UK Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Neutral Zone

Neutral Zone

Junior Member
plawolf said:
Just read a similar piece in the FT about the possibility of the UK changing to the 'B', but this seemed a little more 'solid', as it is quoting comments made by UK officials to the French that the RN will not be modifying it's carriers to allow French naval jets to land and take-off from them (meaning cats and traps).

The costs for the modifications seem ludicrously high ay £1.8bn. You could build yourself a frigging new carrier for that kind of money! Even the original estimate of £400m seem like a bad joke considering the bloody carriers were supposed to have been designed and built with provisions for adding cats and traps on later.

WTF is going on here?
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The justification for switching back to the B seems to be that the F-35 is too heavy to operate off CdG, I would really like to know if anyone has spoken to the French about that. Are we supposed to believe that in all the discussions with the French about defence co-operation no one asked them if CdG's flight deck was up to the job or that the French themselves didn't say "Err sorry but there's a problem at our end?"

Like Obi Wan I can smell a pretty big rat here! :mad:
 
asif iqbal

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
plawolf said:
Just read a similar piece in the FT about the possibility of the UK changing to the 'B', but this seemed a little more 'solid', as it is quoting comments made by UK officials to the French that the RN will not be modifying it's carriers to allow French naval jets to land and take-off from them (meaning cats and traps).

The costs for the modifications seem ludicrously high ay £1.8bn. You could build yourself a frigging new carrier for that kind of money! Even the original estimate of £400m seem like a bad joke considering the bloody carriers were supposed to have been designed and built with provisions for adding cats and traps on later.

WTF is going on here?
Click to expand...

another UK military fiasco is what i call it

Mod wanted to go for F35B, then it was changed to F35C and now they want to change it back to F35B!

it reminds me of the time during battle of Mid-way when Japanese navy couldnt make up their mind whether to use dive bombers or torpedo bombers and kept changing thier mind in the process lossing all 4 of their carriers

HMS Queen Elizabeth is set to get F35B and HMS Prince of Wales F35C using cats and traps, now changing the design requirments is delaying the entire projects induction date

all they keep saying is blaming the previous goverment, saying the last goverment wasnt up to the task and now we are going to correct their mistakes, and we know better, when infact they are both equally worthless

the military know what they are doing and they are pretty good at it, i would be suprised if British Prime Minister David Cameron actually knows what a cats and traps stands for, does he even know what a carrier is?

billions more wasted and tax payer fits the bill, then they complain that we losse "billions" because everyone takes a bank holiday on May Day!!!

forget about smealing a rat, i see a big rat, its in Downing Street!
 
S

Scratch

Captain
Thanks for the answers guys, helpfull and indeed also delightful to listen to some angry Brits once in a while. :)
Well then, this information mess gets hopefully cleared up by someone pretty soon.

Going back to the Sentinel mess that asif iqbal brought up earlier, maybe there's a chance these aircraft will still be put to use after A-stan.

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Raytheon touts future roles for RAF's at-risk Sentinel R1
By: Craig Hoyle London - 15 hours ago

Raytheon UK is eyeing possible applications for the Royal Air Force's Sentinel and Shadow surveillance aircraft, with both types expected to be retired once they are no longer required to support coalition activities in Afghanistan.

Representing combined fleets of 10 aircraft, the manned types provide a key part of the RAF's intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capability.
The Sentinel R1 force comprises five Bombardier Global Express business jets modified to carry a Raytheon synthetic aperture radar/ground moving target indication sensor and onboard stations for two image analysts. The aircraft forms part of the UK's Airborne Stand-off Radar (ASTOR) system, along with supporting ground elements.

[...]

With the ASTOR capability having been deemed surplus to requirements post-Afghanistan during the UK's Strategic Defence and Security Review of late 2010, two possible new roles have been suggested. Raytheon believes the system could deliver the UK's contribution to the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance system, which will also include an expected five radar-equipped Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned air vehicles.
Paul Francis, Raytheon UK's head of airborne solutions, says the Sentinel's dual-mode radar could also possibly be given software-based changes to enable it to provide a maritime patrol capability to search for, track and identify surface vessels.

Raytheon is under contract to provide logistics support for the Sentinel fleet until September 2016, and recently completed a build-standardisation programme on the fleet, performed at its Broughton site in north Wales. The RAF re-accepted the last of these in January, and deployed the aircraft - ZJ690 - in support of its Operation "Herrick" mission in Afghanistan less than two weeks later.
The UK's Defence Equipment and Support organisation says the undisclosed enhancements will provide "a much more robust ISTAR capability to support operations".

Meanwhile, a fifth Hawker Beechcraft King Air 350CER-based Shadow R1 was delivered to the RAF's 14 Sqn at Waddington last December. The unit's earlier examples have now all passed through a "return to works" programme at Broughton, with the process having added some undisclosed new capabilities.
Acquired under urgent operational requirement deals to support the Afghanistan campaign, the Shadow R1 carries an L-3 Wescam MX-15 electro-optical/infrared sensor payload, satellite communications equipment and up to three onboard operators. If retained long-term, the type could possibly also provide a maritime patrol capability by being equipped with Raytheon's SeaVue radar, Francis says.
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It would certainly be nice to have a manned component in the NATO AGS program along the Global Hawks. And if they can also perform maritime patrol duties maybe they can offset the Nimrod losses.
 
Neutral Zone

Neutral Zone

Junior Member
Scratch said:
It would certainly be nice to have a manned component in the NATO AGS program along the Global Hawks. And if they can also perform maritime patrol duties maybe they can offset the Nimrod losses.
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I certainly hope Sentinel stays in service longer, it's a hugely capable platform that can carry out a number of roles. It's potential use as a maritime patroller has been discussed elsewhere, it does seem that in the future the RAF will regain that capability initially with a low cost platform that will carry out the basic fishery protection, surveillance and long range SAR duties with maybe a squadron of Poseidons to handle the ASW work, budget permitting of course!
 
asif iqbal

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
if it was limited to just the Senitinal you would be forgiven, but do you know how much was spent on the Nimrod? £3.4 billion!!! then what did we see, the aircraft being broken to pieces by JCB digger, Sentinal we paid £1 billion for 7 years of operation

see AFM May Issue 2012

but then why would it stop there, 72 Harriers worth £1.5 billion sold to US Marines for 1/10th of the price

theres onnly one thing worse than spending money you dont have, and thats buying the wrong things with it and in doing so in the wrong way

even the Russian Baltic fleet was celebrating retirment of the Nimords, with a summer cruise around the British Isles, and guess which ship was sent to shadow it, HMS Liverpool!!! its was due for decommisioning for crying out loud!!! why didnt the Russians just land on Isle of Skye and have a pinic with some vodka

and where was the Type 45s?? somewhere in the Falklands and Arabian Sea
 
bd popeye

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
The justification for switching back to the B seems to be that the F-35 is too heavy to operate off CdG, I would really like to know if anyone has spoken to the French about that.
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Who ever stated that was mis-informed..

FN CdeG R91 has the same catapults and arresting gear as all USN CVNs. The same. The flight deck steel is the same.. What's the problem??
 
Obi Wan Russell

Obi Wan Russell

Jedi Master
VIP Professional
So CdG cannot operate F-35Cs? Yet she has no problem cross decking F-18s, E-2s (she has them in her own air group anyway!) C-2s etc, but the F-35? I smell something light blue and crustacean in nature. The kind that have been throwing wild and unbelievable figures around of late. Well, now it's My Turn!

The cost of converting One CVF to cat and trap has been revealed by the US Government to be £458 million to purchase the equipment and estimated installation cost of a further £400 million. Most certainly it is NOT £2 Billion for a single ship.

So conversion cost for both ships will be in the region of £1.7 Billion. That's delivered and fully operational.

The 'anti' brigade state it will be cheaper to switch back to the F-35B. The stated requirement was for 138 aircraft to meet the Carrier Strike requirement, which is about delivering a given amount of sorties needed to in turn attack an destroy a set number of targets. Recent figures revealed by the government show the same tasks could be done with a purchase of 97 F-35Cs (larger bombload, greater combat radius). the B is more expensive per airframe than the C. Those 138 'B's will currently cost £9 Billion. The 97 'C's will cost £5.2 Billion, added to the cost of the cat and trap conversion mentioned above, brings the figure up to £6.9 Billion. So the choice of the C and it's associated deck equipment still comes is significantly cheaper than the B.

Even if we go with the reduced numbers of F-35s being suggested, say fifty aircraft, the C still comes in cheaper than the B by enough of a margin to pay for the conversion of one carrier and still leave some loose change.
 
asif iqbal

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
or the UK has another choice, drop F35 and go for French Rafale M, but in politics theres no logic

F35 was meant to be built in large number, and cheap and economical answer to Western airforces , that has not happened

if Europeans starts sharing what they have and start co-operation rather than competition we would have been in a much better situation

BAE and Dassault work together? no way......................
 
F

Franklin

Captain
asif iqbal said:
or the UK has another choice, drop F35 and go for French Rafale M, but in politics theres no logic

F35 was meant to be built in large number, and cheap and economical answer to Western airforces , that has not happened

if Europeans starts sharing what they have and start co-operation rather than competition we would have been in a much better situation

BAE and Dassault work together? no way......................
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Or even a better idea make a naval version of the Eurofighter Typhoon. To me the Eurofighter Typhoon is a better plane then the Rafale. The Eurofighter is perhabs the second best plane in the world aside from the F-22 Raptor.
 
Obi Wan Russell

Obi Wan Russell

Jedi Master
VIP Professional
Franklin said:
Or even a better idea make a naval version of the Eurofighter Typhoon. To me the Eurofighter Typhoon is a better plane then the Rafale. The Eurofighter is perhabs the second best plane in the world aside from the F-22 Raptor.
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Typhoon is a better plane than Rafale, but not by that much. If you want it to go to sea, you'd have to design a completely new Typhoon-shaped airframe and fit Typhoon engines, Radars, avionics, electronics etc etc. The existing Typhoon airframe cannot be made carrier capable for a variety of reasons, mainly because as a land based aircraft it is just too fragile for deck landing. The time to decide on a 'SeaPhoon' was at best twenty years ago, even ten, but now it's too late. The ship has sailed on that one (pardon the pun).
 
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