Flying a less capable fighter ?
 

The costs of modern FJs are becoming prohibitive, even for the wealthier nations. I was reminded of this watching a documentary about the history of the Hunter, which featured a swarm of early F.2s roaring off for a squadron formation flight which all looked very impressive.

Quite how useful 500 Hunters would be in a modern shooting war is difficult to quantify, but it would be a force with some defense in depth through sheer numbers. Today's equivalent would be an aircraft like the Textron Scorpion.

So if you as a front line pilot, were faced with opponents who were flying superior aircraft, albeit fewer of them, would you still be willing to go into combat in them, or is there an expectation that you must have the best kit ?

The thought of the Britsh military going to war with crap kit would never happen, would it? :rolleyes: Can you just imagine the Daily Fail or Stun's headlines?

Quantity has got a quality all of its own, but only if you are willing to accept 'cannon fodder' like attrition rates. There is no appetite for this in the UK right now; we even get "wrapped around the 'horror of war' axle" when we lost such small numbers as we did in the recent Afghanistan/Iraq skirmishes - we lose more in a single Harris bomber raid in one night than we lost in 8 years on TELIC in Iraq or on HERRICK in Afghanistan!

Just sayin'

LJ :cool:

Figures: In Mar 44 we lost 64 Lancasters and 31 Halifaxes in a single raid on Nuremburg - 670 men. :eek:

ISTR the Hawk Air Defence role faded quietly away, despite the potential numbers that could be deployed.

Good point Leon - don't even think of suggesting loss rates that say the Red Army had in WW2 or anything like UK losses in WW1

But if you are ever really up against it some times people are willing to fight those battles........

MPN, AFAICR, the Hawk remained in vogue until the need to defend against mass raids was over.

LJ, a good case of the quality of quantity was the Tiger v Sherman one where an exchange ratio of 5:1 only worked with limited numbers of Tigers and unlimited numbers of Shermans.

The last time I tried it in a Hawk was in the early '90s supporting Leuchars and Leeming TacEval with predictable results. Flying in cooperation with an F3 was a non-starter really as just keeping-up was a challenge. So most of the time we operated independently as a GCI visual fighter.

It is quite a sobering exercise flying an aircraft with no radar, no RWR or self-protection miles out over the North Sea. Other than for soaking-up shots it was not easy to see what effect we could provide. At medium level a clean Hawk is reasonably quick and agile, but with 2 draggy missiles and a gun it's not that great at all.

If tasked against something as quick as a Bear it is difficult exercise to get an armed Hawk into the right bit of sky, let alone into missile parameters. Tasked against a simulated inbound Su-27 threat we didn't stand a chance. GCI update rate was just about good enough to defeat the first shots some of the time but beyond that we were toast, usually without ever seeing our adversary.

JTO, probably beneath their notice to expend ammunition on. However you might have caused them a moment or two to honour the threat before they swept passed. I understood you went in as extra missiles :) with the F3 until he got contact, thereafter you were looking at his burners and on your own.

There's this little problem that lots of cabs requires lots of (expensive) aircrew and consequent training time. Unless one is signed up to the "autonomy will save the day" theory, which is often (but not exclusively) the product of drinking turps......

Couldn't the F3 put its burners in for a bit to keep up?

The UK couldn't afford to operate 500 low-cost fighters. The procurement cost (say £10bn-ish) of the aircraft is irrelevant - 500 fighters is (say) 50 squadrons, which means ~20 airfields with base maintenance facilities, supply, fuel never mind the drivers and their initial/currency training.

Fast jet pilots are supposed to have something like a minimum of 160hrs/yr (with the RAF working to a higher figure) to remain current aren't they? So 500 sortiable aircraft means 500 pilots, which means 80,000 fast jet operating hours per year just for currency (never mind ops). Even if we just take the manufacturers figures the direct operating costs (at ~£2500/flg-hr) would be over £200m/yr. Then factor in the additional 20 airfields, the drivers, the airworthiness organisation to support them etc etc.

This is way more than Mr & Mrs Taxpayer are prepared to fork out for the Royal Airshow Force.

PDR

So what we need to do is ditch all these manned fighters and go over to an all missile defence system. Ahhh, good old Duncan Sandy was right :p

To be honest if Russia did invade, one feels the pitiful air defence we could put up would last days at the most.
It's not just the attrition that is the only worry, it is the fact that unlike WW2 you do not have the facilities to replace those lost in any meaningful time frame.

C195, you assume an integrated civil/military infrastructure. Set up a small air base and your local council will be there with a rates bill for starters. Then there is the noise factor and NIMBY. We produced a bomber capable of operating off highway strips. the only highway it ever took off from was a motorway before it was opened. Imagine the outcry if we closed several motorways for an annual exercise.

The Cypriots have a highway strip, possibly more than one. The Swiss certainly do but I believe their robust neutrality has national support, as indeed the Swedes do. As far as neutrality goes, the Irish clearly don't feel the same imperatives.

You'd need to have a 2-mile stretch of motorway that was free of contraflows, so thast would make it more of a once-per-decade than an annual exercise...

PDR

C195, given the gap between Leuchars as was and Wattisham we did use Teeside and Newcastle but mixing military unscheduled traffic with scheduled civvie traffic was never easy.

Aaaahh..... One of my best days out was part of MFF ( I was 'Tiger slow'). Tiger fast had run out of petrol burning up to attack a cranbury which turned a bit. i had an hour or so to potter about the north sea, just me, neatishead and a few targets.

It was a crap night out, cos the bar was shut.

this was 35 years ago.

...what does BVR stand for?

If Russia invades....shy of a going out of business one time nuclear barrage....the UK would be better served to offer a Full Honors State Visit to the Russian Head of State for his presentation of the Surrender Document for signature.

It is not like the RAF and RN will have a hope in Hell in defeating the Russians.

How they could mount such an invasion without NATO nations being able to see it coming or themselves being taken is impossible.

Just as in WWII....it will take a while for the USA to get there.

95% of our Army Brigades are not combat ready, 60% of of our Naval aircraft are not flyable, and the USAF is in dire straits as well.

The question is how capable are the Russians compared to NATO and other Nations they would have to go up against?

But a detachment of 2-4 aircraft at a satellite base still needs an engineering establishment to maintain them and load stores, a weapons dump (presumably with the odd guard of two, ubless G4S are available!), a full sortie-generation capability (crew rooms, briefing facilities, mission-data generators) a communications facility of some sort etc etc. Speading the available air assets over a larger number of bases makes them MORE expensive to operate rather than less - the same reason why 2-SHAR detachements onto frigates using skyhooks was a complete non-starter.

Again, I stress that whether the actual aircraft are Typhoons or Grippens (or even Hawks) won't be the major cost-driver here.

PDR

[quote] Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator http://www.pprune.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
We produced a bomber capable of operating off highway strips. the only highway it ever took off from was a motorway before it was opened. Imagine the outcry if we closed several motorways for an annual exercise.

Ahh yes and carrying really light dummy bombs I believe, ( told to me by one of the armourers involved.)