HMS Queen Elizabeth
Discussion
FourWheelDrift said:
In 2017 Good Health did a report on NHS overspending on basic items like toilet rolls, detergent, bin bags, wet wipes and more, they found the NHS wasted £7.6bn a year on inflated price items. Remember the MoD spending £22 on a single light bulb that was only worth 65p? Same thing.
So that's 2 carriers a year please.
Like the sound of that So that's 2 carriers a year please.
or a lot more Typhoons a year 
Then we can liberate the rest of Europe again
tuffer said:
Gandahar said:
What has the NHS got to do with how defence spending should be in 2018?
Keeping to defence spending, why are these two carriers money well spent considering the current position of the UK in the world? Who potentially will we need them for ?
China.Keeping to defence spending, why are these two carriers money well spent considering the current position of the UK in the world? Who potentially will we need them for ?
Simpo Two said:
It's a great view. 'We're at peace, we don't need any armed forces'. And then, suddenly, we do. Homework: History.
With the additional aspect that these days a new ship or aircraft will take 20 years from design to service ( if you're lucky ) instead of the months of WW2 era hardwareTalksteer said:
Personally if I were designing a carrier today I would probably take a 100,000 tonne container ship hull ($150 million) and fly the air vehicles off electric VTOL platforms thus allowing me to deploy almost any aircraft I want off the carrier and I also don't have to steam into the wind either. I'd also containerise most of the mission systems allowing me to upgrade it much more rapidly, I'd also invest in domestic IT skills to allow me to create mission and planning system myself rather than be reliant on contractors and procurement processes.
Commercial vessels are wholely unsuited to military use, they lack redundancy in systems and meaningful damage control is all but impossible; by the time you redesign to account for these issues and to accommodate crew you might as well start with a blank sheet of paper. The big grey steel box is the cheap bit, the expense is in the weapons systems and supplying a continuous stream of food, people and fuel to run them.aeropilot said:
Indeed, along with a suitable RAF maritime patrol/antiship component to back it up etc, which is also something that we have undertaken a massive capability gap in since Nimrod was retired and cancelled, and with anti-shipping Tornado GR.1B retirement .... 
When do we get Posidon up and running? Thats another area that's been gapped for fat to long. aeropilot said:
RizzoTheRat said:
When do we get Posidon up and running?
2020 I believe is the scheduled date...............(so probably nearer 2025 then 
)Here one that the Philippines use.
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/169028/news-air-f...
We could have called up some of our retired C130 pilots to fill the gap, anybody know any ?
PRTVR said:
I think we should have gone for a modified C130 as a stop gap, good at low level , 4 engines reasonable endurance.
Strangely enough, low level over the sea is not an ideal operating area for a Herc with its high set flexible wing.MPA (Maritime Patrol Aircraft) are multi-role platforms. Surface surveillance is but a small part of what they do - their primary roles being hunting and killing submarines (Anti Submarine Warfare, ASW), shadowing, targetting and killing surface combatants (Anti Surface-unit Warfare, ASuW), Intelligence gathering, Third Party Targeting, as well as Air Sea Rescue (ASR) in peacetime. Over and above all that, another thing you need with an MPA is a fast dash speed so as to minimise transit time between finding a contact and prosecuting it. Additionally, in terms of ASW, a turbo-prop a/c is not necessarily ideal owing to the fact that any submariner will tell you that they can pick up the 'beat' off the props relatively easily, whereas hearing a jet is more problematic (and yes I know the USN, the Canadians, The Aussies and the Kiwis historically used the P3 Orion; Nimrod was a better platform).
While we did MRR (Maritime Radar Reconnaissance) to police the Falklands waters , the task was somewhat limited by the Ecko 290 radar fitted to the Herc. It was also limited by the fact that we had to visually identify any target which could be problematic in bad weather - our capability came nowhere near that of Nimrod MR2 with it's Searchwater radar and more advanced nav kit.
Similarly with ASR, while we practiced it, and while there was a successful dinghy drop fom a Falklands based Herc, this was in relatively good weather. Again our capability came nowhere near Nimrod MR2.
Finally, and quite obviously, the Herc has no capability to track and hunt subs, let alone kill them.
aeropilot said:
Gargamel said:
We are an island nation, I would rather have a decent Navy than Army.
Indeed, along with a suitable RAF maritime patrol/antiship component to back it up etc, which is also something that we have undertaken a massive capability gap in since Nimrod was retired and cancelled, and with anti-shipping Tornado GR.1B retirement .... http://www.nuclear-weapons.info/vw.htm#WE.177
Megaton Martel stop-gap proposal
In early 1963 following cancellation of Skybolt, a nuclear-armed variant of the Martel, (163) air-launched missile was studied with many other options for use as a stand-off weapon, to fill the requirement that was ultimately met by the WE.177B laydown bomb. An extension of OR.1168, (164) it became known colloquially as Megaton Martel. There were two proposals, both scaled-up from the 1'213 lb Martel to 2'000 lb and 5'000 lb. At those weights Megaton Martel would have little in common with the original. A range of 25 nm was claimed for the 2'000 lb variant. Deployed on V-bombers initially, it was also suitable for delivery by the Buccaneer and TSR2, and although of limited range it would allow aircraft to remain outside close-defence missile screens of all but the largest and most heavily defended targets, offering the V-bombers a better chance of survival. The 5'000 lb larger variant with its claimed range of 55 nm was more suited to penetrate the most heavily defended targets with extended missile screens, but was too large for carriage by Buccaneer aircraft. (165) RAE opinion favoured either variant rather than low-level Blue Steel that was believed inadequate. (166) The only possible warhead choice for Megaton Martel would be from the Super Octopus - Cleo - Katie - WE.177B lineage. There was little chance of a newly developed Martel-specific thermonuclear warhead given the severe time-limits set for deployment, and the heavy workloads imposed by the Polaris programme. The TV-guided Martel missile to the original OR.1168 - GD.5, - JNAST 1168A - GDA.21 specification that was deployed on Buccaneer aircraft in an anti-shipping role should not be confused with the Megaton Martel studies.
Studies were to be mainly directed towards it being a free-falling weapon, with other possible uses in the anti-ship missile P3T (later known as Sea Eagle), a NATO ASSM, and a cruise missile. Other delivery methods to be considered, and options kept open for them, were a heavyweight submarine-launched torpedo and an overland stand-off missile (191) (possibly a reference to TASM). A programme of warhead design and testing continued, although there appeared little prospect of a WE.177 replacement reaching the Services before 1994. (192) Although there was a desire for a common design, it was soon apparent that it would not be suitable for cruise missiles. (193) However, even so, the real bottleneck was insufficient production resources.
Now if your op plan is no first use, then it's going to be a bit late then! Which only leaves the other option.
Dr Jekyll said:
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Strangely enough, low level over the sea is not an ideal operating area for a Herc with its high set flexible wing.
O/T, but why is this? After all flying boats tend to have high wings for obvious reasons.
thouses specifically for rough salt water operations.........the Herc wasn't.Exactly.
Flying boats had main spars giving them 'solid' wings.
Hercs don't have main spars per sé, the wing being constructed effectively from a series of box sections; this makes the wing 'flexible'.
Believe it or not, you can get some fairly serious turbulence at low level in high sea states. Not good for a Herc because it fatigues the wing shoulder joints excessively.
Flying boats had main spars giving them 'solid' wings.
Hercs don't have main spars per sé, the wing being constructed effectively from a series of box sections; this makes the wing 'flexible'.
Believe it or not, you can get some fairly serious turbulence at low level in high sea states. Not good for a Herc because it fatigues the wing shoulder joints excessively.
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Exactly.
Flying boats had main spars giving them 'solid' wings.
Hercs don't have main spars per sé, the wing being constructed effectively from a series of box sections; this makes the wing 'flexible'.
Believe it or not, you can get some fairly serious turbulence at low level in high sea states. Not good for a Herc because it fatigues the wing shoulder joints excessively.
Thanks, interesting.Flying boats had main spars giving them 'solid' wings.
Hercs don't have main spars per sé, the wing being constructed effectively from a series of box sections; this makes the wing 'flexible'.
Believe it or not, you can get some fairly serious turbulence at low level in high sea states. Not good for a Herc because it fatigues the wing shoulder joints excessively.
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Exactly.
Flying boats had main spars giving them 'solid' wings.
Hercs don't have main spars per sé, the wing being constructed effectively from a series of box sections; this makes the wing 'flexible'.
Believe it or not, you can get some fairly serious turbulence at low level in high sea states. Not good for a Herc because it fatigues the wing shoulder joints excessively.
Which is what happened to the Hawkins & Power C-130 aerial fire fire tanker when it's wings folded up at low level after a retardant drop in California about 15 years ago. Again, not the ideal platform for low level fire bombing, but they are using lots of them, as replacement for all the old knackered big piston stuff that was used up until the late 80's era.Flying boats had main spars giving them 'solid' wings.
Hercs don't have main spars per sé, the wing being constructed effectively from a series of box sections; this makes the wing 'flexible'.
Believe it or not, you can get some fairly serious turbulence at low level in high sea states. Not good for a Herc because it fatigues the wing shoulder joints excessively.
All that stuff was built for that sort of flying environment, modern stuff isn't.
Video of the C-130 crash here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybYeJVh1cew
.
I think they routinely replace the wing shoulders at shorter intervals.
Average life for that on a Herc is around 20 years - the RAF got it's first Hercs in 1967 and were replacing the shoulder joints for the later H model style in the mid 1980s.
The J models, owing to the way we hammered them (coupled with the fact that in the early days they didn't carry the external tanks = no wing bending relief) were needing replacements in about 10 years.
Average life for that on a Herc is around 20 years - the RAF got it's first Hercs in 1967 and were replacing the shoulder joints for the later H model style in the mid 1980s.
The J models, owing to the way we hammered them (coupled with the fact that in the early days they didn't carry the external tanks = no wing bending relief) were needing replacements in about 10 years.
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