Posted on 02/13/2005 5:28:59 PM PST by Eurotwit
As a hopelessly patriotic sort of person, I have a fantasy of one day being on holiday in the south of France and looking up from, say, a biography of Nelson, to see an aircraft carrier appear on the horizon. Only instead of it being an American one, it will be British. No doubt the captain will come ashore in a smart launch and, if I were to be lucky, he might invite me aboard for a sundowner. All would be well in the world, and I would sleep soundly, dreaming of past glories at the Nile and Trafalgar.
I am not the only one with this fantasy. Geoff Hoon says he has now taken personal charge of the Government's pet defence programme - to build two super-carriers for the Royal Navy. These will be the largest warships ever built in Britain, with four acres of flight deck apiece. In fact, they are so big that no single yard can build them and they will be constructed in bits, by a consortium of companies, before being put together by a "physical integrator", otherwise known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of US vice- president Dick Cheney's alma mater, Halliburton. The Navy is salivating at the prospect of having some smart new toys to play with. The current military vogue is "expeditionary warfare", and Vice-Admiral Charles Style, commander UK maritime forces, says: "I absolutely believe this is a very relevant and important capability." Even the Department of International Development, eager to carpet-bomb Africa with aid, or, more usefully, help the victims of natural disasters, wants the carriers. So, how come, six years after they were first proposed, they have not yet been ordered?
Here is the rub. Despite all the brouhaha over the surprisingly fierce negotiating style of Mr Hoon, these carriers have got no further than the drawing board. They have, however, been provisionally named HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. Something about those names, chosen by an administration that axed the Royal Yacht, worries me. Are they just a bit too unreal, a bit too good to be true? The last vessel to be named Prince of Wales, also the pride of the fleet, sank in unfortunate circumstances in 1941, after Churchill rashly sent it to defend Singapore without enough escorts.
Sadly, there is not much prospect of the super-carriers having enough escorts either. Another handful of frigates and destroyers have been cut, so the Royal Navy now has just 28 afloat, half the number it had at the time of the Falklands. Assuming a typical carrier battle group has at least six escorts, the Navy will be stripped bare to provide the minimum support, once these ships are supposedly at sea from 2012 onwards.
All this points to the really serious question: can we afford them? The initial cost estimate, now six years old, was that the carriers would cost £3 billion, plus their air complements. In theory, we should be able to find the money. After all, Britain is the world's fourth largest economy and a global trading nation. The trouble is that, over the past decade, the defence budget has been halved in real terms by both the Conservatives and Labour, to just 2.4 per cent of GDP. Every bill that comes in from Iraq is quibbled by the Treasury and the MoD has been reduced in effect to cannibalising future capability in order to fund Tony Blair's wars. Furthermore, as far as I can see, such are the burdens on the defence budget, the MoD has resorted to some pretty novel accounting. It treats some items as "near cash", an oxymoronic concept. It also records its hardware as £27 billion of capital assets. All those weapons, so expensive to maintain, depreciate rapidly and so are an odd kind of capital.
But there is really only one very significant thing you need to know about the Ministry of Defence's budget. It is to be found in note 21 to the accounts of a quango called the Defence Procurement Agency and it says future commitments "contracted but not provided for: £14.4 billion". That is the current cost of newly ordered weapon systems, which have yet to be paid for. But the Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales have not even been ordered yet, nor have their 70 joint combat fighters. The MoD protests otherwise, but that number looks to me like the black hole in the defence budget, blown by, inter alia, the Eurofighter. No wonder those doughty Scottish regiments are being merged or axed.
The "black hole" is also the ultimate financial consequence of the dualarchy which runs our country. On one side, there is Tony Blair, strutting around the world with a sword in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, sending the Armed Forces into battle. On the other side, there is Gordon Brown, with a fundamentally different idea of Britain as a soft power, a welfare state, whose principal foreign policy ought to be a "Marshall Plan" for the Third World. Mr Brown evidently has no time for the Armed Forces. Gerald Howarth, a Conservative defence spokesman, recently asked in a parliamentary question what defence establishments Mr Brown had visited. And the reply? Too expensive to find out. If any readers have ever seen Mr Brown at a defence establishment, perhaps they might write in to The Daily Telegraph to help solve the mystery.
The military are caught in the middle of this two-personality state - forced to deploy in Iraq and elsewhere, but without the proper support of the Treasury. So here is a pre-election challenge to Mr Blair and to Mr Brown, assuming they are speaking to each other. When will you order these carriers, and where, exactly, is the money to come from? Unless they can give satisfactory answers, my approach to the carrier question will be not to believe the Government, until I see the vessels bobbing on the horizon.
You couldn't have for one simple reason. IT CAN'T!
***Which is what I said. You're starting to get shrill now. Oh well, I gotta log off. Happy flying.
Yes, "brainfart" was the key to solving that question. But it also led me to this statement of yours... "It really is a mystery to me why Lockheed dropped VIFFing." Just a thought, but maybe it has something to do with what everyone on this thread is trying to tell you. As far as "losing the attitude" is concerned...when you call people frauds, you tend to raise some hackles.
"Feel free to post updated primary source material."
VIFFing isn't done. There is no updated primary source data. I can't give you updated primary source data that says the world is flat either.
"Why are you avoiding the " 7 to 1 valid kill claim by the SHARs" from Ward's book? I guess I don't aim to impress you if you don't accept primary source material. "
That was his account of a training mission that took place 26 years ago. The Eagles were no doubt using AIM-9P's which are not an all aspect missile and nowhere near as capable as even the AIM-9L which the Brits used in the Falklands. This was obviously the first time any F-15's had flown against the Sea Harrier, and very little was known about it. Because the Sea Harrier was brand new, I'd venture to say its pilots were among the most experienced in the Royal Navy. And nowhere in Ward's account of fighting the Eagles does he mention "VIFFing". If this single incident is your only support for the Harrier's air to air superiority, again, I have to say I am unimpressed.
Yes, and followed it up with this.
So how do we KNOW that the average Joe Flyboy isn’t a Hawkeye pilot who goes home to his dreary existence and wishes he was a fighter pilot? By the quality of the information he posts. That is, unless I missed the secret decoder ring seminar at the last VRWC meeting. And, proceeding from Pukin Dog’s fate, the quality of the information needs to be WITHIN that PARTICULAR thread. If Joe Flyboy’s posts fail the smell test, his credibility is open to question.
You have completed a massive flip flop in the last 25 posts or so of this thread. You wanted others in the forum to judge the accuracies of our respective statements. The only members who have chosen to do so told you are wrong so now you have tasked us to find "primary" evidence to refute statements from Harrier, the Love Story.
IF you have done much reading about or had much exposure to the people who actually fly as you claim, you would recognize the real deal as they answer your ANNOYING "MAN" rants. It's all been very revealing of both character and knowledge...that is, who has it and who doesn't. They do and sorry, but I don't think that you do...regardless of how long you've been at Free Republic.
Thanks.
Oh, I have no idea what happened to Puke. Miss his posts, too.
Oh sure, you had to pull out the A-10 card. OK. I submit. Despite having two tails and two engines, the A-10 is the ultimate real man's jet. And I only called the Strike Eagle an air yacht because I read somewhere that they recently removed the wetbar and replaced it with an espresso machine.
Where are the sand bunkers?
Oh by the way, he does scan through FR occassionally. He just doesn't post.
Thanks. I can understand his sabbatical, as the patience-factor runs thin sometimes.
Hope he returns someday.
Bottom of the big water hazard I suspect......
Suggestion: Go down to the flower shop for your daily wiff of escalating beauty.
In the Falklands war the Harriers could barely handle the Argentine A4's and the little Scooters were wreaking havoc on the British fleet which could not protect their airspace with Harriers from any altitude. The only reason Harriers were not lost in those engagements was because the A4's did not have sidewinders and their manually targeted WWII iron bombs ripped the British fleet some new port holes.
No fighter pliot wants to mix it up in the weeds, because at that point you are either already dead or you are on life support because you have already lost the fight. Matched pilots and planes will always end up on the deck if no missles were employed BVR. But once the primary mission was complete and unless their was no choice the fighter would be buggin out if he had no missles on board to take out the threat, nor would he venture down low to take it out and lose altitude and speed unless it was for a good reason. With the same piloting skill with those that know their aricrafts ability and their threats ability the aricraft with more energy and ability to go vertical will win every single time. An F-4 would not take on a Harrier in a turning fight nor would it need to. In any realistic encounter the Harrier would have been long dead unless the Rhino driver was stupid enough to try and mix it in on the deck. An F-18 or F-16 would and would gun the Harrier down every single time unless the pilot was a nugget or just learning ACM.
You've gone from calling USNBandit a fraud
***I withdrew that accusation publicly. And also, Bandit, I apologize.
to calling everyone who disagrees with you (which is everyone on this thread) a fraud.
***Umm, no, I haven't called anyone else a fraud. And someone in this forum has called me a "pretender, a fake and a fraud." We have a factual disagreement here. I am differentiating primary and secondary source material because all these guys are signed up anonymously. There is no easy way to verify that they ARE fighter pilots. Primary source material is more valuable than secondary source material, but I think with enough of you guys present, we can turn that around. I'll talk about that later.
You rely on one book published in 1978, and another published following a war fought in 1982 to declare the Harrier an air to air killing machine.
***Well, then there's those kill ratios which are a bit astonishing. I know I'm using old material, that's all I have. It shouldn't be that difficult to knock it down.
Did you actually read Commander Ward's book? Perhaps you could share with us how many times British Harriers "VIFFed" in their engagements with Argentinian aircraft.
***I can't find his book. I'm afraid we're stuck with his claim on a 7:1 kill ratio vs. F15s.
And perhaps you ought to mention that nearly every kill was made using U.S. provided Aim-9L missiles, which were leading edge technology at the time. You also might want to mention that all of the Argentinian aircraft were operating at the extreme edge of their operational radius, and had neither the fuel or configuration for aerial engagements.
***Okay, good stuff here. High fact/opinion ratio.
Finally, Argentinian A-4 and Mirage III aircraft are not exactly a useful control group to determine an aircraft's potency as an air to air fighter. They couldn't even get their bombs to function correctly.
***That makes the aircraft lousy? Doesn't that make the bombs lousy?
Your air to air kill ratio numbers against anything more potent than the Argentinian Air Force are all based on anonymous sources pulled from internet chat sites.
***Umm, the combat kill ratios in the Falklands are well accepted. I think the problem we all have is the kill ratios from the "NATO Warplanes" article and Commander Ward. These are verifiable primary sources. But I am in no position to verify the identities of the fighter pilots in this forum any more than I can verify the identities in the other "chat sites".
That is ironic considering you spend several paragraphs explaining your "rule of COIN".
***As I already stated, "these tend to be secondary sources rather than primary sources, but the fact that both sides agree on certain facts tends to be highly significant." It is also highly significant that so far (since my last post) no one has disputed the primary source material of kill ratios by the Harrier. So this is the big red blinking light that we're all going to need to discuss.
Live by your own rule, and stop posting "bogus" numbers.
***I intend to.
For the record, my last name is Rokke and I've been flying F-16's for 15 years. I've personally met Gunrunner2 and am very familiar with his background.
***BINGO! You've just graduated from secondary source to primary source. I think we should be able to get to the bottom of this controversy in short order. Thanks for doing that.
USNBandit and I both attended the finest military academy in the world and graduated one year apart. I have also met A6Intruder while I was deployed to Langley AFB shortly after Sept 11. Grace522 and I just sat Noble Eagle alert together 2 days ago. The only person I haven't met in person is Mr Rogers, but I've corresponded with him enough to know he is who he says he is. None of us claim to be aficionados. That is because we are all experts. We have to be to accomplish our jobs.
***OK, very cool. Then your expertise triumphs the meandering postings of a Harrier afficianado and we can all resolve the controversy.
Knowing the air to air capabilities of aircraft is a job requirement, and one that our life depends on.
***That was why I had gotten suspicious of Bandit in the first place, but he has proven himself to be a credit to the Navy by being so patient.
I have fought against Harriers several times in my career. Never. Not once have I seen them use anything resembling a "VIFF". Nor do I know anyone else who has ever fought a Harrier that performed a "VIFF". That is because it would be stupid for them to do that, and they know it. Getting extremely slow in a within visual range engagement is your last move before dying. It may give you the turn radius from hell, but when your adversary takes it into the vertical after you try your little trick, your little Pegasus motor doesn't have what it takes to transition from nearly stopped to useful forward thrust before you're taking a AIM-9 up one of your very hot little nozzles.
****Excellent Primary Source Post. Exactly what we needed to resolve the controversy. Thank you for going out on a limb. I'm sure the folks who read through this thread in a year or two will appreciate it very much.
By your definitions, the meanest air to air aircraft in the sky would be helicopters.
***Nope. I think there have been a couple of misconceptions operating. I thought it was odd that the Harrier could rack up kills operating from a vertical takeoff with very little kinetic energy. It just doesn't make sense. Also, the Harrier pilots tend to VIFF more than just as a hard break maneuver, they vector their nozzles to stay at maximum throttle when they're flying at low speeds. But there might be a scenario that made sense in the exercises for a Harrier winning while starting with low Kinetic Energy. Here goes: The Eagle pilot is going around looking for tanks, full load of ordinance. He sees a slow moving air target on his radar and assumes it to be a helicopter, swinging around for the kill without dropping his ordinance. He comes back over the hill to re-establish radar contact and looks where the helicopter should be, based on its maximum flight speed, and it's not there. Soon, there's a blip on his radar, which is now going faster than a helicopter and he is right in the middle of the flight envelope where the Harrier is strong, already in a knife fight at a disadvantage. Typical of the Brits, they exploit this weakness and skew the results of the air exercise with an aircraft that probably should be retired. Does that sound plausible? I just don't think it's a good idea to start a dogfight with very little kinetic energy, so this strategy would probably never be used in real combat.
And since the B-52 has a 2 - 0 air to air record in actual combat, it must be a potent air to air platform. Hell, it's undefeated against a threat that actually did quite well against our top fighters at the time.
***Interesting straw argument, but I never said it and I don't hold that position. But I really do appreciate you operating in the clear and resolving most of this controversy.
Your lectures on this site being Jim Robinson's house are all very nice, but since you've been here for so long (and incidentally, my first signup name was Rock and I can't remember my login either. 23 July 1998) you must know that one of the greatest assets of this site is the fact that it is populated with true to life experts on just about every topic imaginable.
***I know that, but as I stated, I didn't get the magic decoder ring that enables me to verify your identities. But your post should be good enough to resolve the dispute and we can all go our own way. Right here I would like to say to all you guys that I do appreciate your service to our country and I will say a prayer for each one of you. Thank you.
Since you acknowledge that you aren't one in this field, perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss others who offer reasonable discussion on the topic at hand just because their opinions are not the same as yours.
***It's not a dismissal, it's just pointing out that since people are anonymous in this forum, it relegates them to secondary source material. It's unfortunate. But I don't think it's all that necessary for people to break anonymity if they don't want to, I had been working on a way around it. But you have resolved the controversy. What I had in mind was to have all the fighter guys on that ping list weigh in with whatever information they were willing to provide in terms of what year they flew, the name of the exercises, which aircraft they were in, what their kill ratio versus the Harrier was, and what their overall squadron kill ratio was. With that kind of material we could have built a case with secondary source material that refutes the kill ratios of the posted primary source material. We could still do that if they want to, but you guys are probably all a little peeved at seeing one of your own take hits in this forum. Anyways, good job. Keep up the good work.
"...when you call people frauds, you tend to raise some hackles."
***Fair enough.
"Feel free to post updated primary source material."
VIFFing isn't done. There is no updated primary source data. I can't give you updated primary source data that says the world is flat either.
***Actually, by breaking anonymity and operating in the clear so that your information is verifiable, you became a primary source. And, it seems that all the secondary sources were aligned in saying that the Harrier isn't much of an A2A dogfighter. So the weight of the evidence has shifted dramatically to the point where I will state, as a true Harrier Afficianado, that the Harrier is not a good dogfighter any more. I do wish we could resolve those Kill Ratios, though.
"Why are you avoiding the " 7 to 1 valid kill claim by the SHARs" from Ward's book? I guess I don't aim to impress you if you don't accept primary source material. "
That was his account of a training mission that took place 26 years ago. The Eagles were no doubt using AIM-9P's which are not an all aspect missile and nowhere near as capable as even the AIM-9L which the Brits used in the Falklands. This was obviously the first time any F-15's had flown against the Sea Harrier, and very little was known about it. Because the Sea Harrier was brand new, I'd venture to say its pilots were among the most experienced in the Royal Navy. And nowhere in Ward's account of fighting the Eagles does he mention "VIFFing". If this single incident is your only support for the Harrier's air to air superiority, again, I have to say I am unimpressed.
***Good enough. What about all those other kill ratios? Did the Harrier go up against other inexperienced pilots? Or did it have a trick that worked for awhile until the pilots got its number?
You wanted others in the forum to judge the accuracies of our respective statements. The only members who have chosen to do so told you are wrong so now you have tasked us to find "primary" evidence to refute statements from Harrier, the Love Story.
***That's exactly what the forum did, which is what I predicted: "What do I think is the most likely outcome? I think it’s most likely that I’ll be proven wrong somehow, because of all the expertise lined up against my position. " Anyways, thanks for being patient, bandit. There is a genuine upside to all of this: From now on, whenever any of you or your buddies encounter ANNOYING HARRIER MAN, you can steer him to Free Republic. Keep up the good work.
A super carrier?
Then pay for the 85 Aircraft on the carrier.
Then pay for the 5,500 man crew.
Then pay for the day-to-day operation and all the other ships required to make a carrier fleet possible.
I like the Brits and wish they could build this. But I don't see the resources really being available. Something like a Marine Amphib ship yes, a super carrier? No.
A single carrier would suck such an amount of resources from them that it would hurt them in the long run. Just an opinion.
Red6
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