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LateArm Live,
Sly dig acknowledged. Top banter appreciated. |
Soddim,
The SHARS did not provide the outer layer of defence - the picket ships did. Jacko, Re the CVF/HAR/JSF debate I am unclear who provides a/d and or strike missions prior to a point where the GR4s/Typhoon find an airfield to operate from? And why can't the EU provide A/D for the UK, esp as they seem reliuctant to go anywhere else? |
I think you'll find, Bismark, that a large number of the kills achieved by the SHARs were post attack and the AD provided was necessarily limited by the distance from deck to CAP. To provide a reasonable outer defence the SHARs would have needed to CAP to the West of West Falkland. Having said that, everyone acknowledges how much better the AD would have been a few years earlier whilst the old Ark with F4s was in service.
Although you aimed your AD comment at Jacko, you cannot be serious about relying on the EU for air defence of UK. If that situation ever comes about I am emigrating! |
Damn these proposed carriers must be fast to deploy anywhere in the world and provide AD/CAS with their embarked aviation quicker than land-based aircraft can deploy.
Oh that HNS thing, what if the countries surrounding the target country also deny overflight permission? Suntans and cocktails all-round for the guys and girls on the slowboat? |
Time we concerned ourselves with our country and our people, if we can't afford to do anything more. But. If the UK hadn't been so conspicuously committed over the past few years, what would be left of the armed forces by now, with no political ammunition to defend them? My personal position for the record: I would love to see a future where we don't have to maintain hugely expensive strike capability, where weapons and war are relics of the past. Surely that, regardless of its achievability, has to be the goal of whatever world order we can create. While I don't live on that planet, however... P |
Re the CVF/HAR/JSF debate I am unclear who provides a/d and or strike missions prior to a point where the GR4s/Typhoon find an airfield to operate from? And why can't the EU provide A/D for the UK, esp as they seem reliuctant to go anywhere else? Land based and maritime based air power each have their benefits and disadvantages Bismark. But please do not try and distort history by suggesting that carrier air is an essential pre-cursor for most ops.:= Regards, MM |
The problem is that with a cat and trap carrier RN squadrons would not be made available for lengthy land based rotational commitments in the way that RN Harrier squadrons have been. You have two carriers one is active while the other is in refit or maintenance. What do you think you do with the air wing of the carrier that is pulling shore duty? The fact is carriers are used to project power and protect overseas possessions in a way that shore based land power cannot. If you need that capability then you need carriers. If you want to be relegated to performing air police missions and the occasional overseas deployment under Uncle Sam's security umbrella well then you do not need the carriers. Your obsolete (they certainly will be around 2015) Eurofighters should deter Russia as long as Uncle provides back up. |
Wingingit.
I see you put your location as being somewhere in cyberspace. To make the following statement you must be way out there in deep space. If you want to be relegated to performing air police missions and the occasional overseas deployment under Uncle Sam's security umbrella well then you do not need the carriers. Your obsolete (they certainly will be around 2015) Eurofighters should deter Russia as long as Uncle provides back up. |
Originally Posted by wingingitnow
(Post 4583901)
You have two carriers one is active while the other is in refit or maintenance. What do you think you do with the air wing of the carrier that is pulling shore duty?
If we get 2 CVF why would we need 2 NSW if one CVF was always in refit? Just a thought. Right or wrong? |
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Even Squadrons need recovery time after deployments, both for recovery of aircraft serviceabilityand recovery of personnel. If you have one NSW bouncing permanently from ship to ship without any "harmony time" you will wear out your aircraft and your people, resulting in less efficiency and a hefty retention problem. |
Even Squadrons need recovery time after deployments, both for recovery of aircraft serviceabilityand recovery of personnel. If you have one NSW bouncing permanently from ship to ship without any "harmony time" you will wear out your aircraft and your people, resulting in less efficiency and a hefty retention problem |
From the BBC:
Decision due on aircraft carriers Defence Secretary John Hutton is due to issue a written ministerial statement on the future of two new Royal Navy aircraft carriers. Reports suggest he could delay their entry into service - scheduled for 2014 and 2016 - by two years as the Ministry of Defence tries to cut costs. Work on the £4bn project had been due to begin next spring. The announcement affects shipyards in Appledore, in north Devon, Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow and Rosyth. Former defence secretary Des Browne had given the green light for the creation of HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales in May. Contracts worth about £3.2bn were signed in July and the work was expected to create or underpin a total of 10,000 jobs at the yards. But Mr Hutton told MPs this week there would be a new announcement on defence spending. He said: "We will be setting out some ways in which we intend to improve value for money in relation to defence procurement. "But we have got to make sure that the armed forces have a balanced range of kit available to them." 'Financial chaos' BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the government did not view cancelling major defence projects as an option. Instead, it was considering delays as a way of controlling the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) spiralling budget. She said: "At least one of Britain's two new aircraft carriers could be put back by a year, or even two. "There's already a delay to the joint strike fighter that will fly from the warships, so the MoD could argue it makes sense to put off the completion of the carriers." But Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock, a member of the Commons Defence Committee, said the MoD was in financial "chaos". "Without the carrier contracts, many of those yards are going to find it difficult to keep going," he said. "MoD contracts have been fundamental in keeping the skills together, keeping the technology alive and moving it on... delays will undoubtedly mean a lot of that good work and a lot of money will have been wasted." :ugh: |
The trouble with delaying projects is that it costs more. It would be cheaper to advance the project.
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For a lesson in what happens when you continually delay ships, see Charles de Gaulle cost escalation, or more recently, the impact when MoD deferred MG for CVF back in 2003/4.
Fact of the matter is, the only thing you can do (without wholesale redundancies and consequent impact on ability to build in the first place) is slow the build down, which means throw less bods at it. Run-on costs for CVS are likely to eat up any savings in CVF build (which I thought was the whole point of combining EP and STP!) as Lusty & Ark (particularly the latter judging by her material state) will need another trip to Babcocks North..... |
Completely unnecessary decision by the MoD. If they had waited 6 months BAeSystems would have been sure to slip the programme by 2 years anyway
Not surprised though |
In other words, delay it until the 'other' party take the reins and once again get a bad reputation for tough love...
Bastards.... Dont you just love politicians.... |
Whingeing git now,
You'd be surprised. Not only a journo, but a busy one for the last 20+ years, and reasonably well informed, if not respected. And I'm entirely happy to be compared with Bill Sweetman, thanks, who's better informed than you are or will ever be, with your kneejerk prejudice and facile and fatuous opinions. 1) "The fact is carriers are used to project power and protect overseas possessions in a way that shore based land power cannot." Much more slowly, at many times the cost, and all to deploy a small force incapable of sustaining a high sortie rate for an extended period, you mean? 2) "If you need that capability then you need carriers." Well no, you evidently don't. The UK has been successfully projecting power (in the Balkans, the Middle East, and other places) since 1982 - and in EVERY instance (even when the decision was taken to send a CVS) land-based air power COULD have done the job - and could always have done it quicker, better and cheaper. Carriers are a useful niche capability, but a niche capability should not be so expensive (at a time of tight budgetary limits) as to distort the entire defence budget. Scrapping Harrier early: Saves £1 Bn + Scrapping CVS early: Saves ??? Scrapping CVF: Saves £4 Bn + Scrapping JSF: Saves at least £5.4 Bn/$8.052 Bn (66 x $122 m) in flyaway costs ALONE. By contrast, you could buy 48 Gripen NGs for £2.3 Bn, all-in. or 58 Gripen NGs (including Fuel, Spares, and Upgrades for a 30 year service life, an MLU, and ”Uncertainties” ) for £5.29 Bn. It's not that carriers aren't useful - it's that they are not cost effective, and are unaffordable. And the RN didn't have a great record of making even the STOVL SHar available for non-carrier ops in the past, and a 66 aircraft force of JSF would certainly be tied to CVF. |
"Rebalancing" the Equipment Programme or more p1ssing about?
Well, now we know SoS's hit-list.
Ministry of Defence | Defence News | Equipment and Logistics | More helicopter capacity for Afghanistan in rebalanced equipment programme Quite how re-engining 12 AH9 is going to dramatically change matters is beyond me. Nor is essentially starting FRES again or even more fruit-loop, the idea that we can push our Fleet tankers back three years - having already issues ITT and got responses..... Fiddling while Rome burns. |
Fiddling indeed.
This was an opportunity for really bold change, and for dumping CVF in favour of more useful capabilities. Piss poor. |
Ho ho. Keep going Jacko. Some one will even believe the "distorting the entire defence budget" claim sooner or later! £4bn over eight years is hardly a distortion (not compared to Tiffy at £70M a pop according to the NAO) at what, 20 airframes pa for 6 yrs?
Apparently the FA18E has a unit price of $55M at the minute (albeit according to the DoDs own figures!). 120 for $7bn or so, knock out the F3, true MR jet that's carrier capable. Bin the GR4 for Typhoo and Bob's yer uncle a two jet FJ fleet (and 350 or so of them at that if we get Tranche 3!) |
I would love to know what the Govt of this country is taking to make them so self-delusional. We are a piddly little tin pot economy in today's world, increasingly dependent on the support of other nations to achieve anything in the wider world. Flash, of course, thinks he is the only decent economist amongst the pack but he now has no dosh to spend to keep up with them.
So how on earth do his military advisers think we are going to project power with our little piggy bank and still be able to afford to look after our own? They must be taking the same drugs - or are they simply trying to keep their pet projects alive. The last thing we should be spending precious defence money on is carriers. Time to act according to the needs of UK PLC - not to delay the CVFs but to cancel them. |
Whether they do or don't is irrelevant.
The country is F****** either way, so they may as well crack on and piss up the wall what they have left. They'll all be in different departments by the time it comes on top, pensions safe, new kitchens and goldfish bowls adorning their weekday residences. I'm surprised anyone cares any more, there's nothing you can do about it apart from watch. The old fellas in the outsized crinkly grey suits covered in dandruff that umm and yar on the back rows can't even save us now. Turn off the news, Job Jobbed. :ok::ok: |
Not a Boffin,
Not a mathematician, either, clearly. The Tranche 2 Typhoon costs £37 m a pop, if you're talking flyaway/unit production price - in order to get a comparable figure to US prices. We know that the Tranche Two global contract was was "worth €13 Bn" for al 236 Tranche 2 aircraft. That’s €55.08 m each. On 17 December 2004, when that contract was signed, the €/£ rate was 0.68545, so €55.08 = £37.76 m. For interest, that was then equivalent to $73 m (you can look up the exchange rates for that day at: FRB: H.10 Release--Foreign Exchange Rates--December 20, 2004). The NAO changed the basis on which it calculates what it calls a UPC a few years back, so that it's no longer a true UPC (it includes fixed costs for all three tranches, but is divided by only on-contract aircraft in T1 and T2, it includes what would go into a US unit weapons system cost, etc.). That's closer than you'd expect to the Super Hornet price (we wouldn't get them for $55m a pop!), and it's a sight less than $122 m for an F-35B. If you want a second FJ, go Gripen. They've landed it on a carrier in their sim already...... So if we dumped CVF and bought a simulated carrier..... |
Jacko
We've done the costing argument before. NAO says this, Jacko says the other, DoD says something else, I say that. As you rightly identify, there are different components in each. My actual point was more along the lines of impact on the EP - which appears to be your bugbear. On that basis, according to NAO which uses the EP lines (no matter how much you might like to quibble) 20 Tiffy's a year at NAO UPC is £1.4Bn pa for what, 6 years for the T1 and T2 buy? Compare that to £4bn over 8 years (contract cost, inclduing all the bits like dredging Pompey and Rosyths dock and crane). Even my elementary maths has that at £500M pa or one third TIffy (which we need to buy). Now add T3 for which there is no agreed UPC yet and I agree is cast iron locked in and who's distorting what? Incidentally, have you ever wondered whether BVT negotiated a similar cancellation penalty to T3 during the merger? Restructure your entire business and leave it dependent on an easily cancellable contract? Wait - I hear you cry, what about Dave? Very true. But don't the RAF want Dave too for FOAS or whaever it's called this week? If you want it you've got to pay for it - it appears to be the £500M pa for ships you object to. It's only simulated money anyway, lets be honest. |
ZZZZZZZZZZ
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Not a Boffin,
You were comparing a US type UPC with a very different cost for Typhoon. I supplied a directly comparable figure. Luckily, the UPC for Tranche 2 Typhoon doesn't need to be argued. The value of the T2 production contract was set in stone, and is known. Divide that by the number of aircraft and you have the UPC. The NAO figure IS NOT A UPC. We don't have a UPC for Tranche 3, but EF GmbH have always said that each successive Tranche would be cheaper in terms of UPC, and have succeeded in achieving that, so far. With some UK-unique elements and weapons system costs included, RAF Tranche 1 jets cost £49 m or £45 m. Tranche 2 cost £42 m calculated in the same way. You might therefore expect Tranche 2 to come in at about £39 m on the same basis. You won't save much by cancelling them. F-35 is a different matter. I want to save £1 Bn on Harrier, £5 Bn on ships (and we all know that they'll cost way more than that) and whatever JSF ends up costing, plus the high running costs. |
£5 Bn on ships (and we all know that they'll cost way more than that) |
THS
Err, that commodity is necessary for ALL ops (land, sea, air) and if you look at what they've bought it's all non-developmental. The alternative led to a lot of cost escalation with CdeG. Jacko Whether the NAO figure is a UPC or not, I can't see an argument that doesn't have a £1Bn-plus impact on the EP every year for Tiffy, which I believe was your point. As for costing more than £5Bn, as one who has spent nearly 20 years in the shipbuilding industry, I can tell you that MoD was being seen off good and proper at £4Bn. The delay will certainly ensure that they do cost £4Bn though. However, there aren't enough systems in the ship to escalate by another billion - not to say BVT won't try obviously. |
THS Err, that commodity is necessary for ALL ops (land, sea, air) and if you look at what they've bought it's all non-developmental. The alternative led to a lot of cost escalation with CdeG. F-76 is the most expensive 'standard' fuel the British military use* by a fair margin and the price of diesel derivatives will rise considerably again in the future as nations such as China and India once again develop a thirst for them. F-35 on the other, whilst also experiencing price rises, is still considered a comparatively cheap fuel and you can run diesel vehicles on it, though not marine craft unfortunately. It seems a little strange that we as a nation can be planning a new generation of nuclear powered submarines yet somehow fitting a nuclear power plant to the carriers is a huge leap in costs. Couldn't the costs somehow, I don't know, be shared between the projects? * My information was correct as of October 07. |
Hypothetically speaking - genuine question...
Does anyone know the cost per hour (or similar meaningful metric) over dear old 'ghanners' of a Super Hornet flying from 'somewhere off the coast' as compared to a GR4 flying from KAF? (Future proofed question - well hopefully anyway!)
What if we factor in the logistics train required to keep KAF going, the air bridge, the 14000 people at KAF that seem to 'add very little'? the FP required etc etc? Whilst I am acutely aware that opinion is everything and facts are nothing - and that views on CVS/N/F are entrenched and non-negotiable I am genuinely interested. How much does a FARP/TFOL/ air base cost compared to a CV..various? Anyone know? And just in case this benign question wasn't inflammatory enough, how many times has a CVN stopped flying due to hostile action? How many times has KAF or the COB ceased Ops due to IDF? Here's where I am. CVS - absolute waste of rations. CVN/F great bits of kit if used properly and adequately funded. Typhoon - two wars, no show, what's the story? regards, orca. |
It seems a little strange that we as a nation can be planning a new generation of nuclear powered submarines yet somehow fitting a nuclear power plant to the carriers is a huge leap in costs. Couldn't the costs somehow, I don't know, be shared between the projects?
Good point HS |
Orca,
"Typhoon - two wars, no show, what's the story?" You need five fighter squadrons for UK AD, QRA and Falklands. We now have two F3 Squadrons and two Squadrons of Typhoons. There's just no 'slop' for long term dets and deployments yet, even if you believe that the Austere A-G capability is yet as mature as the July OED might make is assume. Now if it had been me as CAS, I'd have sent a four-ship to Kandahar for a Rafale-style flag-waving PR exercise, to get that 'tick in the box' - operationally justifiable or otherwise. With aircraft being diverted to Saudi, and with the production rate slowed to avoid costly gaps at the end of Tranche 1 (and again for the end of Tranche 2) it will be a very long time before there is a third Typhoon squadron, let alone the fourth and fifth, and the sixth and seventh, that would allow the Typhoon force to do what it was bought for - which was to replace five squadrons of F.Mk 3s AND three squadrons of Jags. Not a Boffin, Canning CVF would leverage a big enough saving to fund proper SH, but I'd agree that the big savings come from cancelling JSF. I'm not suggesting that we bin one, but not the other. |
Canning CVF would leverage a big enough saving to fund proper SH, but I'd agree that the big savings come from cancelling JSF. I'm not suggesting that we bin one, but not the other. You just don't get it do you?!:ugh: For one claiming to be knowledgeable and well informed (with all the apparently reasoned information you are putting out in this thread), you should know that within MOD cancelling a programme definitely does not release funds for another project. Cancellation means the money is never spent and never existed. What has already been spent is wasted. The whole military shrinks! If you lose CVF and JSF, your SH will still have to make do with whatever they've got. They certainly will not get any more funding! And the Typhoon fleet won't get any bigger either. When you lose something, all that really happens is the cost cutting knives re-focus on another project and expose a whole new tranch of entrenched positions and back biting. The idea that everyone is competing for limited funds is driven by folk who would prefer to spend nothing on Defence. These are the people you are working for. You and your ilk picking a pet project or two and attacking the funding of everyone else is by far the biggest threat to your national security. Your argument for cancellation does not just apply to the projects you are attacking. It applies to the whole British Military! Whilst the UK Armed Forces are out their doing there damnedest to keep things running and to achieve their nationally appointed missions within the constraints placed upon them by your leaders, I suggest no-one over there really wants to "bin" anything other than your ranting. If you believe in the British Military and want to help, back off! |
Orca
Good thinking - but to get a representative figure, in the AFG example, you would also need to include the differences between the running costs (fuel / fatigue life etc / manpower costs) of having to maintain 24/7 CAPs from the CVF (over AFG)on "a just in case basis because we're too far from the fight to be able to react quickly" (and it is the transit hours / fatigue that is really hurting certain OS fleets) against being able to maintain a ground alert posture by being in-country and only launching when required. Just to keep the argument balanced. And of course the FP issues remain to a certain extent for the sea-basing option (USS Cole?) so it's not just one CVF theres all the picket ships, resupply ships etc. Perhaps may be close to 14000 personnel!:p |
Wrathmonk, and you missed out the limited utility of a single deck. One out, all out.
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I think we are all missing the point. We only have defence to
1. Keep Wastelands and BAe Systems in business and 2. Have something for the spotters to take photos of. Whats Defence of the realm and providing the forces with good kit on time at a good price got to do with it. Wiretensioner |
DBTW,
Nice try, but wrong. Money has to be saved. I'd rather see it saved by cutting nice-to-have, big ticket, prestige programmes that deliver only a niche capability than see it saved by shaving money from day to day essential capabilities. Those who most damage the defence of the UK are the people who push for disproportionate spending on pet programmes which do not deliver value for money or cost effective delivery of effect. The RN needs to push for what is best for Britain, not to fight narrow, single-service interest turf wars. |
Jacko
The RN needs to push for what is best for Britain, not to fight narrow, single-service interest turf wars. And I'm Air Force myself before I'm accussed of being a narrow minded WAFU, sun dodger, skimmer or any other relevant Jack-speak persona :p |
WM agree with you on the above
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Next question
I note that whilst we seem to 'agree' on the copy cost of a Typhoon or F-18E, no-one actually knows how much carrier aviation costs as compared to land based aviation in a 'cost per hour of CAS' or similar. Interesting that this should be so in such an emotive argument. I 'know' that CVF is costing 3.8 Billion or there abouts, but no-one 'knows' how much KAF costs, or Bastion for that matter. I am sure we could fall out at great length about what was actually in the 'cost' and what wasn't.
First point, if we don't know the cost delta, how are we even starting X costs more than Y arguments. Bear in mind we don't even know which war we're talking about yet... I would also like to ask what we do with KAF when it's all over, do we ship it home overland or by jingly to the coast and then by ship? Surely it's ours, we paid for it..didn't we? Where are we going to put it? Brawdy? Are the USN faced with the same problem or do their flat tops get used in subsequent fights, or are they perhaps biodegradeable/ recyclable? Just interested from a cost point of view. If i may quickly revisit ther 'whole typhoon thing'. Why do we have lord-high-crab and OC this-that-or-the-other sqn banging on about it, combat ready this, fully capable that. If we don't have the sqn numbers to deploy it, it ain't combat ready. I am happy to believe its ace at everything, and the chaps must be itching to actually employ weapons - but until it drops a bomb, air-to-ground wise it's a zero not a one. And a genuine question to finish, has Typhoon done a Red Flag yet? Sorry to bear questions and no answers. Regards, Orca. |
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