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Subject: And now for something completely different...RAAF chooses EE Lightning over Mirage.
Volkodav    5/24/2009 4:55:42 AM
The Lightning was a contender for RAAF how serious a contender I don't know. The main choice always seemed to be between the Mirage and the Lockheed Starfighter with the Phantom and Lightning being only bit players.

The Lightning was apparently ruled out due to it's lack of ground attack capability, not that the Mirage was a wiz in the air to ground department either. The RR Avon and Ferranti Airpass radar of the Lightning were actually considered for the baseline Mirage III EO as they would have offered significantly improved performance.

Imagine now that the RAAF had selected an evolved derivative of the Lightning.

Would we have used it in Vietnam?
What modifications and improvements would it have incorporated?
What upgrades would it received during its life?
What weapons would it have been certified for,i.e. Sidewinder, Paveway?
What would the sale to Australia have meant for the program as a whole and then for the British and Austrlaian aviation industries?
 
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StevoJH       6/15/2009 6:36:28 PM
Since all these are hypothetical.
 
It's 1950, the British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian Governments Make various commitments regarding their Militaries. Canada and Australia each commit themselves to maintain 2 carrier groups each, to be built around as yet uncompleted Centaur class Carriers. The British commit themselves to maintain a force of six carriers by 1960, initially to be made up of the two Audacious class carriers along with two modernised Implacable class carriers and the two most modernised Majestic class CVL's, Melbourne and Powerful. The RCN and RAN each receive a pair of Collossus or Majestic class Carriers to build carrier skills which are to be handed back to the RN as the Centaurs are commissioned.
 
Canada and Australia also agree to provide a minimum force of 15 Escorts each, with 3 of the Australian quota to be supplied by New Zealand. In Principle it is agreed that commonality in ship classes and weapons systems is desirable across the four navies. As a result of this the Navies replace their world war two era ASW assets with Leander class frigates throughout the 1960's, with Australia and Canada ordering modified Bristol class ships in the late 1980's to be their AAW ships due to a lack of Satisfaction with the Sea Slug fitted to the Counties.
 
The RN orders 3 ships of the Queen Elizabeth class in the Early 1970's to replace three of its large carriers and 3 smaller ships of the Invincible class as ASW and Commando carriers to replace the 2 Light carriers and the second Implacable. Australia and Canada each order a pair of Invincible class ships to replace their Centaurs.
 
Leanders replaced by Type 23 Duke class frigates in the early 1990's, with the Bristols replaced by T45 Daring class destroyers in the late 1990's and early 2000's.
 
Modified Bristols: Sea Dart in B, hanger aft where Sea Dart was. Ikara midships between the engine rooms.

 The RN purchases 15 Bristols instead of the 1 in OTL to give commonality. The 14 T42's are not built.
 
Army - Australia Agree's to provide one mechanised and two light infantry brigades from the active army with a further two mechanised and 4 light infantry from the reserve forces. Canada agree's to provide 1.5 time the Australian contribution (larger population) and the UK sticks to the OTL OOB.
 
Airforce - Canberra Medium Bombers to be replaced by TSR-2, Lightnings or F105 Arrows followed by Tornado's and then Typhoons.
 
How much of a fantasy world do i live in? :D
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Herald   6/16/2009 7:24:20 AM

The continueing problems with your proposition are as follows. 

1. Your proposition is entirely constructed with the benefit of hindsight. In 1946 Australia ordered 3 Majestics (and eventually got two) before it was known how heavy naval fighters would get. The prototype of the Sea Vixen only flew in 1951. You are not only relying on the Australian government knowing this unknowable fact, but you are relying on adequate numbers of light British carriers being available to lend us (we did borrow the Vengance for a couple of years in the early 50's, after Korea, but there was no guarantee that we could have gotten any more until the mid 50's). Your alternative of buying the Majestics and selling them to replace them with the Centaurs/Essex's, relies on us knowing when we ordered the later that we would have a buyer who would give a reasonable price for the former once the replacement time came. All your dots would have had to line up for this to work but in real life they very seldom do.

2. You are still ignoring the fact that the Centaurs/Essex's had higher purchase and operating costs than the Majestics. Aside from the purchase cost the Centaurs/Essex's the Centaur had 50% more crew than the Majestic's and the Essex's had double the crew. The proportions are the same for the size of the airwings and the aircraft purchased for the bigger carriers were much more expensive. Additionally the Centaurs/Essex's both needed to be upgraded throughout the 50's/60's just like the Majestic's did/would have. It wasn't until the Hermes that they got it right the first time. 

3. You continue to ignore the most important question, even if they were able to survive on meaningful operations within range of the Badgers, why would we purchase larger carriers to do a job in our region that land based aircraft could do better and cheaper? There were airbases within range of every one of the AO's that you talk about except for Fiji, which frankly is a fanciful scenario. You also don't mention that in every conceivable operation other than in PNG, we would be virtually guaranteed of the British or the US leading and providing most of the equipment. We should of course always have looked to make a meaningful contribution to the efforts of our allies, and we could have in those scenarios with or without carriers. However, we should always be primarily shaping our force mix around the operations where we would have to make the greatest commitment, like we did.


 
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Herald12345       6/16/2009 11:11:06 AM

Since all these are hypothetical.

 

It's 1950, the British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian Governments make various commitments regarding their militaries. Canada and Australia each commit themselves to maintain 2 carrier groups each, to be built around as yet uncompleted Centaur class Carriers. The British commit themselves to maintain a force of six carriers by 1960, initially to be made up of the two Audacious class carriers along with two modernised Implacable class carriers and the two most modernised Majestic class CVL's, Melbourne and Powerful. The RCN and RAN each receive a pair of Collossus or Majestic class Carriers to build carrier skills which are to be handed back to the RN as the Centaurs are commissioned.

Questions:
Why do the British use worn out Implacables again? Better idea, save money.....pay off the Implacables and build all,four Audacious and be done with it. After the Pearl Harbor fiasco of the HMS Victorious refit in USN yards, the clue phone rang in Admniralty House that you needed bigger and taller hangers. Hence Centaurs and Majestics in the first place!  A core fleet of four Audacious carriers gives you the usable FAA you need for coverage. The Centaurs (build at least six because Britain needs two commando carriers) form the light carriers the commonwealth users receuve and thgen send at least one or two WW II loaners to the commonwealth users to learn on whule the new builds finish up. Projected deliveries for New byuldsa are 1955-1958. so the WW II shipas get turned into LPHs, ASW carriers or broken up.  
 
Canada and Australia also agree to provide a minimum force of 15 Escorts each, with 3 of the Australian quota to be supplied by New Zealand. In principle it is agreed that commonality in ship classes and weapons systems is desirable across the four navies. As a result of this the Navies replace their world war two era ASW assets with Leander class frigates throughout the 1960's, with Australia and Canada ordering modified Bristol class ships in the late 1980's to be their AAW ships due to a lack of Satisfaction with the Sea Slug fitted to the Counties.

First of all..........
What kind of Leander or Type 12? There were four separate types.
Its likely that a Australia can only afford six and New Zealand  two.
Why would you buy Bristols? The thing was worse than the Counties. At least with the Counties you could tear out the raised weatherdeck Sea Slug abomination, and install a Terrier/Tartar magazine (or two, if you build in Canada and Australia from scratch), and a helo shelter along with that big fat Wessex helo and an Ikara.).

The RN orders 3 ships of the Queen Elizabeth class in the Early 1970's to replace three of its large carriers and 3 smaller ships of the Invincible class as ASW and Commando carriers to replace the 2 Light carriers and the second Implacable. Australia and Canada each order a pair of Invincible class ships to replace their Centaurs.

Where do they get the money?

Leanders replaced by Type 23 Duke class frigates in the early 1990's, with the Bristols replaced by T45 Daring class destroyers in the late 1990's and early 2000's.

Darings in the 1990s? Where do they get the tech?
 

Modified Bristols: Sea Dart in B, hanger aft where Sea Dart was. Ikara midships between the engine rooms.

Sea Dart I is somewhat slightly inferior to STANDARD Mk 66. If you already have a Terrier/Tartar County install a Type 988 3D radar  and The Tartar Fire Control system and apply the New Threat upgrade as necessary.
 
The RN purchases 15 Bristols instead of the 1 in OTL to give commonality. The 14 T42's are not built.

All three nations together could afford about 12-14 Counties  and maybe twice as many Leanders. 

Army - Australia agree's to provide one mechanised and two light infantry brigades from the active army with a further two mechanised and 4 light infantry from the reserve forces. Canada agree's to provide 1.5 time the Australian contribution (larger population) and the UK sticks to the OTL OOB.

Where do they get the money?

Airforce - Canberra Medium Bombers to be replaced by TSR-2, Lightnings or F105 Arrows followed by Tornado's and then Typhoons.

TSR-2 is expensive. Don't know about the Arrows' usefulness as those were too specialized to intercept high altitide supersonic bombers and as we saw with the Newton launcher fiasco of the Vigilante, I also question some of the Avro design team choices.
 

How much of a fantasy world do i live in? :D
 
Don''t know. Do you belueve that MICA is an effective A2A missile or that ASTER works?


 
Quote    Reply

Herald12345       6/16/2009 11:52:37 AM

The continueing problems with your proposition are as follows. 

Oh?

1. Your proposition is entirely constructed with the benefit of hindsight. In 1946 Australia ordered 3 Majestics (and eventually got two) before it was known how heavy naval fighters would get. The prototype of the Sea Vixen only flew in 1951. You are not only relying on the Australian government knowing this unknowable fact, but you are relying on adequate numbers of light British carriers being available to lend us (we did borrow the Vengance for a couple of years in the early 50's, after Korea, but there was no guarantee that we could have gotten any more until the mid 50's). Your alternative of buying the Majestics and selling them to replace them with the Centaurs/Essex's, relies on us knowing when we ordered the later that we would have a buyer who would give a reasonable price for the former once the replacement time came. All your dots would have had to line up for this to work but in real life they very seldom do.

True enough, but then contemporary accounts already showed the planned F-84s as being a heartburn to operate off the Essexes. By 1950 you  SHOULD have shopped the Centaurs. Other warning signs are also there for you as early as 1943. MIDWAYS would not have been built under the USN war emergency program if we could have stuck with something Essex-sized. We were running short of steel, but with the new carrier planes we planned for 1946-47 if the war dragged on that long, we needed the bigger carriers..  

2. You are still ignoring the fact that the Centaurs/Essex's had higher purchase and operating costs than the Majestics. Aside from the purchase cost the Centaurs/Essex's the Centaur had 50% more crew than the Majestic's and the Essex's had double the crew. The proportions are the same for the size of the airwings and the aircraft purchased for the bigger carriers were much more expensive. Additionally the Centaurs/Essex's both needed to be upgraded throughout the 50's/60's just like the Majestic's did/would have. It wasn't until the Hermes that they got it right the first time. 

So what? a. The actual modernization costs of a Centaur and Majestic were roughly equivalernt. b. I already addressed the purchase costs at the outgo as calculated on the weigh as being 6% greater than Majestics as they were elephants the British had to unload, Manpower and operations I addressed by looking at manpower and force cost cuts elsewhere. c. You lose a tank brigade, the Darings, a couple of Rivers, you buy a simplified Leander for pure ASW work and fighter direction, You buy Adamses as your body guard ships, buy American for youe naval SAMS,  you SLEP the Canberras, you buy Drakens instead of Miracles, buy Thunderbird, TALOS, and/ or HAWK instead of the very expensive Bloodhound., go Swedish on the bombs and rockets instead of French and American, what do you want  MIRACLES? d. The only cost increase was thetwo  Counties and the only justification for those I thought was you needed the additional helos.

3. You continue to ignore the most important question, even if they were able to survive on meaningful operations within range of the Badgers, why would we purchase larger carriers to do a job in our region that land based aircraft could do better and cheaper? There were airbases within range of every one of the AO's that you talk about except for Fiji, which frankly is a fanciful scenario. You also don't mention that in every conceivable operation other than in PNG, we would be virtually guaranteed of the British or the US leading and providing most of the equipment. We should of course always have looked to make a meaningful contribution to the efforts of our allies, and we could have in those scenarios with or without carriers. However, we should always be primarily shaping our force mix around the operations where we would have to make the greatest commitment, like we did.

One; the US did not supply assistance to East Timor 1975. We actually interfered as I recall. Same again in 1999. So Australia cannot automatically assume. If you need an object lesson in this, then look at Israel today. We have some real nimrods in the USG.  As long as we continue to throw up vomitus like a Kissinger, a Clinton, a Gates, a Carter, or others of that ilk, you need to watch out for yourselves. 

Two. whatever an enemy can overrun politically or militarily; he will overrun. Have you looked at the news reports of the NATO truck parks in the tribal areas of Palistan? How about the airbase we lost in Kazakhstan? Carriers are yours, floating mobile airpower that you OWN.. In your AO you have mostly ocean and you are the giant  ISLAND. 
 
Quote    Reply

StevoJH       6/16/2009 1:00:49 PM




Since all these are hypothetical.



 



It's 1950, the British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian Governments make various commitments regarding their militaries. Canada and Australia each commit themselves to maintain 2 carrier groups each, to be built around as yet uncompleted Centaur class Carriers. The British commit themselves to maintain a force of six carriers by 1960, initially to be made up of the two Audacious class carriers along with two modernised Implacable class carriers and the two most modernised Majestic class CVL's, Melbourne and Powerful. The RCN and RAN each receive a pair of Collossus or Majestic class Carriers to build carrier skills which are to be handed back to the RN as the Centaurs are commissioned.





Questions:

Why do the British use worn out Implacables again? Better idea, save money.....pay off the Implacables and build all,four Audacious and be done with it. After the Pearl Harbor fiasco of the HMS Victorious refit in USN yards, the clue phone rang in Admniralty House that you needed bigger and taller hangers. Hence Centaurs and Majestics in the first place!  A core fleet of four Audacious carriers gives you the usable FAA you need for coverage. The Centaurs (build at least six because Britain needs two commando carriers) form the light carriers the commonwealth users receuve and thgen send at least one or two WW II loaners to the commonwealth users to learn on whule the new builds finish up. Projected deliveries for New byuldsa are 1955-1958. so the WW II shipas get turned into LPHs, ASW carriers or broken up.  

Why did the RN rebuild Illustrious instead of finishing another Audacious class?

Canada and Australia also agree to provide a minimum force of 15 Escorts each, with 3 of the Australian quota to be supplied by New Zealand. In principle it is agreed that commonality in ship classes and weapons systems is desirable across the four navies. As a result of this the Navies replace their world war two era ASW assets with Leander class frigates throughout the 1960's, with Australia and Canada ordering modified Bristol class ships in the late 1980's to be their AAW ships due to a lack of Satisfaction with the Sea Slug fitted to the Counties.



First of all..........

What kind of Leander or Type 12? There were four separate types.

Preferrably broadbeam, and there were only two variants of the Leander (there were four of the T12, of which the Leanders were two)
 
Its likely that a Australia can only afford six and New Zealand  two.
In Australia defense spending wasnt exactly high in comparison to other countries in that period. Strangely New Zealand operated 4 Leanders, not two, while two were "hand me downs" from the RN, they also operated a pair of Whitby's until the second pair of Leanders were made available.
 
Why would you buy Bristols? The thing was worse than the Counties. At least with the Counties you could tear out the raised weatherdeck Sea Slug abomination, and install a Terrier/Tartar magazine (or two, if you build in Canada and Australia from scratch), and a helo shelter along with that big fat Wessex helo and an Ikara.).

Very Modified Bristols without their main short coming, No helo. Basicly oversized T42's with Ikara.

The RN orders 3 ships of the Queen Elizabeth class in the Early 1970's to replace three of its large carriers and 3 smaller ships of the Invincible class as ASW and Commando carriers to replace the 2 Light carriers and the second Implacable. Australia and Canada each order a pair of Invincible class ships to replace their Centaurs.



Where do they get the money?
The RN ships were already planned, until cancelled, the RAN was purchasing one, the second could be purchased by not buying the OHP's, The RCN/CF has a larger economy then Australia, if we can, they can.


Leanders replaced by Type 23 Duke class frigates in the early 1990's, with the Bristols replaced by T45 Daring class destroyers in the late 1990's and early 2000's.



Darings in the 1990s? Where do they get the tech?

Late 1990's, i probably should have just said early 2000's. Aster is available by 2001, sampson by about the same time, as is the Smart L.



Modified Bristols: Sea Dart in B, hanger aft where Sea Dart was. Ikara midships between the engine rooms.




Sea Dart I is somewhat slightly inferior to STANDARD Mk 66. If you already have a Terrier/Tartar County install a Type 988 3D radar  and The Tartar Fire Control system and apply the New Threat upgrade as necessary.

I honestly don't know enough about them, if you could provide some data comparing the two i'd be happy to learn about the differences though, and the advantages and disadvantages of one over the other. As far as i can see, Sea Dart uses a Ram Jet rather then a rocket and is manually prepared before loading, thats about the only difference.
 

The RN purchases 15 Bristols instead of the 1 in OTL to give commonality. The 14 T42's are not built.



All three nations together could afford about 12-14 Counties  and maybe twice as many Leanders. 

Are you sure? The RN alone purchased 8 Counties followed by Bristol, with the very expensive T22's ordered in the early 1970's.

Army - Australia agree's to provide one mechanised and two light infantry brigades from the active army with a further two mechanised and 4 light infantry from the reserve forces. Canada agree's to provide 1.5 time the Australian contribution (larger population) and the UK sticks to the OTL OOB.



Where do they get the money?

By scrapping National Service. Current Australian Army is 1 Mechanised Brigade, 1 Motorised Infantry Brigade, 1 Light Infantry Brigade. Reserves are 6 light Infantry Brigades each with 3 Infantry Battalions and supporting elements. In the time period in Question the Army had several Regiments of Centurions. They also had a lot of M113's in both Active and Reserve units. Make up the Reserve Mech Infantry units by moving the Centurions to the reserves when the Leopards (or maybe Chieftains in this case) are purchased to join the M113's already in the reserve units.


Airforce - Canberra Medium Bombers to be replaced by TSR-2, Lightnings or F105 Arrows followed by Tornado's and then Typhoons.



TSR-2 is expensive. Don't know about the Arrows' usefulness as those were too specialized to intercept high altitide supersonic bombers and as we saw with the Newton launcher fiasco of the Vigilante, I also question some of the Avro design team choices.

 Wasnt the F111 also expensive? How about Lightnings or F4's followed by Tornadoes instead of Mirages?



How much of a fantasy world do i live in? :D


Don''t know. Do you belueve that MICA is an effective A2A missile or that ASTER works?


Don't know about MICA but regarding Aster i Assume that if there is something wrong with it, that it is fixable since nobody ever said the guys who run the RN were dumb.
 
Quote    Reply

Herald12345    The guys running the RN aren't dumb.   6/16/2009 2:10:54 PM
They wanted their own updated Sea Dart and Sea Wolf, or failing that, they wanted STANDARD/ESSM. ASTER was 1989 political force3d by the Exchequer, and the RN  have been privately bitching about it, ever since.
 
Most everybody else, who is worth a damn on the high seas, EXCEPT Singapore, who were stuck with the Laugh-it-ups when given the ASTER choice has bought Israeli, Russian, or American. When the Dutch, Norwegians, Spanish,  and the Germans bought STANDARD and ESSM and used SMART L and APARS, or even AEGIS itself,  that should have set off alarm bells in Admiralty House and the Exchequer.
 
What can the Darings do against a COYOTE or a VANDAL test vehicle? Nobody knows because they haven't been tested against a supersonic sea-skimmer usung either countermeasures or ASTER. The MQM 8 VANDAL was especially dangerous, becazuse that was a TALOS rebuild . Those terrifying things actually worked, whereas the KH-31 KRYPTON didn't. STANDARD was barely able to stop them. Nothing else we had including SEA SPARROW and our then countermeasures could-hence the ESSM and the USN shopping around globally for ECM systems..
 
Herald
 
Quote    Reply

StevoJH       6/16/2009 10:04:55 PM

They wanted their own updated Sea Dart and Sea Wolf, or failing that, they wanted STANDARD/ESSM. ASTER was 1989 political by the Exchequer, and the RN  have been privately bitching about it, ever since.

 

Most everybody else, who is worth a damn on the high seas, EXCEPT Singapore, who were stuck with the Laugh-it-ups when given the ASTER choice has bought Israeli, Russian, or American. When the Dutch, Norwegians, Spanish,  and the Germans bought STANDARD and ESSM and used SMART L and APARS, or even AEGIS itself,  that should have set off alarm bells in Admiralty House and the Exchequer.


 

What can the Darings do against a COYOTE or a VANDAL test vehicle? Nobody knows because they haven't been tested against a supersonic sea-skimmer using either countermeasures or ASTER. The MQM 8 VANDAL was especially dangerous, because that was a TALOS rebuild . Those terrifying things actually worked, whereas the KH-31 KRYPTON didn't. STANDARD was barely able to stop them. Nothing else we had including SEA SPARROW and our then countermeasures could-hence the ESSM and the USN shopping around globally for ECM systems..


 

Herald


Unfortunately with the bias you sometimes seem to show regarding equipment partially designed in France i'm willing to give Aster the benefit of the doubt until evidence otherwise is shown. I doubt the RN would have purchased it if it wasn't any good, regardless of any political influence on the program, simply because there would hopefully be multiple lines of checks and balences in all three european developer nations.
 
If worst comes to worst SM-6 can probably be integrated with Sylver A50 or the cells ripped out and replaced by Mk.41.
 
Regarding Sea Wolf, wasnt one of the problems that the optical guidence system resulted in a large amount of topweight on the ships it was fitted too?
 
 Could a VLS version of  Sea Dart have been developed or did the liquid fuel preclude this?
 
Quote    Reply

Herald12345       6/17/2009 12:22:30 AM




They wanted their own updated Sea Dart and Sea Wolf, or failing that, they wanted STANDARD/ESSM. ASTER was 1989 political by the Exchequer, and the RN  have been privately bitching about it, ever since.

Most everybody else, who is worth a damn on the high seas, EXCEPT Singapore, who were stuck with the Laugh-it-ups when given the ASTER choice has bought Israeli, Russian, or American. When the Dutch, Norwegians, Spanish,  and the Germans bought STANDARD and ESSM and used SMART L and APARS, or even AEGIS itself,  that should have set off alarm bells in Admiralty House and the Exchequer.

What can the Darings do against a COYOTE or a VANDAL test vehicle? Nobody knows because they haven't been tested against a supersonic sea-skimmer using either countermeasures or ASTER. The MQM 8 VANDAL was especially dangerous, because that was a TALOS rebuild . Those terrifying things actually worked, whereas the KH-31 KRYPTON didn't. STANDARD was barely able to stop them. Nothing else we had including SEA SPARROW and our then countermeasures could-hence the ESSM and the USN shopping around globally for ECM systems..

Herald


Unfortunately with the bias you sometimes seem to show regarding equipment partially designed in France i'm willing to give Aster the benefit of the doubt until evidence otherwise is shown. I doubt the RN would have purchased it if it wasn't any good, regardless of any political influence on the program, simply because there would hopefully be multiple lines of checks and balences in all three european developer nations.

Well?. Who uses MICA besides France mow? Nobody. I mean nobody. The ASTER killbody is based on MICA tech, which is CRAP. Sailors are going to nesdlessly die because of ASTER.

If ASTER was such a great missile why are Germany and the US desperately building MEADS? Why doesn't Germany and Britain buy SAMP/T?  Why is Britain waiting  to jump into the program? Hmmmmmmm? 

If worst comes to worst SM-6 can probably be integrated with Sylver A50 or the cells ripped out and replaced by Mk.41.

Too big a missuke,. Wrong wiring harness and the cells are not up to US specs for hot launch.

Regarding Sea Wolf, wasnt one of the problems that the optical guidence system resulted in a large amount of topweight on the ships it was fitted too?

LIDAR or IR look shoot seeker .IN THE MISSILE scrap ACLOS  and install telemetry up date so that the radar and computer that uses it  just points the missile at the detected track. At 10,000 meters the missile can fly out and use ATG and an onboard GCU to meet via predict track lead.  There are cures for everything. ACLOS pfui! RAYTHEON has been in this business for longer than since Hughes became its problem childe. 
 
 Could a VLS version of  Sea Dart have been developed or did the liquid fuel preclude this?

If we could store TALOS in its magazinea, what's wrong with the RN doing the same with Sea Dart?

 
Quote    Reply

StevoJH       6/17/2009 1:58:43 AM
Umm, isnt MEADS a land based Patriot replacement using some of the PAC 3 developments? The UK doesn't have a medium range land based SAM at the moment and is to replace its short range Rapiers with CAMM, along with a sea based version for the RN.
 
Hopefully the land based version of CAMM will have enough Marinisation that it can be bolted onto the deck of a C3, Naval Auxilary or STUFT. Something like that would make it attractive to nations outside the RN and British Army, aka. possibly the RAN which sent LPA's to the gulf in 2003 with air defense provided by army RBS-70 teams.
 
Quote    Reply

Aussiegunneragain       6/17/2009 6:17:28 AM
By 1950 you  SHOULD have shopped the Centaurs.

By 1950 we were already operating the Sydney and the Melbourne was being built. Your scenario is only remotely credible if we got the Centaurs instead of the the Majestics. It isn't credible if we had to get them in addition to the smaller ships, not if we wanted to keep a remotely respectable credit rating in any case.

So what? a. The actual modernization costs of a Centaur and Majestic were roughly equivalernt.b. I already addressed the purchase costs at the outgo as calculated on the weigh as being 6% greater than Majestics as they were elephants the British had to unload.

Sorry, I don't believe you unless you provide sources.

Manpower and operations I addressed by looking at manpower and force cost cuts elsewhere. c. You lose a tank brigade, the Darings, a couple of Rivers, you buy a simplified Leander for pure ASW work and fighter direction, You buy Adamses as your body guard ships, buy American for youe naval SAMS,  you SLEP the Canberras, you buy Drakens instead of Miracles, buy Thunderbird, TALOS, and/ or HAWK instead of the very expensive Bloodhound., go Swedish on the bombs and rockets instead of French and American, what do you want  MIRACLES? d. The only cost increase was thetwo  Counties and the only justification for those I thought was you needed the additional helos.
 
We didn't have a tank brigade to lose post WW2, the 1st Armoured was and remains our only tank regiment.
 
Cutting down our destroyer/frigate force to allow us to afford a bigger carrier would be a stupid option, they were the backbone of the force that addressed one of our key defence needs, ASW escort.
 
SLEP the Canberra's? I presume that you mean to avoid having to buy the F-111's. Why would we do that? The F-111 force eventually gave us a much better capability than two carriers could hope to support, though it took a lot more time and money to get them than we expected (which the decision makers in the mid 60's didn't know would happen, so no wisdom from hindsight about it thanks).
 
As for the rest, you have presented no evidence that those alternatives would save any money whatsoever. It actually seems like you think that the DOD spent the 50's and 60's going out of their way to purchase the least cost effective equipment that they could.

One; the US did not supply assistance to East Timor 1975. We actually interfered as I recall. Same again in 1999. So Australia cannot automatically assume. If you need an object lesson in this, then look at Israel today. We have some real nimrods in the USG.  As long as we continue to throw up vomitus like a Kissinger, a Clinton, a Gates, a Carter, or others of that ilk, you need to watch out for yourselves. 
 
We didn't ask for any assistance in East Timor in 1975, we tacitly supported Surharto's invastion as Fretlin were communists and it solved our problem with the sea border dispute that we with the Portugese and then the East Timorese. The US did back us in 1999, just not as much as we wanted. In any case a carrier wasn't required, East Timor is only 400nm from Darwin and we did CAP's there with tanked F-18's. If we were interested in that sort of op in 1975 we would have been better off providing our Mirages with tanker support or buying Phantoms than operating carriers.
 
The more important point is however that apart from the defence of Australia and PNG, we weren't primarily concerned with the defence of any of the other places that you talk about. If the US or UK didn't help out we might have sent the troops that we could spare to help defend them, but we certainly wouldn't have reshaped our defence force with that in mind ... we frankly couldn't have afforded to.

Two. whatever an enemy can overrun politically or militarily; he will overrun. Have you looked at the news reports of the NATO truck parks in the tribal areas of Palistan? How about the airbase we lost in Kazakhstan? Carriers are yours, floating mobile airpower that you OWN.. In your AO you have mostly ocean and you are the giant  ISLAND. 
 
The Japanese didn't manage to overrun Port Moresby against Australian resistance in WW2 and as long as we had a foothold there, we could  support army operations in Southern PNG. Same goes for Lau in the north. Somehow I think that the Imperial Japanese Army were a bit more formidable opponent than TNI. In fact we could operate aircraft into the southern parts of PNG from Weipa and Darwin

 
Quote    Reply

Herald12345       6/17/2009 8:04:01 AM

Umm, isnt MEADS a land based Patriot replacement using some of the PAC 3 developments? The UK doesn't have a medium range land based SAM at the moment and is to replace its short range Rapiers with CAMM, along with a sea based version for the RN.

 So it is. So what? Engagement is 0 to 15000 meters  slant + 

Hopefully the land based version of CAMM will have enough Marinisation that it can be bolted onto the deck of a C3, Naval Auxilary or STUFT. Something like that would make it attractive to nations outside the RN and British Army, aka. possibly the RAN which sent LPA's to the gulf in 2003 with air defense provided by army RBS-70 teams
 
 
.


 
CAMM looks like a boloed version of ASRAAM with an ASTER style thrust vector control  unit added to it.
 
The British better look at MEADS. The PAC III killbody actually works. 
.
Herald
 
Quote    Reply

StevoJH       6/17/2009 9:14:49 AM




Umm, isnt MEADS a land based Patriot replacement using some of the PAC 3 developments? The UK doesn't have a medium range land based SAM at the moment and is to replace its short range Rapiers with CAMM, along with a sea based version for the RN.



 So it is. So what? Engagement is 0 to 15000 meters  slant + 





Hopefully the land based version of CAMM will have enough Marinisation that it can be bolted onto the deck of a C3, Naval Auxilary or STUFT. Something like that would make it attractive to nations outside the RN and British Army, aka. possibly the RAN which sent LPA's to the gulf in 2003 with air defense provided by army RBS-70 teams

 

 

.

 

CAMM looks like a boloed version of ASRAAM with an ASTER style thrust vector control  unit added to it.

 

The British better look at MEADS. The PAC III killbody actually works. 


.

Herald






The problem is, you still don't have any EVIDENCE that Aster doesnt work, only speculation. No it hasnt been tested on a true high supersonic target yet, but that doesnt mean it wont work against one. Also, why do you say that Sylver (designed to hot launch Aster 30) isnt up to high enough standards to launch SM6?
 
 
Finally, what role would you propose that MEADS fill in british service? Land based? or as a replacement to PAAMS?
 
Quote    Reply

Herald12345       6/17/2009 9:43:43 AM

By 1950 you  SHOULD have shopped the Centaurs.

By 1950 we were already operating the Sydney and the Melbourne was being built. Your scenario is only remotely credible if we got the Centaurs instead of the the Majestics. It isn't credible if we had to get them in addition to the smaller ships, not if we wanted to keep a remotely respectable credit rating in any case.

Parliament testimomy 1954.


So what? a. The actual modernization costs of a Centaur and Majestic were roughly equivalernt.b. I already addressed the purchase costs at the outgo as calculated on the weigh as being 6% greater than Majestics as they were elephants the British had to unload.



Sorry, I don't believe you unless you provide sources.
 
Parliament testimony 1954

Manpower and operations I addressed by looking at manpower and force cost cuts elsewhere. c. You lose a tank brigade, the Darings, a couple of Rivers, you buy a simplified Leander for pure ASW work and fighter direction, You buy Adamses as your body guard ships, buy American for youe naval SAMS,  you SLEP the Canberras, you buy Drakens instead of Miracles, buy Thunderbird, TALOS, and/ or HAWK instead of the very expensive Bloodhound., go Swedish on the bombs and rockets instead of French and American, what do you want  MIRACLES? d. The only cost increase was thetwo  Counties and the only justification for those I thought was you needed the additional helos.

We didn't have a tank brigade to lose post WW2, the 1st Armoured was and remains our only tank regiment.

Sayonara!

Cutting down our destroyer/frigate force to allow us to afford a bigger carrier would be a stupid option, they were the backbone of the force that addressed one of our key defence needs, ASW escort.

Darings were fleet gun destroyers almost useless for ASW. You lose those. and you get four/five helicopter carrying frigates, three ASW capable AAW ships, two possible "cruisers"  and two helo carrying carriers. What more do you want?
   

SLEP the Canberra's? I presume that you mean to avoid having to buy the F-111's. Why would we do that? The F-111 force eventually gave us a much better capability than two carriers could hope to support, though it took a lot more time and money to get them than we expected (which the decision makers in the mid 60's didn't know would happen, so no wisdom from hindsight about it thanks).

Should have bought more  and modernized B-47s with cruise missiles instead! McNamara was a damned fool.

As for the rest, you have presented no evidence that those alternatives would save any money whatsoever. It actually seems like you think that the DOD spent the 50's and 60's going out of their way to purchase the least cost effective equipment that they could.

Not what I said One: .I happen to dislike Dassault for professional reasons that go directly to their quality control and systems approach incompetence, but that is corporate and has nothing to do with this discussion. Two: I already said that the Australian procurement professionals did the best they could and that what they did was a lot more professional and competent than what many nations did during that period, so where do you think I said different/ I also said ot was tough to improve the choices. 
 
Third: I can tell you that if you look at national defense as a national SYSTEM, instead of just one weapon system here and one weapon system there, you try to buy to the national mission and not to what the vendor wants to sell you. That means you use your money and your technical expertise to see what you can do, not what you want. 
 
Example: air defense. Australia is huge with lots of air frontier but only a few critical infrastructure points in the North. What kind of land based SAM system do you buy? The answer is MOBILE. During the purchase period under discussion you have three options, HAWK, THUNDEBIRD or a TARTAR land based system. Actually Australia has two choices, THUNDERBIRD and HAWK.     
 
I suggested TALOS instead of BLOODHOUNB because that one site could cover Tindale and Darwin, your two major bomber bases for the Konfrontassi.
 
The naval option decision was that the RAN wanted carriers. That is expensove. Something has to give. You don't pick the aircraft to fit the carrier, you pick the carrier to fit the aircraft you need. 13-20  tonnes for an interceptor and a bomber, once you see that Ivan is rushing Sverdlovs and heavy bombers into service. Plan for it. Centaurs.
 
Same for your land based arm. You need to cover a target set at least 1500 kilometers from your northern bases. Three top priorities are
1. Meduim bomber. You won't face SAMs before 1958 so you can hold on to the Canberra until she needs replacement around 1965. Until then the worst you have to face target defense MiGs and radar directed flak. Best cure is low level pentration below the poor Russian radars of the era and use the standoff weapons available. The more I look at it, the more I like the Draken/Lansen combo and tanker support. But you have Canberras instead. So buy some tankers learn to fly low level and modify the Canberras to carry RB04s.and SHRIKE as soon as its fielded.  Radar hunting is very tricky. Invest in EW early and often. 
     
 
One; the US did not supply assistance to East Timor 1975. We actually interfered as I recall. Same again in 1999. So Australia cannot automatically assume. If you need an object lesson in this, then look at Israel today. We have some real nimrods in the USG.  As long as we continue to throw up vomitus like a Kissinger, a Clinton, a Gates, a Carter, or others of that ilk, you need to watch out for yourselves. 

We didn't ask for any assistance in East Timor in 1975, we tacitly supported Surharto's invastion as Fretlin were communists and it solved our problem with the sea border dispute that we with the Portugese and then the East Timorese. The US did back us in 1999, just not as much as we wanted. In any case a carrier wasn't required, East Timor is only 400nm from Darwin and we did CAP's there with tanked F-18's. If we were interested in that sort of op in 1975 we would have been better off providing our Mirages with tanker support or buying Phantoms than operating carriers.

You needed to jerry-rig transport for heavy equipment in 1999. I look at what you did following that crisis. Suddenly the need for LPHs was paramount. Why?  (Solomons?)
 
You don't have F-18s or much tanker support in 1955-1965. This is the Konfrontassi, remember? The East Timor lesson was to show you that Uncle (and apparently Australia) can make some very bad policy decisions. I was and am not a fan of many things that the US did in those days. (You'd be surprised how close I am to Bigfella on some of this outlook, though I am essentially an American conservatibe politically.)   
 
And you still have not negated the Israel example of how the US can desert an ally in the clutch.
 
The more important point is however that apart from the defence of Australia and PNG, we weren't primarily concerned with the defence of any of the other places that you talk about. If the US or UK didn't help out we might have sent the troops that we could spare to help defend them, but we certainly wouldn't have reshaped our defence force with that in mind ... we frankly couldn't have afforded to.

East Timor and Brunei nefgates that arguement. Konfrontassi negates that argument. Vietnam negates that argument, etc etc.etc. etc. History negayes that argument.
 
 

Two. whatever an enemy can overrun politically or militarily; he will overrun. Have you looked at the news reports of the NATO truck parks in the tribal areas of Palistan? How about the airbase we lost in Kazakhstan? Carriers are yours, floating mobile airpower that you OWN.. In your AO you have mostly ocean and you are the giant  ISLAND. 

The Japanese didn't manage to overrun Port Moresby against Australian resistance in WW2 and as long as we had a foothold there, we could  support army operations in Southern PNG. Same goes for Lau in the north. Somehow I think that the Imperial Japanese Army were a bit more formidable opponent than TNI. In fact we could operate aircraft into the southern parts of PNG from Weipa and Darwin

How did you cross the Arafura  and Coral Seas again?
 
 
 We left 5000+ dead at another place, so you could hang on against the 14th Area Army.
 
 
Without Diggers on the Kokuta Trail we couldn't have won there because we needed the Japanese effort split. Without US in am effort that rivaled Stalingrad for the forces that both sides threw into that damned island, and the material we boith lost?
 
Port Moresby falls. 

Herald
 
Quote    Reply

Herald12345       6/17/2009 9:56:41 AM










Umm, isnt MEADS a land based Patriot replacement using some of the PAC 3 developments? The UK doesn't have a medium range land based SAM at the moment and is to replace its short range Rapiers with CAMM, along with a sea based version for the RN.







 So it is. So what? Engagement is 0 to 15000 meters  slant + 













Hopefully the land based version of CAMM will have enough Marinisation that it can be bolted onto the deck of a C3, Naval Auxilary or STUFT. Something like that would make it attractive to nations outside the RN and British Army, aka. possibly the RAN which sent LPA's to the gulf in 2003 with air defense provided by army RBS-70 teams



 



 



.





 



CAMM looks like a boloed version of ASRAAM with an ASTER style thrust vector control  unit added to it.



 



The British better look at MEADS. The PAC III killbody actually works. 






.



Herald


















The problem is, you still don't have any EVIDENCE that Aster doesnt work, only speculation. No it hasnt been tested on a true high supersonic target yet, but that doesnt mean it wont work against one. Also, why do you say that Sylver (designed to hot launch Aster 30) isnt up to high enough standards to launch SM6?

 
CREF below.
 

Finally, what role would you propose that MEADS fill in british service? Land based? or as a replacement to PAAMS?


I have the best evidence that anyone needs. People have been offered ASTER land and sea based and they bought STANDARD, ESSM, BARAK or something Russian.for naval, and PATRIOT and/or something Russian for land based.

The proof is a decade of failed marketing and sales, plus the refusal of the French or the British to test it on US ranges. We KNOW the missile is crap. 

Also if you look at CAMM, why develop that; if ASTER 15/30 works? Hello? It has the same exact MER to the horizon performance specs. Somebody is telling you something.
 
Sea based MEADS is interesting, but that role for us is filled by ESSM and STANDARD. Block IV ESSM will outperform MEADS as it already outperforms ASTER by a wide margin. Question is do the British want it, and will they tear up their ships to install it? SYLVER is a PoJ designed for ASTER.  

Herald
 
Quote    Reply

Aussiegunneragain       6/17/2009 10:49:51 AM

Parliament testimomy 1954.

Relevance? All that shows is the cost of construction of the Albion, it doesn't compare it to the Majestics.

Sayonara!
 
I'll take it that this means you don't have a sensible come back.

Darings were fleet gun destroyers almost useless for ASW. You lose those. and you get four/five helicopter carrying frigates, three ASW capable AAW ships, two possible "cruisers"  and two helo carrying carriers. What more do you want?
They were equipped like any destroyer of that era was, with depth charges and sonar, which was useful for ASW though nearing the end of its usefulness by the 60's. In any case, If you are going to replace them with more modern ships then they aren't going to save you any money for your carrier (see further discussion below).

Should have bought more  and modernized B-47s with cruise missiles instead! McNamara was a damned fool.

Irrelevant comment to the discussion

Not what I said

You said "Manpower and operations I addressed by looking at manpower and force cost cuts elsewhere" and then went on with your examples of what we should have gotten rid of to fund the carriers. Going on a rant about Swedish fighters and Hawks isn't going to change the fact that it isn't a credible plan. 
      

You needed to jerry-rig transport for heavy equipment in 1999. I look at what you did following that crisis. Suddenly the need for LPHs was paramount. Why?  (Solomons?)

We are getting LPH's because we need extra sealift capability. You are proposing to buy Centaurs to act in the strike carrier role. They couldn't have acted as an LPH as well and we couldn't afford to run them and Majestics in the commando carrier role.

You don't have F-18s or much tanker support in 1955-1965. This is the Konfrontassi, remember? The East Timor lesson was to show you that Uncle (and apparently Australia) can make some very bad policy decisions. I was and am not a fan of many things that the US did in those days. (You'd be surprised how close I am to Bigfella on some of this outlook, though I am essentially an American conservatibe politically.)    

So we get tanker support for the Mirages or the Phantoms like I already said.

And you still have not negated the Israel example of how the US can desert an ally in the clutch.

And you have still not negated the fact that we were capable of looking after our own (including PNG's) defence if that ever happenned, just not everybody elses in the regions as well. We would pretty much have become like the Sweden of the South Pacific if we were going it alone. 
 
East Timor and Brunei nefgates that arguement. Konfrontassi negates that argument. Vietnam negates that argument, etc etc.etc. etc. History negayes that argument.
 
Those were ALL allied efforts which we wouldn't have done alone, which negates your argument.

The Japanese didn't manage to overrun Port Moresby against Australian resistance in WW2 and as long as we had a foothold there, we could  support army operations in Southern PNG. Same goes for Lau in the north. Somehow I think that the Imperial Japanese Army were a bit more formidable opponent than TNI. In fact we could operate aircraft into the southern parts of PNG from Weipa and Darwin

How did you cross the Arafura  and Coral Seas again?

Without Diggers on the Kokuta Trail we couldn't have won there because we needed the Japanese effort split. Without US in aa effort that rivaled Stalingrad for the forces that both sides threw into that damned island, and the material we boith lost?

 Port Moresby falls. 

I think you will find that the TNI navy at the time was a bit less formidable than the Imperial Japanese one in WW2, you know, it missed a few aircraft carriers and the like. The Indonesians couldn't project air power into the Coral Sea so we didn't face the same threat to our lines of communication as we did in WW2.

Anyway, I know how important it is for you to feel that you have proven yourself right even when you clearly aren't and that you will consequently hold onto your argument like a dog to a bone. As such feel free to have the last say, as I don't see anything more productive coming out of this.

 
Quote    Reply
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