Quantity has a quality all its own.
I am sure that in the fullness of time NATO will have to seriously rethink its doctrines. Although there is little accurate information in the public domain about the air war in Ukraine, it would appear the Russians took out AD radars and airfields fairly early on.
Based upon this the F35B might seem a good idea, but only if you plan to operate it out of the woods in a similar manor to the old RAFG Harrier force. I'm not sure how resilient it would be in that environment.
So back to the title of this thread...........Harrier GR9 cost £21.5m each. F35B cost £92m.
Based upon this the F35B might seem a good idea, but only if you plan to operate it out of the woods in a similar manor to the old RAFG Harrier force. I'm not sure how resilient it would be in that environment.
So back to the title of this thread...........Harrier GR9 cost £21.5m each. F35B cost £92m.
Thread Starter
ASRAAMTOO
I’m not sure about your example. GR9 had no radar. It can’t do any of the clever tricks that an F35 can do (I mean electronically not hovering).
I agree that GR9 was a better CAS platform but four GR9s still doesn’t buy you a lot of the capabilities that a single F35 brings to the party.
Of course it’d be lovely if we could have hundreds of F35s and Typhoons but we have to be realistic.
BV
I agree that GR9 was a better CAS platform but four GR9s still doesn’t buy you a lot of the capabilities that a single F35 brings to the party.
Of course it’d be lovely if we could have hundreds of F35s and Typhoons but we have to be realistic.
BV
I’m not sure about your example. GR9 had no radar. It can’t do any of the clever tricks that an F35 can do (I mean electronically not hovering).
I agree that GR9 was a better CAS platform but four GR9s still doesn’t buy you a lot of the capabilities that a single F35 brings to the party.
Of course it’d be lovely if we could have hundreds of F35s and Typhoons but we have to be realistic.
BV
I agree that GR9 was a better CAS platform but four GR9s still doesn’t buy you a lot of the capabilities that a single F35 brings to the party.
Of course it’d be lovely if we could have hundreds of F35s and Typhoons but we have to be realistic.
BV
Well I suppose we could throw in a few Sea Harriers. The FA2 came in at a bargain £12.5m each.(Although that was a while ago). I agree neither of those is as clever as an F35, but I suspect whatever was used in a CAS role would take hits and I suspect the F35 might be quite "delicate" so I think I might actually go for a bit more quantity and a bit less quality as regards mud moving. Save the expensive stuff to use as air to air!
I would argue that the existing and planned drone programs represent a definitive move to quantity over quality in Western Armed Forces. They are also migrating to the Army and Air Force brass are fighting them tooth and nails as they correctly understand that the preeminence of the employment of manned tactical air effects in national doctrine is waning.
I would also suggest that the failure of recent high profile gold plated tactical aircraft programs will accelerate the move to cheap and expendable drone technologies. The F35 program is now 17 years from first flight and is still not fully mission capable and has an average availability rate of less than 65 %. It doesn't matter how spiffy the technology is if the aircraft is in pieces in the hangar when the tasking comes down....
I would also suggest that the failure of recent high profile gold plated tactical aircraft programs will accelerate the move to cheap and expendable drone technologies. The F35 program is now 17 years from first flight and is still not fully mission capable and has an average availability rate of less than 65 %. It doesn't matter how spiffy the technology is if the aircraft is in pieces in the hangar when the tasking comes down....
As regards going to war in an obsolete aircraft, I think the difficulty is that we are unable to afford the latest generation of combat aircraft in sufficient numbers for them to be effective. So a doctrine that has our limited supply of advanced aircraft providing top cover and something cheaper doing the mud movimg is likely our only option.
Sensibly the mud moving could be done using drones so as not to dampen the enthusiasm of our serving pilots. Those drones could also be something rather less advanced than the reaper (£13m) or protector (£15m).
The Ukrainian Air Force is stil active and this despite the fact that even at the beginning of the war they had not much more than 100 Fighter Aircraft.
So I'm 100% sure NATO won't do your nostalgia a favour and bring back the Harrier/Sea Harrier.
VLO High End Aircraft plus cheap, expendable drones is clearly the way to go.
The problem with the whole "Quantity has a Quality" is that - while you may eventually come out on top, you're going to experience horrendous casualties in the process. Maybe when you outnumber the other guy ten to one, and it takes 8 of yours to take out one of theirs, you'll eventually prevail. But you're still taking 8 times the casualties. In this day and age, not many western leaders would accept that.
I think back to WWII - the 50,000+ American Sherman tanks eventually overwhelmed much smaller numbers of German Tiger and Panther tanks due to weight of numbers. But American and British tank crews paid a horrendous price for the relative inferiority in quality of their tanks.
I think back to WWII - the 50,000+ American Sherman tanks eventually overwhelmed much smaller numbers of German Tiger and Panther tanks due to weight of numbers. But American and British tank crews paid a horrendous price for the relative inferiority in quality of their tanks.
