The government of France has signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance with the U.S. government signifying their intent to purchase Northrop Grumman Corporation’s E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.
The LOA allows the U.S. Navy to begin contracting activities with Northrop Grumman for production of E-2D airborne command and control aircraft. The signed LOA secures the sale that will include three E-2D aircraft, nonrecurring engineering, spares, repairs and support equipment, training and follow-on support, within the congressional approval funding limit.
The anticipated contract award will be in 2022 with aircraft delivery to France in 2028 at the latest.
“The procurement of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye will provide France a generational leap in capability for unparalleled situational awareness for their air defense fleets,” said Janice Zilch, vice president, manned airborne surveillance programs, Northrop Grumman.
“We have a long standing relationship with France as it transitions to E-2D’s from a two-decade legacy of E-2C aircraft.”
The French Navy has been operating the E-2C Hawkeye since 1998 and is the only country other than the United States to operate its E-2 Hawkeyes from an aircraft carrier. This capability enables interoperability exercises that support Hawkeyes from each other’s carrier flight decks.
With the U.S. Navy’s fleet transition to E-2D squadrons, the French Navy intends to procure three E-2D aircraft.
Boeing say:
“The E-2D is the U.S. Navy’s premier airborne command and control aircraft for all targets and all environments. It delivers advanced radar capability for unmatched detection and tracking. Additionally, it provides 360 degree simultaneous air and maritime surveillance, enabling nations to protect sea lanes, monitor coastlines and support civilian emergency coordination operations. The E-2D is a force multiplier for interoperability, reciprocal information sharing and commonality across the battle force.”
Morning all.
And this is what having cats and traps on a carrier will get you… flexible options. Can anyone tell me how much of a capability difference there is between the E2-D and the Merlin Crowsnest that we’ll be deploying?
I’m hoping that technology will improve, get smaller and smaller to allow STOVL (maybe pilotless) aircraft that can do the equivalent of these for airborne situational awareness on the QE class.
Another ‘fantasy-ask’ of mine is a STOVL tanker for air to air refueling. That would be one handy asset for the relatively short range of the F35b
Cheers
M@
A tiltrotor aircraft may be a compromise.
The more astute comparison may be, would you rather have all the bells and whistles like cats & traps, E3 & nuclear powered CDG – available 50% of the time (maybe less) or what 2 x QEC, Crowsnet & F35B offer available 100% of the time?
Not to mention the French Navy budget also necessitates that they have piss poor logistics, small submarines and ageing front line aircraft
Agreed, and they also do not have 6 modern AAW destroyers.
Their submarines are as virtually as large as the Trafalgar class. SSN. They have only six, compared to the RN seven. I agree with your comments about logistics. They have always have had poor logistics.
No they’re not.
The Rubis Class are half the size of Trafalgar Class. By the time the Suffren Class actually goes operational (with 1 boat) the Trafalgar Class will be close to retirement of the last 2 boats after 30 years of service.
The new Suffren Class are the same size as Trafalgar Class….just as we retire them. They are half the size of Astute Class….
The French also only have 4 operational SSN. Perle burnt during refit, Saphir is retired and will be cut up to be used to repair Perle. The Suffren is also not yet operational. You also have to wonder how combat effective the remaining Rubis Class are, they were never advanced when built and are now 37 years old (Rubis). The youngest in service is 28 years old…
French SSN design is way behind UK/US…
This is true. But the Carriers would still be better with ‘proper’ AWACs’. However, if France are to have an EMALS they will have to hope it is working properly in the next 10 years.
Exactly what I was thinking. 2 x QE class offers a major advantage in terms of flexibility and availability.
Oh God, where to start?
If we just begin with the Merlin helicopter versus the fixed wing turboprop Hawkeye. The Hawkeye has the Merlin beat on range and endurance, i.e. the time it can stay on patrol. In this race, speed is not important, operating altitude and range are. The E2D operates at 35,000ft,(10,600m) with a unrefuelled range of 2710km. The Merlin can operate at a height of 15,000ft (4575m) with a range of 833km. This gives the aircraft an endurance of up to 8 hours for the E2D and 5 hours for the Merlin. However, both aircraft can be air to air refuelled and have the ability to carry external fuel tanks for the E2D or internal for the Merlin. Though we don’t currently have a means of refuelling the Merlin in air, as our Hercs aren’t qualified anymore.
For the crew sitting in the back, this is major factor, i.e. crew comfort and fatigue. The Merlin is a helicopter, so has a natural “bounce” which is due to the vibrations induced by the rotating main rotor blades. The Merlin is actually one of the smoothest helicopters in flight. As the main rotor gearbox is attached to the top deck of the aircraft through a number of electro-mechanical dampers, which help to lesson and tune out the “bounce”. This is one of the reasons the Merlin is better for AEW than a Chinook in this respect. However, the E2D although it does vibrate, the motion is different and significantly less. It also flies a lot higher so isn’t buffeted by the weather as much. Crew comfort is very important for this kind of mission, especially when you are staring at small screen for over 4 hours.
OK, we have established that the E2D flies higher, why is this important? Well at 35,000ft the radar horizon is 427km away, whilst at 15,000ft it is 278km away. Therefore, the higher aircraft can see further, thus has more time to react to a target popping over the horizon.
Endurance is also important, as it can affect the number of aircraft used for the role, especially if you need 24/7 cover. A E2D Hawkeye can stay up for at least 8 hours, even more if its air to air refuelled. So technically in an ideal world, you only need 2 aircraft to cover a 24 hour period flying 3 sorties. For the Merlin to provide 24 hour coverage from 2 aircraft, requires at least 5 sorties per day. More aircraft means the burden is shared, especially if one goes U/S or is down for scheduled maintenance. More aircraft also allows you to put more than one up, thereby increasing your overall radar umbrella. The Nimitz class always carries a minimum of 4 Hawkeyes.
Let’s look at the placement of the radar. The E2D places it above the aircraft, in a mechanical rotating dome to give a 360 degree view – sort of. The Merlin’s radar is held in protective bag that swings down below the aircraft on its port side. Therefore, the Merlin also has a 360 degree view, but level with the antenna and looking down. the E2D’s view down is blocked by the airframe, as is some of the view rearwards, but above and at a shallow angle down is pretty much unobstructed. The Merlin by contrast has next to no view looking up to the right as the airframe is in the way. So each aircraft’s placement of the radar has its pros and cons.
The radar each aircraft operates are a world apart. The Crowsnest uses a development of the earlier Sea King’s ASaC Searchwater 2000. This was originally developed for the Nimrod back in the 1970’s, so its operating band was determined by the anti-submarine role requirement. This meant to search for a sub’s periscope it had to use a high frequency with a narrow wavelength. It operates in the X band (I/J) around 10GHz with a wavelength around 3cm. It is a traditional pulse doppler radar using a mechanically rotating antenna, using originally a parabolic dish, but has been replaced with a flat planar slot antenna. Since the Mk7 update it has synthetic aperture imaging and moving ground target modes. However, it is still basically a 3rd generation radar, although the back end is now highly digitized. The pre-Searchwater 2000 had a published detection range of 370km.
The E2D uses the AN/APY-9 made by Lockheed Martin. It is a 5th generation radar using an active electronically scanned array (AESA) operating in the UHF band of 0.3GHz to 1GHz with a wavelength of 1m to 10 cm. It uses electronically scanning in elevation whilst using a combination of passive electronic scanning and mechanical rotation for azimuth. With a published detection range of 556km.
The published detection range of a radar is not all its cracked up to be, as the manufacturers will never you the target’s radar cross section that was detected. However, the detection range has a lot more to do with the receiver sensitivity than has in outright transmitter power. Therefore, the cross sectional area of the antenna becomes more important, as the bigger the antenna the greater the chance of detecting a really weak reflection. However, the size of the antenna is proportional to the radar’s operating wavelength. Therefore to operate efficiently, the Hawkeye’s radar antenna has to be larger (much) than the Crowsnest antenna as you can’t get around physics. Which is why the rotating dome is 24 ft (7.3m) in diameter, whereas the Searchwater antenna is around 2m squared.
To electronically steer a radar beam you use mutual interference. This is done on AESA radars by using hundreds of transmitter-receiver modules stacked next to each other in an array. By delaying or changing the phase of the transmission from the adjacent modules, you can effectively steering the beam. The more modules you have in the array, the narrower the beam can become. An AESA antenna is generally restricted to a field of view of +/- 60 degrees in azimuth and +/- 45 degrees in elevation.
The AN/APY-9 antenna array stretches across the width of the dome. It is aerodynamically shaped, so it is deeper in the middle compared to the edges. There are no images of the array that I can find, but you can speculate on its shape. It will be wide but not very high. This means its transmitted beam will not be a pencil thin beam, but more vertically pronounced and narrow in width. Is this a major problem? Clearly not as the aircraft has demonstrated that is can quite easily search for an track targets good enough for 3rd party missile designation. As the radar is AESA based, it means it has a lower probability of detection, mainly due to its much high scan speed. But also due to the way mutual interference steers the beams, it also means it is less susceptible to side lobe jamming. As the electronically beam steering means that the radar generates significantly less sidelobes. AESA also means that it is easier and faster to change/hop the operating frequency again making it less detectable.
The main benefits is that the AN/APY-9 is a clean sheet 5th generation radar, whilst the Crownset uses an old front end paired with a new digital back end. The US radar has significantly better range and can detect quite stealthy targets, due to the resonance effect. It will however, likely struggle with very small targets such as quadcopter drones or those operating in the sea such as a periscope, whereas the Searchwater won’t. As the AN/APY-9’s operating wavelength may be to big to get a decent reflection. The Searchwater as made by Thales today, has been replaced with the Seamaster for use on the Atlantique aircraft. It is a more up to date AESA radar.
As I mentioned earlier, the performance of a radar comes down to a lot of factors, the size of the antenna has perhaps the greatest contribution. The greater the area of the antenna increases the performance of the radar, which would then dictate the size of the aircraft needed to carry it. Yes, you can fit a decent radar to a Protector UAV, but its detection range will not be any greater than Crowsnest, in fact it will probably be worse due to the lower onboard electrical generation power.
I’ve tried to keep the reply short, as I could go on…..
Great post DB.
That was interesting. Thanks!
Very thorough reply by Davey, interesting crash course on AEW!
So much there to absorb, I stopped, made a coffee, put my feet up and carried on reading……
I suppose it is like comparing chalk and cheese.
My observations, comparisons aside, while we have firmly established that a helo borne solution is less than optimal, is the Crowsnest system ‘good enough’ and an advance on the Searchwater 2000 Sea king based platform it replaced?
The answer seems to be yes.
The other advantage of Crowsnest/Merlin is that it can be deployed to other ships if needed, let’s not forget flexibility and larger numbers have a quality of their own.
I can see this system (or a new one) being moved onto a large multi role quad tilt rotor UAV in the next 15 years, with greater endurance and perhaps higher obtainable altitude.
All functions taking place in the comfort of the operations room.
Nobody thinks E2 is inferior to Merlin Crowsnest.
The question is whether Merlin Crownest is good enough within the network of systems that provide information, and in the context of cost, if that is a satisfactory decision.
Given the RN has literally twice as many carriers as France, more and better helicopters, more and better AAW destroyers and a better carrier aircraft whose information gathering ability knocks spots off the Rafales – not to mention the wider systems supporting all this (ESM for instance and other surface, air and space assets) then the RN’s carrier defensive and offensive capability is clearly some way in excess of France’s.
Not that it matters because we are Allies so it is all complementary anyway!
People obsessed about pinch point specs in a system of systems and apeing the US are really quite tedious.
But, as you say, having AEW that is optimised for periscopes, small drones and missiles might actually be quite useful?
You need to protect a fleet from all those things as well as aircraft.
To my mind E2x is too optimised for aircraft and ship detection. How would it go against a small long range missile(s) targeted to kick out specific elements of a ship? No reason why they cannot be buddy launched from small LCS expendable craft.
As we discussed, on another thread, the way to go with this is networked large drones.
MOD & RN are seriously on the heavy drone path now. Modernisation funding is also down thus road. It will happen.
I thoroughly agree this is all to do with receiver sensitivity. And might I suggest the sensitivity of a virtual composite receiver?
This would be my take too on E2x. We should also consider how a LEO satellite network using 100’s of micro sats feeds into a fused sensor picture for EW, whether its carrier or land based. Such a network, in combination with modern data processing power, is going to be increasingly difficult for surface and perhaps even air assets to hide from.
In this scenario, organic AEW probably stays in the X-band. We have a world leader in Leonardo Scotland developing such surveillance radars, as well as e-Captor, from which to develop a modern, advanced, AEW AESA solution. We include electronic signature, optical and thermal sensors to replicate and improve on the type of platform sensor fusion of the F-35. We network the UAV platforms with organic F-35B CAP. The space platforms, also with optical, IR and radar along with electronic signature detection provide the long range picture, especially for detecting hot threats such as ballistic and maneuvering hypersonic missiles.
The path to a heavy UAV solution seems clear. Battery-only solutions aren’t likely to have the necessary energy storage required for endurance and sensor power for a long time. So AEW UAVs require turboshaft power driving electrical generation for VTOL electric tilt fans, with wings for long range, endurance, and higher altitude. With enough electrical power for sensors and onboard processing, plus capability to act as a comms node. The V-247 tilt-rotor concept no longer seems to be a good fit IMO.
Great brief, DB, thank you. I understood about 75% of it (I think!).
I was thinking, what contribution would an F35 – or maybe two F35s – make to the surveillance effort around a CSG? Clearly, their endurance would not be as long as an E2D and each F35 would not have a 360deg radar coverage, as does the E2D or Crowsnest. It has a powerful radar and communications fit. But how would it perform in an over-water tracking mode?
Also, whilst the Merlin and E2D can be easily located and destroyed, the F35 is ‘stealthy’ and can evade and defend itself from a possible attacker.
Thoughts. Anyone?
Just what I was thinking, is crows nest and f35 together our cobbled together way of doing it on cheap and what capabilities would it give us and how will it compare?
I wouldn’t describe fusing the available sensors together as “cobbling” it is actually the most desirable way to do it.
There are huge advantages in a fused picture.
First and foremost that it is very hard to spoof all the sensors all of the time operating at different frequencies and locations.
Second using different sensors at different locations, frequencies and altitudes makes it very hard for stealth aircraft to slip past.
The key issue in the display is to be clear about the bits that are NOT covered by the full range of sensors.
So ideally we need a AN/APG-81 radar looking down from a drone, to give a 360 degree view of the airspace? Also maybe a modified tilt-rotor aircraft with radar underneath fuselage?
The radar could be retractable into and out of the fuselage.
The F35’s APG81 radar is leagues ahead in capability. It is a 5th generation low probability of interception AESA radar, so unlike the Searchwater, it is very difficult to detect in the first place. It will also be very difficult to jam, as it has a very wide bandwidth and produces very small sidelobes due to the way AESA radars generate beam forming. This is perhaps its greatest weakness, the field of regard (field of view) is limited, which is due to the fixed panel array being limited to +/-60 degrees in azimuth and +/-45 degrees in the vertical. Unless the aircraft flies in circles, it won’t be able to generate a 360 degree radar picture. It is one of the reasons why the Typhoon’s Captor-E is getting the swash plate to increase the field of regard, especially in azimuth.
However, the F35 will not be flying alone, it will fly as a pair, especially when conducting combat air patrols (CAPs). The formation will be widely spaced, with only one aircraft using its radar or alternating, making it even harder to detect. The aircraft’s radar picture will be fused with the IR distributed aperture system, then shared between aircraft and ship. So as an Intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) platform, it will be without question ahead in capability then anything a potential foe could currently field. It has been used in trials for 3rd targeting of threats, using an Arleigh Burke’s missiles to take out both air and missile threats. So in this regard the F35 will provide excellent search and targeting information. But for a task group to develop all round situational awareness, it will be lacking, as it cannot be in multiple places at once. Which is where the Crowsnest Merlin comes in.
In all honesty, the F35s will likely perform their CAPs some distance up threat away from the carrier, with the Merlin in between. The F35s will act as the trip wire, whilst the Merlin provides that all round radar view. So as a combination, it may not have the detection range of the E2D, but it will still I think be significantly better than a Rafale/E2C (E2D) combination.
Thanks for the response,DaveyB. When I said “…maybe two F35s…” I was thinking of two, or even three, flying a racetrack above the fleet at equally spaced distances, then at least one of them has ‘eyes on’ a specific area of the sky at all times. As one leaves a sector, the other flies into it and takes over. Dunno where I read this, but it’s novel – and effective.
Cheers
It’s definitely doable, as I think it used to be done by the US F14s.
The Hawkeye only has an endurance of 8 hours when it takes off from land, its too heavy to take off from a carrier with that fuel load. When operating from a carrier its max endurance is 6 hours versus the 5 hours of the Merlin.
Edit:
Merlin is also capable of being refueled in flight either from an A400M or while hovering next to the carrier.
Good points, but not so from the Ford class. The EMALS can launch them at full combat weight.
At present, due to the stupid contractual agreement, we can’t use either the Herc’s or A400M for air to air refuelling. The A400M has only just be cleared for refuelling. It generates massive propwash behind the aircraft that causes severe turbulence for a following aircraft. It was found that they had to double the length of the drogues fuel hose to nearly 100m. Then the approaching aircraft could connect without too much buffeting.
The hovering rotors running refuel has been used by the Navy for at least 30 years if not more. It is a viable method for refilling the helicopter, except it takes time. It was primarily designed for a helicopter when sub-hunting, so it didn’t have to waste time landing, then getting lashed down, waiting to top up, then getting the deck crew to unlash it again. The problem for a AEW helicopter is the wasted transit time to and from the ship, then getting back to operating altitude. Will the carriers be cleared for a this kind of refuelling, especially as it was originally designed for frigates and it will definitely stuff up your deck serials (landing and take offs).
Air to air refuelling is a must have for extending the AEWs duration as it can be done at the aircraft’s operating altitude. With only putting the radar in to standby when close to the tanker, but especially during connecting, transferring fuel and disconnecting from the drogue. So there’s a smaller amount of time without radar coverage.
Thank’s to buddy refueler. That’s why USN and MN love CATOBAR so much.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/the-drive-staging/message-editor%2F1545624716506-f-18e_of_vx-23_refuels_e-2c_during_tests.jpg
https://www.meta-defense.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Rafale-marine-equipe-dune-nacelle-de-ravitaillement-240×172.jpg
Great basic intro thanks, question is when we are needing the cash for many other things, (most of my navy friends seem to agree we are £ for £ best navy in world but all our forces lack offensive hardware and attempt to make it up with training and professionalism.
Would people agree if we go peer to peer we will have allied help and if not A peer foe we could better use cash elsewhere and crows nest will be good enough! Assuming it does what it says on the tin
Could we make up difference short term following US navy idea of loitering drones, could also use on P8.
Also does anyone know if we use a general drone control station like the cousins? I know the special forces, Apache, f35 platforms and others are meant to b able to share drone control and sensor info, is this in use now? Is it something we can do? Sorry for my ignorance
Excellent reply. We’d be better off with E2D but Crowsnest is all we are given as e have no cats or traps. Hoping a tiltrotor will become developed that improves or carriers AEW, aerial tankering & COD..
Comparing the too is like comparing apples to oranges. The E-2D is way ahead in every category. The Merlin AEW in a high end fight will be very limited.
Also way ahead in cost. Cost to buy, operating costs, maintenance cost, and they will only have 3 of them, so probably only 2 available at any one time.
They are buying 3 aircraft, our Crownsnest system could be fitted to any of our 30+Merlins, so that’s an advantage straight away.
So many great comments guys! Thank you for all the details. It certainly sounds like there are a mix of pros and cons for both types of aircraft. But here’s the thing, QE can only operate the one type. CDG and other ‘cats and traps carriers’ can have the choice to operate both.
But on the flip side maintenance and upkeep of a QE class has its advantages over nuclear powered carriers.
Would be great to deploy with a friendly carrier, that would be a sight!
Have a good evening all
M@
We also have to remember the F35 is also i highly capable ISTAR capability in it’s own right, and a flight of say 4 F35’s networked together will cover huge amounts of airspace and such up vast amounts of data. Crownsnest will enhance that coverage. And can be deployed on-board other RN vessels. Cats and traps is all very TopGun, and nuclear sounds good in the brochures. But the QE class with the F35B & Crownsnest, is the best all round bang for our buck. Add in Merlin, Wildcat, Chinook & Apache and the next generation of UCAV’S. plus the ability to play host to other nations F35B’s, USA, Italy, Japan ect. And you have one extremely capable, and adaptable aircraft carrier. And the bring back fuel required for missed ‘bolters’ wipes out a lot of the fuel advantages of say the F35C or Super Hornet. A carrier capable air-air refuelling capability would be welcome, but they only really top up the tanks after take-off, and are limited by there own endurance from the carrier. It’s not like having a Voyager on station. We have two 5th gen aircraft carriers. And a growing fleet of 5th gen stealth fighters. Designed and built in Great Britain (the vessels anyway) ?????? Jesters dead!! ?
I agree I’m very proud of carrier capability and in couple years as everything comes together we will have best bang for our buck. We’re not super power. Only 2 things I think they missed out on is better mid layer defence for carrier either onboard or more missle capability on escorts. And anti ship capability, something my friend in fleet can’t believe is missing, I know can’t have it all but, ship rotor or wing mounted we have nothing!!!
Spear 3 will have a antiship capability. The F35B will be able to carry 8 of these bad boys internally. And a intirm ASM will be purchased to replace Harpoon in the short term until a all new system arrives around 2030. Sea Viper and Sea Venom on-board our T45’s and T23’s are absolutely world beaters.
Couldn’t the UK, in conjunction with Boeing, create a kind of V22 Osprey variant of the E2-D? Then the absence of Cats-n-Traps wouldn’t be so problematic. I imagine the speed and range advantages of the V-22 would be superior to the Crowsnest solution as envisaged?
This was explored (see EV-22) but deemed too costly. The V22 is already an expensive machine excluding the fact the UK would have to fund the entire program and integration themselves.
It would be interesting to know how the radars compare between these and crewsnest, especially around low level detection at range.
That will never be disclosed: nor should it.
However, we can speculate!
CrowsNest has a shorter wavelength than E2x and will be better at detecting small objects.
Lower wavelengths need proportionately smaller receiver areas for the same sensitivity.
Honestly I think there will be less in it than you might think and for some things like finding sub periscopes and sea skimmers CrowsNest will be better at
E2x will be better for finding high level large objects at 360 degrees at long range.
The only material difference is operating height and therefore horizon. When it and/or it’s successors becomes drone mounted then this issue evaporates and with say three networked drones in triangular formation and absolutely huge area of ocean can be sanitised.
It occurs to me that having all three drones flying at different altitudes would also give advantages for detecting stealthy objects as the angle of incidence is quite important…..
Personally i think weaknesses in military tech should be known.
Most enemies that would have the potential to exploit, are going to have the info through espionage and that means its just the general public that doesn’t know.
Keeping stuff quiet, results in issues like we had in the falklands or iraq/afgan. The capability issues were known by the navy (or army in case of iraq/afgan) but if it had been public, there would have been way more pressure to get them fixed rather than just covering it up until people die when they can’t cover it up anymore.
Man after my own heart; added to which it would stop polies milking defence for political gain and make it more neutral.
Every system is a compromise and has strengths and weaknesses and some surprises when used in anger.
Yes, a lot of the Falklands weaknesses were well enough known for fixes to be in developed so things like Sea Dart. Sea Wolf was just out of development. T22 with is pulsed dopler radar and Sea Wolf was actually very good.
A lot of stuff didn’t work very well not was it ever going to. The emphasis was on keeping fleet numbers up. Which meant a lot of rubbish was kept floating at the expense of newer weapons fits.
System architecture was bespoke to each class with weird bus systems that were bespoke to each manufacturer so the chances of integrating anything from a 3rd party manufacturer were not great. Now most things run on fibre optic or Ethernet so at least getting them to talk is easier.
Computational power is now totally different. If you look at the radar as other systems of the 1980’s a lot of the maths was done on bespoke chips – the logic was literally etched into the chip mask. Now most computation such as Fourier transforms are done on graphics cards. Then they were done on bespoke cards called array processors you literally had a row of chips on a PCB.
Part of the problem was the Byzantine costs mechanism for developing and fitting new systems where the concept of fixed price was for the birds. Part of this was because of how individual each ship in a class actually was in terms of fit and systems. Part of it was that the suppliers were not interesting in changing things. The trouble was once a project was kicked off it was like opening the bottom of the barrel and short of canceling it, it tended to have its own life. You also stirred in the inflation rates, strikes and other factors and cost control was hmmmme……..
These days it is easier to control costs. Networking is easier. System are more segmental in design and there a fewer core CMS’. If things can be truly segmented, individual element costs can be understood.
This then goes round full circle to the QEC’s deliberately simple design and the thinking then leads further to T31 and it’s fixed launch price. Let’s see if the T31 upgrade program is as successful.
Things are very different now. The missiles and radar systems are all credible and I would personally trust them. Some of the things like CIWS phalanx vs 30 vs 40mm remain to be ironed out. But and this is the big but all the main combatants have both missiles and CIWS and in some cases two flavours of CIWS.
At to putting missiles on QEC, I honestly believe that it would be a mistake as it would give the idea to politicians that it was a one platform flotilla that didn’t need escorts. There is also the very real issue of FOD and other launch issues which we have covered before that lead to the Invincible’s Sea Darts being removed.
Great common sense reply Supportive Bloke ?. I served on the Invincible class, and the culture around these vessels was still very much the mind set that they were just big destroyers that could carry a few Harriers. It wasn’t until later when they removed Sea Dart, and put more emphasis on strike with Harrier GR7/9 rather then just fleet defence with the FA2, that forced the culture change, and began using the vessel as they were intended, and moved to use the escorts as fleet defence, especially as T45 came into service. T45 transformed the RN’s air defence capability over T42. The T45 and T23 with Sea Viper
and Sea Venom are very much the right tools for the job, which let’s the carrier concentrate on generating it’s primary weapon systems, F35 strike sorties and all the helicopter support required Put simply, they act like proper aircraft carriers, and the escorts do the job they are designed to do. And that’s were the investment has gone. Putting missiles on the carrier is a waste of money. Id rather squeeze a few more F35’s on deck, or fund another round of upgrades to the T45.
Like to see 4.5 inch gun on T45 removed and replaced with 57mm, which would allow silo to be extended a bit with CAMM ER?
At “Poly”,(showing my age) I trained on a Sea Slug radar system. A system where you could actually see electricity in action.
There were times when you could smell the electricity in action!
The actual Sea Slug missile systems digital launch logic mostly consisted of micro switches and relay logic. The most problematic bit was getting the launch sled lined up for a reload. If one of the many micro switches was having a bad day, and more often than not they did, then MkI Bloke was required to manually open the anti flash doors.
There were strict rules that nobody was supposed to be in the horizontal missile magazine when missiles were being moved. These were often ignored due to the impossibility of moving the missiles with various doors shut.
Huge numbers of LV micro switches + sea water = disaster. Think car wiring of the era except more complex!
Got quite a few belts off the racking, when changing some of the valves. It was the first time I’d seen St.Elmo’s Fire travelling down the waveguides, very bizarre as it used to pulse like it was breathing.
The Poly had the search and tracking radar . We used to lock on to aircraft flying in and out of Plymouth airport. Used to get a lot of complaints from Devonport though!
Used to do the same thing at 35 Base Wksp, Old Dalby (gone now) with the Rapier FSC, complaints from East Midlands airport and a very irate CO! 🙂
If US & French aircraft carriers cats and traps are damaged in combat or fail due to some problem.fixed wing aircraft can’t fly.
UK Aircraft Carriers don’t have that problem & as with the ex RAF Harriers, if F35 need to get off the ship and to land ASAP ashore, they can land almost anywhere in dispersed sites to be refuelled & armed.Maybe UK should buy CMV-22Bs,EV-22
Proposed airborne early warning and control variant for UK fore QE Aircraft carriers.Although with US Marine F35 sq on board.US may insist on embarking a few US CMV-22Bs EV22 variant in future deployments?.
Also UK F35 bring unused weapons back to ship to be used again.unlike us aircraft on their carriers.
About five years ago the USN did an experiment on the UUSS Ronald Reagan. This was to see if an F18 could take off from the deck with a catapult launch. They had done trials on land previously using a scale version of the deck at Pax River and found that it was possible. The trials aboard the carrier proved that the F18E/F could take off without the use of a catapult.
The caveat is two fold. The F18 had to use the full length of the deck and it would only be able to carry a minimal war load or fuel, not both.
The F35B by comparison, can take off from the QE class carriers without the use of the ski ramp, with a meaningful internal war load. This was shown when a F35 did a bow to stern run up and took off. I definitely believe the F35B is a good investment for the UK.
The F35B cant land and takeoff from everywhere, it’s not the Harrier, you have a great chance to damage the plane in a “savage” landing, you need a prepared if not coated area to do it.
It’s one of the big difference with the Harrier.