From MOD news recently:
Royal Navy unveils carrier training facility
To keep up with the state-of-the-art technology on board sailors and engineers will be trained in a £1m building at HMS Collingwood in Fareham, Hampshire, which has been set out in the same way as an operations room on board the new carrier.
The personnel will be trained on the new mission system which links all the combat, communications and visual surveillance systems together by a fibre-optic network - these are usually separate on warships, allowing for a much more integrated way of working.
So Warfare Branch and Weapon Engineering types will be training for CVF, but not fixed wing pilots or deck crews?
I still think that the Government
could make this into a success story, by
leasing a few AV8Bs from the US (also worth considering other options and issues mentioned on this thread), and possibly either extending the life of HMS
Illustrious post 2014, and/or speeding up the build and entry into service of HMS
Queen Elizabeth. Additionally a radar equipped jet would help make up for the loss of ISTAR capability when Sea King ASaCs is retired before a replacement system is ready.
Things
have changed since October 2010, not only the switch back to F35B for CVF and the need to prepare for a STOVL future, but also the world has changed - for the worse.
The Harrier is the only type of aircraft (until F35B comes along) that can do STOVL shipborne operations, a capability I believe we need NOW. The US Marine Corps intend to carry on operating the AV8B into the next decade - and until 2025 or later if necessary.
Back on
17 December 2010, vecvechookattack wrote:
Originally Posted by vvha
We still need FDO's and flight deck crews. HMS Illustrious will still be embarking Fixed wing aircraft upto and until 2014.
Why is this not happening? Would embarking foreign Harriers be too embarrassing for the Government?
As an aside, I think that there will soon be an announcement in parliament regarding our Reserve forces and there future. What else might be announced? Last year's FR20 paper suggested using the Reserves to retain capabilities for the future, and recommended an enlarged RNR Air Branch. It also made other slightly odd and not very practical suggestions such as a coastal security role and a Caribbean based counter narcotics role, without going into the practical details. We are recruiting hundreds of extra Reservists, although there will be fewer RFAs and Chartered Vessels to provide force protection for, less ships/aircraft needing logistical support, and a reduced need for communications or other support. Perhaps an enlarged air branch (working with regular personnel as part of an enlarged NFSF(FW) perhaps?) is part of the way forward - with borrowed Harriers?
Meanwhile, on this thread I wondered how Italy and Spain retained their Harrier fleets. Here is an interesting article about the Italian Navy and their Harriers:
A tale of two Harriers: How Italy held on to carrier strike
In the case of Harrier, an important difference is that the Italian Harriers are of the AV8B+ type, and thus are fully multirole: they have radar, anti-air missiles and guided weapons for strike missions. The Harrier GR9 notoriously had no radar and no AMRAAM - those capabilities were lost years ago with the Sea Harrier. The multirole capability of the AV8B+ makes it easier for the Navy to argue for their retention.
Another crucial difference is that the Italian Harrier squadron is under full navy control thanks to a law approved on 26 January 1989 specifically to allow the Navy to add a fixed wing jet capability "for air defence of the fleet and the support to naval and amphibious operations". The Royal Navy lost control of its Harriers with the formation of the Joint Force with the RAF, a measure which was part of the Labour defence review in 1998 and that brought the Harriers under RAF Group 1 command. The Navy effectively lost control of them and of their fate at that moment. Just a decade later, in 2008, the First Sea Lord had to threaten resignation to stop the RAF from withdrawing the Harrier force, but by 2010 it was a done deal.
Significantly, the Italian Navy is fighting hard to avoid walking down the same path. The defence review decided that Italy will only order 90 F-35s, down from 131 once planned. The navy won't get the 22 F35-B it had hoped for, but just 15, with 15 more going to the air force, which had once hoped for 40. It is anticipated that the two squadrons will be based on in Grottaglie, current home of the navy's Harriers. There will be collaboration, but the air force call for a "joint force" was rebutted, with the Navy and ministers agreeing that the British experience is a good example of what not to do. The navy squadron will continue to cover the unique requirement for air support at sea and will be under full naval control. Airframes will be shared if and as necessary to ensure that the Cavour carrier can get its full complement of 14.
Finally, the decisive difference is political and strategic. Successive Italian governments have agreed that the armed forces buy Italy respect and political influence. Contributions to multinational efforts are seen as a major element in Italy's foreign policy. As a consequence, the armed forces' strategy has been focused on expeditionary operations, with the navy to the fore thanks to the new carrier Cavour and its larger, more capable future complement of F35Bs and plans for much more capable amphibious forces. Even in a time of cuts, attention was paid to go ahead as regularly as possible with the necessary investments.
In the UK, the focus on expeditionary operations is also proudly declared, but it remains hard to see where the expeditionary focus is when the amphibious fleet is reduced; the only real deployable, independent air element available is removed, tying any future operation to the availability of foreign bases and overflight permissions; and the maritime patrol aircraft are also gone, making it much more risky to send the fleet into hostile waters. It is worth noting that the navy is also crucial to operations that aren't strictly naval campaigns; it was thanks to 60 UK-chartered merchant ships and 4 RFA Ro-Ro vessels that over 90 per cent of the equipment the UK used in Iraq in 2003 reached the theatre of war, under Royal Navy escort due to maritime terrorism fears.