Originally Posted by
WE Branch Fanatic
....... If you did away with the ones on alert on deck, you could maintain two on station with six aircraft. I have to say I wonder why you need ones on alert on deck if you have Merlin equipped frigates - what am I missing?
Hiya
WEBF, always good to see your interest in such matters!
You asked if you were missing something as your figures for SK vs Merlin weren't adding up. I think, in some of your analysis, you may not be making correct assumptions which is why your figures don't add up or seem not to make sense to you. In reality, it was all a bit more fluid. Now, where's a PWO(U) and a PWO(A) when you need them!!!
I'll give this a go but my memory is, shall we say, a bit iffy!
Based on my time back in CVS SK days, the ASW Screen was based on 4 hour sorties designed to operate a long-term screen against a target difficult to locate (very little other Intel to assist you/provide early warning) and then track/destroy so the idea would be to maintain a continuous 24/7 barrier up-threat supplemented by Towed Array (T/A) and, also, other ASW helos which would only, if available, really jump in to help with a kill if something was detected. That could be a SK from an RFA or even a Lynx (or Wasp!) acting as a weapons carrier. The T/A sort of served as an "Early Warning" system. A SK on an RFA or wherever could also be tasked to perhaps extend the screen but that was independent - the main barrier was run by the CVS Sqdn alone using 3 cabs as the core Screen system.
Sometimes there was only one "on task" at any one time with one out-bound and one in-bound with, maybe, some overlap at handovers. With a buoy screen you could manage that. Other times there were 2 on task the whole time, with one always in transit to/from the CVS. You really did need 2 on task for active "pinging". So it all depended on how far out the screen was and what was happening etc, etc, etc. We could plod along Ripple-Three Double-Bubble (R-T D-B) for a couple of weeks if needed - tho it was knackering for all inc us Engineers.
The plan was a crew did a double 4 hr rotation .... out - back - RR refuel - out - back - crew change - out ....... etc, etc, etc. Your "alert on deck" generally was for 2nd SAR (as it was mutual SAR between the 3 in the ripple) and to then slot in to the R-T D-B when servicing became due on an A/C in the screen or an A/C went U/S on the Screen. Sometimes we had spares up the ying-yang ...... other times it was more "interesting" shall we say! Other lines were then generated from the additional "S" Cabs for HDS or whatever else was thrown our way but your 3 + a spare we tried not to touch! And you only ever shut down a SK when you really had to - they were happiest just chugging along.
The Baggers never, certainly in my memory, ever did anything approaching that. Why? I think its because ASW is very different to AAW. Certainly in the North Atlantic (main Op area at that time), you would get initial threat warnings for a land-based air strike from friendly nations or maybe a Frigate way out "up threat". So, effectively, you'd run a CAP for very much shorter durations (measured in hours not days) once an initial alarm had been raised. Your Sub threat is much more persistent and difficult to track once the boats were in the Atlantic where they could sit for weeks on end - hence the continuous screen - basically to cover a N Atlantic crossing. Also, operating at greater altitude, the Bags operated closer to the CVS IIR. I know positioning was based on some odd tactical constraints which often meant a Bag would be located in a seemingly odd position. I'll not discuss why here!
Also, there are other reasons why the SK and Merlin read-across may not work exactly. I don't have reliability figures but the Merlin-generation technology should (one hopes as that was the plan!!!!) be more reliable than the poor old SK so you need fewer assets to maintain a given Flypro. It could, as several have alluded to, be as simple as we have far less Merlins than SKs so they are spread more thinly - again, probably based on increased reliability predictions when Merlin was first being defined (plus the reduced ASW focus after the Cold War ended - cue another hot debate!!!), and maybe ££££s also caused numbers to be trimmed back (shurrly not!!!).
Anyway, that's what could be screwing up your read-across. As I say, this was all some time ago now so just how I recall things ran from memory. Anyway, hope this helps a bit. Hopefully someone else will chip in if I've got it wrong.
Cheers,
H 'n' H