Back on topic more or less. Just back from across the pond and their is quite some interest in the CVF project now that has made it off the drawing board. In essence its 1/3 of CVN in terms of price and manpower, but 50% of 1st night stealth strike and 60% of sortie generation thereafter. It is perceived as being very good value for money all round.

Black Hawk Down / CVF mods'
 

Occasional Aviator,

A few posts back you queried ( fair enough ) my hypothesis that a USMC carrier’s prescence may have helped in the ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident.

I was taking my info’ from the book – quite possibly the most meticulously detailed account of an action I’ve ever read.

I haven’t even bothered seeing the film, as we know what it will be like, and even if the makers intend to do the subject justice – rather than just go straight for Hollywood B.S, - there’s no way such an involved situation could be covered in the short scan of a film.

At first glance one may well ask ‘what good would carrier back-up do ?’ but I can’t help thinking it would have done a lot of good.

The U.S. infantry, inc. special forces, were faced by mobs of thousands of bloodthirsty, drugged up and well armed ‘civilians’, who automatically put their tribal differences aside when it became ‘kill an American day’ – ironically the U.S. where there to provide aid, which is why they didn’t have too much in the way of firepower – a Spectre gunship had been requested to be around for the operations, but refused as it might look too military…

Appache’s probably wouldn’t have been much use, as the air was thick with a plentiful supply of RPG’s.

The mob/s had plenty of assault rifles & heavy machine guns, grenades etc, and in their drugged state were willing to advance & be mown down – there were also women with baby in one arm, gun in the other, and more skilled pro’ killers mixed in with the crowds.

Eventually the soldiers had to do what they’d never dreamed of, and fire into the crowds.

Unthinkable as it may seem from one’s comfy chair, I can’t help thinking a few Harrier passes with cluster bombs, rockets or gun would have made a big difference.

As it was the ‘little bird’ helo’s made repeated courageous strafing runs through the night.

This was a great deal more than ‘rescuing a pilot’, whole U.S. vehicle convoys were close to being wiped out…
---

On another tack, someone mentioned that as the CVF is likely to carry the Harrier GR9 ( and 2+ please in my book ) for what even now seems a rather long ‘stop-gap’ period, “ why not fit a ramp for the Harriers for now ?”.

Well why not keep the ramp ( may need to make the angle shallower ) for when the F-35 eventually turns up ?

I know, to the astonishment of myself and ex-colleagues who worked with Harriers of all flavours, it seems the F-35B did not have STO in mind originally and needs extra software & deep thought – I’d still say the ‘B’ would be the best, most flexible option, and if it suits the USMC it suits our Marines & forces too.

Everyone gets very excited about EM catapults etc, either as a new toy or the cost, but how about a ramp ? Works for the Russians…

I presume the ‘C’ u/c could take it if it can take a catapult, while it would help the ‘B’ in the now traditional way – is there a thrust / acceleration snag here ? I’d have thought not…

My two pennarth’…

DZ

Double Zero, a Spectre was requested during mission planning, but was denied:

"A lack of political support for the Task Force Ranger mission, reflected in denial or removal of military support assets that would have aided the force, such as M1 Abrams tanks , AC-130 Spectre gunships, and M2 Bradley APCs."

Battle of Mogadishu (1993) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As OA mentioned, I'm not sure how much more help a carrier would have been as they were hardly short of air and ground assets - just not allowed to use them during planning.

BTW, the film 'Black Hawk Down' is not bad by Hollywood standards as Ridley Scott (the British director who also did Bladerunner and Alien) tried not to stray too far from what actually happened.

Nostrinian - I believe you're right on the auto-eject system. Not sure how it works but it may be connected to the flight data: that is, if the nose starts to go up or down too fast, indicating an engine failure causing a thrust imbalance, you are out of there.

The problem is that almost any major engine problem in powered lift mode - which is when it's most likely to occur, given that all systems are running at sustained full blast - is apt to cause the thrust at one end to decay faster than it does at the other, so you have both sink and rapid pitch movement, at low altitude and airspeed, and that does not take long to get the seat out of its safe envelope.

Interesting about the noise. It's not, I suspect, that JSF is that much louder than a Typhoon on full burner, but that the noise on landing is sustained. Max noise on a conventional jet is transient by definition.

Black Hawk Down
 

Arcanunum,

Fair enough that Ridley Scott makes brilliant films ( haven't seen this one )

but I do think some heavy air firepower might have been rather handy - even main battle tanks like Abrams wouldn't have fancied the confined spaces & RPG's - if you have the facility, ( I don't ) - ask the chaps who were there on the ground at the time - and I don't need a crystal ball to guess what they'll say !

DZ

Thats it I can't stand it anymore.

Double Zero, do you understand the terms PID and RoE?

If so then how the hell do you think fast air with cluster bombs, rockets and strafing passes would have been a conceivable option?

If not then may I humbly suggest you keep your armchair general opinions to yourself until you are better informed.

Oh and the get out doesn't wash either. I'm pretty sure they'd have been happy with tactical nukes or frickin sharks with lasers if it meant they'd get home but that doesn't imply that those who make the decisions would be.

Artyhug,

Actually the ROE requirements were more stringent in Fallujah 04 than Mog and FW air was employed along with RCAS in Fallujah.

This is not to say that someone up the chain may not have called off any/all FW strikes as was done on say the O’Grady Exfil.

Double zero has missed the mark on the ability of armor to operate in built up areas, it has been done successfully and to very good effect.

S/F, FOG

I'd imagine the chaps on the ground would be saying something along the lines of 'Perhaps if we'd been more proportionate, we wouldn't still be being pursued for a war crimes trial' had fast air been used in the way suggested...

00 - several problems, not least in terms of ROE. Using the AV-8B as you suggest - or any other fast jet (disclaimer - yes, I know someone will be along shortly to say 'Harrier? Fast?') - in 1993 to provide urban CAS would've been extremely difficult in the environment the US troops were operating; use of CBU would have been regarded as a wildly disproportionate use of force, particularly given the casualties that could've been caused amongst non-combatants.

If air support was needed, then the AC-130 was much better suited to the task. AV-8B in 1993 didn't have the capability to do urban CAS in the way it can today, and of the carrier based platforms of that era, only the A-6 would've perhaps have been able to deliver the effects that the ROE would have permitted.

Even using GBU-12 would've been an issue (see current open source material on how it can be an issue today and the solutions pursued by the US to ameliorate this) - CBUs and rockets would've been right out. Conversely, the relative accuracy provided by the AC-130's weapon systems - even the 105mm would have been in with a chance of getting the LEGAD's tick in the box (see ref above to ROE at Fallujah which were more stringent than those in force in Somalia in 93)- would've been a much better and possibly the only practical solution. Which was, of course, why General Garrison and his team requested them in the first place.

FOG

Point taken, perhaps in my haste I didn't express myself that clearly. I was attempting to highlight not so much the inability for fast air to be used but the utter lack of appreciation of unguided weapon effects in a urban theatre.

Archimedes,

I doubt the guys on the ground would be worried much about war crimes vis-à-vis air employment.

The day attack Harrier was arguably the most accurate iron bomber of the bunch, quite capable of employing mk82 class weapons. Even the A-6 bubbas were impressed at the level of accuracy achieved by the day attack Harriers; though unimpressed by load, range, single engine, etc. Mix in the coordination with the Cobras and you have a very effective mix.

This is assuming that this hadn’t turned into an USA/SOCOM show.

S/F, FOG

Arty,

Understood. As I pointed out to Archimedes above the day attack is very accurate (though obviously not with CBU or thermal type munitions) and it would be from an ARG.

From a CVN the USN just wasn’t up to speed on CAS at the time so what type of CAS from a CVN would have been an acceptable risk? Talking increased chances of intramural also.

S/F, FOG

Black Hawk Down
 

Artyhug,

well I can't stand it anymore either; exactly how many miles were you away while this was hapenning ?

I'm not a soldier, in fact I'm a UK civilian who has worked alongside the military. but if I was 'in the field' would have hoped for backup - do you know what it is to deny support for people dying in front of you ?

I do, and am not even military.

As I said at the beginning of my last post, - I was NOT involved n the incidident - what became the unthinkable became the only way to survive - there comes a certain point where one says " sod the ROE, the opposition have, we need to survive ! "

Harrier strikes - being a lot less likely to take RPG's - would have fairly certainly 'discouraged' the mobs.

This might sound uncivilised and using superior weaponry on 'poor folk' - but remember the U.S. went in with 'aid' in mind, and were met by drug-high mobs including women with a baby under one arm, AK-47 or M-16 under the other.

As to evidence aftrerwards to justify it, well the Harrier has a small, pretty useless for these purposes video pilot display recorder, but that combined with the overhead a/c performing supposed C&C & radio chat between aircraft & ground vehicles would be pretty convincing...

Those guys took enough pounding, which I don't know if I could endure - hope so, who knows ?

Without 20/20 hindsighters saying they couldn't have done with more backup !

00 - with respect, you appear to be suggesting that the US Army would have been happy to have seen the perpetrating of what would appear to be prima facie war crimes... Just because the US went in on a humanitarian mission and found local opposition far greater than anticipated does not justify using CBU against civilians and non-combatants, of whom there were more than a fair few in close proximity to the fighting.

The destruction of evidence, or its lack thereof, would've been a political disaster for the US and the US armed forces, not least since the US had capabilities that would have been just as likely, if not more so, to achieve the desired effect of supporting the troops on the ground.

Those of us disagreeing with your perspective are not saying that the Rangers and 10th MD didn't need support; we're saying that your projected solution would have been vastly counter-productive not least since a much better option existed in the form of the assets requested by, but denied to, the US commanders who appreciated the capabilities these assets offered in the sort of environment in which they were operating.

This is in real danger of taking us waaay off thread, though, so might I respectfully suggest that it might be time to agree to differ on the hypothetical merits or otherwise of the use of AV-8Bs or other CV-based assets 15 years ago?

Blackhawk op down from what i have read seen fell apart because of a Mix of US/SOF arrogance and lack of political support. Added to a measure of poor command and control and Mission creep.

I was interested to see the mention of the russian carriers with the ramps has this been effective in launching conventonal aircraft?
And would the length of the flight deck on the new carrier add or detract from GR9 performance in the early years?

Double Zero,

I'm not sure that I'm reading your posts correctly, so forgive me if I'm answering a question that you're not asking. But the first carrier definitely will have a ramp. It should do nicely for the Harriers until F-35 arrives. F-35B will detect from pitch rate etc that the aircraft is travelling up a ramp and the control laws react accordingly to maximise aircraft performance. A good deal of work has gone into this already, including ramp optimization and control law work in the simulators.

Nostrinian,

The jet does have auto-eject. The Russians have used a system based on very similar principles in their Yak-38 for years. It's a hard fact of life that when you have a vertical lift system that has two large thrust centres a relatively long way from the CG, if one of them fails you get a huge pitching moment. If the pilot isn't pulling the handle in under a second, he's toast. So you need an auto-eject system. The question of whether or not the crashing aircraft (with or without a pilot in) injures people on deck is no different from legacy.

It's another sad fact of life that if you want an aircraft to pump out 40 000lb of thrust, it's going to be loud - find me an engine of that class that isn't.

Low Observable,

I believe Gen Davis is quite correct (as you'd expect from a man who's in charge of a programme worth several billion dollars). The aircraft is meeting or on track to meet all it's Key Performance Parameters, which is why SRVL is a UK programme - because our bringback requirement (Key User Requirement) is different (i.e. more demanding). It all comes down to what you call a 'hot day'. But the US are taking an interest in it because it has other benefits such as perhaps being easier to integrate with F-35C traffic patterns, future-proofing for weight growth etc.

Regards,
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly

PPrunespeople, do you agree or disagree with this attitude? It might apply to aircraft carriers as well as littoral combat ships or boats:


"I look at the Streetfighter concept and worry that we are saying, 'It's OK to lose ships,' " says Vice Adm. Michael Mullen, commander of the U.S. 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, Va."

... proposed by Adm. Cebrowski and Wayne Hughes as you might recall from here:

...Streetfighters would be cheap -- one design would cost only about $70 million a ship, compared with as much as $1 billion for a new destroyer-- the Navy would be able to buy hundreds for the price of one 10-ship carrier battle group. The ships would operate along crowded coastal waters, hiding in coves and springing out to destroy enemy subs, hunt down mines and disrupt enemy missiles that could more easily target larger, slower ships.

After a few days or weeks of heavy fighting, the bigger ships would move in and take over the fight. Some Streetfighters would be lost, and some sailors would die. Streetfighters must be designed to lose," Capt. Hughes wrote at the time. "If the ships become too costly or too heavily manned, commanders will be unwilling to put them at risk."

Cebrowski fought the funding issue. And it's easy to see why you get the [ gold-plated, too big, and over budget -- Elmo ] LCS when you wanted something else, considering -

Some top Navy commanders have grave doubts. "I look at the Streetfighter concept and worry that we are saying, 'It's OK to lose ships,' " says Vice Adm. Michael Mullen, commander of the U.S. 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, Va.

After all, there is no "littoral combat czar" to fight the big haze gray boys, and the air and sub mafias. It's like mine warfare only worse.
So give me a few M-80s and let me have young fire breathers learn to use them - creatively.

Eagle1 | Homepage | 07.30.08 - 6:40 pm | #
http://www.eaglespeak.us/2008/07/real-littoral-combat-ship-goes-to-sea.html

ME,

Your extract might use English words but the sense is hard to define if you haven't been following the story.

Looking at your link what you appear to have is a mission specific vessel.

Plenty of crowded coastal water ways but coves? There are many coasts that do not have coves and are exposed to onshore weather. This was the preserve of coastal forces in WW2, forces such as PT boats, MTBs, MGBs etc. While some MGBs operated successfully in contested waters of the Adriatic and Aegean predominantly they need secure bases on friendly shores. This makes them largely a defensive asset as opposed to the combat reach of blue water vessels.

The Swedish Navy developed a stealth craft 15 years ago. It was barely visible from 2 miles away in good visibility and would have been ideal for their littoral operations.

A parallel would be the long range bomber or fighter/bomber - short range fighter battle. The former needs size and fuel load to reach the enemy and thus sacrifices speed and manoeuvreability, the latter is 'cheap' and agile. If we eschew the heavy metal then neither side would have the reach to engage each other. A carrier however does just that; it enables the delivery of agile airpower to meet an agile enemy.

Not sure though what attitude you are asking us to consider.

Elmo, and another thing, FFS post the bl**dy link and not the whole bl**dy article.

Copy small extracts by all means so that you message can stand alone but we can read the link if so inclined. To post the whole or major part of an article is agin the rules - copyright and all that!

I've never understood why we didn't just go ahead and contract whoever built the French CDG to build us 2 new (and why not?) identical carriers down to the nuclear propulsion and flight-deck...?! We could have insisted that all switches be labelled in English as well as French. We could have insisted that construction would be in one or more UK shipyards. We could have insisted on a fixed-price contract (leaving the froggie government to take any eventual hits) unlike the present arrangement where the final cost undoubtedly doubles or triples what was projected before entry into service. The French already went through a great deal of time and expense before ending up with what is now a perfectly-serviceable carrier (and one that the UK would be very pleased to possess, especially if it came with the wine cellar)...?!

Yours humbly, (Brit living in FR since 1991) and with good relations with froggies...

airship.

Froggie carrier
 

One answer to that. If it is so good, why did the froggies pay money up front to look at and use the RNs CVF design?

Whilst a very good ship, the CdG is expensive to build and run (requiring a 24 hour nuclear watch system) and is compromised because it utilises submarine reactors on a surface ship. It is also too small.

Also don't believe all this bull about the CVF costing more that a US CVN.

It's a very big IF, but IF this project is managed well and comes in on budget the UK will have done very well thankyou very much.