meeting “allied cooperation” requirements, and surge capacity.
With the P-8 in service, using the same 737-based airframe for AEW (ala Wedgetail or E-2D Hawkeye systems or whatever you want) would reduce future airframe-specific maintenance personnel and spare parts diversification. You could probably replace “Rivet Joint” with the same airframe and make your A&P wrenches happy.
Just my humble opinion.
Would it be a bonkers idea to lease P3s as the cousins replace them with P8s until our new bestest allies ( the French – no, really) are ready to replace theirs then settle on a common platform? Not cheap I know, but what is.
There’s some insanity on stilts going on here. Apparently, we (Europe) now need 60 of the ruddy things to cover us from the Northern Cape to the Med.
No we don’t.
We need other things like better intelligence, forward based logistic dumps, a synchromesh for political and military decision making, and better integration of mass medical/humanitarian relief delivery without uniforms being needed.
“Synchromesh”? Holy fuck. There is no God.
Phil you got something against synthetic material for swimwear?
Though why RT would think that politicians and military leaders would make better decisions in swimsuits puzzles me. :)
@RT: 60 is ridiculous, have to agree there. 6 fills all our needs, 12 our wants. I’d say 12 only if they get it working well for over land work as a sentinel replacement(an armed one at that), could be a great capability, but that’s still hypothetical.
We need those other things too and just as much, especially the decision making which seems to get more farcical by the month.
Paying for it all is going to take something radical though; like making google and vodafone etc pay their bloody taxes. I know crazy idea, never happen, but 35bn a year could do all that and more.
21 nimrod mra 4 was once considered the bare min needed then it was 16 then 9 when the budget ran out now it’s 4,5,6 p8s or whatever number fits in whatever budget we think we have because we must have that platform.
You could prob have 6 p8 aircraft next year if you talk really nice to the yank you wouldn’t have a 6 aircraft capabilty until closer to 2020 I would have thought as a lot of crew would need trained. Mind you all the options being offered to the mod will enter service with others.
Think Kent was referring the whole of Europe.
P-3 Orion stocks in AMARG were found to have severe corrosion, particularly in the wings.
Think the UK needs a double-figure fleet once you recount the MRA4 plans, before the cut from 18 to 12.
No idea whether newer platforms will place that closer to 10 or 20.
Can completely understand the number 6 by 2020 given training needs, provided we’re climbing North of that after 2020!
Haven’t checked the numbers yet, are the USN losing crew numbers switching from P-3 to P-8? Scope for a USCG type exchange?
RT said 60 across all of Europe. Not sure where he magicked that number from as I did not see anyone claiming we needed that many. Not counting the US P3 element at Sigonella we have less than 50 between the North Cape and Suez.
@mark: Just like we needed 18 FJ squadrons, 30 escorts, 19 submarines, 3 carriers, 400+ tanks etc etc. Love to see those numbers again sure but gotta move with the times and accept the facts. As little as we like it.
We have 30+ doing the seedcorn thing last time I checked, so should be able to use them to at least get IOC reaosnably sharpish then build out from there. Getting fully operational will take quite a bit longer obviously.
Haven’t US Navy taken delivery of at least 15 P8’s?
Surely we could acquire at least six of the P3’s they replaced?
If we go for the P8, I hope we have a fully funded plan to use the 737 airframe for our E3, Rivet Joint and Sentinel replacement over a 10-15 year period. I would prefer we used P3’s as a stop gap and developed a plan for an Airbus airframe, so we at least get some production in our factories.
APATS, re 60. Some monkey called monkey at 20140825:1753 GMT. I know, it is bizarre, isn’t it? Sad recce bloke that I am, I can spot lunacies.
Has anyone actually come up with a real world use for these things yet? Given that it’s a billion, and there is not actually any threat that needs an MPA, nor any interest in suing us for not doing SOLAS to the rather ridiculous extent of our apparent responsibilities (and look at a map: the Micks need to seriously step up on that score, if it’s important).
@RT
I did indeed miss that. I really am remiss in going back and reading posts I have read when they are first posted (damm the edit function). If we had a capability we would be at 60.
F me you do a weird DTG we would generally say it was 251653ZJul14 .
As for what they do, they build the RMP day in, day out, provide vital ASW training, dep.oy to provide ASW cover and ASuW OTH targeting. were very important in Libya and have the capacity to provide similar capability in future conflicts, as well as providing support to the CASD. i would say and your current serving Army superiors happen to agree it is an important capability.
@DavidNiven
We’ve been here before, the going rate for a SLEPed P-3 is about $35m apiece.
@Chuck
At least the Seedcorn mob seem to be up to speed on the P-8 :
http://mayportmirror.jacksonville.com/military/jax-air-news/2014-04-16/story/fleet-challenge-2014-winners-announced
Australia already operates the E-7 Wedgetail and the Boeing Business Jet in the VIP fleet (a 737 derivative). In a few years they will add the P-8. If there are synergies, they won’t be theoretical. Someone just has to pick up the phone and ask.
Personally, I’d like to see what Airbus offer up when the time comes. At least when you buy Airbus, there will be a much higher proportion of construction done in the UK as apposed to other alternatives.
APATS,
Re DTG, an adaptation for the computer age and big data, not by me and not yet in common use, but gaining usage. It is machine sortable without further conversion.
…..(@ APATS)…. The colon I put in merely to draw attention to the time. Stripping it out, you can see that the format is entirely logical, ascending, and is a pure integer on which you can perform calculations. That’s an advance on a standard DTG, which only natively works within a calendar month until you have to convert text to numbers, and even then operations and data gathering that span multiple months are difficult to sort. The only thing a standard DTG gives you is a reference to GMT, which is useful.
Amazing. It’s also totally backwards to the DTG I’m used to. Interesting to see how many systems there are to confuse you. The month/day thing looks very American.
Whatever happened to the simple time/day/month/year notation? :)
Observer,
The format came from the software community, very possibly from an American. Don’t know any more details.
But it is elegant, and more importantly computable. You can very quickly calculate the time difference between any two events (and after minutes, you can revert to decimals for fractions of seconds). It is also enormously useful in ballistics, as you can use it within calculations to provide a fourth dimension.
@El Sid,
‘We’ve been here before, the going rate for a SLEPed P-3 is about $35m apiece’
Why SLEP them? they were being used up to a year ago, we only need to lease/buy them as a stop gap.
There’s a reason why the ones that have been retired have been retired.
EDIT: The USN/Seedcorn and good will of our neighbours has been our stop gap. We need to kick on with a long term solution so we don’t waste the opportunity they’ve given us.
The US have 8 P3’s at Sigonella VP-4 (these also work out of Djibouti)
Norway have 6 P-3’s
Germany have 8 P-3’s
Ireland have 2 C-295 MPA’s
France have 22 Atlantic II ‘s(these also work out ofDakar and Djibouti)
Spain have 6 P-3’s
Portugal have 5 P-3’s
Italy have 4 Atlantic II’s and 5 ATR 72’s on order
Greece have 6 P-3’s
Turkey have 8 ATR 72’s and 4 C-295 MPA’s
Finland, Denmark, Holland,Belgium,Cyprus and the UK have ZERO so were not alone ☺
The C-295 and ATR 72 are short ranged aircraft but still very useful .
The 55 P3’s and Atlantic II’s have been through life extension programmes and have some years left , there is commonality to some extent with the P3’s but are all of slightly different builds / national requirements so it is limited. If Europe was to buy the P8 or P1 or A400M with RoRo as a block buy adding in some for the UK to give a total order of 60 surely we could cut a good deal?
The UK being an Island nation has a certain dependance on the sea
France have 22 Atlantic II ‘s…Atlantic II’s have been through life extension programmes
Only 18 were upgraded.
@El Sid
Thanks for the update , France does a have disproportionate share of the MPA burden doesn’t it. If they choose to replace them , we chose not to replace Nimrod in the end, would they buy from outside their own industry ? If they didn’t replace them it would leave a huge hole in Europe’s MPA abilities.
‘There’s a reason why the ones that have been retired have been retired’
I doubt they are falling out of the sky, and even if they are it’s 15 airframes we can buy and SLEP. If the $35m is right and add a few million for purchasing costs of the airframes so say $50m (being generous) a piece, which is still half the cost of a P8. We could have at least 3 in service this time next year (‘This is an affordable solution that Lockheed Martin has proven can be installed in 11 months’) to begin training crews and technicians etc and a full squadron in 2-3 years of at least 6 airframes maybe nine for a considerably smaller cost than the P8.
If we decide to purchase the P8, I would like to see it as part of a programme to consolidate all our manned ISTAR fleet with the same airframe over a period of time rather than bumbling from one expensive acquisition to the next which seems to have been the norm for at least the last 20 years. Just because we may have found a billion down the back of the sofa does not mean we need to spend it on the latest toy especially if it doesn’t really meet our full requirements (range).
How much are we spending to cut up the green Merlin’s due to a lack of foresight and planning? we can get a better deal if we are negotiating for at least 20 airframes of maybe 3 configurations over a planned sustained period rather than a few one offs now.
Does the thing have to be manned? Would it be more effective to have more less capable units rather than trying to (again) get a tiny number of the best possible pieces of kit?
Allan, one of the roles of MPA is Anti-sub. The next UAV that can give even a basic capability for that would be the first. Not to mention that while the vehicle is cheap, unless you want to be limited by a 80km range, the ground control station and satellite relays needed to control the vehicles at long range add a lot of cost. You literally need to put satellites in space to use the system effectively, and I really don’t even want to imagine the bandwidth needed to transmit 40 sonobuoys worth of data to a satellite and back to a groundstation.
@David Niven
A new joint multi-mission aircraft to save costs would be great. But this doesn’t exist. The P-8 is only a maritime patrol aircraft. The E-7 is only an AWACS aircraft. Although both based off the 737 there are significantly differences between them. To get savings, we’d have to integrate the systems onto a new platform – which essentially means P-8. The US is currently testing a new ground surveillance radar on P-8, but its not really practical to lug this round all the time.The result of all this is 3 or 4 mini fleets of outwardly similar aircraft, which doesn’t look like its going to save cost.
The alternative would be to see about a new-build European (Airbus or BAES) multi-mission aircraft that actually can do all these tasks.
Allan
Depends if the we think the threat is real, or in danger of becoming real inside the next 5 years.
If it is then we want something that is available now and has been shown to work. And we will pay for however many of them the PM of the day decides we can sensibly afford. Which quantity isn’t always and in every generation fewer than we need. Remember 1935.
If we don’t think the threat is real we could by dozens of weird and wonderful things that may or may not work. Or spend a couple of decades developing a deathstar from scratch. Or buy nothing at all. I doesn’t really matter either way becuase we don’t seriously expect to need them. Lots of nations do defence spending like this.
@Hannay
‘The alternative would be to see about a new-build European (Airbus or BAES) multi-mission aircraft that actually can do all these tasks.’
I’m all for that, we could buy time with a sqn of SLEP P3’s and start negotiating with them. The first airframe due for replacement would be the AWAC’s (I think) go from there with a steady production of airframes from 2020 onwards. Buy then a few other nations will be looking for various replacements as well which might make it a tempting opportunity to the aircraft manufacturers.
The P-8 platform has been designed as a Multi Mission Aircraft. MPA being the first role the platform is adapted to.
Whether you think the platform will adapt effectively to other roles is another interesting debate. Worth googling the AAS to get an idea of what could be added.
I don’t see a SLEPed P-3 purchase as a stop-gap.
If we buy them they will become the long-term solution.
‘I don’t see a SLEPed P-3 purchase as a stop-gap.’
Depends on the length of the stop gap, but if the AWAC’s OSD is 2025 (I think that date has been mentioned) then we replace them first and go from there.
@DN
If the $35m is right and add a few million for purchasing costs of the airframes so say $50m (being generous)
No – it’s about $35m bought and SLEPed – a while back I posted several examples of countries who had done just that, that pricing seems pretty firm. The reason you need to SLEP them is that they are knackered – they’re all at least 24 years old, many much older (first production was 1961, based on a 1957 civilian design). You can imagine what fun the MAA would have with something that is of the same vintage as the Nimrod MR2, given the hassle they’ve given Rivet Joint.
@El Sid
‘No – it’s about $35m bought and SLEPed’
Why are we even contemplating P8, when we can get a decent capability pretty quick and for that price? The US are still going to be using the P3 for at least another 10 years considering they have reduced their yearly buys of P8 due to sequestration.
Range, payload, system architecture, zero hour airframes, serviceability, crew costs, ease of training, reliability, commonality, jointness, purple applicability…
…and when the US stop using the P-3 we’ll be stuck financing the improvement program solo.
Better start a P-8 based program now, starting with a handful of airframes, increase the fleet over time and get a head start on the next government rather than spend £1b-2b on an airframe that future governments will arse about and maybe not even replace in 10-15 years time, justifying another £1b-£2b to SLEP them even further when the combined costs would have purchased a respectable modern fleet.
Then some bright spark will come up with the idea of buying the last 21 remaining airframes on the planet, replacing the wings…
@TOC
Range
P8 – 1,200 nmi (2,222 km) ; 4 hours on station (for anti-submarine warfare mission)
P3 – 1,346 nmi[1] (2,490 km) three hours on-station at 1,500 feet
Payload is also similar, serviceability, crew costs;
‘The P-3 MLU Program is the answer to maintaining effectiveness and reliability in a critical global economy. It consists of a life extension kit replacing the aircraft outer wings, center wing lower section and horizontal stabilizer with new production components. MLU removes all current P-3 airframe flight restrictions and provides 15,000 additional flight hours, greatly enhancing capability leveraged with cost-effectiveness. The design replaces all fatigue-life-limiting structures on the aircraft with enhanced-design components and new improved corrosion-resistant materials that will greatly reduce the cost of ownership over the aircraft’s remaining service life. This is an affordable solution that Lockheed Martin has proven can be installed in 11 months.
The MLU program greatly reduces the cost of ownership over the aircraft’s extended service life and will help ensure the P-3 is mission ready for decades to come.’
Commonality?
jointness, a number of NATO countries use the P3 and have recently SLEP’ed to varying degrees to extend life so we would not be on our own once the US stop using them.
So what do we really get for the large asking price of the P8?
I think Airbus put the FITS system in Brazilian p3s
Key difference is the MMA potential. Sentinel replacement for sure.
There are I think 39 P3’s in use in NATO Europe at the moment , with the French having 18 Atlantic II’s and the Italians 4 which will need replacing / re LEP , with our buy of ‘x’ we should be able to take over some of the US fleet . Their Coast Guard/Homeland plan to use quite a few P3 airframes for some time in the drug interdiction role in the P3 Slicker role and P3-AEW 20+ all told so we have a prospect of some long term support from Lockheed that way , overall with other users around the world 100+ airframes will be in use for a decade + .
If Lockheed are as good as their word then we would have time to develop our own or plan to replace them in with the then time proven P1/P8’s in the late 2020’s.
At least 180kVA additional power, increased likelihood of making it home with all engines running, a range and endurance reported publicly based on a genuine mission payload (not the maximum Top Trumps values that everyone thinks they can take), larger pylon weight ratings, 8,100 airframes constructed to date and climbing, an aircraft designed in the last decade (did we mention zero hour airframes?), engines that prevent hearing loss, job prospects if you leave service…
…oh and an improvement program with a roadmap that won’t be entirely self-funded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLWgbZgkpZc
Surely given the cancellations of all things Nimrod there are two lessons learnt
Buying old airframes and giving them to the ‘contractors’ to convert to a modern, competitive platform is going to be a tough sell. Unless the donor platform is unique in the right way (e.g. A10 Warthog) then forget it
Developing your own unique platforms is expensive. Personally I believe blindly copying the America way is a mistake. We have clever engineers, and they need challenges. Not because we need to provide them with fun, but because IP and technology is a game changer. Technology really does win wars.
I’d go for the P8, but I personally believe the platform is far from clever (unlike the Nimrod), I also believe it to be short legged and doesn’t offer the growth potential to be multimission. Indeed the MAD was left off the USN fleet to extend the range, illustrating both points.
Bloody hell. So much love for P3’s that the original operators themselves don’t seem to share. Why is that? Why do you think the US and Australia are giving up their aircraft? It’s not like maritime patrol guys are particularly loved within their aviation communities. They don’t get new toys very often (the fighter mafia see to that), so why now? Upgrading their P3’s would be even cheaper because they already own them – so why don’t they?
I’m an ex-P3 NAV/TACCO and I loved that old grey lady, but she is very tired. I’ve come home on 3 engines more times than I can remember and pre-flights get pretty annoying when you have to keep switching aircraft during them until you find one that remains serviceable. And that was 10 years ago. 10 years into the future would be the stuff of nightmares.
If the US or Australia could do a refit and zero life their frames they would. And it’s not like they haven’t tried before. I don’t think either of these countries are buying a new airframe to placate industry or anything. (Sure, some of you will make that argument, but anyone who knows something of the politics of procurement within the military will know that MPA guys are nobody). I think that they are getting new aircraft because in the long run it will be cheaper. I can’t imagine the calculus would be any different for the UK.
@ Monkey,
“…if Lockheed are as good as their word…”.
Yes well, I wouldn’t bet on it. And count your fingers and check your wallet after shaking hands with Mr Lockheed. He has a reputation for being early with the bill, and late on delivery of something not really as good as you thought it might be.
Mercator, honestly said. Looks like the P3 is the equivalent of CVR(T).
@TOC
‘a range and endurance reported publicly based on a genuine mission payload (not the maximum Top Trumps values that everyone thinks they can take)’
Fair enough it’s from wiki, but then why are the US spending further millions on developing high altitude weapons release and BAMS? Could we afford to buy P8 and BAMS?
‘engines that prevent hearing loss’
Easily remedied with ear defence, it’s not like C130, Chinook, Tornado etc are quite.
‘improvement program with a roadmap that won’t be entirely self-funded.’
Once again we would not be the only users.
@Mercator
‘Why do you think the US and Australia are giving up their aircraft?’
Probably the same reason NZ, Canada, Brazil etc are not, Money. I would bet that nearly all the users would replace their P3’s if there was an affordable solution out there, so why with an airframe that has all the problems that you encountered are they not rushing to buy the P8?
I’m not saying discount the P8 but there are alternatives out there that can give us a bit of time to either find the money or plan a coherent strategy for follow on airframes. At the moment the P8 is expensive, unproven and if it needs to be operated with the BAMS to get the most out of it then we need to really consider alternatives. We could wait and see what becomes of the Kawasaki P1 as an alternative airframe for a start. After all the P8 is the only game in town at the moment and the fact that they have only 2 export orders for the aircraft when a lot of countries use the old P3 also speaks volumes on the cost of the airframe.
The reason we are jumping for joy at the prospect of having some money to buy an MPA is because we were skint, and one of the reasons for being skint was wanting the newest toy in shop at every opportunity. Spend a little money to keep skills and buy time then follow a coherent plan.
All we need is the Ozzie combo of manned/ unmanned to extend out to the vast reaches of the Atlantic… And some NATO rationalisation in the MPA world akin to AEW, ground surveillance, heavy airlift…
“”There are I think 39 P3′s in use in NATO Europe at the moment , with the French having 18 Atlantic II’s and the Italians 4 which will need replacing ” plus some Frenh biz jets while the Atlantique numbers are down due to LEP’ping.
Logically there is a need for Euorpean NATO to get their act together and make a joint programme for ASW-MPA based on an Airbus product. Use the systems off C-295 on something bigger and longer legged: A320, A330, A400. Take your pick based on range and payload then pony up and deliver both the development budget and the orders.
But our allies are in no hurry. They have capability in service at the moment and they are ekeing it out. Any budget they can find is likely to go freshening up their land forces to rotate through Poland and the Baltics for the next decade. Most of them do not have serious surface or subsurfacce asstes to protect and are happy with short legged MPA mostly focussed on surface search.
We are in a hurry becuase (a) we have no capability at the moment (b) we have a sub launched nuclear deterrant to protect (c) we are a lot closer to the maritime front line than a lot of our allies (c) within 5 years we will be putting a seriously expensive capital ship task group to sea.
Only the French are in a remotely similar position to us but item (a) is still a hugely significant difference. And they are a lot more broke than we are. Basically the stars are not in alignment for such a programme to be any use to us.
ACC, the Aussie combo isn’t exactly proven yet. Consider it an experiment in progress. Same problems I pointed out repeatedly. UAV range without massive boosting is ..sad.
Mercator, wonderful, we need some insights from someone who did the job before.
“I need a volunteer. You.” :)
How often do you get multiple taskings in one flight? I know grabbing a Maritime Profile is a staple of the job, but does it take up most of the time or do you do it in passing as you try to track “Red Sub Number XYZ” from last known position or intel? Or is it in reverse, you do a sweep of the area to get the RMP, but drop buoys once in a while at likely locations hoping that a sub crosses one?
In short, what is the day like for an MPA operator?
There’s four common criticisms floated around about the P-8:
1) Cost
2) High altitude restrictions
3) Capability over P-3
4) Requires an expensive UAS to partner it
Cost
There’s no getting away from the higher cost of the platform.
Similar to CVF, the MMA program is designed to last for 40-50 years. The airframes are going to be around for a long time, have been designed to be upgraded and refreshed from the ground up and so costs need to be thought of in these time-scales and setting.
Buy cheap, pay twice.
Altitude
There’s two aspects to this argument: The low-level myth and the high-altitude necessity myth.
Being unable to operate at low level is a myth that has been debunked. Nimrod could do it well, P-8 can do it well. The 737 is designed for a very high cycle rate commercially that the toughened P-8 variant won’t encounter regularly. It’s operation will likely be low cycle high altitude operation with periodic heavy low level manoeuvres.
I do not see being able to operate at high altitude operation as a negative. If the technology exists to allow detection, identification and deployment at altitude there are two huge advantages:
1) You’ve increased the area that your platform can detect, identify and deploy payloads into. Transition to low-level isn’t precluded, when needed.
2) You’ve also just extended the range, speed and reaction time of your mission; extending the life of your airframe is also a bonus.
Capability over P-3
The Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) program, prior to selection of the Boeing bid, intentionally specified transfer of equipment where possible from the P-3 to de-risk the program. You’ll note some exceptions where the P-3 equivalent has reached the end of its upgrade path. You’ll also note that in these cases replacement equipment is either the latest versions of kit earmarked for MRA4 or very similar in concept is being fitted instead.
What’s different in the P-8 compared to the P-3 is how the equipment plugs in. From the start, MMA has been a plug and play concept not limited to the MPA mission: Create an architecture that lets you plug in proven equipment and payload from the P-3 and then kick on from there over the next several decades.
The agnostic workstations and standardised Comms/SWAP/Cooling allows you to select equipment different from the MPA mission.
It just makes sense to start with the MPA mission as it has some of the more demanding requirements. Get that right and you’ve solved most of the problems required for other missions.
Triton
Moving back to the start of the BAMS concept of operations, you have three layers of effect:
1) A HALE platform to provide continuous, persistent ISR over a broad area (I don’t recall a Target Acquisition profile in the original tender);
2) A lower-altitude (not low-altitude, remember the HALE operating above it!) MMA for specific special purpose missions (e.g. MPA);
3) Genuine low-level aircraft to be fulfilled by the Vertical Take-off UAV (i.e. original MQ-8 Firescout before switching to the newer MQ-8C)
Poseidon/Triton is not so much a partnership for the specific purpose of MPA, but rather they are two elements of a multi-layered approach to providing the supporting infrastructure needed to dominate the marine environment.
Or so the concept goes.
I really don’t know ToC, there is this current UAV craze that is going on in military circles, and frankly, people are going nuts over it. I suspect that a lot of these capabilities are already overselling the concept and sooner or later, when they can’t deliver, there is going to be a backlash that will turn people against it, which in itself is a waste because UAVs do have their uses.
And MMA is already taken by Mixed Martial Arts. :)
@Red Trousers
Re Lockheed – if the F22 and F35 programmes are anything to go by your bang on.
We would need a cast iron water tight heavy penalty contract for the delivery and long term performance of the reworked P3’s but we do not have the individuals capable of saying ” if you want our hundreds of millions of Her Britannic Majesty’s pounds then you will sign that you will deliver on time, on price and to the existing specification you say are already building to or pay a fine.”
Observer a graphic showing the pitiful UAV range with the bams bases planned
http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/507c9dfc69bedd1854000000-400-300/heres-what-the-us-is-watching-these-are-the-5-main-operating-bases-where-the-mq-4c-fleet-will-be-used-networking-with-other-navy-and-air-force-drones–notice-the-persian-gulf-has-overlapping-coverage-by-two-bams-drones.jpg
Add Singapore (not the uninhabited Australian islands nearby, as unofficially planned), UK (participated in the early studies) and Hawaii… And its sorted!
ACC, do you know that the range for a UAV without satellite relays is only ~80km? Those graphics show you the maximum range. If controlled by a satellite. How many satellites are you allocating for UAV control? The US can afford it, can the rest of the world?
‘Buy cheap, pay twice’
or
‘Spend in haste, repent at leisure’
buy a capability at the numbers required at an affordable cost and prevent capability holidays.
When is the realistic time frame of us receiving our first P8 of only 5-6 and then reaching full operational capability? If it is a few years away then lease something else to get an immediate capability and formulate a plan and talk to manufacturer’s.
News on the Australian P-8 purchase and some extra digging. Real-world examples may shed light?
USN has ordered nearly $300m in parts to begin constructing the Australian order:
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/australian-p-8a-acquisition-takes-a-step-forward-403050/
Note mention of the four options. Potentially 12 x P-8A and 7 x MQ-4C for a potential 19 aircraft (12 + 7).
Quick check of the updated AIR 7000 Capability Plan to see what the budgets are looking like (includes acquisition, facilities, training, parts and through-life support, does not include operation costs).
A$5.3b to A$8.5b which equates to £3.0b to £4.8b at today’s exchange rate.
This includes Phases 1B (Triton), 2B (Poseidon Increment 2) and 2C (Poseidon Increment 3) and includes the four options.
A quick check of the Australian Treasury accounts confirms budget only approved/available for around the lower amount so far. AIR 7000 to request each point of planned budget as various milestones are met.
First delivery for Australia is 2017, full deliveries by 2020 for Increment 2, 2021 for Increment 3.
I am sure in the teaming of the manned and the unmanned, the former provides a satellite link (there are many dedicated a/c doing only that in areas where a lot of links are required) and the latter is an extension in the way of range and endurance
… how could it otherwise make a team (complementary, yes, but that is less than a team)
Heh heh, going through these old notes on MMA/BAMS, I’m struck by how often LCS is mentioned:
“Mothership” for the VTUAV, a “wet” sensor deployment, balloon lofted sensor tethering spot, towed array patrol, even a BACN node!
Sometimes I think the UK should swallow its pride and plump for an all new Nimrod, and in sufficient numbers to cover MPA, bombing, AEW, surveillance and other jobs.
At other times I wonder if a modern successor to the VC-10 would make more sense. Something bodged from the Airbus A320 range perhaps. Front fuselage of an A321, rear fuselage of A319 and a reworked tail (in part pinched from a400m?) to accommodate the engines (two big ones or four small ones I’m not sure). The relatively long front end would provide room for a good size weapon/sensor bay or external canoe whereas a more conventionally proportioned airliner has the undercarriage somewhat in the way.
monkey said: “If Europe was to buy the P8 or P1 or A400M with RoRo as a block buy adding in some for the UK to give a total order of 60 surely we could cut a good deal?”
Getting the major members of the EU to agree on that would be like herding cats. Buying P8 or P1 would also kill off whatever intentions may remain for there to be a European competitor.
Once upon a time, the Israelis had the idea of controlling a UAV or two from the back of an F-15. That idea died an ignoble death and was buried in the sand dunes of history. Not every UAV idea is a good one, nor is it an automatic success. The term UAV is not a synonym for cheap, automatically successful, can do everything.
On the P8 being able to Hi-Lo-Hi the 737 is a very tough bird. Aloha Airlines Flight 243 fuselage failed on 28th April 1988 killing a flight attendant but was landed safely. It was delivered new in 1969.
From wikki “While the airframe had only accumulated 35,496 flight hours prior to the accident, those hours were over 89,680 flight cycles (a flight cycle is defined as a takeoff and a landing), owing to its use on short flights.)”
Almost 90,000 takeoff and landings ! It however rarely reached anything like cruise altitude due to the very short interisland hops so stressed less than going up to 39,000 ft.
However more recently two SouthWest Airlines 737’s have a similar but less catastrophic decompressions Flight 812 from Yuma on 1st April 2011 and another in July 2009.
Both the latter two where pinned down to manufacturing faults in the fuselage. Hopefully they have fixed it.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243_fuselage.png
I always love the simple solution of “lease something” as if one is running down to the local BMW dealer to lease a 5 series. Leasing in the sense many are thinking of it requires a few things be present and the first of these is an eventual market if you return the asset. Unless the financing group sees a forward going market for an upgraded P-3 you are simply going to pay the whole of the upgrade and acquisition cost plus interest over whatever the life of the lease is. The only way they can charge you less than that is if they are fairly certain they can lease it after you are done with it or sell it.
I am not saying it couldn’t be done with a P-3. It might. But it is not something where people have a good handle on the market like cars or even C-17’s which were still being sold internationally and to the US when the UK was doing that lease. It would not be an easy deal to do.
‘First delivery for Australia is 2017, full deliveries by 2020 for Increment 2, 2021 for Increment 3.’
So from ordering, which will not be until after the SDSR 2015 we will get our first aircraft in 2018 (if we are lucky with the slots) and then a complete delivery (depending on numbers) 3-4 years later, so 2021 at the earliest if everything goes well.
We could start to design a plug and play system for the A400 now with the new found money and have it tested and delivered in service well within the 2020 time frame. This would give us a product that might have a chance at being sold in Europe and if we were really clever and made a KC-390 compatible/version South America.
What will our skill fade be like by the time we start to operate the P8? even if we leased a few C295’s (or any MOTS airframe of your choice) for 5 years we could keep a training pipeline going and carry out a few patrols ourselves to show good will to our allies who are at the moment covering for our loss in capability.
@David
If the UK said they wanted 5 P-8’s next year I have little doubt the slots could be found. It wouldn’t impact the US adversely to do so if that was important. The RN is simply taking aircraft on the schedule they want. I believe the Indian order is almost filled at this point.
Not RN, RAN. My mistake.
David
An A400 conversion would not be plug and play. What all the Airbus products lack is a significant bomb bay to carry missiles and torpedos. That’s not a plug and play issue. Its an airframe redesign and recertification issue. A canoe if you are lucky. Or cutting into structural fuselage of you are not. Neither easy nor cheap.
Peter Elliot
‘What all the Airbus products lack is a significant bomb bay to carry missiles and torpedos’
The A400 has a massive bomb bay, throw them out the back from the cargo bay. It’s not like the Americans have not been doing it for a fair amount of time from the C130. hang them off the wings if you can’t do that. Why would it not be a similar plug and play system to the C295?
Past articles and comments on A400M:
The Airbus A400M Atlas series starting with Part 1
Future Maritime Patrol – Part 6 (C130J and A400M Options)
A Further Look at TD’s Modular A400M MPA
@TD
There’s a number of photo links broken on the Future Maritime Patrol – Part 6 article.
Didn’t know the C130 has a heavy weapons release capability?
I guess the wing hardpoints that the A400 does have would be taken up with sensor pods for the detection part of the mission. And the parachute door with a release mechanism for sonor buoys.
As far as munitions goes what we are talking about is a weapons release for some seriously expensive and dangerous toys: the ability to know when you release them what direction they will go in and where they will end up pointing. No point chucking a fire stick off the back ramp if when the motor fires if comes right back at you and incinerates your gaping rear orifice!
Layman talking warning I am guessing it would take a lot of clever people years to design, test and approve a revised rear ramp assembly to release torpedos and missiles safely and predictably within the operational flight envolope. And that wouldn’t be simple or cheap. Also if the back ramp is open you compromise the working environment for your analysts. So you also need a containerised workspace to put the plug-and-pay workstations in.
Not saying any of it couldn’t be done. If all of European NATO got their act together and funded a programme it could be done (similarly for the A320 or the A330). But that sort of funding and co-operation doesn’t seem at all likely any time soon. And IF we acccept that the UK needs this capability we have to admit that we need it now.
Not sure how much engineering would be involved to create a pressure seal to allow opening of the cargo door at altitude however if you can crack that you’re in with a shot of developing a decent MPA from the A400M, provided you can keep the basic airframe as vanilla as possible through the use of ro-ro kit.
Two existing pylons, a relatively respectably sized radome on the front.
EDIT: In the front half of the cargo bay create a two-deck work and crew rest area:
Fictional Globemaster III
C130 has shown to be capable of deploying some seriously expensive dangerous toys Peter !
Straight off the ramp, the Taurus cruise missile for example.
ToC, images updated now
@Peter Elliott
The C-130 drops the Daisy Cutter out of the back in the same way it deploys air drop cargo but you have to decompress the cargo bay. How often are you actually drop weapons though even in training? The bulk of the MPA/MMA crew could be in a pressurised crew and equipment pod , the RoRo part and sonar buoys etc deployed through a derringer door temporally replacing the personnel crew door at the rear.
http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/migration/img_up/up_2/2807_1.GIF
So we need a two deck smartie tube for the crew and a pallitised weapon release system off the ramp. How much would that cost along with the systems? 10-20 million? plus the R and D.
@ all
All the rage as Observer says is UAV’s , could a way of extending their range is carry them (several?) to the patrol area in the back of the A400M and then deploy them out the back? If the UAV was controlled by direct link only to the host aircraft that should eliminate a lot of cost be removing the satellite comms gear from the UAV and decrease its size as it would carry less weight and fuel only for the on station patrol duration and the return leg to the nearest friendly field( any size really as empty it would stop on a dime probably) .It could be fuelled only when about to be deployed from the A400M existing hold refuelling plumbing. Perhaps it would only be deployed when something ‘interesting’ is detected or requested to be investigated by central command or nearby vessel.
We have got ourselves in a right pickle on this one haven’t we…
I think the reality is when operating naval assets such as Astute class, QE and POW as well as the Trident boats we do need an MPA of some kind.
To purchase a replacement for the Nimrod sadly the only game in town would appear to be the P8. I’m sure it will with time be a more than competent aircraft, however my biggest reservation is the continued creep of purchasing US designed and built aircraft.
P8 may make sense in the short term, however we would be pretty much saying good by to designing and developing aircraft of this nature ourselves and with our European partners.
We are already purchasing the F35, flying the E3 and Airseeker. If we were to purchase the P8 and look at it to replace Sentinel, as well as hoping for future cost benefits should a new AWACS be 737 based, we are rather committed to lining the pockets of US industry.
I am aware that 15% of each F35 is made in the UK but it’s just not quite the same.
From a UK point of view, I’d rather see an airbus option, as stated earlier an A330, with mission systems developed from the MR4A project and room for further development to replace Sentinel over time.
As stated in another post, we have amazing engineers and a history of producing outstanding products, it would be a shame to let that slip away.
This would no doubt take longer to get in service that the P8, and also require European investment.
The other option for where I’m standing is to have a lower cost, lower capability MPA, to provide assistance to out Naval assets around our shores and in theatre.
Then when the E3’s need replacing, develop them as MMA to do the AWACS/Sentinel role.
I’m probably talking rubbish as I lack the knowledge of others des played in this forum.
It just bolts to the ramp and handles AGM-176 Griffin missiles.
http://media.defenceindustrydaily.com/images/ORD_Gunslinger_on_KC-130J_Harvest_Hawk_lg.jpg
No R&D needed. The lower deck & the release mechanism was designed by the a/c manufacturer themselves, Boeing, in the days of the arsenal ship craze. The upper deck just needs a pressure seal and the removing o f the grand piano, to make way for the control consols (the bar can stay).
“So we need a two deck smartie tube for the crew and a pallitised weapon release system off the ramp. How much would that cost along with the systems? 10-20 million? plus the R and D.”
The fact is as illustrated by TD in articles last month ;
1. Derringer door for Sonar Buoy release already developed for C130.
2. The software on the plane already is designed for precision low level parachute drop. You just have to write in the parameters of what you’re dropping. And dropping an aerodynamic torpedo is a lot easier than a pallet of supplies. Since it would work at low level no problem with pressurisation.
3. The Sensors already exist in the Merlin rear cab; you can put it in a sealed container with additional crew area for food and sleep and still have room to spare.
4. One or Two load masters to manage and load sonar buoy and torpedoes as they are launched.
5. It allows cross training with Merlin rear crews cutting training costs as the simulators etc already exist.
6. It has 2 hard points for all the optical and radar sensors you need already hard wired. The sensors already exist e.g. how quickly certain manufacturers came up with solutions for Sea King Asac replacements.
7. You’re already buying 20 odd of them, to go live you just have to amend a number of them to accept the Ro-Ro kit. Then buy another 10 or 15 at the end of the run spreading the cost of purchase, hopefully picking a few up with a big discount where Germany/France are pulling out. By swapping Ro-Ro kit out of planes down for maintenance you do not tie down expensive kit whilst the truck that gets you there is having its wheels kicked in a major so many hundred hour overhaul. So the rule of 3 goes out of the window. You want 12 MPA’s then buy 12 kits and put them in planes as and when needed. Only need 5 for peace time then run with 5 rotating the kits in and out of different planes to keep the flying hours down.
8. Once Afghanistan is finished RAF crew would need constant airtime anyway so the two can be tied in to keep crews up to date in flying hours. If you need more time run the C130 fleet in to the ground until you’re out of the country.
9. If you need more cargo haulers because of an urgent deployment you can take the kits of the 12 or 15 bought for MPA role and reuse them in the short term.
10. The logistics, flight training etc is already in place and common maintenance etc etc etc . The big reason for loosing Harrier of only maintaining one fleet rather than relying on US maintenance for your orphan 6 or so P8’s.
11. In the longer term you can change the sensor pods for over land surveillance etc, designing sensor pods for different missions and different crew pods in the back.
12. It can be refuelled by RAF planes so we can act unilaterally if we have to, it got the legs with refuelling to get to the Falklands. It already carriers RAF defence suits, UK communications etc etc. All the problems of having to convert the P8 to work in the UK networked anti-submarine layered defence falls away.
13. Further out if you want to launch anti shipping missiles etc from it you can start to put in a proper bomb bay, but take you time and do it right and cost effectively if it can’t be launched from the rear ramp. Brimstone fitted to Typhoon’s could fill that role networked to the A400’s sensors.
14. Finally ant-air weapons are developed from Submarines then high altitude is still ok but you’ll have to develop gliding kits for Stingray etc. As A400 is designed as a high altitude cargo hauler as well.
The downside is the cost of flying a 4 engine turbo prop over a modern jet liner in terms of fuel etc. It doesn’t look sexy and daring do like the RAF types want and a bit heath Robinson by dropping things out the back.
What we will do is purchase 6 P8’s at mega money, have only 2 flying at any one time because of the rule of 3, give it to BAe to install UK specific software, radios, defence aids etc etc and cost ourselves a bucketful of money and take 3yrs to do and certificate. Be tied in to US defence upgrades and defence inflation no matter what we require. Have to convert Stingray etc to be glider delivered (a system still not developed by the US). And please don’t even get me started on the cost of drones, mad drones etc which will all need separate UK certification.
It is a simple cost effective option as evidenced by the speed it could be deployed. Give the manufacturers 1 year for all the sensors and pods to be ready as the A400 comes in to fleet use in large numbers. By 2018 your back in the MPA game.
I think TG your last paragraph is a very accurate view of the future…
Amazing about the love the A-400 is getting now when a few years back, people were cussing at it being overweight and overpriced. :)
Not saying it is bad, just ironic.
Yep but must turn the long paragraph into a soundbite
“What we will do is purchase 6 P8’s at mega money, have only 2 flying at any one time because of the rule of 3, give it to BAe to install UK specific software, radios, defence aids etc etc and cost ourselves a bucketful of money and take 3yrs to do and certificate. Be tied in to US defence upgrades and defence inflation no matter what we require. Have to convert Stingray etc to be glider delivered (a system still not developed by the US).”
I am thoroughly enjoying the universal assumption that we are procuring sufficient A400M’s to allow this sojourn off into the world of ASW. The debate proposing A400M as some sort of budget bodgit-and-scarpa MPA alternative is living in complete cloud cuckoo land by assuming the UK strat air transport requirement is irrelevant.
Those A400’s will be working their socks off. They will not have time to do anything else.
@Mercator – Thanks for the informed perspective. No P3s it is then.
@TOC – When did you become a car salesman? :D
@TAS
Would you not buy more A400’s than the planned 22 to cover the MPA duties from the same pot of money you would use to buy P8’s?
” from the same pot of money you would use to buy P8′s?”
Now this gives a new meaning to the term “imaginary money” :)
There isn’t even a firm decision to put MPA back on yet!
@all
Have i missed something wtf would you prefer to buy a basic a400m at $198m (figures from wiki converted to dollars),add in all the costs of the mpa mission suite, radars, weapon delivery system , etc etc oh and the costs of design certification etc etc
When a P8 costs $201m for each aircraft according to wiki????? R&D paid for and all radars, mission suites, weapons delivery systems etc etc included in price?
@The Ginge
You nailed it.
Re the RoRo kit the yanks had similar problem with their P3’s , they started running out of airframes during an upgrade phase with airframes disappearing off for 12 to 18 months , one bright spark suggested that the issue the training squadrons with 1/2 and 1/2 of P3A with the ASW kit stripped out for pilot conversion and maneuverer training with the kit weight replaced by concrete blocks bolted down (shades of Blue Circle radar ) and the other have the upgraded P3C with full ASW kit for the specialist to train on. This cleared the shortage.
On the fuel issue the P3’s routinely shut down one engine in the patrol area sometimes two to extend the patrol time , could this work on an A400M ? It will go out at MTOW with the RoRo pod , weapons and sensors etc and a cargo hold mounted additional fuel tank but as it burns up the fuel all the engines surely would not be required as it lightens.
Yeah I reckon it only works if you can pick up A400s fire-sale cheap from countries who are cutting back.
Again not sure if we have time to wait around for the bargain of the century to come along.
@Wirral Pete and Peter Elliot
Depends, it’s one of those where we need to crunch the numbers. If we buy extra A400 the facilities, training, and parts should also reduce. A mission suite would not be massively expensive.
‘When a P8 costs $201m for each aircraft according to wiki’
Minus new facilities, training etc plus certification of our bespoke UK kit and weapons. If we work on the assumption that we were going to have 9 MRA4 and the number banded about for an MPA purchase is 1billion, how close to the 9 can we get for the money using either A400 or P8?
A questions to move things along…
If we purchased a full fat MPA like the P8, in an average year, what would be the percentage of time it spent on training for the ASW role and doing the ASW role in support of Trident?. Given that the P8 has one big selling point over other solutions, the underwater domain, how much of its time is spent training and doing, during times of normal non elevated threat i.e. not protecting SSBN’s from Russian subs actively looking for them with malicious intent but providing general security and credibility support, stopping snooping and harassment.
The point I am trying to get to is whether a UK P8 would be employed pretty much full time training for or protecting our SSBN’s and if so, how many would be required if this were the only thing it had to do.
I believe this is an important mission and one we should concentrate on for this discussion, the bare minimums
Everything else is open.
‘protecting our SSBN’s and if so, how many would be required if this were the only thing it had to do’
If that was all it was required to do, wouldn’t BAMS and the unmanned surface vessel you showed on the site not far back be cheaper in the long run?
@TD… Would then add in how many airframes to support a deployed RFTG and assume that 5 sentinel replacements would follow with the AGS canoe ?
@David Niven … appreciate what your saying regards pilots etc and commonalty of parts and maintenance but keep coming back to developmental costs and certification of the a400m in this role. Also not convinced radars, mission suites, weapons delivery systems would be that cheap to develop and integrate on such an airframe for such small numbers. Shades of an MRA4 clusterfuck waiting to happen!
Just wish the MRA4 was a complete new build aircraft, would have been in the air flying in the mid noughties. Could then have had them liscenced built in US and would have beaten boeings offering hands down in an open competition when P8 was selected by DOD in the US between 2005-2008.
For me APATS comments regarding all three service chiefs being fully behind the return of an MPA speaks volumes.
Full-fat, range of tasks, busy asset as per the Sentinels.
@TD – “If we purchased a full fat MPA like the P8, in an average year, what would be the percentage of time it spent on training for the ASW role and doing the ASW role in support of Trident?”
Performing the mission IS training, right up to the point where you have weapons release authority. No reason the P8 couldn’t cover the deployment of SSBNs from port to deep water even in peacetime. It could even drop “noise maker” bouys that broadcast underwater something like “We’ve got you now, you silly blighters!” or words to that effect. :D
@TOC
‘Full-fat, range of tasks, busy asset as per the Sentinels.’
We need to spend more than 1billion for the numbers that would give a decent capability, 9 airframes minimum? are we willing/have the funds to spend more than the number banded around at the moment?
The ten-year £8b contingency fund is alleged to be split £4.5b for the FRES/UV/etc, leaving £3b something.
If the service chiefs are unanimous for it, with a £1b underspend, a once-more-credible MOD, the tabloids ready to accept no less than an MRA4 that can find a Cheeki Rafiki and political points to be scored with regards basing, there’s a very good chance of a higher level of funding than we’ve been expecting.
Pessimistic hats on, of course, but be prepared for the possibility of being pleasantly surprised!
Sentinel: biz jet and operating costs accordigly. One being used to try out new gadgets, so barring accidents, four are judged to give a sufficient capability & capacity overland.
So 5 MPAs, to get started and trained up (seedcorn, who I take to be operators rather than pilots) would yield 30/5 =6 per a/c at the same rate as we take delivery
– see if BAMS or the like would help to keep the fleet numbers at abt that level
– then add multi-mission (up numbers) when Sentinel becomes obsolete or obsolescent.
@Wirralpete
We will pay more for our P8’s than Australia, US (not sure bout India) as we will put in our own comms and UK specific bits we then need to certify Stingray, (do we use the same sonar buoys as the US?) the US LWT has a GPS parachute system developed does our LWT? and if not would we want to develop a means of high altitude delivery of our torpedo (more money)?
If we haven’t got the money for a full capability of at least 9 airframes then we need to start looking elsewhere. TOC showed the Australians are paying between £3 – £4.8 billion for their MPA and surveillance capability have we got at least £2.5B to be safe? Plus we need to replace Sentinel within the same time frame.
Are we all assuming that the underspend will be available, not consumed by cost increases in projects and programmes still in progress?
Considering all the hype for the P8A, last month at Farnborough the US Navy announced that its fleet P-8As “are performing exceptionally on deployment.” The DOT&E FY2013 Annual Report tells a different story especially concerning the MAC (Muti-Static Active Coherent) sonobuoy system. In actual operational testing it is only able to do short range ASW searches and has no broad area search capability, which I thought was the raison d’etre of the aircraft. The USN may or may not be able to rectify the system but that is not a given so I do not understand why there is a rush to spend £1 billion on a system with minimal abilities to meet the OR.
The full gruesome details from the following sources:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jframe.html#http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/budget/fy2013/dot-e/navy/2013p8aposeidon.pdf|||
http://navy-matters.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/P-8%20Poseidon
@TD
No. The underspend and the sensible consideration of the contingency fund is just indicative of the MOD turnaround in handling Treasury money.
I’m sensing (crystal ball time) complete funding of a full-fat solution to be committed to in SDSR 2015 with funds coming from a combination of the contingency budget (10 year), a Treasury contribution and consolidation of fleets over 10-15 years.
Fleet consolidation is utterly open to implementation. Do we:-
Go the whole hog and move ASTOR to the centreline pylons on a P-8 similar to the AAS, asking Raytheon to integrate into the P-8 workstations?
Develop the Sentinel R1 fleet into the UK version of the MQ-4C / Boeing MSA to partner the P-8?
How does an ASTRAEA powered optionally manned Sentinel R2 fleet to do the “dry” sensor work alongside the P-8 fleet performing the “wet” sensor work sound?
For the amount of Treasury contribution it’s worth exploring what the impact of operating a double-digit fleet could do to the region that’s selected as its home. Jobs, supporting infrastructure, families, supermarkets moving in to feed them, etc.
Consider a 30-year period at full operation level MPA (MMA?) squadron size. The reason for picking 30 years is the UK’s 30-year bond yield is currently 2.99%. A bargain in macro-economic terms (although Germany’s has to pay less, UK attracts liquidity due to the higher paying returns).
How much return in economic development in the area could the operation of the squadron generate in 30 years?
Does that leave us looking good for the Treasury chipping in £1b or even £2b into the MPA collection plate maybe?
How many political points does the standing up of an MPA/MMA squadron somewhere score an MP/Party?
Caveat: Still prepared for a half-arsed token gesture of 5 C-295’s, mind!
@TD
Ref yor earlier question on protecting the detterent.
What would be the cost of adding 2087 to the 3 new OPV’s and using them with the improved Sentinels, as CASD protection?
Raytheon UK Outlines Plans for RAF Sentinel’s Capability Beyond 2015
http://geointworld.net/NewsDetails?Id=29424&Act=View&title=Raytheon-UK-Outlines-Plans-for-RAF-Sentinel%27s-Capability-Beyond-2015
“Through tremendous teamwork, Sentinel has delivered a pivotal capability to the UK’s armed forces since its entry into service. Raytheon, in support of the Air ISTAR Optimization Study, has submitted options to extend the capability further to include additional sensor payloads, including long range EO/IR and SIGINT,” said Richard Daniel, Raytheon UK chief executive.
@TON
Makes for good news articles eh?
Have a look at Increments 2 and 3 capability. Currently the P-8 is performing the P-3 mission (Increment 1).
The Increment Roadmap was accepted by the DOD.
Increment 2 starts rolling out next year. Australian initial materiel will be I2 with I3 upgrades in their program plan prior to 2021.
Not followed the Indian program too closely as they’ve departed from the USN program that Australia are paralleling.
From UK Armed Forces Commentary a long long article on the P8.
Interesting note on the Indian model has an additional radar at the rear giving 360 degree coverage and has an Air to Air tracking mode.
It also mourns the loss of MRA4.
It also mentions that the next version increment 2 will be able to dispense stores from high altitude due in 2016 avoiding wasting fuel by flying down to 500′ or less which is required at present.
http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-p8-poseidon-and-uk.html
@DavidNiven
‘protecting our SSBN’s and if so, how many would be required if this were the only thing it had to do’
If that was all it was required to do, wouldn’t BAMS and the unmanned surface vessel you showed on the site not far back be cheaper in the long run?
That shows a pretty profound misunderstanding of what BAMS in particular is all about. The clue is in the name – it’s a high-altitude radar platform for keeping an eye on the wider surface picture, strengthened so it can dip down to low level to eyeball suspect contacts with EO/IR. It’s intended for countries with lots of money which have to surveil the wide spaces of the Pacific from Arctic to Antarctic, with Russia and China’s main ports on the other side. The US and Australia in other words. Yes Triton would be nice to have for the UK, but at nearly the price of a P-8 our needs just don’t justify it. Sentinel with the maritime radar update will be our equivalent of MQ-4C and will be plenty good enough for our purposes.
ACTUV a) doesn’t exist yet and b) is a tracking device, it’s not a finding device and it’s not a killing device.
So you want to protect the deterrent from submarines with something that has no sub-surface capability at all, and something that can’t find submarines let alone take action against them.
There’s no real way round it – anti-submarine work is Difficult, and needs high-end kit that is very specialist.
@El Sid
‘That shows a pretty profound misunderstanding of what BAMS in particular is all about’
‘Sentinel with the maritime radar update will be our equivalent of MQ-4C and will be plenty good enough for our purposes.’
So BAMS then? just by another name.
‘The ACTUV is to be in constant contact with other ships and aircraft through a satellite link; if a contact is determined to not be threatening, a sailor can order the vessel go back on patrol. The craft itself is unarmed, so if an enemy submarine is detected it will notify other naval assets that can attack and destroy it. If deemed not a threat, the craft can still shadow the submarine to deter it from acting aggressively, potentially even back to its home port.’
‘ACTUV is to launch in 2015’
So out of the US triangle we will be missing the P8, but we could always add a towed array to the new OPV’s (for detection) and use in conjunction with the other two.
You’ll need to remind again if NATO and the Warsaw pact were destroying each others submarines on a daily basis or tracking them? so 99% of the time we can use those assets and bring the destroying the target aspect of the sequence from another platform.
monkey said: “The bulk of the MPA/MMA crew could be in a pressurised crew and equipment pod , the RoRo part and sonar buoys etc deployed through a derringer door temporally replacing the personnel crew door at the rear.”
With the A400m, as you could be dropping sonobuoys or torpedos from a low altitude you wouldn’t need a pressurised crew pod, though a pod or bulkhead of some kind could be useful for maintaining comfortable working conditions.
Observer said: “Once upon a time, the Israelis had the idea of controlling a UAV or two from the back of an F-15. That idea died an ignoble death and was buried in the sand dunes of history. ”
Something similar has been attempted with a Tornado too.
http://www.qinetiq.com/media/news/releases/Pages/fast-jet-pilot-directs-multiple-uav.aspx
Whether we use Sentinel as some form of MQ-4C is totaly irrelevant from an ASW perspective. ACTUV is an interesting theory but has some major issues and even the designers admit it is optimised for littoral ops against Diesel Electric boats.
Localising and tracking of an SSN in the open ocean requires rapid response, complex systems and persistence. A ship borne response only lacks the response time and speed. It requires to be in the right time at the right place.
They offer fantastic persistence when in contact but they need to get there and that is why the response time and speed of an MPA is so important.
Missing a single part of the “system” can make the others impotent.
@ Observer & A Different Gareth
I seem to remember reading somewhere when the Typhoon was first proposed that one of its strengths would be data sharing with other nearby assets air, land and sea with the pilot/systems assessing the optimum unit to actually launch a weapon against a target with UAV’s being forward deployed weapon trucks waiting to be given a launch instruction by the Typhoon deployed to the rear. The UAV, though carrying expensive weapons, was to act as a cheap picket that could be sacrificed to save a much more expensive unit and its irreplaceable pilot. The Typhoons air superiority was more of a survival nature than to be actually used offensively , enemy units got through it could look after itself and pose a serious threat but only as a last resort. The cheap dump weapons trucks would be upfront with a Typhoon controlling several across a 100km front 50km behind them to hold back the Red Storm of Migs and Sukhois flooding in from the East. Is this still on the cards? Forgive my numbers , illustration purposes only :-)
monkey, I can only speak for the Israeli project, but quiet death is a good description. If you have not heard about any more Typhoon mothership research projects, then I can only assume that it went the same way.
APATS, SOSUS!! :)
@Observer
SOSUS is perhaps not what it once was and any network like SOSUS or SURTASS is that they require support to localise and the best asset for that is an MPA with the speed to respond and the ability to monitor various buoy lines.
“The UAV, though carrying expensive weapons, was to act as a cheap picket that could be sacrificed to save a much more expensive unit and its irreplaceable pilot.
One of the ideas for UCLASS is exactly this kind of thing, using probably a two-seat stretched F-35 or more likely LRS-B. We should know a bit more about the final intention for UCLASS in a few weeks time, whether they are going to go “naval Reaper”, autonomous mini-Death-Star, or somewhere in between.
I think it’s a bit like what we were saying about USVs a few days ago, the early ones worked OK but weren’t pursued because they needed more autonomy for effective operation in the real world. After all, anyone in a fighter jet usually has other things on his mind than steering a radio-control plane. So the technology wasn’t quite up to it then, but you can imagine how X-47 levels of autonomy tip the balance.
APATS, I know, but it really was a blast from the past. Unfortunately, post Cold War, like most other military equipment, it got “peace dividend”ed out.
@El Sid
” After all, anyone in a fighter jet usually has other things on his mind than steering a radio-control plane.”
From what I recall the pilot did not control the UAV , it was a robot it took itself off, flew to a specific set of GPS co-ordinates and altitude and flew around in figure eights/ circles what have you and waited. It then when its fuel was low returned back and landed itself. The idea was to have lots of cheap dumb almost throwaway bots carrying a couple AAM and a couple of ASM for surface targets. A nearby Typhoon or AWACS would command it to launch remotely at the appropriate point in its patrol path the idea being there would all ways be at least one UAV in a flight pointing in the right direction to launch (pre-off bore sight days). Using these UAV’s in large numbers was what was proposed to counter the sheer numbers of Soviet Airframes that would swamp the NATO AAM Batteries/fighter forces. A Cheap Slow Dumb Missile Truck.
Today I think the tendency of adding on everything into one package is the antipathy of this concept. Obviously we are now almost 30 years on so abilities have change but I think the concept is as valid today as then. Why put your Ultra expensive Plane/Pilot combination in harms way in a defensive role when you don’t have too. If the enemy has to first eliminate the UAV’s by running the gauntlet of their fire power before reaching his primary target be it the Fighters/AWACS/Tankers or specific ground targets.
@monkey I was exaggerating a bit for effect – but the fact remains it needed a greater level of autonomy than was available at the time. But the general thrust of UCLASS is exactly in this kind of direction, although they’re still figuring out how hostile an environment it should have to contend with, and there’s more emphasis on the payload including ISR and EW.
@El Sid
Just read a bit about the USN UCLASS , can we have some to for our Nellies or are they only CATOBAR compatible , it looks very big. A similar concept could be derived from Taranis/NeuroN of a more suitable size I suppose if too big for the Nellies.
UCLASS requirements aren’t out yet, however the X-47B is CATOBAR and UCLASS is expected to be too.
UK will be looking at a land based Son of Taranis and possibly whatever comes out of the DARPA VTOL X-Plane.
Noting the Nimrod was an excellent airframe for our MPA and long range ASW requirements, if we had ‘free choice’ of any current airframe to meet our specific MPA requirements ( endurance, payload etc) what would we chose? Does a 737 airframe tick the boxes, an Airbus jet or a turboprop such as Hercules or A400? Or something else? I’m in danger of re opening an MR4 type project and we could buy a decent P8 off the shelf but isn’t a large modern common platform that could also become AEW and Airseeker ( and others) replacement a really worthwhile investment? In the meantime a UOR gap filler of either C295s, sea Hercules or leased P3s to provide base cover particularly for the deterrent
@MickP
From the commercial airliner front you are really looking at a 737 or A320 and the platforms are likely to perform the job nearly identically if similarly modified. A decade ago you probably could have gone with the 757 if you wanted more range than a P-8 or A320MPA would give you. But it is out of production. A 767 or A330 would simply be too big to economically do the job in my view (unless you started carrying around two crews and basically did two missions on one flight I guess).
@Mickp
Have a read of this series in which the options were covered pretty comprehensively :
https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2014/01/future-maritime-patrol-part-3-dedicated-long-range-aircraft-p3-p1-atl-319/
Realistically, it depends on how much cash there is in next year’s SDSR.
@monkey – that’s the point, we don’t know yet how big it will be or what it will be expected to do. A naval Reaper could probably be made to work for us, something bigger than an X-47 wouldn’t. The UCLASS spec is really a debate about the whole future direction of the US carrier force, so they’re taking their time about it. At one stage it was looking like an unmanned version of the later incarnations of the S-3 – primarily ELINT and tanking, now the vibe seems to be something a bit more fighty.
I think I should chime in one more time to add something about interoperability.
A proper MPA task is usually something that is relatively lengthy and requires persistence. I suppose you can think about them in terms of “orbits”, as has become fashionable with UAVs. A single enduring task is going to cost you something in the order of 5 or 6 airframes and a similar number of crews. That’s one task. A stand-up fight with any nation that has the capability to deploy a couple of submarines is going to generate a dozen or more tasks that desperately need attention. You will want to screen every task group, saturate every port and chokepoint but not be able to. Even 12-18 airframes isn’t really a WW3 ORBAT. It’s two or three orbits. And remember you have to keep an eye on your SSBN.
Which is to say that I think the only western nations with something resembling an independent, stand-alone MPA capability are the Japanese and US. Everyone else, the UK included, is going to be part of a coalition and I think you should start thinking about how interoperable you want your MPA to be. You want to be able to use the same weapons, sonobuoys and the associated ground handling equipment. You want to be able to use the same systems and technicians to analyse the ELINT and ACINT you generate in this coalition environment. With this in mind, I think going your own way is a bad thing, not something useful. Sure, you want to be able to do your own thing with your SSBN. But if you have ambitions to be a useful coalition partner in some far off locale, don’t go reinventing the wheel, especially if your fleet amounts to a dozen airframes at most. UK industry policy has its place in defence spending, but sometimes it actually hurts your capability. I think this might be one of those times.
@El Sid, thanks. I would like to stick to a European platform and would go for a dual buy of say a dozen C295 MPA for ‘routine’ patrol around UK and FI EEZ, but also carrying a core ASW capability. I’d then have a dozen or so A319 MPA to provide the longer range ASW / SSBN tasking and a small deployable force as part of a coalition op. The c295 retains our core EEZ MPA in the event the A319 fleet all has to be deployed. We need to take MPA seriously and therefore need numbers, 20+ but accepting they don’t all need to be very high end. I hear you say dual fleet costs but there is commonality of systems and I see the C295 as having other potential as a SF aircraft etc with the A319 being a platform for future AEW etc. If the A319 is too ‘drawing board’ then swap it for the P8 but still go for the supporting C295 option to keep numbers up. We need to avoid the silver bullet fleet mentality and have a broad based capability
@TOC
What I presume Lockheed et al are promising is a MAC for the P8A that can do underwater search over a broad area for quiet subs with a high probability of success and may be drop the sonobuoys from reasonable height so as not to degrade the aircfaft life which is not designed for hours in low level turbulence. (Even the P3C has has had major fatigue structural problems and it was designed for the job). This will not be easy.
Therefore I am more cynical than you and would require more than power point presentations on Increments 2 and 3 capability that may or may not be successful as they have signally did not achieve it with Increment 1. It would require that any contract with Boeing states that in operational testing the MAC find Astutes and a modern AIP subs within the range specified by the OR, otherwise why spend £1 billion plus.
@TON
The P-3 problems have nothing to do with flight altitude and everything to do with the age of the system and the fact that it was worked very hard almost on a daily basis. Make any plane fly that kind of schedule and it will age badly. There isn’t really a solution for equipment being worked hard, it’s something that has to be accepted as a fact of life. Work hard = worn down equipment.
@Mercator
Ouch, that sounds like you need a heaps lot of planes for your day to day needs. 12+ planes is really going to cost a pretty penny. And if the taskings are as intensive as you suggest, I think we can safely forget about multi-role aircraft, every single one of them will be too tied up in MPA to do anything else. That’s a lot to chew on.
As a former MPA operator, what is the most bare bones no frills basic MPA fitting you can suggest? Nothing fancy if we need to cut the cost so much as to get as many planes as we can.
PowerPoint? Crikey. Better let the DOT&E and USN boys know that the hardware they’ve been evaluating and flying was actually an “Insert > Shapes”!
All jesting aside, I know where you’re coming from.
For a moment, put the journalism out of mind and just focus on the DOT&E summaries.
The most important thing to remember is that they’re designed to primarily indicate one thing: What’s currently not working compared to the agreed capability.
In P-8’s case it’s measured against Increment 3 as that’s been approved and funded.
You’ll notice on some of the system sections that the report will state a capability cannot be met and then go on to give the reasons. Historic reports have significantly included LEMV (sequestration related cut in funding preventing integration and testing of the sensors), Commanche (technology to transit the Atlantic required a fundamental design rethink or materials breakthrough to mature), LCS (lots of capability warnings here!) and the F-35 (Sustained G wasn’t being met, think this was the weight issue).
This “negative” view of a project is important and common to engineering. It’s a To Do list and Risk register in one, part of Project/Program life. Showing your dirty laundry is often a good way of ensuring the project team stays focussed (the problem space you’re working in is visible to everyone) but does mean that you are making targets for opponents to take pot shots at.
It also means decision-makers aren’t mislead about the current capability of a system. Information that could be critical to them and that will be detailed more thoroughly in a classified report.
Specifically with the P-8 you’ll note that the only critical piece of new technology listed by DOT&E is the Hydrocarbon Sensor. It’s a classified piece of kit, however observers suggest it may not just be a parts-per-million air sniffer but also likely an optical (spectrometer-a-like?) sensor as well. Everything else is listed as “Mature” indicating that the kit is evolutionary (MAC is an evolution of the existing IEER system) and that problems are likely to be solvable without significant redesign or rethink of concept.
Experience suggests that achieving Increment 3 may require additional funding and result in a delay, however there’s nothing being flagged that would suggest cost overruns and delays would be excessive at this stage.
Now along comes a journalist with a brief to write a popularist article that will get the masses talking comes along. The modified saying “never show a non-engineer an unfinished job” is very applicable.
Admittedly there’s a bit of reading between the lines on this next bit: The report doesn’t even discuss items such as the AAS “grey project” (or LSRS on P-3 before it for that matter). Fitting something like that quite quickly to a new platform suggests the concept of MMA has a successful future ahead of it.
Mercator,
I rather agree with you, but disagree on one very fundamental point. Everything to do with the MPA argument hinges on the premise that it is required to defend the nuclear deterrent (no matter how unrealistically anyone cares to treat that issue or how many other tasks we can think of). It is fundamentally impossible in this day and age to rely on a coalition to defend a national nuclear deterrent. Even the NATO argument doesn’t cut it. Defence of such a critical sovereign asset requires a sovereign MPA capability. Look at the French – why do you think they still have an MPA capability at all? It’s all about the deterrent.
Very well put.
@TOC Well said – re risk and how it is identified and reported in a Engineering context.
Christ if my company stopped or scrapped every project that had highlighted medium to high risk on initial production variants we would never get anywhere.
Sometimes you can only resolve problems by building a few and retrofitting them afterwards.
@MickP
Here is the ultimate issue with the A319MPA. Spreading the development cost will really be difficult.
The development cost for the P-8 was something like $8 billion (4.8 billion pounds roughly). Spread over 120 or so units thus far that works out to around $70-75 million per plane. If we presume that the UK could run a development program that cost half as much (for whatever reasons be it less capability, smarter engineers, less waste, leveraging things already developed) you are still looking at a $4 billion dollar cost to go from A319 to A319MPA and get a proper radar, bomb bay and systems in the thing.
So if you only sell 12 of them then you have an R&D load on each plane of $333 million rather than $75 million. You might sell it more broadly than that in Europe but that would likely necessitate a lot of work share negotiations and isn’t likely to make R&D any more efficient. Even if you developed the thing for half the cost and replaced all the MPA’s in Germany and France on a 1 for 1 basis you are looking at 42 aircraft and an R&D load that is still $20 million per frame higher.
And in my view that is being fairly generous on the development cost side if you are wanting like for like capability and the total numbers you might sell. I could see Germany buying 8 but France would not be likely to buy 22 new MPA’s given the cuts they have made. Norway operates a few but have already been looking into the P-8. You have a handful of small time operators for the P-3 in Europe outside of that but I am dubious any of them will upgrade at all (for either a P-8 or A-319 or anything for that matter) as they are such small capabilities for those nations. What might tip the needle in favor of doing it is if Germany, France and the UK could come to a rapid agreement on buying around 40 of the things and Canada could be brought in to buy another dozen or more. But I personally would not want to try to herd that group of cats towards a cooperative procurement program. But the math is pretty simple. Until you can build around 50 of the things it is going to be so expensive I doubt you could do it.
TAS, so back to my question, if deterrent protection is number 1 task;
What is the absolute minimum number required
Commonality.
Here are aircraft that could potentially be replaced by a common MMA type airframe in the long term:
3 x Air Seeker. Enabling technology: Multiple Position Communications Emitter Locations Systems (MUCELS) Antennae / Blade Antennae and on-board processing. MMA Solution: On-board processing would likely be plug-in. Significant work required for blade antenna and sensor integration due to sensitivity of the equipment (q.v. RAF accepting USAF Rivet Joint paint scheme).
5 x Sentinel R1. Enabling technology: Raytheon’s ASTOR [1] and upcoming DB-110 sensor. MMA Solution: Raytheon’s Advanced Airborne Sensor (AAS) [2] is a US analogue and potential competitor to JSTARS. ASTOR and AAS likely share a heritage with Raytheon’s LSRS on the P-3 (APS-149). We can either work with the US on AAS or transfer ASTOR to MMA by suspending the equipment from the same centreline hardpoints as AAS
6 x Shadow R1. Enabling technology: Classified. Suspected to be similar package to RAF Reaper [3]. Rumours of Gorgon Stare / ARGUS-IS package. On-board analysis. MMA Solution: Transfer of sensor to centreline hardpoints and integrate with on-board workstations. MQ-9 Reaper has also been suggested as a replacement as King Airs / MQ-9’s are often used by General Atomics as surrogates for each other.
6 x E-3D Sentry. Enabling technology: Westinghouse radome, AN/APY-1, command facilities. MMA Solution: Underslung Selex Eagle AESA with 4m array option on an MMA. Alternatively select from two “Wedgetail” approaches: 1) Purchase Boeing 737 AEW&C and maintain commonality of airframe; 2) Integrate Northrop Grumman’s MESA and supporting systems into the MMA architecture.
If the MMA aircraft can live up to its billing of being a true multi-mission aircraft with pluggable payloads, there is scope for a fleet of up to 30-40 aircraft (!) performing MPA, ISTAR, SIGINT/ELINT, Strike and AEW&C missions depending on the ability of the equipment “plugged in” and ability of the multi-function workstations to adapt.
Some aircraft would be dedicated depending on the level of equipment fit (or convenience) while some aircraft would find themselves performing MPA during one operation and ISTAR during another. More switches of role more often? The enabling trend is for active sensors to provide more multi-mode capability such as SAR, AEW, MTI, ISAR, etc if not to be used simultaneously.
This size of fleet (30-40) may sound large but does consolidate several existing fleets and is based on a double-digit MPA requirement.
Would this style of approach to a fleet creation, assuming over a decade of build-up and to plan the replacements, sound feasible as an approach to reinstating MPA and going through the inevitable replacement programs in future?
This would assume a double-digit MPA purchase. I’m plucking 18 x MPA out of the air based on a full-fat MRA4 program to add to the above replacements.
[1] http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getasset.aspx?itemid=13515
[2] http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–r7JK179K–/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/o04hgxhpn2u5f823tnme.jpg
[3] http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h261/TOMMYJO/DSC_0106ZZ416WADDO1JUN09.jpg
[4] http://www.airforce.gov.au/imgs/Aircraft/E-7A-Wedgetail.png
I seem to recall that the last batch of 16 P-8’s for the US cost $2.5billion (or around £1.6billion). £100million per aircraft seems reasonable for such a large multi-purpose aircraft. I would suggest that this is the minimum number of airframes required. Talk of a token buy of 5 or 6 of anything is ridiculous. Even ignoring accidents, combat damage & training needs, the servicing requirements alone will mean that you would only have 2 or 3 aircraft available which is completely inadequate to maintain a continuous 24 hour patrol over even a single relatively small area of ocean, particularly given the lack of air-to-air refueling. Including spares & training £2billion or so for the most capable MPA fleet in Europe seems like a bargain & is very affordable if the politicians want to do it. Can we afford not to? Looking at Europe’s pathetic response to the situation in Ukraine I wouldn’t want to rely on France Spain or Italy for anything!
Boeing have already proposed a P8A SIGNT variant back in 2006
“A key advantage of this new program is that the 737 SIGINT aircraft will leverage the P-8A’s advanced mission system architecture, mature design, and contractor logistics support and training systems approach. For customers that means reduced operating and maintenance costs over the entire life cycle of the system.”
With the existing Boeing 737 AEW&C it seems the easiest and above all quickest route will be following the P8A route and encouraging our allies to do the same however hard that is for them to swallow being owners of AIRBUS and all.
One more thing linking to the other thread leave it boom AAR as we would looking at developing a variant for drogue AAR for 30+ airframes and losing commonality , mutual support etc verses paying for the 8 Voyagers to have an existing fix and have a boom fitted.
@TOC
Good analysis there of what other ISTAR platforms there are. When you look at the out of service dates, you also find out that we’ll have none of those platforms left in 2025. Hence the ‘problem’ is one of the future ISTAR and not just MPA.
With a multi-mission aircraft there are a couple of questions:
– Is it necessary to do all these tasks at once?
– If we don’t need to do the tasks at once, how many more platforms are needed?
– Is it better to have different platforms split into doing the different roles (or combinations), or is there room for commonality using a common base platform?
– How much role-fit equipment does the common platform need to do the different tasks?
– Is the common Multi-Mission Aircraft actually that common?
In my mind the answer is probably for 3 different platforms given the differing needs of the tasks.
I seem to have come back at the right moment because Hannay (seems to me) asks the right questions.
I would buy into Mercators argument, but the the numbers are inflated as there are other means of detectings subs,and exactly locating and persecuting can be done by MPAs (but also by other platforms).
The American spy for the Soviet Union John Walker who up to the mid 80’s disclosed how relatively easy it was to track the soviet subs due to their noise was a game changer and the current Russian subs are as I understand several orders of magnitude quieter. This makes tracking them much, much more challenging.
When the P-8A Increment 1 with its all new technology MAC system and sonobuoys is less capable than the old generation P-3C MAC, you wonder if it will get sorted in Increments 2 & 3. It may be in part results from using the commercial 737 airframe for the P-8 and the lack of structual strength at low level to take the turbulence and the resultant higher operating height required for the dropping of the sonobuoys and resultant dispersion making life difficult for the new MAC, pure supposition on my part. There was a Hawaiian 737 which had a hard life island hopping lost its top fuselage and was held together by its seat rails enabling it to land.
TAS,
I think we are actually in agreement. I’m not suggesting a coalition should guard your SSBN. If it takes five aircraft and six crews to do that, then that is your sovereign capability and those boys and those aircraft are going nowhere. What I’m saying is that any aircraft you purchase beyond that are clearly destined for coalition operations and so should be optimised towards that. Unless you get to 30 airframes or so. At that level you are playing in the US and Japanese league and you could take on a moderately sized submarine nation alone. But we are not talking about that, are we?
PS. If your five or six MPA are suddenly needed to protect “the deterrent”, someone must have lied a few years back when they said you didn’t need the capability at all. Have you sacked those guys?
Also, for those guys chasing synergies in 737 airframes. Concentrate on the front end crew and the general maintenance types. I’m guessing that is 80% of the money that can be saved and you’ll just be wasting your time trying to cram the back end crew and equipment into a common aircraft. What I’m saying is, if you end up with a whole bunch of 737 airframes that look different, so what? You’ve probably already saved a bunch of money. Don’t waste any more trying to optimise the back-end too much. The laws of physics surrounding antennas and their size are pretty hard and fast. I’d be amazed if there is much more ground to give. AEW, MPA and RJ don’t have to be exactly the same aeroplane to give you a bunch of savings.
@Mercator
Not British over here, from Asia, and traditionally, MPA based ASW capabilities in this region are modest. Which is a polite way of saying “non-existent”, so basically, the sub hunting MPA is a brave new world for us. Unfortunately, this new world is one that came knocking on our door instead of us seeking it out, with everyone and their grandmother getting subs, the need to come to grasp with this new MPA that goes sub hunting instead of just running around getting a surface picture has jumped a lot of ranks in importance. In fact, I could say that it tops the “3 things to do” list, the rest of the land, sea and air priorities are pretty much sorted. Underwater… we need to get a handle on that.
There are rumours that we are getting refurbished P-3s to replace our aging Fokker 50s, one that I credit as a high likelihood, but the P-3 itself is but the means to an end, they can’t last much longer, and frankly, getting a new MPA that can last a few more decades is worth the cost, but the P-3s are pretty much cheap sacrificial training platforms that will be used to gain operational experience and knowledge for the next step, the actual informed decision about the capabilities needed in a real, long term MPA.
So as an ex-MPA operator, I would really love to hear your thoughts on the capabilities needed in a sub hunting MPA as opposed to a RMP correlating platform.
1) How far out do your patrols usually go? Average? Furthest?
2) How long is the duration of the patrol? Average? Longest?
3) What systems pick up subs the most often? Radar? Sonobuoys? MAD? Hydrocarbon sniffer? Thermal camera? What systems are so useless you rather chuck it out the back without a parachute?
4) Armed? Unarmed? Mixed anti-ship/torps? Pure ASW? Mission selectable?
5) How many crew is optimal? 2 shifts? 1?
6) In a big open ocean, how do you detect subs? How do you decide when to drop sonobuoys in a search and destroy?
(previous answer to this question was that it is a mix of chokepoint clearing, other intel sources, last known location and screening of a high value unit, but the South China Sea is a bloody huge place to simply go randomly hunting, so how would you see tactics evolve in that area without many HVUs and chokepoints?)
7) Can sonobuoys be recovered and recycled? Or once deployed, it’s gone? ($$$… :( )
A seriously drastic suggestion would be to leverage our experience in underwater cable laying and simply plant seabed sensors instead, but that is also problematic. For one, there are limits to how much cable can be laid, and there is also the legality in doing such “sovereign” activity in international waters, not to mention China actually claims the whole area, so it could be seen as an intrusion and claim jumping.
Surely the P8 is the only game in town. However could the mission equipment from the Merlins not be palletised and used on the A400 should we wish to offer our armed forces different options? Russia is clearly in need of a lot more watching, I see perfectly valid cases for more Merlins, a dozen P8s and extending the numbers and capabilities of our surface fleet and other assets. Whether we go down the aerostat, UAV or A400 route I know not, but to me the P8 is the answer to our current problems and then build our own systems for other platforms (Merlin plus anything else if required).
We have no money. I hear you say, but then we had no threat ………..
Observer, volunteering for this
http://defensesystems.com/articles/2014/03/27/upward-falling-payloads-darpa.aspx
Or maybe it is too secret? Some might get picked up and reverse-engineered.
@ACC
upward falling payloads
+ reverse engineering
= downward falling payloads
;-)
‘Surely the P8 is the only game in town’
Is the C130J Sea Herc not an option? Airframe already in use by ourselves and uses the mission systems from the P3.
What about the Kawasaki P1? It should be matured about the same time the P8 will be.
“Missing a single part of the “system” can make the others impotent”
I can’t still help but picture an ASW interceptor in the E3+Typhoon analogy. So that’s a sonobuoy carrier (with associated comms and processing equipment) and something completely different to prosecute the threat.
I appreciate that it seems sensible to use the “on site” MPA to do the prosecution but I do seriously wonder if that is what makes everything so expensive (e.g. the high/low altitude optimisation problem).
Just like TD, I’d also like to know what the minimum number of airframes required would be to protect the SSBN…
My two-penneth is that the most difficult thing we’d need to do would be to put a sonobuoy “net” in the GIUK gap ahead of an SSBN deployment.
Due to the expected Convergence Zone distance (which I assume there is an average, minumum or budget value) of about 50nm we’ll need two orbits of MPA so that no area of ocean if left “undropped” or “unlistened” for more than three hours, which is the absolute minimum time an SSN can breach the sonobuoy “ribbon”.
There would therefore be 8 MPA sorties a day so I’d suggest a purchase of 12 aircraft leaving 4 in a maintenance pool.
@DN, the Sea Herc has a lot going for it and would eliminate the need for a mixed hi-lo fleet as I have advocated. Can it be high end enough to satisfy our real needs though?
You know, I still quite like the idea of a Sea Atlas, using the same basic concept to adapt it for a range of other ISR type missions
Fleet commonality and all that
@Mickp & TD,
‘Can it be high end enough to satisfy our real needs though?’
I think it can, and more importantly high end enough for our budget.
‘You know, I still quite like the idea of a Sea Atlas’
I do too, used in the same way that the C130 has been utilised over the years as EW and other specialist roles. I’m sure with the experience that Lockheed has with converting the C130 to various missions they could do the same for the A400.
I think the C130 is a good compromise between the C295 and high end P8, it’s a proven airframe and we have decades of experience in using it coupled with infrastructure plus there are a few MOTS solutions out there for some ISTAR roles. I would not think it would be too hard to place SAR in the two sponsons that would be added for the Sea Herc. And maybe use a MOTS shelf AWAC’s system.
On hols at the moment so not been able to read all the comments. I do agree with the point that a group of assets could give a more cost effective option and may give even greater capability. A single all singing and dancing airframe may give a reasonable level of capability in a is single place, but the cost of implanting and supporting a new a/c type and the fact that with only a few could be afforded leaving gaps, how about the following:
Upgraded maritime sensors on the E3 and Sentinal – able to process input from multiple sources
Palletised sonar bouys on the hercules
Dipping sonar on the Wildcat
More smaller ships with TAS and / or 2 additional ASW T26s
8th Astute
Maritime capability for the Reapers
Maritime attack capability on the Tiffies
@TD
Me too.
Stores delivery from the rear ramp, opening the door(s) without depressurising the whole bay and we’re set.
I’m more a non military observer so humour me.
One of the arguments for a MPA is to ensure that Trident has unfettered access when going out on patrol. You could argue that more cost effective options could be developed, for example you could have a network of passive/listening buoys secured to the seabed by submarine (no obvious signs), but programmed to recognise particular vessels characteristics. Trident could interrogate these buoys when going out and optimise its route. These buoys could be disposable using a battery or longer life using radioisotope thermoelectric generators type technology (Leicester is doing space based research on such technology).
@TOC
‘Stores delivery from the rear ramp, opening the door(s) without depressurising the whole bay and we’re set.’
Side sponsons similar to the Sea Herc, use for stores, fuel and mission systems maybe?
@Mark M,
What would be the cost of a few North Sea accommodation platforms to fly Merlins from?
Two things going for a UK A400MMA with sponsons as mentioned above various packages could fitted as well as being a tanker for support . The article below mentions that Spain and Germany are looking to off load 26 of their commitment to the A400M, is this an opportunity for the future to have airframes available for the MMA options other than hauling cargo.
http://australianaviation.com.au/2014/08/photo-a400m-demonstrates-refuelling-capability/
After the Nimrod abortion does anyone seriously imagine anyone with any ASW knowledge is going to go to HMG and suggest either.
Right forget seedcorn and the fact we could buy the MPA that the US and the Australians are going to use. What we propose is to use a system of systems, we are going to some how modify those c130 s that are going out of service to drop sonobuoys from a pallet. Then we are going to modify either the E3 or Sentinel to monitor the buoys and then we are going to find another platform to drop weapons if required. It will be fine after all it is hardly as if the E3s or Sentinels or C130s are busy and it will only cost a small fortune for modifications and having 3 platforms to do the job of 1 and not knowing what the 3rd one would be is also cool. what do you reckon boss?
or
2.Forget seedcorn boss what we have decided will work best is to buy some extra A400M and then turn them into MPAs. I know they cost as much as a P8 unmodified and nobody has ever modified one before, we do not know which ASW system will be fitted, where we will put the radar and that the comms fit will have to be hugely upgraded. We will have to cover all the R&D and future upgrades as well as weapon integration but it will be fine.
Think defence occasionally becomes dream defence :)
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/uk-reveals-scope-of-39seedcorn39-maritime-patrol-368936/
‘involving MPA assets flown by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA’
What does seedcorn have to do with it? it is a method of retaining skills not testing future purchases. And from the sentence above we have had personnel on P3’s, which is the same systems that are fitted to the Sea Herc. Why would you convert old C130 airframes and not buy new ones?
Why does every one assume that because someone suggested A400 or C130 that they intend to use the ones already purchased and not an additional buy to cover the tasking? the reason for suggesting it is commonality, the same arguments used for other airframes.
@Monkey – @apats makes a very good point about the existing seedcorn initiative with respect to MPA – but there is no good reason not to pick up extra A400m airframes if they fall of the back of a euro-lorry; we are likely to need them in the next few years as our immediate neighbourhood seems likely to descend into one variety or another of hellish chaos from the Baltic to the Gulf of Guinea.
Won’t happen though… :-(
GNB
@DN
20 out of 32 are in the Us working with P8. Australia is going to switch to P8. Believe it or not as well as maintaining skills thee personnel are gaining fantastic skills on the mission equipment which would be priceless as we looked to set up our own training programme.
How many countries have bought Sea Herc and we are getting rid of ours (maybe retaining a few for 47 flight) so hardly commonality. I even talk about the price of A400M in my post so where do I sugest that we would not buy new airframes? I merely point out that it would be a brave person to seriously suggest something as uncosted, unproven and risk laden as an a400MPA after the Nimrod fiasco when we have personnel already flying and using the new MPA entering service with our largest and closest ally.
@APATS
where do I sugest that we would not buy new airframes?
‘will be fine after all it is hardly as if the E3s or Sentinels or C130s are busy’
we are going to find another platform to drop weapons if required.
The Sea Herc can deliver weapons from it’s sponsons.
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/content/dam/lockheed/data/aero/photos/c-130/Variants/M12-1166510A002%20SC-130J%20Sea%20Herc%20Bro%20Media.pdf
‘How many countries have bought Sea Herc’
None, how many of all the P3 users have bought P8’s rather than SLEP’ing their current systems?
The P8 is also unproven, and still under development.
P-8 is a bargain.
MRA4 hit £400m per aircraft!
Let me dream about A400MPA, it gets the engineering gears turning and keeps an old man happy :)
@APATS
Do you buy into the P-8 as an MMA platform or do you see it “just” being an MPA?
@DN
Look at my comment and I talk specifically about buying new A400Ms. The post i responded to talked about modifying E£ and sentinel, are you seriously suggesting we should buy new E3 and sentinel for ASW duties? Also the post talked about a 3rd platform to drop weapons without mentioning what it would or could be.
So nobody has bought Sea Herc, has it even been built or is it a PP presentation? It does have an advantage over the A400 MPA which is not even a power point presentation. To compare an aircraft nobody has built or bought and one that nobody has even designed with one that is flying missions is pretty amusing.
It may have escaped your notice but we do not own or operate any P3 Orions to actually SLEP.
@TOC
Initially as an MPA but we need to see how it develops, we may end up with airframe commonality but more dubious about some peoples view that it will be multi mission every time it takes off. However electronics are getting more compact so who knows.
@DN
Two of the premier P-3 operators have upgraded to P-8.
‘The post i responded to talked about modifying E£ and sentinel, are you seriously suggesting we should buy new E3 and sentinel for ASW duties?’
No, and I never have.
‘So nobody has bought Sea Herc’
No, probably because it uses the same systems as the P3, so they just SLEP’d the airframes they already had.
‘It may have escaped your notice but we do not own or operate any P3 Orions to actually SLEP.’
I know. We also don’t have any fixed wing MPA whatsoever, have we lost any subs? have our allies sunk any for us? so what exactly is the threat to the CASD to justify a small buy of one trick ponies that will not be used outside of the UK because they are tied down protecting another one trick pony that will never be fired in anger? What is the problem of purchasing a larger fleet of good enough airframes that we can afford that can be used any where?
@TOC
‘Two of the premier P-3 operators have upgraded to P-8.’
How many haven’t?
@APATS: yes indeed. Spat out the cornflakes with that one..perhaps I should say tapas, seeing as where I am this weekend :-)
No one purchased CVR(T) before we developed it, no one has purchased T45 after we developed it
Not seeing the argument either way for P8 based on the lack of sales of a Sea Herc
@DN
“What is the problem of purchasing a larger fleet of good enough airframes that we can afford that can be used any where?”
They can either do the job of locailsing and if required prosecuting an SSN in the North Atlantic or they cannot. We either replace the capability that should not have been gapped or we do not. at the moment the feeling across the 3 services is that we should. the threat matrix is changing and our allies may be getting fed up carrying our share of the burden.
What quite rightly there is little appetite for is another UK only high risk solution.
what you need to understand ref p3 and SLEP is that the countries that are doing so already operate them and are looking to push their life out until the early 2020s and how many are doing the full SLEP most are simply upgrading mission kit. They wil still have to make a decision on a replacement in the early 2020s. Norway ordered new wings but is still having reliability issues and is looking at P8.
If we had P3 in service I would be the first to champion a SLEP but trying to obtain airframes and then “SLEP” them whilst going through the entire process of introducing a new aircraft with all the support, logs and training involved to have to work out how to replace it again in a decade makes little sense.
Your opinion on CASD made me chuckle because I am actually pretty ambivalent about its future but the suggestion that MPA would never ever be used elsewhere is ridiculous and totally disregards recent and historical use.
@TD
CVR(T) and T45 were both UK industry products and we did not have people training and flying an in service rival at the time. we also did not have Nimrod baggage surrounding the purchase.
APATS,
I have not undertaken ASW operations recently (as will show from my next statement), but are you seriously suggesting that chucking a few auto-chuting, auto-deploying, auto-transmitting, auto-data-store-and-forwarding sonobuoys out of an A400M is particularly difficult?
Please remember I advocate splitting the detect and prosecute parts of the equation so leaving A400M to detect and using something else to haul a few torps can’t be that difficult.
‘If we had P3 in service I would be the first to champion a SLEP’
I thought we were talking about the Sea Hercules and A400.
‘suggestion that MPA would never ever be used elsewhere is ridiculous and totally disregards recent and historical use.’
We had more airframes then, what is the proposed purchase of P8, 5-6 how can we send them anywhere else with so few airframes and a standing task of protecting the deterent?
@ Simon
The A400M fleet is going to be worked like a dog doing what it is being bought to do. So you are going to need extra airframes which cost as much as a P8 before we even do anything to allow sonobuoys to be deployed and then we still need another platform to monitor them and if required deploy weapons. So yes to actually get an effective system it would not only be difficult but bloody expensive.
@DN
There has been no decisions on numbers at all, you are merely repeating assumptions made on here ref numbers. During libya we had 3 MPA aircraft and they were extremely useful. UK E3 manage to contribute to NATO ops so even a buy of 5-6 initially would allow us to contribute to coalition ops and ASW exercises.
Do not confuse the standing task of protecting the deterrent with continual flying, it is the ability to respond rapidly and then persistence comes into it.
@Mark M
We already have seabed sensors – SOSUS is the most famous and will probably turn up the most on Google. They are a useful part of the team but obviously can only give you a datum which has to be followed up by other means (and quickly, Nimrod’s speed is a big advantage here over S-3 or helicopter). And obviously they are predictable so the enemy can plan around them to some extent.
@DN
What would be the cost of a few North Sea accommodation platforms to fly Merlins from?
More than a River if you’re buying new – Floatel have been buying semisubs for about $300m lately (this was one of their cheaper ones at $280m – http://www.kepcorp.com/en/news_item.aspx?sid=4084) – plus running costs and abandonment costs. Jackups would be a bit cheaper but can only go up to ~400′ of water so the central North Sea but not further north or west. There is perhaps scope for a deal for a second-hand one from a company looking for a share of abandonment costs, but I’m not sure there’s a great advantage over land basing given the geography.
We also don’t have any fixed wing MPA whatsoever, have we lost any subs? have our allies sunk any for us? so what exactly is the threat to the CASD to justify a small buy of one trick ponies that will not be used outside of the UK
There’s an old saying – battleships are cheaper than battles….. Part of the problem with al Qaeda is that Trident was not an effective threat against them, so we had to go into battle against them. And the threat is real – the only allied warship sunk since the Berlin Wall came down was the Cheonan.
APATS, are you confusing the programme cost of an A400M with the follow on manufacturing cost?
@APATS
Based on what the Aussie’s are paying we will need a budget of about £2-2.5 billion for a decent number of P8’s, have we got that? And should we spending that on an MPA when the threats facing us now are predominantly security/policing to our own territory and land based from jihadists ( in North Africa, Africa and the Middle East) with maybe Russia when there are cheaper alternatives available?
@TD
I am looking at what we know people have actually paid for units and not some hopeful literature on what they may cost in the future if we manage to sell enough or that other countries may sell them “cheap”. that is not even taking into account the “extremely” optimistic outlook on how easy and cheap it would be to turn one into an MPA.
A400 could be an MPA, probably a very good one but let us not delude ourself that it would either be cheap or simple.
@DN
None of us know what the available budget is. As for the current Jihadist threat. They do pose a security issue but that does not mean we stop looking at military threats and development. They offer no aqctual land based military threat that the west could not end very swiftly. The issue is Political will and for once we are actually trying to avoid a blatant dose of short termism.
@APATs: I can well imagine someone going to HMG (the same one that scrapped the Nimrod) and saying you know what chaps you were right in 2010, we don’t need to spend the mega bucks on the P8, we just need to spend some more cash on what we gave and sweat it a bit more.
@ repulse
You may imagine but all the indicators and whispers suggest not.
Seedcorn could as easily get there p45 as a new plane come sdsr2015 so what there currently flying may add to the debate but should not be a determining factor. Given the number of rn personnel on f18 super hornets and cvn we’d be buying them instead of f35 if the same logic was applied..
What are we looking to do is it just a mpa or are we serious about a long term look at total future airborne istar requirements and replacements across the board with an appropriate force mix. P8 is an option but not the only option it remains to be seen if the mod will run a competition or a foreign sole source contract solely for an mpa.
We almost did buy F-18…
On the price it varies greatly depending on what you also include so you can operate it.
“In February 2014, the Government of Australia announced its purchase of eight P-8As + options for four additional aircraft in a $3.6 billion deal. The P-8A will replace Australia’s aging AP-3C Orions. The first aircraft will be delivered in 2017 with all eight aircraft fully operational by 2021.
In July 2013, Boeing was awarded a $2.0 billion contract by the U.S. Navy for 13 P-8As. The contract runs through April 2016. On February 25, 2014, Boeing was awarded a contract valued at $2.1 billion to build 16 P-8A Poseidons through April 2017”
A buy from the UK is to be more like the Oz purchase than the USN I would of thought.
As an aside if we operate the P8 supporting USN P8’s allocated to Europe in the event of a flare up should easier as we can share a facility .Also if it comes to sealing up the North Atlantic from the Red Menace who are in direct confrontation with NATO it will be all of Europe’s MPA Fleet with us assisting what they already do without us . Our buy need not be more than what the Ozzie’s are getting as we should be able to protect a UK only task force with 8 MPA supported by some Voyagers leap frogging from airport to airport , that needs only a 3000m runway with a fuel supply , the supporting Voyagers can bring in the support crews and kit.
Link from which quote extracted . PDF part way down from USN on what they pay
http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/P-8-Poseidon.html
@Simon
Please remember I advocate splitting the detect and prosecute parts of the equation so leaving A400M to detect and using something else to haul a few torps can’t be that difficult.
Trouble is that you end up with lots of personnel and your sensors and weapons in different places whilst trying to prosecute a fleeting contact. Remember that analogy of ASW being like trying to shoot someone who’s carrying a faulty flashlight in a dark cellar? You get fleeting contacts which need to be prosecuted quickly before you lose them.
It’s nearly 800 miles from Lossie to Reykjavik – say your sensor picks up a sub halfway between. If your weapons have to take off from Lossie – or just happen to be 400 miles east or west of the contact, then at C-130/P-3 speeds your weapons won’t arrive for an hour. An Akula could be anywhere in 4000 square miles by then. OK – so in that case you could forward base your response, but they might still be out of position, and it doesn’t help you much in the Western Approaches or down south. It makes life a lot easier if you co-locate your sensors and weapons. Again this might be a case where some time with a simulator like C:MANO (no affiliation, never used it but reviews are good) might help people work out what is plausible and what just doesn’t work.
@TD
A400M unit cost in the French FY13 budget is €152.4m (US$200m) excluding development, programme cost of €8,900m for 50.
http://www.senat.fr/rap/a13-158-8/a13-158-813.html#toc174
Isn’t P8 just another aircraft type to add to the list of spares, maintenance engineers and problems?
Regardless of the net overall cost if an MPA capability we need to rationalise our military airliners.
So we’ll be operating…
6 x Boeing 707 (AEW – 160t)
3 x Boeing 717 (SIGINT – 146t)
14 x Airbus A330 (Voyager – 233t)
8 x Boeing C17 (Strat Lift – 265t)
22 x Airbus A400M (Tac Lift – 141t)
8 x Boeing 737 (MPA – 86t)
and getting rid of…
24 x C-130 (Tac Lift – 80t)
Can you see the lunacy?
Might as well put my suggestion forward rather than just listing the problems…
Rationalise AEW, SIGINT, A2AR and MPA onto A330.
…and buy more C17, eight just isn’t enough ;-)
Talk about Sea Atlas is all good and fine, but there is not even a concept. The aircraft is not even introduced in it’s intended roles, and given history of EADS/Airbus defence projects (NH90, Tiger, Eurofighter, A400M) I would really be impressed if this would be the first plane reaching something like a first class availability (there is currently a discussion in Germany exactly about this).
I think, we cannot afford to sink a billion in a A400 MPA development project, when the same sum buys us something like a 5-6 aircraft real capability. But… we can always invent a new acronym (I would propose FMESS -> Future Maritime Effects System or Something) and bury some money, despite the ultimate choice being utterly clear.
Simon,
The Rivet Joint is an offshoot of the KC135 and although subtly different from the 707 and once having an initial designation of 717 it had nothing in common with the actual 717 which was produced from the mid 80s until just after 2000. The 717 was a single aisle twin rear engined air liner.
The A330 is simply too big for the roles you want to allocate it and we would yet again have to fund the R&D.
The way I see it APATS is that there is a requirement for overland and oversea patrol. Both require 24-7 AEW. Both require SIGINT and comms relay.
The AEW platform may as well launch with enough fuel to support a couple of scrambled Typhoon allowing longer on-station combat/patrol. Using my separate “detect” and “prosecute” assets the same is true for the oversea MPA platform. The MPA “tanker” carries all the load in terms of buoys and fuel. We then prosecute with scrambled jets or vectored UAS.
They also act as the high-bandwidth comms relays necessary to keep many of the UAS aloft in the future – something else people don’t seem to be thinking about, or at least, seem to think it will all be done through satellite relays.
So essentially you have ISTAR hubs capable of a) detecting, b) supporting and c) disseminating. You then have dedicated attack platforms that can be used in a projected sense from one of these “hubs” or from a land-based (or sea-based) airfield.
What I find interesting in this debate is how little things have conceptually moved on since the 1960’s.
Frigates, towed and hull mounted sonars
Helicopters with dipping sonar and torpedos
Large multi engine MPA’s dropping sonobuoys and torpedos
With all the advances in aeronautical engineering, unmanned and computing systems we still seem to be in the same boat, just with wetter paint
PS
Japan has just requested additional budget for amongst other things, 20 P1’s. The maths works out at £109 million each
TD,
I proposed the solar (or thermocouple) powered loitering sono-torpedo a couple of years back.
I guess no one fancied leaping onto something new :-)
@all
the requirment has’t changed nimrod was the right aircraft for the job
what we have to choose from dosn’t do the job because one hasn’t the range
or endurance and the rest are 2nd teir so just bite the bulliet and develop one
just use the systems that are in the p8 but put it in a airframe that gives us the range
and endurance and payload yes it mite cost more but at least we will have the right
aircraft for the role and buy at least 24 because that what was needed
“What I find interesting in this debate is how little things have conceptually moved on since the 1960s”
True TD, but the sea isn’t a really forgiving environment and it’s not the medium that we focus a lot of attention on. For example, radio. While we have made huge strides in telecommunications above the water, with satellite rebroadcasting, UAVs, ISTAR etc, once you get into the water, radio becomes near useless. We don’t even have a secure long range mobile communications system for underwater usage and I’m not sure if there is even a physical system that can do the job. Current long range comms still involve the sub surfacing and using a ULF system or ELF underwater. This also affects our detection systems, we are heavily radar/radio wave based in detection, take that out, and we are short sighted and groping around in the dark. Which is a good description of submarine warfare.
@El Cid, @DN
I like the seabed buoy idea as it could allow a submarine to discretely leave, but with some degree of additional information. Locally based Merlins ( land or sea based platform) could certainly do a job, but indicates to anyone watching/monitoring that one of our subs is about to leave. It depends on what works best, is it the case now that no matter how discrete you are technology allows others to know when you are leaving ? In which case the use of sea and air based assets to clear the way make more sense.
As far as a replacement for the Nimrod is concerned the current finances dictate that something has to be traded for it. I fear that it may take a bloody nose in eastern Europe to realise that we have to increase the defence budget not cut it.
We still don’t need the chuffing things as much as we need other capabilities.
MPA is more than just a SSBN protector, they are useful for keeping a watch both surface and subsurface on the seas around our coastline. I think it is a necessary requirement, the type of aircraft depends on how much money there really is available for such a reinvestment.
The trouble with one air frame being used for a multiple number of tasks is that one plane can only be in one place at a time, so if this means fewer aircraft doing more roles then I don’t think that is necessarily a good idea.
I would be happy with 14 C295 possibly with the same equipment as the Merlin and ? even operated by the RN , if funds available then maybe 8 or so Sea Hercs. This as a medium term solution pending a long term European one.
If funds are really limited then 12 C295 and additional Merlin’s for the RN.
@APATS
‘They offer no aqctual land based military threat that the west could not end very swiftly’
It will be all over by Christmas! They are well funded and recruited and have gained a reputation for scaring the Sh*t out of their opposition with terror tactics. They have acquired a decent amount of hardware but without the ability to use it properly. I know we would win but they might be a harder slog than the Taliban and Iraqi army.
@TD
‘The maths works out at £109 million each’
That’s pretty much the same as the P8 per airframe, has it got better range and endurance? If you consider the avionics package for the P8 costs $33.23 million. http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/P-8-Poseidon.html
Do you know the airframe cost of the P1? the airframe of the P8 – including the two CFM56-7B engines – makes up $139.46 million
Would it be worth chatting to the Japanese about some other specialist airframes as well? As the Japanese are major allies with the Americans in the Pacific they should have some interoperability with the US P8’s.
@rec
I don’t see a problem with the C295 either, we could buy a decent number and have some money left over for a few more A400. If range is the limiting factor then we can use AAR. Although I don’t know where they would fit in a plan to consolidate airframes, would the range be a large limiting factor to prevent the airframe being used as an E3 replacement? But then again with modern systems improving the range over legacy systems would it be that much of a problem?
With regards to the C295 with the RoRo MPA fit out the Portuguese and Chilean navy report using them for 11 hour plus missions . I am guessing they have wound down aircraft speed down to the optimum to save fuel to achieve this. This aircraft is a lot slower dash speed than MRA4/P1/P8/A400M notionally but how do/did they achieve their endurance? They too slow right down to conserve fuel I would imagine.The aircraft can have six hard points on the wings for external stores/sensors The new variant, the C295W, is standard from this year .The W is for winglets which give 3 to 6% better fuel economy and new engine ratings ( same engine but re rated) allow it to produce more power so the MTOW is increased by 1000kg. The C295 is available now and is cheap compared to the rest. It can operate from small unprepared strips giving flexibility for forward deployment. When its not an MPA it can revert to its medium cargo role . There is even an AEW version .
In the end people will bang on about its range but at over 11 hours endurance that’s a lot of time over water in a very tough airframe ( it can land with its MTOW onto an unprepared strip I bet the P8 can’t repeat that trick without becoming a pile of burning scrap).
On an aside the MPA and AEW variants have been developed by AirbusMilitary themselves without 10’s of billions of €’s and decade upon decade being spent , if we stay out of it and just write them a letter saying we are prepared to buy x number of RoRo the C295 packages AS IS with a view for you to fit them to the A400 we might be surprised that they already have it in hand deliberately not asking specific nations to contribute as they know those specific nations will want it done to their specific requests vastly inflating the costs and time involved , and time is money after all.There maybe an A400M AEW in the offing.
http://old-airbusmilitary.unusualwonder.com/Surveillance/C295.aspx
This thread seems to be going in circles. One thought off thread (probably bought on by the Sicilian sun); would it be possible to create a containerised ASW capability by a deploying a dipping sonar off a mini crane? Appreciate the ship would need to be stationary, but could give a useful additional capability that could be deployed from patrol craft in both deep and shallow water.
Just in relation to ro-ro systems ect
http://militaryaircraft-airbusds.com/InnovationAndTechnology/FITS.aspx
Because of its flexibility, it is suitable for different platforms and is already in service on the Airbus Military C212, CN235 and C295 special mission range of aircraft, as well as being at the heart of the company’s comprehensive upgrade of the Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft. It can also be introduced on other aircraft such as the A320 family.
The system is particularly well integrated into the Airbus Military aircraft, providing a ‘single face’ for the aircraft and mission system and avoiding the challenges faced in using different suppliers.
@Repulse
Why not increase the mobility of your ASW container by putting rotor blades on top of it? A helicopter is the ultimate modular package.
In fact you’re describing the LCS ASW module – admittedly it’s a bit more complicated, in effect the pinger from 2087 with the USN’s own towed array,but same general idea. You do need a significant crew for it though. You could perhaps imagine a lightweight version with CAPTAS Nano.
Mark,
Does Airbus do a 150t-ish offering. It seems the A320 is too small and the A330 is too large for some of my requirements :-)
@Repulse
Happy Hols !
That sun is good for you, predominately in a hot war ASW is to stop , by sinking them / driving them off , enemy submarines from sinking ships be they Military or Merchant. If every merchant man in a convoy had one of your idea they could take turns in stopping to listen uploading the data via satellite to central control , shades of plot tables taking feeds from ‘Chain Home’ radar. Central control could then order Containerised soft launched VLS on board or inform a local asset to prosecute the suspected sub. Effectively a moving SOSUS chain with several convoys moving across the Atlantic at any time a web of detection chains could sweep the Ocean clear. The merchant men would have no involvement other than following the stop start routine as ordered.
@Mark
Good link on the FITS, sometimes industry has to lead the way.
From the then Undersecretary of the Navy Robert Work writing in 2009:
“The missile magazine capacity of these 75 US ships is 7,804 battle force missiles, for an average magazine capacity of 104 missiles per ship. In contrast, the 367 surface combatants operated by the twenty next largest foreign navies carry only 65 more total battle force missiles (7,869), for an average war load of only 21 missiles per ship. In other words, the US surface combatant fleet currently enjoys a twenty-navy firepower standard.”
The US had as many VSL tubes than the next twenty Navies combined , aren’t we glad were on their side.
Urg! Wrong thread syndrome…
Ah ha. Found it. Replace my A330 statement above with the A310.
So that’s an A310 based AEW, MPA, AAR (already exists) and SIGINT platform.
Commonality = VFM
I’ll take 24 with FITS.
I believe at the turn of century 24 a310mrrt were offered to the raf to replace the vc10 fleet it could have developed further to replace other istar aircraft however no money was available to take up the option and nimrod was still nimrod 2000….
@Simon The A310 is out of production, as of 1998, so probably not a good long-term candidate.
The A320 is a family (one ‘stretch’ and two ‘shrinks’) with the various members having enough commonality so that pilots qualifying on one can fly any of them. From Wikipedia:
A318 103′
A319 111′
A320 123′
A321 146′
The corporate jet version of the A319 has removable extra fuel tanks in the cargo compartment. The standard A319 has a range of 3,700 nautical miles but the A319CJ with 8 passengers can do 6,000 nautical miles. So it should be simple for Airbus to do something similar to the A320/321.
The big issue with using any passenger jet as the base is that it is basically guaranteed that mods will need to be made in order to make an MPA out of it. The P8 is not a standard 737 but has, among other changes, a modified & strengthened wing.
That sort of change alone would, I am pretty certain, mean that it would need to be recertified will require the time and expense on top of the time and expense needed to develop & test the changes in the first place.
Fireworks and urine spring to mind.
The more I look into all this MPA stuff the more I think how foolish we were to have scrapped Nimrod.
You can spend money on creatig a strengthened airframe but it’s only worth it if you get some economies of scale. I wouldn’t expect an 80t A320 series to haul a MW radar around or carry much in the way of fuel so there is no point in having anything other than P8.
What I’m trying to do is create a European aircraft that can do AEW, SIGINT, AAR and MPA duties without resorting to 4 completely separate fleets with 4 completely seprate engines, spares, logistics, skills, etc. Perhaps we can ditch the AAR part and concentrate on the “sensing” parts in an A319 or A321, but without the additional 12 or so tanker aircraft in the mix it becomes very expensive per unit.
Surely France need to replace their Atlantiques?
Performance improvements
@Simon and JBDG
From the airbus website regarding enhancements available in the new year.
“A significant enhancement was the introduction of large wingtip devices called “Sharklets” – which provide up to four per cent reduction in fuel costs.
In addition, Airbus’ A319 will be even more fuel-efficient and eco-friendly with the A320neo new engine option now being offered to customers. This option is to deliver significant fuel savings of up to 15 per cent, along with double-digit reductions in CO2 and NOx emissions, additional range and lower operating costs.”
With these options selected a possible cruising range of 13,400km ! (that’s Berlin to NewYork and back and change )
On certification if Europe went the Airbus route as opposed to North American on replacing is MPA/ELINT/AEW&C/ISTAR etc Airbus could spread the costs onto the buyers over several decades. With hundreds of airframes due out of service in the next decade or so across Europe (i.e. upto the Russian border) the add on cost could be spread very thin. Would Antonov be interested in some of this work.
@ Monkey
Even with sharlets the max range of an A319 is 3,700 nmi. You have added 15% onto the corporate jet version range which has aa different cabin, extra fuel tanks in the cargo hold and obviously flys a CJ profile.
I’m not sure what your trying to put in what aircraft Simon to be honest but the maritime patrol radars aren’t really that big or heavy from what I’ve seen I think the p8 has its radar in the nose. Your prob talking sub 300lbs for most of them, ground radars much heavier though.
A319/737 will not have a big difference in terms of performance metrics, the problem you’ll have with trying to get new a320 series aircraft is there nearly full book at 42 per month till the turn if the decade. How much beyond 10hrs endurance with a 330+ cruise speed you need from aircraft for the tasks outlined here is tending towards the realms of gold plating.
@APATS
Indeed I should of been clearer. The CJ version is in use with many militaries around the world as their governmental VIP transport the Italians, Czechs, Ukrainians, Malaysians amongst others. I suspect that these have ‘ add on’s ‘ to help protect the occupants but like Air force one all hush hush.
http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=30
@ Mark
It is interesting that you talk about endurance and yes that is important but speed does also come into a bit and time on station at range can be important. That is why someone like Portugal has a mixed MPA Fleet and retains there P3 as well as C295. the P3 generally flies in the Atlantic or specified tasking in the Med the C295 flies the surface surveillance in the Western Med. It is fine to talk about 10 hours worth of endurance for a C295 but that is at 260kts and I can vouch with real time experience that this causes issues when tasking them.
I did a little calculation of a quite sad nature but here it is anyway.
A CN295 will give you 30 mins on staion at 1200NMI but take 280 mins to get there and 280 back.
A P3 will give you 4 hours at 1200NMI (rounded from 3 hours at 1325NMI) and take 220 mins to get there and 220 mins back.
A Sea Herc (though not yet flying) should give you 5 hours at 1200NMI (rounded from 4 at 1350NMI) and take 230 mins to get there and 230 back.
A P8 gives you 4 hours at 1200NMI and takes 165 mins to get there and 165 mins back.
So if you are talking ASW action at distance transit and loiter time determine the number of airframes required to achieve persistent presence and speed is important. If you are just doing coastal surveillance, EEZ patrol etc then speed is far less important as long as the aircraft can fly the circuit that you want it to.
Apas
Yes I would not disagree I think the 330knts with 10hrs endurance is around what is sensible. Once you start deviating above or indeed below that number by signifcant margins with the base aircraft you start to either need to spend large sums or degrade capability.
APATS,
You’re talking about MPA in a general sense. I think we’re talking about the No1 requirement of SSBN protection. In this case I can’t quite see how yout P8’s 2:45 is much different to my continuous airborne passes every 3:00 hours.
The bottom line is that continual orbits (in an emergency situation) will give equivalent coverage regardless of the aircraft speed. The only thing that changes is the number of aiframes you need to maintain coverage.
You seem to be talking about vectoring in an MPA asset which means something else must have been there to “raise the alarm”. I don’t quite see what this would be in the GIUK gap, although I appreciate a NATO task force might like the idea ;-)
P-8 radar is the AN/APY-10 housed in an enlarged nose cone.
@ Simon
I am talking about the requirement to respond and actual tasking missions. Which may be a geographical location distanced from base. people do not quote endurance at range for the fun of it. Yes it does massively impact the number of airframes required to generate a constant presence. Once you get above 240 mins transit time you are also looking at launching a second aircraft before the first even arrives on station.
As for vectoring and response well we tend not to fly around randomly :)
I was not aware you had offered up whatever an “airborne pass” is every 3 hours?
@ Mark
“the problem you’ll have with trying to get new a320 series aircraft is there nearly full book at 42 per month till the turn if the decade”
I believe that there is a backlog of 35 P8s to be built for the US (at c. 8/year) and a backlog of the base 737-800 of >1400. So how much quicker would we get P8s delivered?
Do we think that the US would give us some of their slots? If so then if we asked Airbus to develop an A320 based MPA, we could ‘buy’ some slots a few (3? 4?) years down the line. I believe that this is not uncommon, when one airline needs planes more urgently than another one.
I am not banging the drum for an A320 based MPA. I just don’t think that this point that you made is that big of an obstacle.
I don’t see what the advantage that an Airbus gives us over P-8.
Either:
We’ll buy P-8 at “export” rates, in which case we’re avoiding significant R&D costs but will be lumbered with periodic strip down and refresh costs.
or
We’ll join the P-8 program in the same manner as we’ve joined Rivet Joint, in which case costs may appear higher initially but we’ll be sharing ongoing developments (opportunity for UK industry in itself) and receiving regular refreshes alongside the largest fleet operator who’s already all-in.
Much as I’d like to see the wings of an MPA made in the UK I just don’t see how a UK (or EU) developed platform is going to be cheaper than a P-8, more capable or refreshed as often.
APATS,
Sanitising the ocean ahead of an SSBN launch is a proactive operation, not a reactive one. There’s no randomness ;-)
And yes, you may have to have the 2nd one launch before the 1st on gets on station (if you use C295 for example). Although I’m not currently arguing the case for the C295 just pointing out that for proactive santisation it makes little difference -reactive ops however, yes, much slower to station.
Airborne pass means an aircraft overflies a passive sonobuoy to upload data captured over a three-hour window which is about the maximum we could afford with a GIUK sonobuoy ribbon.
Just some thoughts
1] Ignoring Europe has anyone considered the Embraer KC-390?
I would prefer Europe but this could be a solution – has speed, range and volume/capacity.
Availabilty is probably the problem.
2] I feel we have to look at two platforms, possibly unmanned for local work and stategic long range data gathering with manned for long range attack as required; possibly in concert with the Navy.
Just for reference C295 can loiter for about four hours at 1200nm with three tonnes of ASW kit – 14 hr mission, which I won’t be putting my hand up for though ;-)
@ Simon
CN 295 has a max range of 2500 NM its endurance improves at a cost of speed. I have tasked them.
If you open the link and then the c295 MPA pdf it confirms APATS understanding , it even quotes a little less , perhaps those Portuguese pilots really know how to eek out the fuel.
http://c295.ca/resources/documentation/
The new C295W would improve this a little , it can take off with an extra 1000l of fuel and gets a tiny bit more mpg but not much. You just extend the mission duration and have a much more tired crew , I have worked 18 hours days before an trust me your concentration goes.
APATS, monkey,
C295 can do 2500nm with what load and Mto?
You task Merlin too… without bigger tanks… so you think it can only do a 4hr sortie. It can do way more!
@Simon
You will get no argument from me about its endurance or suitability for EEZ patrol work .
Fly out for an hour from the nearest field (an it could be literally be a field) straight out to your designated patrol zone pick up data from the previous flights sonobouys before they sink themselves and the other patrols data and choose your course. 1 hour out ,8 hours on station, 1 hour back ,a days work done. You would need three per day for constant coverage and at £40-50m a plane you could buy 3 for every P8.
However you cannot dash off to a report from a ASW Frigate or ASW Helo to give support if they are much more than a couple of hundred miles away because any further and you will arrive to late to help. By all means have the C295 MPA in the mix but for mid Atlantic ASW its a no show without AAR and when war breaks out the availability just wouldn’t be there.
Monkey,
“However you cannot dash off to a report from a ASW Frigate or ASW Helo to give support if they are much more than a couple of hundred miles away because any further and you will arrive to late to help. By all means have the C295 MPA in the mix but for mid Atlantic ASW its a no show without AAR and when war breaks out the availability just wouldn’t be there.”
Point taken but… if we have an ASW Frigate in the North Atlantic that can sense an SSN then that SSN is pretty damn close. Close enough to be located and engaged by the embarked Merlin. It doesn’t need MPA in the picture until it’s 4hrs of fuel is spent after which the two scrambled C295 will have covered 1000nm.
If the “contact” is detected by Astute then guess which asset should track, shadow and ultimately engage the bandit?
This is the problem. Reactive ASW from a Icelandic fishing trawler is a) not really viable with C295, and b) not really viable with P8 either.
@ Simon
Well thanks for “educating” me on Merlin range and capabilities.
I spent over 2 years with CN295s operating under our OPCON, I have seen them fly a variety of missions from ASW to surface search to SAR and seen them fly at various payloads. I have had too many “no cans” when trying to retask them or extend missions even on live ops. They are simply limited when tasked out beyond 1000Nm from base.
” It doesn’t need MPA in the picture until it’s 4hrs of fuel is spent after which the two scrambled C295 will have covered 1000nm.”
Which will have taken them almost 4 hours and they will be thinking about turning back.
If there is a requirement and if there’s money and if there’s an open bid then from what’s known publicly at present 4 options will be offered
Boeing p8, Airbus cn295, L3 q400mpa and Saab swordfish
Cn295 prob gd out to about 600nm further than that it’s limited.
@ Mark
No Sea Herc? Appreciate it is power point but so are the L3 Q400 and SAAB Swordfish. The swordfish claims 5.5 hrs at 200Nm so inferior to the CN295 and Not sure what the Q400 would offer. We already use C130J so spares and maintainers trained and if we have to trust something to go from PP to flying it should surely be the veritable C130 that has been used in many roles and the guys at LM know like the back of their hand. It also seems to promise decent performance.
Which will have taken them almost 4 hours and they will be thinking about turning back.
C295 has a range of just shy of 2000nm with a 6000kg payload and a fuel load of fuel (6150kg).
If one decided to take 3000kg of payload and 3000kg of additional fuel then it would be carrying about double the ASW kit that Merlin carries and 1.5 times the fuel which should give it a range of around 3500nm, or 14 hours of endurance, or 4 hours on station at 1250nm.
Unless ln(Wto/We) has changed recently.
Apas
Possibly sea herc might be offered may get awkward that one. The others won’t be power point much longer launch customer already sign up or so I’m very reliably informed but don’t expect announcement till next year when demonstrator will be flying with systems onboard. What the q400 offers http://www.janes.com/article/40721/farnborough-2014-l-3-promotes-dash-8-q400-mpa-for-the-uk
@ Simon
A cn295 has ferry range of just over 3000Nm empty. You want to redesign it to allow it to carry an extra 300KG of fuel and have a useful load of only 3000KG. Not to metion that it gets worse with weapons on hard points. There is a very good reason portigal keeps its P3 capability as well as its CN 295s.
APATS,
Yes it does have a 3000nm ferry range with a little over 6t of fuel.
Yes I do want to make a tiny modification to carry an extra 3t of fuel.
I wouldn’t use external hard points if I could help it.
To me, it is a realistic minimum capability that would allow the UK to get MPA and SAR capability back on a limited budget.
Anyhow, I don’t work for Airbus Military and quite like the look of a modified Q400, which would also have to have the same thing done to it to extend its range to 1250nm!
On a slightly different note I would suggest we cancel our A400M order if we are considering Sea Herc… although we do seem to have a knack of replacing things that work with things that don’t :-(
@ Mark
3-4 hours at 700NM :(
@ simon
A tiny modification which would see quite a lot of design and engineering work required. Do you not think that if it was easy, cost effective and allowed the sort of performance you claim that EADS may not have considered it as part of the MPA conversion? As for not using the hard points, where do the weapons go then?
“On a slightly different note I would suggest we cancel our A400M order if we are considering Sea Herc… although we do seem to have a knack of replacing things that work with things that don’t”
Why? LM have a plan for Sea Herc, an aircraft that has been modified to fulfill several roles. They have done the R&D, we already fly C130J and have trained maintainers. The performance offered is acceptable so we keep the maintainers, and handling and logistics chain in place. This dovetails with us probably keeping some C13J for 47 Squadron anyway.
Apas
Yep the price you pay for p3 cruise speeds on a smaller wing.
I do like the Selex Eagle option being suggested for the Q400 (AEW).
Compromise and go for the Sea Herc, the airframe is all ready multi-mission. And we have the infrastructure in place already.
Just so folks know what the SC-130J Sea Hercules options are:
Think Defence: Future Maritime Patrol – Part 6 (C130J and A400M Options)
Transferring the Sea Herc concept to A400M is discussed (stores delivery is an issue).
Note that conversion does restrict a Sea Herc’s use for other missions. The kit isn’t all Ro-Ro and there’s an argument that it should never be.
There’s an excellent brochure video linked at the beginning of the article, repeated here for convenience to whet your appetite for TD’s full details (Recommend 1m10s in):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtGM9ldHcgM
Interesting quote from that video:
Choices, choices, choices. My view and this thread does go round in circles but that is what an MPA should do. The capability need is clear and not disputed here. I feel HMG will go for a very small P8 buy enabling them to tick the box. It seems a capable aircraft and will have US interoperability benefits. However, a small fleet is just that and further we are in danger of having too many small fleets of specialist and different aircraft types. If we do have a small number of P8s then I think we need back up in terms of a larger number of aircraft to ensure full EEZ patrol etc. C295 MPA looks very good and would work if we perhaps could find a use for a larger fleet of them e.g. for SF work. Sea Herc is perhaps the more sensible aircraft as its well known to us and notwithstanding A400, we could retain a fleet for MPA and SF work, better range and more flexible than the C295. So, I’d raid the sofa now and go for an ‘UOR’ of a dozen of so new build Sea Hercs. In SDSR 2015 there should be a commitment to supplement the Sea Herc with a small very high end ASW buy and a roadmap to rationalise the future large platform fleet. Maybe we then end up with 12 or so Sea Hercs and say 8 P8s (or some Airbus equivalent).
From yesterdays written answers in Parliament, Is a P8 order, nearer then we think?
‘Angus Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what communication (a) he and (b) officials in his Department have had with the Boeing Company regarding the lease of four P-8A aircraft. [206988]
Mr Dunne: I am withholding the information requested, as disclosure would be likely to prejudice the formulation or development of Government policy.’
Regarding meetings, we know the following contacts have been made:
Boeing: Farnborough 2014 demonstrations and tours of P-8 and their Challenger-based MSA. Boeing currently “working with” the MOD to refine MPA requirements. Support of Seedcorn personnel on USN P-8A’s.
L-3 lead consortium: Presentation at Farnborough 2014 and submissions to MOD for Q400-based MPA.
Airbus Military: Presentation, demonstration and tours of Portuguese C-295-based MPA at Farnborough 2014.
Saab: Presentation of Saab 2000-based Swordfish MPA at Farnborough 2014.
Lockheed-Martin: Presentation of SC-130J Sea Hercules at Farnborough 2012. Support of Seedcorn personnel based on Canadian and Australian P-3C’s.
Northrop-Grumman: “Working with” MOD to define HALE requirements, specifically with regard MSA mission (i.e. MQ-4C).
General Atomics: Demonstration of “Sovereignty Capability” for MQ-9 Reaper in 2012 with new “plug and play” architecture to equip own equipment (P&P further demonstrated during Big Safari trials of Dual-mode Brimstone). Demonstration at the time specifically included a Seaspray 7500E multi-mode AESA radar. Offer confirmed to MOD in 2013 during Written Evidence to the Defence Committee to become a second “Design Authority” for the MQ-9 alongside the USA (Predator C Avenger development collaboration also offered).
Raytheon: Work modifying ASTOR on Sentinel R1 to include Maritime modes confirmed at Farnborough 2014.
Unknown but possible contacts: Dassault (Falcon-based MPA, Breguet Atlantique-III), Elbit (Hermes 900 MSA), Kawasaki (P1).
Undoubtedly there are many more offers and discussions.
Should be noted that Northrop-Grumman are also supporting Seedcorn personnel operating USN MQ-4C’s.
Sea Atlas, Sea Hercules, A320 MPA are just PDF’s, Computer Mockups and Models. They would be years before we could get get them into service. And as good as CN295 is as a Patrol Aircraft. It’s not a sub hunter. Pure and simple.
This is however is real:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_vOk319AFUU
And if we ask Boeing, US DoD and the US Navy very very nicely. We could have some within 12 Months of ordering some. We have apparently two crews trained on them, lets stop buggering about and just get the bloody P-8.
With regards to Sea Hercules – Being a four engine aircraft I wonder if there would be any improvement in performance if it adopted the down between engine setup the A400m has where the 2 props on each wing rotate in opposite directions. Or does it already do this?
There seems to be a rumour going around that there strong likelihood of an imminent lease of 4 P8s, is this a rumour or is there some facts here?
Very strong rumour based on a question in the Commons:
Emphasis mine. We have 20 RAF personnel on Seedcorn operating P-8A’s for the USN. 4 involved with the USN MQ-4C Triton programme and the remainder operating P-3C’s.
Notice how the word FRES is absent now
There’s also a weaker rumour stemming from July of a £650m deal for MQ-4C’s which sparked the Northrop-Grumman press release about “working with” the MOD to define HALE requirements.
This rumour is less solid, however. The press reports were largely confined to tabloid (Sun and Daily Mail IIRC) and hit just days prior to the Sentinel R1 upgrade announcement at Farnborough 2014 (Maritime Mode added to ASTOR, addition of a DB-110).
Having said this, if we’re just leasing P-8A’s, why not lease MQ-4C’s as well and compare them to “Maritime Edition” Sentinel R1 which would also be analogous to the Boeing MSA?
4 is a good number
– cfr. 4 Sentinels (with one taken aside to try out new kit)