Jets & Planes but no UAV's here.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Personally I'll wait for "The Great Shootout" to be conducted early next year between the A-10 and F-35. Funny though that for all the talk about the A-10 and F-35, you're not hearing anything about the F-15E OK I am and they'll be getting an extensive electronics upgrade.
http://www.airforce-technology.com/n...rcraft-4820474
http://www.janes.com/article/59392/u...x-requirements
http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets...ike-eagle.aspx
http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets...g-variant.aspx
http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets...erbolt-ii.aspx

The F-15E is the real winner here based on the fact it can fight it's way into and out of the target area, has a payload of 23klbs, as compared the F-35A at 18klbs and the A-10 at 16klbs. The F-15E during it's career has a shoot down score of 101 kills to 0 losses.
The F-35 will lose it's stealth advantage if it has to carry weapons externally-and wasn't that the point of the whole exercise in it's development? Internally it won't be able to carry a much larger payload than the F-22 in "stealth mode" and for all the "hoop la" why is the USAF being required to find a replacement to the A-10 anyway under the A-X Program?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/...s-a-10-legacy/

The Congress thus far is not necessarily supporting the USAF decision to look at, at least five "off the shelf' candidates. They are to look into a "ground up" option (And are.) as yet another paradigm shift is occurring with the resurgence of Russia and China. If you watched the news today there was a story about a U.S. Destroyer being buzzed by Russian attack aircraft (Unarmed however of course the ship is armed.) This is the kind of stuff we did to each other during the "Cold War". So I see the possibility of something that'll be a "hybrid" between the F-15E and A-10 based on their combined pluses if designed from the "ground up".

I hope you'll at least look at the chart of the above last ref. the F-35 has been added to a newer version of the same chart and it doesn't fair that well either. It's posted in this Thread already I think around Oct. 2015 time frame. Also only 7 or 8 A-10's have been shot down in combat. The ratio of loss vs. sorties would fall into the 0.000...range.

Operation Desert Storm
-------------------------------


OA-10A 76-0543
Shot down by Infra Red SAM (SA-9) 19 Feb 1991 62 nm North West of Kuwait city. 23rd TASS/602nd TACW (NF). The 23 US combat lost aircraft. Pilot Lt Col Jeffery Fox (40 from Fall River, Mass) call sign "NAIL53" was injured as he ejected and captured as POW and released 03/05/91.

OA-10A 77-0197
Crashed on landing. 23rd TASS/602nd TACW. Aircraft had been hit by small arms and was attempting a landing at KKMC FOL while in Manual Reversion after loosing all its hydraulics and in extreme weather conditions. On landing the aircraft cart wheeled wingtip over wingtip flipped over on to its back killing the pilot Lt Patrick Olson. There was nothing left of the aircraft. The remains of the aircraft were buried at the FOL.

A-10A 78-0722
Shot down in combat 15 Feb 1991. 353rd TFS/354th TFW hit by ground fire 60 miles north west of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. Thought to have been engaged by SA-13 'Gopher' SAM. Pilot Lt James Sweet ejected and made Prisoner of War.

A-10A 79-0130
Shot down in combat 15 Feb 1991. 353th TFS/354th TFW hit by ground fire approx 60 miles north west of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. Thought to have been engaged by SA-13 'Gopher' SAM. Pilot Capt Steven Phyllis killed in action. Capt. Steve Phyllis died while protecting his downed wingman, 1st Lt. Robert James Sweet.

A-10A 79-0181
Crashed on landing, wheels up, hard stick landing by pilot Capt Rich Biley on 22 Feb 1991.

A-10A 80-0248
Shot down in combat by 'optical AAA' fire 2 Feb 1991 shot down by ground fire or SAM 20 NM SW of Kuwait City, Kuwait. Pilot Capt Richard Dale Storr ejected and captured as POW Released 03/05/91. From 23rd TFW.



Operation Iraqi Freedom
-------------------------------


A-10A (Serial Number : 78-0691) of 124th Wing/190th FS shot down by enemy fire, probably by an Iraqi Roland SAM; pilot survived and was recovered by friendly forces.

I was always behind the F-22 even as controversial as it was at the time and since in the last 3 years or so it's proved it's worth. Maybe the F-35 will prove me wrong but, from what I've been seeing thus far, I'm not ready to support it. Maybe the "shoot out" if done correctly will change my mind. But for now my money is on the A-10 and the more recently possible addition of the F-15E though no final decision on that has been made yet that, that I'm aware of.

Anyway I really need some sleep-I hope you all have a great day!

Regards,
Pat

[IronDuke99]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

It's a good ground attack aircraft. It's not, repeat NOT, intended or designed to be a fighter (that's what the F-22 is for).

Excellent ground attack avionics. Carries an OK bombload internally for full stealth, and has external racks that can carry many tons of bombs/missiles. There are advantages to all three services using basically the same aircraft in terms of maintenance and logistics.

Fair enough for the US but in the British Royal Navy F35B will have to do fleet air defence, since it will be the Fleet Air Arms only fast jet. Certainly sometimes the fleet can use land based air cover and, again sometimes Allies can help, but, as history proves, sometimes the RN will have to rely on its own carrier based aircraft...

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by IronDuke99

Fair enough for the US but in the British Royal Navy F35B will have to do fleet air defence, since it will be the Fleet Air Arms only fast jet. Certainly sometimes the fleet can use land based air cover and, again sometimes Allies can help, but, as history proves, sometimes the RN will have to rely on its own carrier based aircraft...

The problem is that for whatever reason (presumably economic) the RN isn't building/operating any full size fleet carriers. When all you've got is what are essentially escort carriers with a small aircraft complement it's not really reasonable to expect that air complement to be great at anything since by necessity they have to be multi-role.

[IronDuke99]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

The problem is that for whatever reason (presumably economic) the RN isn't building/operating any full size fleet carriers. When all you've got is what are essentially escort carriers with a small aircraft complement it's not really reasonable to expect that air complement to be great at anything since by necessity they have to be multi-role.

Actually the two new Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers are the second largest Carriers in the world after the USN carriers. Over 70,000 tons, 920 feet long and and a flight deck beam of 230ft. They will be able to carry up to about 55 aircraft. They are roughly three times the size of the Invincible class they replace.

http://www.queenelizabethcruises.net...comparison.jpg

[Imp]

This will be interesting I am no plane buff but if the airspace is hot beating the F-15s multirole capabilities is a tall order, I will be very surprised if the F-35 is as capable.
F-15s bugbear is its probably expensive to run but I bet its still the deep penetration plane of choice.
Let the others operate in the "safe zone"

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

From a discussion from early last Fall, I had said that I didn't feel that we were in "The Cold War" again but more like "The Chilly War" dealing with the airspace violations of some European countries by Russian military aircraft. But after this incident with the USS Cook earlier this week in which the CPA was within 75 feet of the bridge, this represents an escalation not seen since the mid 80's early 90's. It would seem we are heading back into "The 2nd Cold War". These over flights are normal but what's not is how close they "buzzed" the Cook. A sneeze at the wrong time at that altitude and speed could've resulted in the loss of life and who knows what political or other issues would've resulted from that. A good call by the C.O. to keep the crew and ship "weapons tight" to prevent an incident. The ROE after the first pass, would've allowed the C.O. to engage if he felt the ship was in imminent danger of attack, this was confirmed by the Secretary of State Thursday morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylONaw4ODuk
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/14/europe...ght/index.html

Su-24 at CPA...


It'll be interesting to see what the response from the Russians will be in about four to six weeks, when we have over 13K troops in Poland to conduct our largest exercise in Europe since the Cold War ended.

Regards,
Pat

[Suhiir]

Guess I misread something when I looked them over, for some reason I thought they only carried 24 aircraft.

But at 55 there's no reason they can't carry F-35Cs. Yeah It's not an F-15 or F-22, but what that can land on a carrier is?

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Well time for the NAVY to step in...
Prior to the Strategic Defense Review (SDR) of 2010 the plan was to scrap both the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales. However (Another economics lesson. ) this didn't prove a viable option to the British Government due to the contract obligations which, and you'll love this, would have made it more expensive to scrap them, then to finish building them at the stage in the construction the ships were in at the time. A fortune was already invested just in infrastructure and coordination of at least five major shipyards to "put the pieces together" not least of which included building the largest shipyard crane in the history of British shipbuilding. These carriers are the largest ships ever built in the long illustrious history of the Royal Navy.

All my respect to the RN and the then Soviet Navies as I have a pair of Submarine Dolphins from each in my "Shadow Box" for all the fun and sometimes white knuckle games we played that I've been involved with.

This situation is not unprecedented, for instance we saw the same with the MEADS Program which forced both the U.S and Italy to see the program through until it's operational testing and qualification status were completed. Germany was to back out as well, however, due to the contract environment it became favorable to stay in it and would in turn be the only country left standing that is operating the system with the possibility of Poland getting the system in the near future. The breaking of the contract for MEADS would've been in the hundreds of million dollars in penalties each for each country involved for what is considered the most advanced SAM in current use. The Carriers would've cost the UK in the billions of dollars if I remember correctly, to back out of the carriers.

The bottom-line is currently both carriers will be activated (When they realized they were stuck with both carriers, the Prince of Wales would've been "mothballed". And given the current world events this has turned out to be a most fortuitous decision.

I tried to get as close to a USN Carrier as possible, as us NAVY types like discussing these things in terms of "displacement" regarding a ships size. Also when noting aircraft capacity/or compliment it will do the reader well to realize this will include all types of aircraft such as EW, ASW, RECON, ATTACK etc. including fixed wing and rotor craft.

The Queen Elizabeth Class is designed as a multi-mission platform unlike our carriers since the RN doesn't have specialized ships for instance like our Amphibious landing ships (LHA) that'll carrying our F-35B (Which is the only one I see worthwhile to have.). With that in mind they'll carry Royal Marines with the air-wing to compliment that mission to include the APACHE helos. These ships are of the ideal size and configuration for this versatility in the multi-mission environments the modern Navies face in both the Anti-Terrorist and current Deterrence role due to the rise and resurgence of the Russian and now Chinese Navies. Also the UK still has issues in dealing with the Falklands question in particular.

A note of the FORRESTAL Class carriers the compliment of aircraft is 85 and the USS FORRESTAL (CVA-59) was the largest in displacement at 59,900 tons ((QE Class is 65,000 tons.) the rest of the class was something in the 56K and "something" range. The FORRESTAL Class is considered the first "Super Carrier" Class as well.

So next some articles and graphs/charts etc.
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and...for-the-future
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...updated-01630/
https://news.usni.org/2015/09/17/dse...abeth-carriers

Prospective...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._chart.svg.png
http://www.military-today.com/navy/t...t_carriers.htm

Comparison...
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=64
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...scrapyard.html

You'll find earlier posts regarding this topic in this thread, though I did delve deeper into it here. Anyway anything on the surface is nothing but a "TARGET" anyway!?!

My job is done here so I can enjoy the start of my weekend with a little "shut eye" time-enjoy the rest of yours!!

Regards,
Pat

[IronDuke99]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Guess I misread something when I looked them over, for some reason I thought they only carried 24 aircraft.

But at 55 there's no reason they can't carry F-35Cs. Yeah It's not an F-15 or F-22, but what that can land on a carrier is?

True in terms of size, but BAE gave a really crazily high quote to fit them with EMALS cats and traps, so they have a ski-jump and can only really operate F35B as a fixed wing aircraft (at least until they have a major refit and that is not going to happen this side of about 2035 ish).

24 F35B (plus helos) will be the normal peacetime air group.

In a major conflict situation this could go up to about 36 F35B -including RAF aircraft- plus helos, including airbourne early warning radar, in a strike role.

The idea being they will get tailoured air groups depending on the task. (as FASTBOAT TOUGH notes). The RN does have a number of Amphibious ships available for the Royal Marines, etc, but will lack a dedicated helicopter carrier for the time being.

The ships can carry and operate helos up to Chinook size and total aircraft capacity is said to be around 55 or so, although in an emergency Carriers can generally carry a few more aircraft than design compliment.

The first ship HMS Queen Elizabeth (named after Queen Elizabeth I) will be operational in 2019 and it is very widely expected that the second ship, Prince of Wales, will be renamed HMS Ark Royal.

Teamed with Type 45 air defence destroyers, frigates and perhaps a nuc hunter killer sub they will give the Royal Navy a formidable Carrier task force. But I wish they had a real fighter for CAP missions...

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

This for perspective only, but note this was published in 2014 since then the MINSTREL class landing ship deal between Russia and France did fail due to the UKRAINE crisis. France would end up paying a substantial amount of money to break the MINSTREL contract. France would recoup the losses with the recent sale to Egypt of both the MINSTREL ships to them which literally gave Egypt a quantum leap in conducting amphibious operations in their "neighborhood" as these are highly advanced purpose built ships.
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/mistral/

In my opinion given the failure of the MINSTREL deal to Russia (They were to get four of them.) and the current (But improving.) maintenance of their fleet, serious consideration has to be given to moving up the UK in swapping the two in their rankings.

Also Japan is in the process of redefining itself away from a "Self Defense Force" to a as yet undefined new role due to both the actions of N. Korea and China.

This next has the right music and is very much in line with MANY other sources online that like to rank this kind've of stuff. Note #1 and #2 have been interchangeable on the many I've seen. Everyone else seems inline with everyone elses assessment. What struck me though was how old some of these Marine Forces where.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKDBk-b-SNw

Regards,
Pat