WEBF - copy all ref MASC (I do mean FJ). . . however, JSF STOVL has about the same range and payload as a Golf GTi. When you start looking at anything more than BAI against a littoral opponent in the air-to-ground role, or how long it can stay on CAP in the air-to-air role (which will determine how many of the embarked ac will be needed to protect their own ship) you'd have to conclude that without (bootloads of) AAR the CVF will be a self-licking lollipop. I would agree with you if we were buying C-Variant JSF. . . but we aren't . . . a light blue, industry-inspired stitch-up apparently. . . or our interminable fascination with things that go jump in the night.
Bismark - you're right about the interoperability piece. However, for the majority of any campaign, that will be driven by whether or not we're on the net, rather than whether or not we're stealthy. Yes, there will be target sets that are so heavily defended that we'll want to use stealth, TLAM or Stormshadow - but how many and for how long? If we were being brutally honest, the US wouldn't really need our help in the early phases of
any campaign. Where they do need our help is in the UN and on the ground over the long haul. . . ask 'em whether we've been more valuable as allies during Telic 1 or Telic 8. . . . I don't know the answer, but if it caused a pause, then maybe it's not worth burning our conventional FJ capability to pay for a stealthy jumping bean. . .there's not a huge amount of stealth being used at the moment. No doubt they're all getting repainted and bombed-up ready for the Big One (in Iran or North Korea, or somewhere else where Perfidious Albion has no national interest or desire to get involved, thanks very much). As regards conventional air interoperability - well, that'll be determined by whether or not the US are prepared to tech-share JTRS (son of JTIDS). If they're going to be as tight with JTRS as they are with JSF, then maybe we ought to ask ourselves why we're always so keen to be a member of their gang. . .and whether or not it's time to go and start our own.
Jackonicko is right - don't knock Typhoon. It may be ugly but it's our baby, and it could be a truly great weapons system for want of a few Billion quid. That may sound crass, but we'll have spent 20Bn through life by the time we're done and a "a few Billion" is about 15% of what we're going to pay for JSF. Finally, if Typhoon is our baby, then JSF is somebody else's foetus, and we're going to end up sitting around for years waiting for its arrival. That's going to introduce further delays to CVF which is already being hollowed out by the vultures - if the Naval sheds had any sense they'd embrace Typhoon, which, to some degree, is a politically protected programme, and could meet CVF's in-service date. I don't buy any of the earlier lines on this thread about how difficult it would be to navalise Typhoon. I suspect the real difficulty might be how much it would cost to redesign CVF as a cats 'n traps carrier (although I am told a cat wouldn't be required) . . .
Tom "Bark like a dog for me" Power
