hence 138 being the number most bandied about. Something that would reduse the cost is lenghning delivery of the F35 to get the cheaper later slots rather than the LRIP examples
The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter overlander
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battlensign
New Member
I understood that the LockMart team was attempting to get a standardised price for all - specifically to reduce the tendency for the 'rush to the back of the line'.
Brett.
The Labour U-turn green paper defence review will NOT include Trident or the Carriers according to the latest reports in the left leaning Guardian broadsheet.
According to one UK senior minister the government is more and more likely not to sign up for the new renegotiated terms and conditions reference the A400. British representatives have been in the US meeting with Lockheed and Boeing to discuss the option of buying C130J & C17. This contradicts comments made by Brown, but then again his current cabinet is so dysfunctional the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing!
Out of the big ticket items up for the chop, A400 would be my favourate. We should buy more C17 & C130. After all we already use both airframes, so the logistics tail will be simplified.
According to one UK senior minister the government is more and more likely not to sign up for the new renegotiated terms and conditions reference the A400. British representatives have been in the US meeting with Lockheed and Boeing to discuss the option of buying C130J & C17. This contradicts comments made by Brown, but then again his current cabinet is so dysfunctional the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing!
Out of the big ticket items up for the chop, A400 would be my favourate. We should buy more C17 & C130. After all we already use both airframes, so the logistics tail will be simplified.
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StevoJH
The Bunker Group
I'd be interested to know how much commonality there actually is between the C130K and the C130J, remember there is around 30 years between the two designs.
citizen578
New Member
Following on from Rik's comments, there's a couple of articles from DMJ which outline the developments of the past couple of days:
Brown wants it...
Defence Management - Brown wants to see A400M in RAF
Davies doesn't...
Defence Management - Davies hints at A400M cancellation
The defence review
Defence Management - New defence review on the way
Personally I think the writing is incresingly on the wall for the A400M. I expect the next few months will see a trial-by-media of alot of defence projects, and frankly the airbus is an easy scapegoat (being late, under the contract-specs, and perceived as 'foreign').
Having said that, it would be a great shame if we did not get the aircraft, much as I have faith in the old dog that is the Herc, it's not exactly short of problems itself...
Poor access to aircrew training
Terrible supply of spares by LM
Major wing fatigue problems (some J model wings will need replacing by 2012)
I can see alot of false-economies on the horizon.
Brown wants it...
Defence Management - Brown wants to see A400M in RAF
Davies doesn't...
Defence Management - Davies hints at A400M cancellation
The defence review
Defence Management - New defence review on the way
Personally I think the writing is incresingly on the wall for the A400M. I expect the next few months will see a trial-by-media of alot of defence projects, and frankly the airbus is an easy scapegoat (being late, under the contract-specs, and perceived as 'foreign').
Having said that, it would be a great shame if we did not get the aircraft, much as I have faith in the old dog that is the Herc, it's not exactly short of problems itself...
Poor access to aircrew training
Terrible supply of spares by LM
Major wing fatigue problems (some J model wings will need replacing by 2012)
I can see alot of false-economies on the horizon.
The airbus is hardly 'foreign', the wings or at least a large part of the wings are going to be manufactured in the UK. What parts of the Hercules if any are made in the UK? Very little or none I suspect.
Logic and feelings often wander off in different directions. Somehow European projects with considerable British investment and industrial involvement are sometimes perceived to be foreign. Perhaps it has to do with the sometimes very unique public mood.
kev 99
Member
Think of it from a journalist of a red tops perspective most of them are anti Europe and they don't find the truth very interesting.
citizen578
New Member
Outsider,
Yes, I know - hence I talked about perception and false economies. Let's face it, this country and our media are not the biggest fans of european projects, and Airbus is not exactly swimming in positive press at the moment!
Personally I'd like to see the A400 in UK service, but not if it means sacrificing what I consider to be more important projects (new warships, the F35 (or an viable alternative), new armoured vehicles for the army, and the desperately needed helicopters).
Yes, I know - hence I talked about perception and false economies. Let's face it, this country and our media are not the biggest fans of european projects, and Airbus is not exactly swimming in positive press at the moment!
Personally I'd like to see the A400 in UK service, but not if it means sacrificing what I consider to be more important projects (new warships, the F35 (or an viable alternative), new armoured vehicles for the army, and the desperately needed helicopters).
True. Also large parts of the engines, & some other parts, are British.
I get very irritated by the way many British people express schadenfreude over every problem with a European product, however great the British content.
The problem is that we need air transport. If we don't buy A400M, we have to buy something else, which is unlikely to be better unless it costs even more, & is likely to be a lot worse if it's any cheaper. Consider what else is on the market, & how much it costs to both buy and operate.
kev 99
Member
Most of the newspapers in the UK are pretty right wing which doesn't exactly help.
Then of course there's 'defence' correspondents like Lewis Page with his constant buy American line, it all gets very tiresome.
spsun100001
New Member
I agree with you about UK newspapers - if I read one more article about the Type 45 being able to shoot down a cricket ball as opposed to a proper analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the platform I'm going to ask to get my chips in plain paper!.
I think Lewis Page gets it right most of the time though. The sheer buying power of the US military means that on many occasions their suppliers can offer kit at unit costs ours have no chance of matching.
I'm not saying we should buy everything from the US but I think countries like Germany take a more sensible view than us. They focus on building the things they are good at (like tanks) which they then successfully export all over the world whereas for their Navy they build the hulls in Germany but buy the weapons and radars from the US.
I'm not saying we should pick the same range of things as the Germans (we have a smaller Army and larger Navy) but I do believe we should choose fewer things to self build, invest our R&D in them and be good at them rather than try to do too many things badly (Nimrod AEW anyone?). That would mean us building less ourselves and buying more from the Americans and others (why did we build troop carrying Merlins that alledgedly cost more than Chinooks but can carry far less payload for instance).
It is no longer practical to be self-reliant to the degree that we are trying to be. Arguments about needing to preserve independent operating capabilities not reliant on overseas manufacturing are spurious. If that argument were true then the Air Force need to send back their C117's and C130's, AMRAAM, AIM9 and Maverick missiles, Predators UAV's, AWACS and cancel the order for the RC135's and F35. The Navy would return its Trident ICBM's, Harpoon SSM's, Phalanx CIWS, Goalkeeper CIWS and the Army would return it's Javalin ATGW, MINIMI's and Apache gunships.
Interestingly these foreign systems all work very well and I'd have far rather seen us buy more Predators than try to build our own UAV's (Watchkeeper), bought Hellfire instead of developing Brimstone, not put our own engines in the Apache vastly inflating the purchase cost in the process, bought Tactical Tomohawk and fitted it to Nimrod rather than developing Storm Shadow for the Tornado and bought Chinooks instead of Merlins in the Transport role. I'd have also not gone with Eurofighters, leased F16 MLU's to replace the Tornado F3's in the air defence role as an interim and then bought the F35 to replace those leased aircraft, Tornado GR4 and Harrier.
The fortune we'd have likely saved from that lot (and from getting rid of the Joint Helicopter Command, handing over the RAF helicopters to the Army Air Corps, reducing the number of civil servants employed by the MoD, cutting the cost of refurbishing the MoD offices and reducing the enormous RAF estate of bases while we're at it) might mean we could build enough Astute's and Type 45's to have a viable Navy (and heaven forbid even have the Type 45 equipped with more than it is equipped for but not with as is currently the case), bought more C117's and Chinooks so we could properly support the Army, invest in sufficient personal protective equipment and vehicles for troops in theatre in Afghanistan and put a proper AEW aircraft on our carriers.
Lewis Page has a certain - aaah - personal viewpoint, coloured by his past, & it shows. Although some of his criticisms are valid, in general his prejudices influence him far too much for his analyses to be taken seriously.
German ships don't have all US radars & weapons. Look at the F124 & F125: radars from Thales Nederland, main guns from Otobreda, light guns from Rheinmetall, CIWS a joint US-German system, German electro-optical systems, Franco-Italian torpedoes - etc. The F124 has Harpoon, SM-2 & ESSM from the USA. The Braunschweigs have RBS.15 SSMs in place of Harpoon, & EADS main radar.
BTW, Brimstone is designed for use from fast jets. Hellfire doesn't work if fired at the speeds Brimstone is designed for. Different niches, different products.
I think that by the time we had any idea that there would be F-16MLUs available for leasing, Eurofighter development was pretty well paid for.
German ships don't have all US radars & weapons. Look at the F124 & F125: radars from Thales Nederland, main guns from Otobreda, light guns from Rheinmetall, CIWS a joint US-German system, German electro-optical systems, Franco-Italian torpedoes - etc. The F124 has Harpoon, SM-2 & ESSM from the USA. The Braunschweigs have RBS.15 SSMs in place of Harpoon, & EADS main radar.
BTW, Brimstone is designed for use from fast jets. Hellfire doesn't work if fired at the speeds Brimstone is designed for. Different niches, different products.
I think that by the time we had any idea that there would be F-16MLUs available for leasing, Eurofighter development was pretty well paid for.
kev 99
Member
Problem with Lewis Page's analysis is that he seems to base all his conclusions on unit cost and tends to massage the figures to suit his own viewpoints.
His analysis of T45 verses Arleigh Burke are ridiculous, he compares total programme costs in the UK verses unit production cost after a massive production run in the US and comes to the conclusion that one would be better than the other when nobody knows how much a UK built AB would cost, then of course he ignores higher running costs of ABs, the fact its all made to Imperial measurements with cost implications for UK yards/redesign work, etc, etc. The comparisons he made where he substituted Arleigh Burke's for the Sejong the Great Class were even worse, based solely on total programme costs for T45 built mostly in Scotland against the cost of a destroyer built in South Korea completely ignoring such important things as vastly differing labour costs:unknown
I love his line on Nimrod MRA4; sure its a total cock up of a programme but constantly labeling them as obsolete 'cold war sub hunters' that there is no longer any need for is ridiculous, every country with a coastline wants MPAs.
Watchkeeper was as much about gaining a network for UAVs and the technology as about getting the aircraft themselves.
At the risk of being pedantic has it ever been possible to air launch Tomahawk's?
It's all very well to say that we shouldn't aim to be self reliant on as many things as we currently are but if Lewis Page were to have his way there would be no defence industry in the UK and we certainly wouldn't be buying anything from Europe, we'd just buy everything from the US.
Some of his statements about the structure of the RN are particularly hilarious, he wants them to bin all their escorts and have a couple of Nimitz sized aircraft carriers (built for us by the US because they've got loads of free yard space capable of this work), 'cheap auxilaries', mine counter measures vessels, and SSNs. Forget the fact that no navy in the world is binning its escorts and the US Navy never sends its carriers anywhere without at least 4!
Lewis Page has made himself famous pointing out the bleeding obvious about poor UK procurement decisions, he's an angry man with a chip on his shoulder and won't pass up any opportunity to swing the hatchet. If he were to set aside his prejudices and set out an objective analysis then I might be able to take his work a little more seriously, but all I get from his article's is the odd snippet of information and a great deal of bias.
His analysis of T45 verses Arleigh Burke are ridiculous, he compares total programme costs in the UK verses unit production cost after a massive production run in the US and comes to the conclusion that one would be better than the other when nobody knows how much a UK built AB would cost, then of course he ignores higher running costs of ABs, the fact its all made to Imperial measurements with cost implications for UK yards/redesign work, etc, etc. The comparisons he made where he substituted Arleigh Burke's for the Sejong the Great Class were even worse, based solely on total programme costs for T45 built mostly in Scotland against the cost of a destroyer built in South Korea completely ignoring such important things as vastly differing labour costs:unknown
I love his line on Nimrod MRA4; sure its a total cock up of a programme but constantly labeling them as obsolete 'cold war sub hunters' that there is no longer any need for is ridiculous, every country with a coastline wants MPAs.
Watchkeeper was as much about gaining a network for UAVs and the technology as about getting the aircraft themselves.
At the risk of being pedantic has it ever been possible to air launch Tomahawk's?
It's all very well to say that we shouldn't aim to be self reliant on as many things as we currently are but if Lewis Page were to have his way there would be no defence industry in the UK and we certainly wouldn't be buying anything from Europe, we'd just buy everything from the US.
Some of his statements about the structure of the RN are particularly hilarious, he wants them to bin all their escorts and have a couple of Nimitz sized aircraft carriers (built for us by the US because they've got loads of free yard space capable of this work), 'cheap auxilaries', mine counter measures vessels, and SSNs. Forget the fact that no navy in the world is binning its escorts and the US Navy never sends its carriers anywhere without at least 4!
Lewis Page has made himself famous pointing out the bleeding obvious about poor UK procurement decisions, he's an angry man with a chip on his shoulder and won't pass up any opportunity to swing the hatchet. If he were to set aside his prejudices and set out an objective analysis then I might be able to take his work a little more seriously, but all I get from his article's is the odd snippet of information and a great deal of bias.
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sweeneygov
New Member
Why would the UK want Arleigh Burkes? An old design coming to the end of its life cycle. The yanks were going to ditch them when they concieved their DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers. Now those have been cut back they are having to develop a new class of Arleigh Burkes. GE Marine and General Dynamics have been contracted to study options for a Hybrid Electrice Drive system to provide more efficient propulsion for the new batch of ABs.
spsun100001
New Member
Agreed. Janes Defence Weekly reported at the time that Sylver actually cost more than the Mk41 despite being less flexible in terms of the range of missions it can be ordananced to carry out. Still, being good little Europeans is the most important thing.
kev 99
Member
Well the decision was out of the RN's hands. Sylver does save on deck print and weight which is good.
Still the die is cast now, RN should invest money on getting TLAM cleared for the A70 launcher for FSC, there doesn't seem to be much point in having 2 different launchers in service by going down the MK41 launcher route now, A50 and A70 should at least share most of the same components.
spsun100001
New Member
Kev 99
Air launched Tomohawks are carried by the B52.
As to Watchkeeper I'll pass on the indigenous network and the technology thanks and just have the American UAV's which are available now, work and will (I'll be prepared to bet) be cheaper due to those massive production runs that you mention.
Some of Lewis views are extreme. I never argued for us having no defence industry, just for doing the things we do well and doing less of the things we are hopless at.
For example, Hawk trainers have been a tremendous export success with customers all over the world. That seems to me like something we should continue to do. Trying to build our own AWACS, UAV's, adapting an aircraft designed for low level ground attack into air defence, re-engining perfectly good helicopters (Apache), building medium lift helicopters that are more expensive than proven heavy lift helicopters etc. seem like things we should not do. The money we'd have saved would have enabled us to give the Type 45 the endless list of for but not with capabilities that would have meant it beat the AB hands down and even built enough of them to provide the hulls needed.
Lewis and others wouldn't be making the comparisons discussed regarding the T45 if we hadn't ended up with 6 ships rather than 12 (or 8), if they hadn't cost considerably more than budgeted, if they weren't years late into service compared to other nations next generation AAW vessels, if they actually carried the SAM's they need for their primary mission, if they weren't going to spend the early years of their life without the Co-operative Engagement Capability, if they had a land attack capability, an embarked anti-ship and anti-submarine capability and a TBMD capability. The National Audit Office as well as Lewis Page seem to think those issues represent one almighty mess at the end of over £6 billion of taxpayers money.
Air launched Tomohawks are carried by the B52.
As to Watchkeeper I'll pass on the indigenous network and the technology thanks and just have the American UAV's which are available now, work and will (I'll be prepared to bet) be cheaper due to those massive production runs that you mention.
Some of Lewis views are extreme. I never argued for us having no defence industry, just for doing the things we do well and doing less of the things we are hopless at.
For example, Hawk trainers have been a tremendous export success with customers all over the world. That seems to me like something we should continue to do. Trying to build our own AWACS, UAV's, adapting an aircraft designed for low level ground attack into air defence, re-engining perfectly good helicopters (Apache), building medium lift helicopters that are more expensive than proven heavy lift helicopters etc. seem like things we should not do. The money we'd have saved would have enabled us to give the Type 45 the endless list of for but not with capabilities that would have meant it beat the AB hands down and even built enough of them to provide the hulls needed.
Lewis and others wouldn't be making the comparisons discussed regarding the T45 if we hadn't ended up with 6 ships rather than 12 (or 8), if they hadn't cost considerably more than budgeted, if they weren't years late into service compared to other nations next generation AAW vessels, if they actually carried the SAM's they need for their primary mission, if they weren't going to spend the early years of their life without the Co-operative Engagement Capability, if they had a land attack capability, an embarked anti-ship and anti-submarine capability and a TBMD capability. The National Audit Office as well as Lewis Page seem to think those issues represent one almighty mess at the end of over £6 billion of taxpayers money.
sweeneygov
New Member
No CIWS either. But due to RN requirements the Type 45 had to be a new ship and when you are developing from scratch and fitting new systems then the cost will be higher than if you chose an existing and proven design.
The timelines will always be a bit more difficult to adhere to when you are waiting for a system to be developed. Besides, even if the Daring-class were a bit cheaper they would still probably have been cut to six.
All the development work from the Type 45s will be leveraged into the Future Surface Combatant C1 and C2 variants. All the systems on board will be existing systems that have been used on the Type 45 and installed in the Type 22s and 23s during their upgrade programmes.
The timelines will always be a bit more difficult to adhere to when you are waiting for a system to be developed. Besides, even if the Daring-class were a bit cheaper they would still probably have been cut to six.
All the development work from the Type 45s will be leveraged into the Future Surface Combatant C1 and C2 variants. All the systems on board will be existing systems that have been used on the Type 45 and installed in the Type 22s and 23s during their upgrade programmes.