But the USMC haven't, have they? They're C customers as well. So whilst it might leave their 11 or so amphibs with no FW (whilst the helo mafia got all the deck space it wants for V-22 et al) They would still be in the FW game.

And as has been pointed out several times, the USMC ConOps requiring the -B are so improbable as to be absurd, meaning that it's an easy thing to cut as it will have virtually no impact on real-world (rather than theoretical) US combat capability. RN? Not so much....

S41

Why do you think the USMC is not getting the Bravo model?
From recent Flight magazine:

For what it's worth I personally think the USMC will (as it has done to date) fight tooth and nail for the F-35B. They already have some, as has been pointed out.

The USMC also has a strong political lobby, so it will undoubtedly have its case heard.

However, it is worth noting that for some reason the misconception exists that the USMC is a VSTOL force transitioning to STOVL F-35. This is somewhere between misleading and fundementally incorrect. I am prepared to stand corrected but I believe the USMC has circa 200 Hornets and circa 110 Harriers. It is taking delivery of 80 F35Cs I believe.

I know that the spectre of being left to fend for oneself in the Pacific is still writ large in the USMC psyche and have a feeling that the F-35B is probably born out of it. But so long as one model survives the USMC will have a FW capability. Not a bad position to be in really.

Cut any one variant and the other 2 become unaffordable to partner nations. It's a downward spiral as Governments concerned about costs amid economic worries pull the plug (Canada, Italy etc). Fewer orders of A's puts the price up further and the spiral continues.

It's all 3 variants or nothing. Nothing would prob bancrupt LM as their other military platforms drop off, unless T-50 becomes T-38 replacement. Massive job losses politically unacceptable so I see all 3 surviving but with delays to full capability.

UK sucks up the costs long term.

Has anyone heard what plan 'B' will bee ;);) if the 'B' is not to be??

I would like to think our 'Illustrious' leaders have an alternative plan other than a reclassification of type. STOVL becomes and extremely expensive, impractical assault type ship as per the Illustrious which I note was parked outside our front door a few days ago. How embarrassing is it to have aircraft carriers sailing the high seas without aircraft, how much money is being wasted on having that thing trying to perform a role it was never designed for.

Glojo

"That thing" - Lusty - is working up ready to assume the role of duty LPH when Ocean goes into upkeep very shortly. That includes provision of a ready multi-spot deck deck to allow various FAA squadrons to maintain deck currency. I hardly classify that as a "waste of money". I'm sure you remember that when designed her primary role was operation of helicopters rather than f/w, so I'm somewhat at a loss at the phrase "never designed for", though I will concede troop accom, assault routes etc are far from ideal.

As for "plan B", I would hazard a guess that it's a binary option. Either :

a) Bite the bullet and implement CTOL conversion (noting that we have now missed our place in the queue for ship sets of EMALS/EAR)

b) Bite the other bullet, abandon naval f/w ops (and therefore any notion of power projection ops), sell the ships - assuming a buyer can be found, which is a big assumption.

Neither of these are particularly difficult to work out. What is a bit difficult to fathom is the almost gleeful anticipation of some on here (not you btw) of the B being cancelled. As should be well known, I personally would have preferred the C option for the UK, but it ain't going to happen unless B gets canned and then only if the money can be found. There are a number of folk however, who appear to be hoping for a B cancellation, largely so an "I told you so" T-shirt can be worn on the CVF/F35 as a whole, rather than any sensible formulation of defence policy / capability.

Hi NAB,
I agree our through deck cruiser has been reclassified and is now a half hearted LPH!! I say half hearted as the other LPH is the so called real article although I believe it was built on the cheap and conforms more to a merchant ship type build specification as opposed to a warship?? (question) A polite question which I believe you are well qualified to answer :ok:

By not carrying a full air wing has the Illustrious got comparable accommodation for its military 'cargo'

It is easy to call an aircraft carrier an LPH but our genuine 'Landing Platform Helicopter' also carries four Mk 5B LCVP's, 40 vehicles that support the embarked parts of 3Cdo brigade, plus of course the ramp that allows these vehicles to embark and disembark.

How ironic that the through deck cruiser was a half hearted attempt at being a proper aircraft carrier :O:O:uhoh:

And now we are seeing it rebadged as a second HMS Ocean or LPH except it lacks the ability to carry landing craft, lacks the ability to have the roll on, roll off feature.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...05_cropped.jpg
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...us_JGS4284.jpg


Does sticking a badge on the funnel make it a genuine replacement for the Ocean?

Apologies for the tongue in cheek sarcasm regarding the role of the through deck cruiser and I would appreciate your observations regarding the build methods of Ocean compared to the build of a warship.. (I have only read books regarding claims about merchant ship build standards)

I wouldn't get over excited about the Ro-Ro capability if I were you. Yes there's a ramp and a ramp support pontoon which allows it to interface with LCVP5 and LCU.

Trouble is, the VP's are usually kitted out with Arctic shelters, which makes it difficult to use them for vehicle offload, which pretty much means you need a Bay or LPD (with LCU or Mexe) with you in order to move any significant number of vehicles by surface. Although the ramp is nominally rated for Viking, that capability isn't used often, which pretty much limits it to Pinzgauers and TUMs (Landy's to the rest of us). The ramp is a bit on the fragile side as well, as Royal found out when he b8ggered it good and proper about three years ago.

Ocean can obviously deploy troops in surface lift, but that's pretty much it in terms of a differentiator.

As far as build quality goes, Ocean is a bucket of bolts IMO. However, she is the only major warship we have that is designed and built to "commercial standards" - Lloyds Rules and Regulations for Ships to be precise. These should not be confused with Lloyds Rules & Regulations for Naval Ships which is what LPD, QEC and T45 are built and maintained to.

The patriot in me, despite my current location, would love to see HMS QE steaming the high seas, catapulting state of the art fighters into the skies to demonstrate British Sea Power and military might. The realist in me asks, to what end would this be?

Despite the quote, this is not directed at Not_a_boffin directly, rather it is a reflection on the sentence re: defence policy. It all depends upon how one sees our defence requirement. Personally, I believe that our policy should indeed be defence rather than offence, and to that end my take would be that aircraft carriers and the argument of power projection is not relevant to the defence of the UK. Equally, the argument about our interests overseas is no longer relevant and sensible defence policy may be to accept that the Empire days are gone, that even if the Royal Navy has two large carriers with aeroplanes launched by whatever means, the days of steaming around the world sorting out bother, be that the Straits of Hormuz or somewhere in the South China Sea are over and that our attention and budget would be better served concentrating on our immediate region. Afghanistan should be the last British Military venture into the Middle East and the sooner our troops of any service are removed from there, the better. Enough good, brave service personnel have died already in a conflict I personally do not believe they should ever have been involved.

Sensible defence policy may also include not blowing the budget on short-range stealth aircraft when, as many have already here observed, there is little chance of stealthing the carrier, or the tanker - unless that tanker is the same shape as the recipient aircraft.

Sensible defence policy may be to ensure the services have sufficient means to defend the UK only. A strong Royal Navy to operate in the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel and north towards Scandanavia and Iceland. To do this does not necessarily require an expensive carrier. A strong Royal Air Force with sufficient numbers of fighters, not all of which need to be stealthy, to maintain the defence of the UK plus some maritime patrol capability. A strong, flexible Army able to operate within our region if required, but with home defence as the primary goal.

I believe this would be doable in a budget that was spared the cost of the current military deployments, the carriers and the F35.

Dermedicus,


The trouble with the 'Defend UK' in the Western approaches and North Sea argument is to define where UK's interests really start. Not considering where outside UK local waters we might need power projection for political purposes is short sighted. I am not suggesting that we need that capability to do another Iraq or 'stan but much of our energy (gas as well as oil) currently comes through the Strait of Hormuz; Somali pirates affect our imports and exports and there might yet be oil in the South Alantic. There are other examples where we are dependent on free passage on the seas. We need the ability to ensure those things continue, regardless of the attitude of others, if we are to keep the lights on and people at work. Whether the current and projected RN are what we need to do that I rather doubt, but 1SL can only work with what the politicians will give and hope that there is an opportunity to re-shape things later.

I see that you are in Oz. Some years back an academic called Dibb "persuaded" the Government (Bob Hawke as PM with Kim Beasley at Defence I think) that what the Strine people needed was a capability to defend Oz (in Oz' water/land/airspace) and that meant a more numerous but small-ship brown-water navy with more widely spread bases (as well as more widely spread Air Force bases). Dibb failed to consider all of Australias strategic interests and as a result of the rearguard action by those who better understood them Oz still doesn't have a small ship brown water navy (or a more numerous one).

N

Fair points Bengo, but the question has to be how much can we realistically afford to do in terms of safeguarding our interests in distant parts of the world and what resources do we require to do that? I am not sure that aircraft carriers are part of that, but others take a different view.

On the subject of Australia, they are in the process of making their military more 'amphibious', with the acquisition of two large LPHs (both bigger than their last carrier) and preparing, I believe, one regiment at least for an amphibious, marine like role. I am not sure where they plan to use them, as invading Indonesia would be a tall order and I am not sure there is the will to start colonising South Pacific Islands. I am also not aware of them proposing to acquire and operate any F35Bs off of these ships.

The Canberra class "Landing Helicopter Dock" (LHD) is a recognition that Australian activities are most likely to be regional support type roles in which the LHD will undertake a base of operations type functions in relatively low intensity environments. I suspect they wouldn't last overly long in a major conflict. They are designed to operate rotary wing types, not fixed wing.

Canberra Class - Royal Australian Navy

Overall, they're just a mobile base to make things like the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands easier to achieve.

AWST (Ares): The New Sheriff Ain't Happy

S41

An American gentleman once pointed out that (in his view) the United States uses AV-8B equipped amphibious ships in a similar fashion to the way it used its smaller carriers (eg the Essex class) during the Cold War (and they can embark up to twenty Harriers to act as a light (sic) carrier). In other words, it gives the US an option short of sending a CVN, and of course more ships with a fixed wing capability is useful. As such, it offers Washington a degree of political dexterity. Consider the deployment of USS Kearsarge during operations in Libya last year.

Additionally, the reason the USMC wanted the Harrier back in the 70s was that it provided them with firepower only a short flying time from the shore, making up for the loss of the six inch and eight inch gun cruisers that provided naval gunfire support during the Cold War conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

Both arguments seem sound to me, and relevant today to a future of (relatively) small scale, littoral engagements.

Not so long ago one of the aviation magazines had a feature about the STOVL strike force. Apart from noting that the USMC intends to be able to run the AV-8B until 2025 or beyond (partly due to the spares source from the UK GR9s), and that sixteen of the UK Harriers are being kept intact, it made the point that they are very useful, and busy. I wonder what their views are on the UK's decision to axe Harrier, and to throw away our carrier capability?

I wonder what they make of the F-35B being dropped in favour of the F-35C, then chosen again, without (thus far) a rethink of the planning to develop the skillsets needed for future. Given the real possibility of conflicts this decade, what will they think of having to provide air cover for UK forces?

Another US gentleman suggested that part of the reason for the switch back to F-35B might be political, whilst I do not believe that to be the case, does it not strengthen to Marines' hands? In which case maybe they could help us out, embarking Harriers aboard Illustrious/QE, perhaps even lending us a few aircraft, as I suggested here.

If we assume that F-35B survives, and that HM Government will not change its mind again, then these are the issues that need to be thought about, as do operations that might take place in the (very) near future. These were the points I tried to make in post 1664, but my words were misinterpreted and provoked a single engine vs two engine top trumps session. Yet the issues of future skills and current (ie this decade) capabilities remain.

Perhaps dithering politicians who will not commit to a decision and join the dots up are the problem, as cornish-stormrider suggests. :ugh:

WEBF:

There's all the difference in the world between "useful if you already have it" and "would spend money on it instead of [X]". This is the heart of the Dave-B vs Harrier debate for the USMC - of course you'll use Harriers that are available here and now, and that includes some cheap one picked up off the Brits.

However, looking forwards, you may not decide that it is the most sensible method of spending said cash to procure STOVL JSFs to replace STOVL Harriers - especially with a sizeable budget crunch coming in 2013.

On the Pentagon's budget crunch, (c. $54bn p.a. if sequestration isn't sorted), it's worth remembering that this is the same as the *entire* UK defence budget, give or take. Once you start talking these sorts of numbers, retaining the uber-expensive Dave-B for some pretty unlikely scenarios becomes much less attractive/likely. Especially when the programme is still reportedly "challenging" :ooh:

It's for this suite of reasons that I think we'll have Dave-B cancelled, and revert to either F-18E/G or F-35C as the RN/RAF new all weather strike platform - with the mix being largely cost driven. At about £100m a piece, JSF is going to be a rather rare bird in UK colours, I fear.

S41

More Major General Bogdan Comments
 

Flight Global has some additional comments from Bogdan here.

They include: -

"The future of the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme is at risk over software concerns and a breakdown in the relationships between the contractor and the government"

"There is no more money and no more time "

"If we don't get ALIS right, we are not flying aircraft."

The article is worth a read.

More at Business Insider & elsewhere. It includes this little gem.... "he Pentagon also needed to stop making changes to the program, calling such moves destabilizing to an already complex program.".

Are the West close to losing the war over stealth fighters?
 

With China and its products, and Russia and their products we could soon be encircled (figuratively) by these nations, their allies and to nations that China and Russia sell their products to?

The aircraft may not be as technically advanced as the F35 is supposed to be, nor the F22, but they won't be that far away. They will have more up time than the overly complicated Western products. They will be cheaper, and there will be brazillions of them compared to the USA's 3 F%'s and the UK's 1 F35, but no carrier. The rate development of the F35 is being developed at perhaps the West will end up chasing after Russia and China who could have their aircraft in use before us.

If it is true that we will not be able to afford sufficient aircraft to defend ourselves, perhaps we should be looking elsewhere. What about investing massively in UAV technology? If we are able to advance the technology sufficiently perhaps we would reduce the advantage that Russia and China will shortly have? Not that UAV's can operate independently, as yet.

The above may be slightly tongue in cheek, but I do think that there is much truth in what I have written.

My most humble apologies to WEBFan for inadvertently starting the engine top trumps session. My comments were based very much on my preference for the known, flying, dependable F/A-18. But they would be, I worked on that program, and a jolly good one it was too.

I have a trivia question which I hope can be answered without diverting the discusion. Of course I know that the 'J' in JSF stands for 'Committee', always a bad letter in US program parlance, but where the heck does 'Dave' come from? I've tried googling but everyone points back to pprune and says it originated here.

A less trivial question, after Dave-B is cancelled, what plans are there for the nice shiny new carriers? Nobody else is going to want them. Prison ships? Satellite launch pads?

mike-wsm,

The F18 has turned in to a nice, effective aircraft/ tool.

Those carriers could be modified to be missile launch platforms possibly. What a waste. The amount of work that would be required would be incredible and much technology on them binned.

Or, they could become floating museum/ cruise ships

Or sold to the mega wealthy (Abramovich) as their personal yacht.

Mike wsm

If this happens, then the chances are that (after massive intake of breath at MoD, much sniggering elsewhere in Whitehall, and huge "I told you so" here on Pprune) the money will be found to convert PoW to CTOL and, if the RN are lucky, convert QE II at her first major refit.

As for the jets? Heart says Dave-C, but head is more equivocal given that the cost is off the scale.

S41

mike-wsm - the name 'Dave' for JSF comes from this thread of 2006: http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...-name-jsf.html
It was first suggested by Just This Once (along with Colin) and it stuck in the absence of a real name at the time.

Didn't think I would get the blame although reading the 2006 thread shows that Zoom won first prize with Lightning, but overreached himself by showing that he could also count to 3.

I don't work in the programme anymore. :E

Er, no.

Its already been shown that we cannot afford the conversion. If the B is canceled, the carriers will be sold off, cheap, and the fantasy requirement for them forgotten. If we can survive with helicopters for years, then the argument to spend billions we don't have, on a dubious capability will be lost.

The general publics reaction to losing the carriers will be .. meh.

As would be the response to the cancellation of any MoD procurement project. Because on top of not really understanding what the systems or capabilities actually do; most if not all only make the press when they are being lampooned for being late, over budget and mapped against a threat that either no longer exists or has itself upgraded in the three decades available.

Just this Once, think my Boss (an RAF Sqn Ldr) when I worked in the Pegasus EA, may have beat you to it by about 5 minutes. ;-) Amazed that it stuck! It came from a comment about how everyone knows a Dave...

Thanks for that as it didn't think it was my fault!

Defense News: British Navy May Face 4-Year Gap in Airborne Early Warning Capability

LONDON — The Royal Navy could be facing as much as a four-year gap in its airborne early warning capability after the current fleet of Sea King Mk7 helicopters is taken out of service in 2016, said sources familiar with the plan. It could be 2020 before the Merlin helicopters earmarked to take over the airborne surveillance and control role in a project known as Crowsnest are operational, the sources said.

The move leaves the Royal Navy with a yawning gap in its maritime surveillance capabilities during the second half of this decade following the axing of the Nimrod MRA4 patrol aircraft as part of the cost-cutting strategic defense review of 2010.

The radar-equipped Merlins will have a key role providing organic protection for the Royal Navy’s new F-35-equipped aircraft carrier force, scheduled to be operational around 2020.

Concerns over a capability gap developing between introduction of the airborne early warning radar-equipped Merlins and the demise of the Sea Kings were voiced in a parliamentary defense committee report Sept. 19, looking at the future of U.K. maritime surveillance. “There is the potential for other capability gaps to occur, such as when the Sea King airborne surveillance and control helicopter is withdrawn in 2016 to be replaced by the Project Crowsnest operating from the Merlin Mk2,” the report said.

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman declined to comment on the in-service date.

In a statement released with the report, James Arbuthnot, the committee chairman, said the “risk is likely to worsen in the medium term as further maritime surveillance capabilities are withdrawn or not yet filled.”

For some time now, Sea King airborne surveillance and control helicopters have been successfully deployed in Afghanistan supporting NATO ground forces.

Crowsnest has been in limbo for months while the MoD sorted out wider funding shortfalls. The program could start to move ahead by the end of the year, with the MoD possibly announcing the start of what is expected to be a lengthy project assessment phase.

The MoD spokeswoman said Crowsnest is “approved as part of the core equipment program, with an assessment phase to start in due course.” She said a contractor for Crowsnest has not been selected.

Mickey Mouse.

I would like to say I am surprised regarding the AEW delay but I have been like an old fashioned record that has become stuck on one particular track... How many times do we read of a predicted capability being introduced into service by a particular date and more to the point, how often does this happen? As soon as the conventional carrier option was binned I stated we only have this helicopter for our AEW capability and the replacement was still at the development stage.

I am in the corner that is not holding its breath regarding any of the programs regarding our Fleet Air Arm and a fast fixed wing capability.

Will we get a replacement for the Sea King by 2016?

Will we get the F-35B?

Will both new carriers ever join the fleet and become operational ships that will operate fast jets?

One out of three is a possibility, but what odds on a full house? ;)

Most days I receive updates predicting doom and gloom for the 'B' variant but I note that the aircraft is still being developed and faults being rectified. We are where we regarding this aircraft and surely we NEED this thing to be successful?

As a very minimum we should get five or six Hornets flying this year to train aircrew and ground crew. Simulated landings, wave-offs and arrestor wire misses could be simulated on a suitably marked runway. Take-off disorientation would need some easy way of applying the required acceleration. There are several possible methods and I would suggest JATO (RATO) as the simplest.

Then we would have a nucleus of trained personnel with serviceable aircraft that can fly missions either from land or from friendly carriers.

Yes, of course this is CTOL. Nobody seriously expects Dave-B to appear in any usable quantities, do they?

http://dc623.4shared.com/img/vo69URy...g02-07-HiR.jpg

A nice image that depict the use of a former RAF HC2


More Here
Teams Vie To Provide C2 Helos for UK Carrier – DefenseNews.com - Breaking Defense News


Interesting Point
How difficult can this be?

Do the MoD
- Take and Existing Airframe which is being handed over to the RN, Decommish a Bagger and hand to AW for Palatisation with a Merlin That would no doubt require some mods and, for a Trifling cost, the RN gets a Platform that is flexible in role and already has a support system in place.

or

- Do they buy into the LM Proposal.

As an ex MoD employee who managed to successfully avoid the required Suppression of free thinking course which is prerequisite before going into management I would hope the AW Solution would win.
...However we are talking about the MoD :ugh:

Or Maybe

Could this be a way of bringing the Merlin HC transfer (or apparent lack of it) into the public eye without an inter-service bitching sesh? :hmm:

Crowsnest is being strecthed out because they can do it - no -one is really sure whenthe carriers will arrive and when they do when they'll start operating aircraft so why spend cash now? Once you kick the programme off it will just build and build and build

Remember that in 1982 the Sea King version was designed, built and in service in a few months - there really is no need to spend more than a year on it - unless of course you have to keep a lot of people busy setting up "Project gates", Evaluation Sub-committees, trainign schemes and the usual bs

More likely Merlin HM1 frames that are not part of the current CSP. From memory there are something like 40/41 of the original 44 frame buy still on the MAR.

Won't allow "Role-on, roll-off"(???) whatever that is, but I doubt that is as "simple" as being portrayed.

What do you have against the LM APG81 proposal?

Having worked with APG81 on the F-35 programme I can assure you that it is incredible bit of kit and given the money other users are throwing at this podded option it is not without wider support.

Should the F-35 grace a UK boat it may be helpful to share a common radar...

Looks neat on the side of an RN Merlin too.

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv...cxqlo1_500.jpg

Just...
Sorry - In a time warp, when I saw this

I thought they had nothing to show.

About the F-22, but relevant for the F-35 and perhaps reflecting the discussions taking place considering sequestration and how to save money.

Time: Adventures in Babbleland: Technological Bloat


AW&ST Editorial: Pentagon Should Investigate Fighter Options Beyond The F-35

Orac,

The AW&ST Editorial article follows a theme I have seen over the past two years from analysts re the F22.

Personally I think that it is good to see that people are actually questioning the validity of aircraft such as the F35, the F22 and the Typhoon.

Whilst admirable in concept, to design, produce and operate the best aircraft it becomes untenable due to a number of reasosn. These reasons being namely: -

• when one can not afford to have sufficient aircraft to defend ones self
• When operational costs are prohibitive causing loss in training and effectiveness of pilots
• Over complexity of systems causing huge maintenance costs
• Over complexity of systems causing high rates of down times, and incidents caused that are extremely dificult to analyse
• Leading edge designs that take so long to develop that they are out of date and no longer meet requirements due to changes in doctrine, plus developments by potential agressors
• Over complex designs that just do not work
• Unrealistic expectations raised and requested in tender process

Personally I love new shiny things that have more flashing lights and a big "wow" factor. Realistically I actually prefer evolution to revolution. Why didn't the USA take a good airframe, such as the F15 and see what could be done with that, even down to a rethink of how good it couild be made from a maintenance point of view such as the F15SE Silent Eagle.

Hval

One might counter-argue that it is actually "evolutionary" upgrades and successive designs since the late 60s/early 70s that has contributed to some degree to the length of time and cost to develop the F22/Typhoon/F35 etc.

The 50s to mid-60s could probably be termed revolutionary when you look at the number and range of different airframe / wing / engine technologies that were designed and built over a relatively short period. F106 through F111 to F15 was what, 20 years tops? Last time I looked it's 20+ years since the Strike Eagle entered service.

What changed? McNamara - definitely. Oil crash in 73? Fall of the Wall and disappearance of a near-term threat?

Probably all of the above. But the intriguing thing is "cost"which is what drives the "unaffordable" perception. Every single western aircraft since the F18 has had a contract requirement to try and drive out maintenance manhours. The use of sims has resulted in a dramatic reduction in flying hours, so you'd think that somewhere these savings would accrue. It ain't the military industrial complex keeping it either, because there's a whole lot less of it in employment terms - something else not often recognised.

Cherchez la bunce!