Typhoon would need a complete facelift to be navalised, the airframe isn't built for it. If it could survive take off and landing (somehow) then it would probably be superb as a carrier aircraft.
Trident or Aircraft Carriers or JSF
- Thread starter scorza
- Start date
Man of Honour
Replace Trident is a must.
Carry on building the 2 new carriers is a must.
Scrap JSF, install the catapults to the carriers (easy as they are designed to take them at some point in their life), and stick navalised Typhoons on them.
Carry on building the 2 new carriers is a must.
Scrap JSF, install the catapults to the carriers (easy as they are designed to take them at some point in their life), and stick navalised Typhoons on them.
Man of Honour
This
Replace vanguard / trident with slightly stretched astute subs with less capacity, 6 missiles with mult warheads would be fine.
I think navalising typhoons would cost too much, maybe just buy F18s for them.
Sell the vanguards to india or someone who already has nuke capability to recoup some costs
Soldato
France wouldn't buy them, they were already offered the chance to be in on the project and are showing less and less enthusiasm they certainly wouldn't buy either in their current STOVL configuration and would never purchase both.
The Charles de Gaulle is a perfectly good aircraft carrier, it is only back in dry dock after some teething troubles following a massive mid life revamp.
The Eurofighter is not an option but the world is littered with suitable planes that could be fired off a cat, we could pick and choose and then modify with British electronics and engines as necessary.
Would never happen.
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Possible, but I think its more than just a facelift it'd need. Its designed as a light-framed, highly stressed, airstrip launched air dominance fighter for use against the invading Russian hordes.
I dont think the airframe, undercarriage or any other parts are in any way suitable for naval use, even if we did have steam catapults (which we dont)
I cannot fathom the logic to build our largest ever aircraft carriers, yet to hobble them with both an incorrect propulsion system, and no steam catapults (we invented the thing!) so that our "choice" of aircraft is pretty much 1. Essentially, if the JSF is a failure, so are our carriers.
At rock minimum, we should get steam catapults in ASAP. If only for launching a small number of air superiority fighters, Rafale of FA/18 type so that our big expensive carriers wont get sunk in the event of a real war.
Either that, or just make sure theres lots of decoy boats to sink like last time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_French_aircraft_carrier
I wouldn't be too sure about that...
Charles de Gaulle has had more problems then any carrier I can remember and has been in dry dock a lot more as well..
Stelly
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Man of Honour
The French carrier is a complete lame duck. It has been for the last 10 years or so. It has had to come back into refit after around 6 months due to MORE problems.
It started off with massive problems. It was too short, major problems with the nuclear reactor etc. It still has problems with it's reactor.
It started off with massive problems. It was too short, major problems with the nuclear reactor etc. It still has problems with it's reactor.
In my opinion a Nuclear detterent is a must, as it ensures Mutually assured destruction "MAD Warfare" which is the only real detterent to Nuke's being used against others...
Without them, those who have them will have a significant strike capability that far exceeds what we could return.
Without them, those who have them will have a significant strike capability that far exceeds what we could return.
Soldato
Trident
It kills more people
It kills more people
Man of Honour
I think the UK also needs to take a deep hard look into why some of the big capital projects cost SO much more than they should.
We have the 3rd biggest defence expenditure in the world behind the USA and China, but does our hardware and troop numbers tally up with all of that spending?
We have the 3rd biggest defence expenditure in the world behind the USA and China, but does our hardware and troop numbers tally up with all of that spending?
Not even close in my opinion... the fact is ever since the 2nd World War we as a nation have relied to heavily on our alliance with America as a sort of substitute or excuse as to not properly fund our Military and it will be our down fall if it is not corrected soon.
Britain is the worlds invention capital, and our biggest ecenomic export as far as I'm aware is technology... With the right investment we could bring our military technologies to the highest standard and potentially become the worlds primary super power once again!
Soldato
That article points repeatedly to the French changing their minds, they have never been fully committed to the project and I would be very very surprised if they ever puchase a Queen Elizabeth Class carrier eith one of ours or a thrid in class.
It's not a 'complete lame duck' yes it's had it's problem but it has seen a reasonable amount of action round the world as the only nuclear powered carrier built outside the states and first in class she isn't that bad, allthough it does say something that they have never commisiioned a sister ship as their second carrier.
A lot of other industries have gone modular, surly this is possible in milliatry as well.
As above we are great inventors and should be building and designing the majority of our own stuff.
Not only would money spent on milliatry go back mainly into UK economy, it would also mean we could sale.
It is a good time for such a move. In the medium future we are going to see truly integrated battlefield, exo skeltons.
Smaller lighter vehicles that can be air dropped, with reduced fuel and other supply chains. Basically what America has been designing.
And stop changing there minds and if they do change their minds, should only be allowed on modular systems, Where this be electronics to weapons. if you could make things modular, you could literally remove it and slot in the new part.
As above we are great inventors and should be building and designing the majority of our own stuff.
Not only would money spent on milliatry go back mainly into UK economy, it would also mean we could sale.
It is a good time for such a move. In the medium future we are going to see truly integrated battlefield, exo skeltons.
Smaller lighter vehicles that can be air dropped, with reduced fuel and other supply chains. Basically what America has been designing.
And stop changing there minds and if they do change their minds, should only be allowed on modular systems, Where this be electronics to weapons. if you could make things modular, you could literally remove it and slot in the new part.
Soldato
Sorry most of Europe are spineless fools
The NHS is already the most efficient health service in the world.
Soldato
Trident is what keeps us at the global top table. No matter what anyone says we'll have to keep it to be taken seriously.
Mmmmm. I suppose I wouldn't have been almost killed. But then what do you do when some eastern European EU member decides to attack it's non EU neighbour and so on...
It's frankly a stupid and unworkable idea. We would need complete European political sovereignty before a joint armed forces would be practical.
Care to back that up?