No cats and flaps ...... back to F35B?

[Courtney Mil]

A good plan, PN. Let's look at timescales and when we really think Dave will be on line, with a reasonable capability (not an arbitrary IOC - we made that mistake with Eurofighter). F-18, as I have said before, may be the answer.

Super Bug could actually serve our needs very well. Of course, the issue is that we don't really know what our requirement is as SDSR didn't seem to address that. A cynic (not me, obviously) might be tempted to think that SDSR was more about 'where can we cut?' than 'what do we need?'

Let's guess at what we need and (apart from this potential/ficticious day 1, which the US may indeed want to do) see if Super Bug can do it. AND it would get the RN cats and traps for future growth.

While we're guessing, by the way, we might also want to consider why we would even consider the VTOL/VSOL/STOVL/etc option, given that it is obviously less capable - range/payload/etc, I've said it all before.

Answers on a postcard please...

[GeeRam]

Originally Posted by Pious Pilot

FAA should buy F-18 and then bin them off to the RAF after 15 years to help replace GR4.

This will give the FAA capability today, lower costs which will pay for 'cat & traps' which allows for UCAV capability in the future, a natural upgrade path to a mature stealthy Northrop or Boeing option in the future, more a/c to be purchased, less risk, less maintenance, interoperability, long range strike via Storm Shadow carriage, Meteor does it fit in JSF???, asraam integration already done on F-18, F-18 combat proven, F-18 day to day proven etc

If it were my money, which it is, I'd go 50/50 F-18E/G.

Yup.
By far the most sensible decision (which is why it won't happen)

Wouldn't be a lot different to what happened with our UK F-4 buy post TSR-2/F-111 cancelation.

[Squirrel 41]

Confused about GR4 / Dave-B / Dave-C....!

Grateful for corrections, but GR4 was supposed to be retained to the end of Herrick, and then appears to have been extended to 2018. But then of course we're yet to see what PR12 has to say for itself.

Given that Dave-B or Dave-C would be (optimistically) IOC from 2020(ish), I'm confused as to where F-18E/G doing some CVF time and then transferring to the RAF as GR4 replacement when Dave-C / UCAV is all sorted.

S41

[Backwards PLT]

The problem with the F-18 plan is that we would have to pay £1.6bil for the cats'n'traps, we would lose the X billions invested or committed in JSF and they have to pay for the aircraft so although "the aircraft" would be relatively cheap, the overall cost would be far from it - and we would have to find that money soon.

If you then factored in the loss to industry from the loss of JSF workshare it is even more expensive (although the ACA would be happy with the carrier mods).

Last we would be buying a 4th generation aircraft, which has its limitations, at the end of its growth life rather than a 5th generation aircraft at the start of its life (although I think F35B growth may be limited!)

F-35C is the best answer, but tbh if we can't afford it I really don't know what is - none of the answers are very good.

[LowObservable]

The Selected Acquisition Report prepared in 12/2011 is on the loose.

Inter alia, IOT&E now doesn't get finished until April 2019 (plan) or October 2019 (threshold, which means, don't expect it any earlier).

Services won't give IOC dates until next year, but they certainly won't be before IOT&E completion.

And this depends on 7+ years of continuous on-schedule performance from now on, from a program that's been re-baselined more times than LiLo and Charlie have been in rehab.

, , .

[Thelma Viaduct]

Can't see why JSF investment would be lost with an F-18 purchase.

JSF would be purchased when it is mature, risk is reduced & is affordable.

F-18 would be passed on to the RAF at a future date which will reduce future spend as a partial GR4 replacement, along with UcAVs and stealthy LRCM, think a pikey FOAS force mix. Look at history with the F4 & Buccaneer being palmed off and put to use elsewhere.

£1.6Bn spent now, will be much cheaper than trying to retrofit in the future when it's realised that cat & traps are required for UCAV operations and the carriers become obsolete half way through their service life, not to mention the risk of 'Dave-B' being canned.

How useful is a 5th generation fighter if it's unaffordable & has maintenance issues ?

It basically fills a capability gap now, and puts off the full JSF spend to hopefully a point in the future when the country can afford it.

[Alexander.Yakovlev]

All this talk of the F18 completely disregards the capability that the F35 will bring! While I appreciate there are significant issues and delays to overcome in the design and manufacturing process, to not continue with F35 procurement would significantly relegate our capability when compared to our peers. People on this forum spend a great deal of time talking about the impact of the platform losses that we have suffered due to SDSR, but when presented with a platform that can provide substantial ISTAR (much beyond anything available at this time when you consider the ElInt and SigInt avionics fits) while in the strike role they are quick to recommend an older and less capable airframe. Lets ride out the capability gap and secure these game changing platforms.

[Finningley Boy]

Lets ride out the capability gap and secure these game changing platforms.

Not another irritating new euphemism, game changing indeed. Seeing as we can't afford, or don't know how many we will be able to afford, more to the point, and with the number possibly less than 50 there isn't a lot to look forward to. And if its the VSTOL version we end up with we will be considerably worse off still. The claim about just how many eggs will be carried in this basket is all the more reason to worry about just how vulnerable this is going to become. With just half a dozen aircraft at sea on one carrier and given the type of situation which it is expected to face, we could be in real trouble if it proves to be the case that they are not impervious to being shot down.

FB

[LowObservable]

Yak - The ISTAR capes of the F-35 are routinely oversold. Sensors comprise a Sniper equivalent, very low-rez all-round video, decent ESM and a radar that can't be used very much without compromising stealth, but has a SAR mode. (Spot rather than area, though.) Not much persistence in the platform. The real problem is the lack of a high-rate datalink off the platform - only non-stealthy Link 16.

[FB11]

Yak,

Also worth noting is the reality that while we really do want to be able to play on Day 1, how many times in the life of an aircraft does it actually play on Day 1?

Most aircraft (and ships) operate in an envrionment where they need to bolt on as much as they can and drone around in a relatively permissive environment (with an IADS sporting SA-XX times many plus mucho 4th gen+ adversaries).

They burn up 1000's of hours in full-spectrum sight of the 'enemy' doing great work like Harrier and then Tornado did in Afghanistan; Iraq; Bosnia etc.

We are buying an F-35 that will only be live-flying for 50% of the pilots career.

I used to fly 20+ hours per month and was mandated to do less around 1 hour per month in the sim.

A JSF pilot will fly for no more than 12 hours per month and do 12 hours in the sim. At least, that's the plan based on flying hour cost and the live/synthetic training balance aspiration.

We need 'cheap' aircraft that can drone around policing the air and actually make some noise whilst delivering 100% of the effect that is required for 99% of missions any fighter will ever fly. All of a sudden, a 'hi/lo' mix of aircraft seems like a cost effective idea.

The alternative is we give the enemy a networked i-Pad so they can watch us in the sim thus letting them know how much we're going to kick their ass when we have enough cash to go flying in an actual aircraft.

[Backwards PLT]

So the solution to not being able to afford F-35 and cats'n'traps is to buy F-18, cats'n'traps and F-35. I think I see the flaw. F-35 isn't magically going to get cheaper.

I totally agree that a carrier without cats'n'traps is severely limited but apparently we can't afford them. I'm still hoping the money will be found and there will be no change to the current plan. Any other option is a huge step backwards for the RN and the RAF and more importantly the UK.

[Alexander.Yakovlev]

It is a really interesting debate, and the very fact that everyone has such different viewpoints only serves to emphasise the complexity of the final (if there even will be a final!) decision making process. To respond to a few points, the intention with the SigInt and ElInt capability of aircraft is not to supply real time intelligence and analysis but to let the aircraft hoover up electronic outputs in theatre and download them post-mission for analysis. I don't think the capabilities are oversold in terms of ISTAR since having an integrated spot SAR has very positive ramifications for work such as CAS with restrictive ROE. Consistently in history there are warnings about basing future military acquisition on "the last fight" and I think that if we do go down the F18 (etc) route there is a real danger of that here. The talk in this thread of Day 1 strike is indeed tricky, but the questions raised are certainly deeper than do we want to be part of the Day 1 game. For example, do we want to be able to operate a small amount of aircraft persistently in a high threat RF environment? I would hazard, based on the current threats to international security that we might well do. If we are to resign ourselves more completely than current capability to not being a player in the Day 1 game then that rather raises more issues with the design and make of NATO and EU forces. Taking the Americans out of the picture as they move towards the Pacific theatre, the EU does and will require an indigenous "Day 1 "capability.

A very tricky problem to which there is no solution that will satisfy all the players, civil and military.

Alex

[glojo]

Are we seeing 'Day 1' type operations being 'flown' by operators sat in nice air conditioned rooms hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from any hostile environment or tomahawk missiles being fired from submarines? Is Libya an example of this along with the excellent F-18 Growler? Is there any real value\advantage in using manned aircraft for these first day penetrations?

If we stick with the F-35C we have a conventional carrier that could operate tankers plus other supportive aircraft, does this then give the carrier more bang for the buck? How would our AEW Merlin compare to the latest E-2 series Hawkeye and what would be the superior military option? What other aircraft would complete the air wing? By having solely the STOVL option the answer is NONE, it will have to be rotor wing and if we are silly enough to go for the 'B' then would we be silly enough to go for a full house and look at the V-22 Osprey? .

I just find it so frustrating that we have gone from the World's leading authority regarding carrier operations to a nation that is reliant on the US for teaching our Navy of today the skills we once taught our strongest ally! Where have we gone wrong? No steel industry, open cast coal mines that are closed down, mining villages that are now ghost towns with all those mines closed, no real car manufacturing, or major commercial vehicles... The list is endless... ship building, Liverpool docks, London docks...

A Royal Navy that has merchant ships carrying out the operational duties our warships should be performing just because we do not have enough warships to carry out the tasks this government have imposed on them. The other services are also in dire straits regarding a lack of equipment, resources etc. I for one am not convinced we will see any type of fixed wing aircraft operated from the decks of a warship... be that F-35/36/48 or even 18. Somehow or other my country has been ruined from within and that is so, so sad.

I am hoping this ministerial silence regarding the decision to change tact and go back to the 'B' is a good sign and hopefully this 'rumour' will die a natural death and the F-35C is still the aircraft of choice and fingers crossed we will all see this come to fruition.

[Lowe Flieger]

So the solution to not being able to afford F-35 and cats'n'traps is to buy F-18, cats'n'traps and F-35. I think I see the flaw. F-35 isn't magically going to get cheaper.

Agreed F35 is not getting cheaper. F18 would not be the route we would take had F35 been developed on schedule. It is a pragmatic response to the risk of having aircraft carriers with no aircraft for an uncomfortable period of time. If during this 'downtime' something delays or worse still, brings F35 to a halt, then PoW will be taking up a lot of space and looking for a secondary role or another home.

F18 is '4th generation', which seems to carry a stigma. However, I guess that just puts it in the same class, or higher, than 95%+ of all operational fighters until well into the 2020's and likely longer. If it ain't stealthy back it up with some jamming - Growlers would be good.

You are right that adding short-term expense by buying now rather than later will be very unpopular with the government and is the main reason why I don't think it will happen. Hence why they will probably take a gamble on F35B - if for no other reason that short term expense on EMALS will be avoided at the risk of the B being cancelled, again leaving a carrier without a fighter unless we then retro fit EMALS. Goodness knows how much that would cost. But these nightmares are deferred for a while and a problem deferred might land on someone else's desk. It's an awful mess frankly, which, if solved, will depend upon a big dollop of luck as well as judgement.

Australia have taken the F18 route while they await F35 but they have not suffered as badly as we have in the financial crisis and are fearful of regional threats developing from the north. And the US Navy have ordered more F18's, so it's good enough for the best naval strike force around. And it would certainly be a step up from the UK's current naval strike capability, land based Apache helicopters flying off of Ocean (and no, I'm not having a pop at Apache or Ocean).

..I am hoping this ministerial silence regarding the decision to change tact and go back to the 'B' is a good sign..

I think the silence is down to the fact that the Cabinet has lost confidence in the MoD's ability to cost it's alternatives properly and so the Treasury has been asked to audit the whole process. So we wait for their input. Which is why I think it highly likely the answer will be to opt for the lowest short-term expenditure - no CATOBAR conversion and therefore F35B.

[FB11]

Lowe Flieger,

All bar your last line - more in a second - I think your whole post is absolutely spot on the money (pun intended).

On the last line, one of the answers will be right but as each day saunters by and more (and more...and more) detail on actual costs, schedule and capability gets explained in terms even a politician can understand I don't believe it's a simple 'lowest cost' wins.

I don't believe this is about a decision made for monetary reasons. For the MoD it most certainly is - less spent now on CV is more to be spent elsewhere in Defence. But for the bloke who will have to eat his words, he just needs a reason - any reason - to switch to the cheapest but in a way that allows him to walk back from his most contentious SDSR statement and survive.

If the sums were as eye watering as £2billion more expensive going for the CV and 5 years late on IOC, I would also agree with your summary. But they're not that stark - nowhere near as stark.

If £2billion more expensive and 5 years later (for CV) is enough for the Treasury to do a cursory 'due dilligence' review and give the PM the green light to do battle with a U-turn in the House, where is the point it isn't enough of a gap?

£1billion? and 5 years? 3 years? 18 months?

There's a point that cost and IOC delta are so close as to make a U-turn indigestible for the PM.

Then he actually has to do something he won't like - make a decision based on facts. Capability. Strategic vision for the next 50 years.

However, I actually think Cameron might just be savvy enough to do that.

[cokecan]

FB11,

''However, I actually think Cameron might just be savvy enough to do that.''

sorry, i don't have your confidence in Cameron - i voted for him, i'm a 'natural' tory supporter, but i'm afraid that apart from the formation of the coalition, i've seen very little that suggests he's got a strategic thought in his head: he's a lightweight, PR lead, fairly incompetant opposition politician who by act of god has found himself as PM - at the end of this parliament, and probably long before, most tories will look on the PM's-ship's of Gordon Brown - or even Ted Heath - as ones of firm grip, steady mind and steel focus.

he is, i'm sad to say, going to go down as one of the worst PM's we've ever had - he doesn't do thought, and he doesn't do decision making.

it'll be reinstatement of 'B' and cancellation of C&T, followed by eventual cancellation of 'B', mothballing/sale of CVF, massives losses on both programes, and cancellation of Type 26 to pay for them.

[Bastardeux]

I've been running the numbers on the US congressional budget through my head, they currently have a national debt of 15 trillion dollars, which is over 100% of its GDP; they're currently running up a deficit of 1.5 trillion dollars a year and even with all the new cuts, will have a deficit of nearly 1 trillion a year. The point I'm trying to make is that there is still a lot more budget cutting to be done and the congressional budget only really has 3 options to cut - Defence, social security and Education.

If jolly ol' Barack Obama wins the white house next year (which is the most likely outcome), it's pretty obvious what will and will not be in the firing line for getting all that debt paid off...defence will once again be in the sights and what happened to be the cost of buying and servicing all 3 variants of the F35 again? 1.5 trillion dollars! Essentially what I'm saying is that, in the eyes of Obama and his democrat friends, there is the potential for the DoD to save a lot of money from the F35 programme.

In my humble opinion, I would stand by for a complete cancellation of the B and a reduced order of the other 2 variants, which will mean increased prices, which will mean reduced orders etc.

As always I'm open to an economist pointing out the flaws in my argument but unfortunately, I think the bulk of it is correct.

Much love, the Bastard

[Obi Wan Russell]

I'm pretty sure Obama told Cameron on his recent visit not to even think of going back to the B. If it was going to happen, the announcement would have been made as scheduled a little while back. The US has plans, it is shifting focus to the Pacific region, and needs it's 'Allies' in NATO to pick up the slack in the European theatre. That means they will want us to put BOTH CVFs into service, as Cat and Trap, with F-35C (though the USN may well supplement the air groups with sqns of their own from time to time). A three carrier Euro force (including CdG) will allow the USN to comfortably redeploy two or three CVNs to the west coast.

So the ConDems have had their chain yanked by 'His Masters Voice', the US, which has put the kibosh on Hammonds plan for short term savings/long term cost increases that would inevitably result from such a U-turn. No going back, they have been told, you WILL buy the 'C, along with the EMALS and AAG, which has lead Cameron to order this 'review' as a way of buying time for his minions to come up with a plausible excuse as to why they aren't changing course (back to the B) after all.

[davedrake]

Ramblings of simple man

Having read the thread, as much as is understandable, there seems to be a great desire to spend a great deal of cash on a low observable aircraft as distinct from an well tried and tested F18.
Also, no thought seems to have been applied to the Airbourne Early Warning aircraft that is needed to support a carrier force, historically the Gannet AEW or will the helicopters do the necessary!! I am a bit out of touch in that area.
Without the Cat and Trap where will that be comming from. A United States Carrier? Even the French!! Not what we need.
So we appear to have a very expensive boat, NOT Low Observeable, with minimal defence and a few costly non-existant stealth aircraft.
Maybe we can lease one of the American carriers. I heard that they have too many.
Appologies for my ramblings, but we seem to have driven headlong into a snowdrift in the middle of winter with no sign of a thaw.

[Milo Minderbinder]

Is it certain that the General Atomics EMALS system is the one that would be used?
Converteam UK were working on their own EMCAT system which was specifically designed (or said to be designed....) to fit into the reserved spaces on the two carriers
And as Converteam are providing the propulsion system, it would seem likely that they may have a better handle on what goes where and what the costs may be than the American offering