F-35 Cancelled, then what ?
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Often in Jersey, but mainly in the past.
Age: 79
Posts: 7,807
Received 135 Likes
on
63 Posts
Being vaguely contentious, does one need 5th Gen to drop LGBs on Toyota pickups?
Where is the intermediate capability coming from in the future? As the entire Defence Budget gets sucked into F-35 and 2 x CVAs, what is left to do the simpler stuff? Ageing Tornados and [some] Typhoons that can be spared from UK Air Defence?
Probably wrong thread ... please excuse me
Where is the intermediate capability coming from in the future? As the entire Defence Budget gets sucked into F-35 and 2 x CVAs, what is left to do the simpler stuff? Ageing Tornados and [some] Typhoons that can be spared from UK Air Defence?
Probably wrong thread ... please excuse me
Being equally contentious one might argue that the total cost of Typhoon exceeds that of CVF and the likely F35 buy.
You don't need Typhoon to do "the simple stuff" either, but I rarely hear calls to bin the Typhoon fleet and replace with MQ1 for Hilux plinking and/or Scorpion for QRA......
You don't need Typhoon to do "the simple stuff" either, but I rarely hear calls to bin the Typhoon fleet and replace with MQ1 for Hilux plinking and/or Scorpion for QRA......
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Leicestershire, England
Posts: 1,170
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by Not_a_boffin
...or Scorpion for QRA......
-RP
Ah, Scorpion. Lovely concept that I can see working for those roles for which it was conceived. Light, simple, quite inexpensive to buy and operate (£3.000 per hour?).
Now, QRA(I). Where is the speed, the AAR capability, the AI Radar (I-Master is a neat little box, but not for A-A), the datalink, the long range nav kit?
Naaa. Apart from all that does anyone think that any government buying F-35 is about to buy another platform to the things that "they don't need F-35 for"? Politics.
Now, find me another aircraft in the inventory (current or projected) that will do AD.
Now, QRA(I). Where is the speed, the AAR capability, the AI Radar (I-Master is a neat little box, but not for A-A), the datalink, the long range nav kit?
Naaa. Apart from all that does anyone think that any government buying F-35 is about to buy another platform to the things that "they don't need F-35 for"? Politics.
Now, find me another aircraft in the inventory (current or projected) that will do AD.
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 1,136
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
There are inevitably a couple of facts and a couple of shades of grey.
You don't need Lightning II or Typhoon. You might want both or either..but you don't need them.
However, you do need a Lightning II if you want to keep pace, for a little while, with threat SAM systems. You need Lightning II because the only alternative is F-22 or not going. You have never needed Typhoon. Typhoon has been desirable but in no way essential. There were and are plenty of COTS aircraft that could do the QRA role and everything Typhoon has achieved overseas.
So, it's just a case of where you set the bar really.
Freedom of Action at a high tariff? Gen 5.
CAS and strike unopposed...anything you like from Buccaneer onwards.
CAS and strike with a medium air threat...same again, just take some HARM/ ALARM shooters with you and a Growler or two.
Guard the UK against Russian snoopers and rogue air liners? F-3 or equivalent.
The cure for all ills up to the 95th percentile? F-15E or F-18E.
Want to keep shovelling money down a black hole trying to get an AD platform to work as well as an F-15E or F-18E in the air-to-mud world but failing. Typhoon's your answer.
Whilst we wait for the ferociously expensive Lightning II we are actually not doing ourselves any favours on the messaging front by continually turning a blind eye to the costs of Typhoon upgrade, costs of Typhoon support, the aircraft's short comings both air-to-air and (stifles laugh) air-to-mud...and the fact that we didn't actually need it in the first place. But then again we do (genuinely) need chaps with top buttons undone...so maybe it's money well spent.
As for the boat? Naval aviation is very simple: Do it well or not at all. At the moment it doesn't to me look like we're doing it well. Maybe the next generation can pull the rabbit out of the hat...although I suspect we've armed them with a hat full of dog mess to do it from.
You don't need Lightning II or Typhoon. You might want both or either..but you don't need them.
However, you do need a Lightning II if you want to keep pace, for a little while, with threat SAM systems. You need Lightning II because the only alternative is F-22 or not going. You have never needed Typhoon. Typhoon has been desirable but in no way essential. There were and are plenty of COTS aircraft that could do the QRA role and everything Typhoon has achieved overseas.
So, it's just a case of where you set the bar really.
Freedom of Action at a high tariff? Gen 5.
CAS and strike unopposed...anything you like from Buccaneer onwards.
CAS and strike with a medium air threat...same again, just take some HARM/ ALARM shooters with you and a Growler or two.
Guard the UK against Russian snoopers and rogue air liners? F-3 or equivalent.
The cure for all ills up to the 95th percentile? F-15E or F-18E.
Want to keep shovelling money down a black hole trying to get an AD platform to work as well as an F-15E or F-18E in the air-to-mud world but failing. Typhoon's your answer.
Whilst we wait for the ferociously expensive Lightning II we are actually not doing ourselves any favours on the messaging front by continually turning a blind eye to the costs of Typhoon upgrade, costs of Typhoon support, the aircraft's short comings both air-to-air and (stifles laugh) air-to-mud...and the fact that we didn't actually need it in the first place. But then again we do (genuinely) need chaps with top buttons undone...so maybe it's money well spent.
As for the boat? Naval aviation is very simple: Do it well or not at all. At the moment it doesn't to me look like we're doing it well. Maybe the next generation can pull the rabbit out of the hat...although I suspect we've armed them with a hat full of dog mess to do it from.
Does anyone have any idea of what the final bill for CVF + F-35 will be? 
The Liberals have promised to cancel the Conservative purchase of F-35 jets, which is expected to cost $44 billion over the jets’ four-decade life cycle. “We will immediately launch an open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fighter aircraft,” the platform says, specifying that the F-35’s “stealth first-strike capability” is not needed to defend Canada.
Big Business and Tax
It's interesting to compare the costs against companies like Apple and Google.
Apple have hundreds of billions of profit stashed away, apparently in Irish bank accounts. If Apple were to repatriate that money to the USA they'd have to pay 40% (I think that's right) tax on it, and Uncle Sam could expect to get at least high tens of $billions out of that. That's going to be a fairly large proportion of the F35 costs right there.
With Apple not repatriating that money and by not paying that tax, the country goes without, and the American tax payer has to stump up the cash instead.
One wonders just how socially useful a company like Apple is to the USA. They pay their shareholder premiums by borrowing money, a debt that they can then use to offset whatever their remaining tax liability is.
[Just for the record, we can't blame these companies for maximising shareholder value whilst remaining within the law. They're practically obliged to do so by company law! If they're not socially useful to the USA, that's at least partly the USA's own fault.]
Underfunding
Personally I think that Western military procurement has been showing the signs of underfunding for many decades. Buying multirole this, that and the next thing is what happens when the bean counters insist on a project delivering more "value for money". There's been all sorts of projects (radars, ships, aircraft obviously) that have been way too expensive simply because of the drive for something multirole.
Ship radars in particular annoy me; a bigger ship is very cheap to buy and would have plenty of room for all the single role radars in the world. Yet there's a burning passion for smaller ships with multurole radars that are exceedingly expensive to develop and build! You can see the difference in philosophy between the West and Russia - they have big ships festooned with antennae of all sorts.
The real problem is that the bean counters don't want the certainty of future retired veterans pension liabilities on their books. Buying a single role aircraft is a whole lot cheaper than most people think, but the perception is that it takes as much manpower to run it as a multi role aircraft. What the bean counters really want is less manpower, which inevitably translates into fewer aircraft which then have to be multi-role to get the jobs done.
Real Politic
I've yet to meet a bean counter who thinks about program costs in relation to the costs of engaging in or, worse still, losing a war. As we here in Britain know, WWII was cripplingly expensive. There's no firm conclusion to be drawn from debating whether WWII might never have happened had Britain been more seriously tooled up in the 1930s. Given a much higher level of pre-war tooling up it could have been a lot shorter with a lot less loss of life. Something along the lines of spending a penny, saving a pound/dollar. However even with that lurking in our shared histories no accountant ever seems to acknowledge that a major war is still possible today and would be devastatingly expensive, and it's not really in our control as to whether it happens or not. Cutting back on defence is always a long term gamble for a short term gain.
F117
I like the example of the F117; single role, surprisingly cheap to develop considering it's radical design and era (1970s), middling unit cost, never a very large fleet so relatively OK manpower-wise. It made a very significant military contribution at one of those rare moments in history where that really mattered. Yet it would never have been built at all had anyone been insisting that it were also capable of air intercept.
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: London, New York, Paris, Moscow.
Posts: 3,632
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
And if the F-35 had delivered in line with the ORIGINAL specifications ON TIME and ON BUDGET then neither would we be having this "conversation" OR a b@stardised lash up of both carrier, aircraft AND now, AEW "system"......
...the lack of oversight by decades of politicians, VSO's and civil servants is a legacy that we will all rue one day.
...the lack of oversight by decades of politicians, VSO's and civil servants is a legacy that we will all rue one day.
ORAC
[
!!! I meant Orca.]
Can't say that I have much insight into Typhoon upgrade costs. My impression is that it has not so much failed in A2G as been subject to rather limited and disorganized efforts until recently.
There are actually two other ways to go into denied airspace: cruise missiles and a Neuron-type UCAV. Both complementary to a classic fighter aircraft.
As for the operational costs: Swiss assessed Typhoon and Rafale as 2x Gripen. Norway's predicted LCC for 52 F-35A is 3x Sweden's estimate for 60 Gripen, both for 30 years. And F-35B will be >F-35A. So I find the idea that F-35B will cost less to operate than Typhoon unconvincing on its face.
[
!!! I meant Orca.]Can't say that I have much insight into Typhoon upgrade costs. My impression is that it has not so much failed in A2G as been subject to rather limited and disorganized efforts until recently.
There are actually two other ways to go into denied airspace: cruise missiles and a Neuron-type UCAV. Both complementary to a classic fighter aircraft.
As for the operational costs: Swiss assessed Typhoon and Rafale as 2x Gripen. Norway's predicted LCC for 52 F-35A is 3x Sweden's estimate for 60 Gripen, both for 30 years. And F-35B will be >F-35A. So I find the idea that F-35B will cost less to operate than Typhoon unconvincing on its face.
Last edited by LowObservable; 24th Oct 2015 at 16:12.
Orca, would it surprise you know that pretty much all those arguments regarding Typhoon were made, examined, studied etc, to death. Not once at the start of the whole thing, but repeatedly over the years, especially as things started to slip and certain partner nations started to have problems with rather important bits of the programme. Even your idea of buying off the shelf (F-15 for example) was revisited. One of the issues was that a lot of those things did not meet the requirements ("which ones?" You may ask).
Trying to get four nations to agree on anything was almost impossible. One did actually try to pull out altogether, but politics and "work share" won the day. "UK plc" was quoted more than once, of course.
Fortunately, the end result (whenever we get to measure that) worked out pretty well - possibly against all the odds. We'd better hope the same can be said of JSF one day.
Trying to get four nations to agree on anything was almost impossible. One did actually try to pull out altogether, but politics and "work share" won the day. "UK plc" was quoted more than once, of course.
Fortunately, the end result (whenever we get to measure that) worked out pretty well - possibly against all the odds. We'd better hope the same can be said of JSF one day.
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Home
Posts: 3,399
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Do you honestly think that is true?
This is not a dig at the basic airframe of the Typhoon, but the simple fact is that the toys have not really performed (yet).
The Tornado is still required to do the jobs that the Typhoon should be capable of doing by now.
Ironic that the Tornado which is a truly awful basic airframe has good toys, and the Typhoon really doesn't.
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Home alone
Posts: 295
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Courtney
Do you honestly think that is true?
This is not a dig at the basic airframe of the Typhoon, but the simple fact is that the toys have not really performed (yet).
The Tornado is still required to do the jobs that the Typhoon should be capable of doing by now.
Ironic that the Tornado which is a truly awful basic airframe has good toys, and the Typhoon really doesn't.
Do you honestly think that is true?
This is not a dig at the basic airframe of the Typhoon, but the simple fact is that the toys have not really performed (yet).
The Tornado is still required to do the jobs that the Typhoon should be capable of doing by now.
Ironic that the Tornado which is a truly awful basic airframe has good toys, and the Typhoon really doesn't.
Oh yeah, ask any F-35 partner nation how cheap and easy it is to add anything to the aircraft or vary things. He who flinches first gets a massive bill.
Just ask the Canadians how much a probe was going to cost?
Guess why we are where we are with external tanks?
Bottom line, if you want something that the US are prepared to wait for or have another platform to cover the gap then expect to pay. A lot. Of course, even if you want it Uncle Sam can just say no.
Just ask the Canadians how much a probe was going to cost?
Guess why we are where we are with external tanks?
Bottom line, if you want something that the US are prepared to wait for or have another platform to cover the gap then expect to pay. A lot. Of course, even if you want it Uncle Sam can just say no.
In actual fact I wasn't trying to knock Typhoon either. It appears to be an excellent frame and will eventually end up with most or all of the capabilities required. As hopefully will QEC and F35. It's just that one has cost much more than the other, somehow without attracting the same opprobrium...