UK looking at ’60 and then maybe up to 80′ F-35B jets

Exactly right. There is no funding in place in the 10 year plan for more than 48. The savings from the recently announced cuts don’t seem to me to free up enough money to overcome the realistic funding gap the NAO identified.
Cancelling Warrior will allow funds to be transferred to speeding up and buying more Boxer. But the commitment to new mobile artillery was not even in the unaffordable plan.
I doubt we will see more than 60 F35 by 2030

Did you plan to buy the Ferrari and declare you planned to buy it?

The UK has declared it wanted to buy 138 F35s. Not buying them would create a saving.

Saying anything different is just being obtuse.

No it’s being accurate. There is no funding in place for more than 48. If we order more, something else will have to be cut or deferred beyond 2030 to pay for them. Our aspiration for 138 was over the whole life of the program. If F35 production continues as long as F15,, F16, it will still be available in 35/40 years time. Since there is no STOVL alternative for countries that want to operate small carriers, the F35b will probably be around longest.
Over the lifetime of the plane and the carriers, we may well end up having bought @138.

Are you okay?

Exactly….this was, like many musings that come out of Whitehall, an aspirational number. Saving money that you don’t have, is not a saving…or at least that’s what my bank keep telling me…bastards!

I’d plan on just 17, 207, 617 and 809 as the fleet. The 3rd/4th sqns vanished a while back. 207 can and will do more than “just” be an OCU if needed.

Rememebr 138 was life of the program so 80 is likewise and last 20 could replace first 20 etc.

The First Sea Lord specifically states 80 is for 4 deployable squadrons. Logically that means 60 is expected to support 3 deployable squadrons.

The OCU isn’t considered a deployable squadron, except for perhaps emergencies, so we can at the very least conclude the second RAF squadron will be stood up

Where did 1SL say that? Recently?

Lots of infra spend yet to even get a 2nd going.

It’s in the article? Right at the top?

Bear in mind that this isn’t going to be happening for another 5-10 years. The carrier strike timeline gave the second RAF squadron as 2030 and the second FAA squadron around 2034

@Callum I think your math is a little light for the OCU. How about 18?

It’s not my maths, this is from the official Carrier Strike timeline published a few years back. There’s no reason to assume it’s not accurate, everything being said now still fits.

I wouldn’t say an OCU of 18 is really necessary for such a small fleet.

Some could be spare airframes for maintenance, or in repair etc.it is handy to have a few spare.

That sounds about right but I suspect Tempest, unless matters become totally dire as an economy globally, will happen in some form if only to keep Bae onboard and committed as our biggest and most hi tech industrial company.

Equally the F35 is not an aircraft that has a long term predictable future. The US is seeking a 4.5 fighter to replace its F16 fleet, the Australians (despite what an Ozzy said on here about committing to it) are being advised by its premier military advisory body to start considering the F35 replacement to potentially start to enter service from 2035 onwards, a date that ironically and probably significantly is the expected final out of service date for its Super Hornets.

Meanwhile many are noting that the F35 has a range that would place its carrier group within technical range of new Chinese ballistic anti ship missiles meaning it will be substantially reliant on stand off weapons it might struggle to carry internally. How serious a dilemma will that be by 2030 I wonder. Personally I think the F35 even the B will be very effective for the next decade but there may be a pretty big question mark developing for some high level operations at least thereafter I fear, not helped by potentially crippling maintenance costs if history tells us anything. Going to leave us with many questions in the next couple defence reviews I would predict that may make any decision on F35 now somewhat nebulous. What comes out of Tempest will be an important factor too it needs to predict the future of air fighting and be flexible enough to adapt as required assuming any such aircraft can be the answer come 2040.

Of course the Tr2 & 3 will need to take up the Air Defence role for which Tr1 are perfectly suited tying up assets where they don’t actually need to be. Plus of course F35B was purchased for one role, and one role only – to operate from 7 Billion worth of aircraft carriers so at the end of the day the RAF is effectively being weakened. As for Tempest? Another pipe dream on which millions if not billions will be wasted. The UK, thanks to its inept politicians will continue to waste vast amounts as our Armed forces grow progressively weaker.

Well I’m reasured to see you aren’t letting it all get you down!

Tr2/3 we want on QRA as it conserves their life (since they sit there doing not very much), plus QRA only occupies a handful of jets at any time anyway.

F35B will operate from whereever it is needed – noting its only operational task so far was based at Akrotiri.

Tempest, tbd – potential, and after being in Euro and US projects with bad experiences, then going alone sort of seems a worthwhile experiment.

Perhaps 7×10 versus 7×12?

I do agree when the planes are in the air that will use up AFHs.

No, these aircraft aren’t as different as your classification suggests. 30+ years ago that kind of applied, but with Typhoon, and becasue air to air hasnt really been needed, those differences became obseolete, and the differences that matter are: weapons intgerated, effectiveness of employing them (ie cockpit-human interaction and limits), and basic range/endurance of which all those ac are much of a muchness.

What actually matters is what someone in the cockpit can acheive effects wise on the ground.

Typhoon as it has got to, is employing the same weapons as Harrier and Tornado could and is doing so in the same manner. Arguing beyond that is details of workload, limits and so on – but they constantly evolve with further development which never stops until the actual day they retire!

As for embedding random numbers of aircraft and helos into a land formation, you seem to misunderstand how air power (and indeed land power) is generated. Penny packeting like that makes no sense at all, and nobody does it. Even the USMC has seperate air and land forces and just integrates them when deployed (as we do) whilst fixed ratios also make no sense – different ops require different things. The 2 Brigades deployed in 2003 had 40+ fast jets (70+ in 1991) and even more helos, the Bde enduring in Afghan had 6-8 jets and 20odd helos. The couple of hundred bods on SHADER have 8 jets and half a dozen helos. In Mali no jets and some helos.

It’s all about creating pools of force which can then be task allocated as needed. Those pools are most efficiently run as pools where you flex people, task and equipment as needed.

Consider Artillery, people think “1 gun regiment per brigade”, but on ops, the artillery is highly centralised and are constantly being managed by the divisional cell on a task basis – so a battlegroup could if needed be supported by the guns of 2+ regts, or a battery allocated purely to counter-battery fire. Their nominal “battlegroups” might be doing nothing (moving, refitting/resupplying) so you wouldnt leave the arty just sitting there and they’ll have their own move/resupply cycle which would never sync with say tanks or inf hence the centralised management.

Look at Typhoon force, 7 sqns nominally of 12 ac. Actually they range from 6-16 depending on they standard of individual ac (brokenness, number of hours to maintenance and what the sqn is doing. A sqn not deployed will be doing lots of training and thus want more ac, and tolerate a mixture of ac, not overly fussed about being combat deployable, and will find itself lumbered with extras (going into or having come out of maintenance) as well as allocating some to QRA and sustaining spares for that at a certain standard. A sqn deployed will take over whatever airframes are deployed (and these are taken from across the fleet and managed centrally with preps and de-preps when the individual airframes rotate home) with its non deployed people doing some long term recoveries back home of broken jets and those preps. A sqn on a major training exercise will be taking some ac there (perhaps its own, perhaps taken from other sqns, all managed centrally like deployments), going there, doing it and coming back.

None of this has any interaction with specific ground forces, nor does it need to nor would there be any benefit from doing so as they are on very different tempos of time and resource. The ground forces that interact with aircraft will partake in joint exercises as part of their workup to being ready/deployedz

It could be done but the cost of duplication and inefficiency would be immense, nobody in the world does this at the micro scale. Air units dont really have formation cycles, that gets managed within the unit.

I agree combat air is short on qauntity, but the quality of what we used to have was pretty middling compared to now so comparisons quickly become apples and pears. Somehow a balance has to be struck.

Taranis like all UCAVs, well, nobody has got near introducing one and all the current proposals are far less demanding – suggesting the 2000s ideas of no manned aircraft and all UCAVs were as naieve as 1957 was. With Tempest we do have the chance to lead the field.

Every review is cuts, the cost of doing things rises faster than the resources available do.

“Have to disagree with you, F35 is a direct replacement for the harrier fleet that was gapped, as was many other items.
typhoon is a fighter and tornado is a low level bomber.”

No it isn’t and that is not the case.

People need to move on from the way things used to be where the RAF (and FAA) operated types that were dedicated to particular singular roles.

The move is to platforms that can act across several different roles, Typhoon and F-35 are sensor shooters with a cross over in capabilities. In combination with that there is also a move away from operating a wide range of munitions that are dedicated to singular taskings. The future is smart munitions that can engage a range of targets.

there is no doubt F35 is a direct replacement for Harrier – its indisputable, what other platform has the ability to verticly land and take off.

however I don’t care about platforms per se, I care about volume and we have lost far too many airframes as a result and are spread too thinly.

I am happy with F35 and Typhoon, but we need more than 140 airframes, its as simple as that

the UK should have at least 240 combat aircraft and closer to 400 imo

You are not getting this, yes it is a replacement for Harrier but F-35 is also a replacement for Tornado…also Typhoon is a replacement for Harrier and Tornado as well. STOVL is a capability that F-35 has uniquely but that is not the only reason the type was purchased and it certainly isn’t a singular replacement for Harrier. F-35 alongside Typhoon are intended to have significant cross over when it comes to missions they are intended to perform sometimes all at the same time.

Who pays for 400 combat aircraft? Sorry there are other priorities beyond the defence budget.

it can’t be in two places at once.. simple.

The USMC can order 400+ F35 why can’t we have a force similar in size to France (say 240)

we have a good defence budget – poorly spent.

It has indeed been poorly spent but I wouldn’t get your hopes up any time soon about a significant uplift in combat jet numbers.

unfortunately I won’t…

And the French have poor equipment. It’s also worth noting, the French navy only operate 40 Rafale M’s and operate 1 pretty unreliable carrier.

And there new armoured vehicles while far cheaper than ajax and boxer are im told totally inferior in comparison

I agree.

The original replacement for the Tornado, was the ‘Future Offensive Air System'(FOAS), cancelled in 2005.

It would of met Germany’s requirement of a nuclear strike platform.

What you seem to ignore is this;
There have been 37 Weapon Release Events in the past 12 months (37 in Iraq and zero in Syria). The combined flying hours of Reaper and Typhoon during this period were 15,192 (Reaper: 7,799; and Typhoon: 7,393). As the data concern operational activity, figures may be updated in future.”
The RAF has moved on, it’s not jus Typhoons any more we have other delivery systems I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratio of 50/50 moves to 75/25 in favour of reaper.

Sorry it was the Future Offence Air System(FOAS), scraped in 2005.

It’s not the platforms it’s the volume, 8 reapers is not enough in a contested area, they will probably all be lost or not even deployed.

why have we suddenly gone from 5 E7’s to 3
why have we 9 poseidons when the stated minimum is 16
why do we have 19 escorts when the stated minimum is 24

it is clear decisions are made on cost and not requirement, anyone who says different is not taking into account the findings of the defence committee.

in the same time Russia and China have invested in excellent air defence and ballistic missile systems, and it is likely we will lose assets to these systems which are numerous and capable.

the fact our force does well is down to the excellence of the people who are overstretched, as gun buster states we are still using French, Canadian and us coastguard engineers as we don’t have enough of our own. These things take their toll over time.

no problem with small and nimble, but that doesn’t really fit with us being deployed everywhere with our armed forces at their lowest in decades

This is not meant in a derogatory way, but with the advances in tech, we shouldn’t be so hung up on quantity, but realise that certain advances mean that there are quantum leaps in capability from certain platforms. The type 45 are an example of this. There are others. Another example is the obsession with the Hawkeye, a very expensive old fashioned platform with an onsite duration of 5/6 hours against an MQ4C with 40 hours. What we need is a ship based MQ4C not yesterdays tech E2D.

We have fewer escorts with more capability. We have fewer subs with more capability. We have fewer fast jets with more capability. We have fewer F-35s with vastly more capability, we should not be too hung up on past numbers…

I understand what you mean, but when do we cross a minimal requirement threshold and try and hid behind this.

T45 – was meant to be 12 – it halved and grossly under armed (how would a T45 sink another ship)
F35 – going in a similar direction
E7 – same

I do support and believe in technology and on this site 2-3 years ago I mooted F35’s working with 4 Taranis as a way of getting critical mass.

and that is my point, we need critical mass and in many of our new platforms we don’t have minimal mass (as defined by the Defence committee)

so yes – we move forward, but often not in a wholly positive way, in terms of minimum volumes and minimal overmatch requirements (what is a boxer expected to attack with a machine gun!!!)

The British army doesn’t have an air defense system so its in an even worse state than Armenia. A handful of Stormers with Starstreak doesn’t count.

At the moment I’d still say we are still in a much better place than Armenia was. From a purely Army perspective and not including the RAF or Navy, I’d say this is down to two, possibly three systems. The first is the Giraffe AMB radar. This is a frequency agile C band (4 to 8Ghz) radar. It has been designed for battlefield area management in particular looking for helicopters, UAVs, and artillery flight paths. The second is Rapier Field Standard C (FSC), the third would be the Starstreak/Stormer combination.

The Giraffe AMB radar is getting on a bit, but it is still more than capable of detecting the type of UAVs used against Armenia. Furthermore, it can be networked with Rapier FSC. It won’t control the missile engagement, but it allows a longer range threat pre-warning, so the operators know what’s coming before the system’s Dagger radar can detect the threat. Although Rapier is getting on a bit. The FSC is still up there in capability. The updated missiles with the proximity fuzing will allow them to take out very small targets like UAVs.

Not well know, is that Giraffe can be networked to a group of Stormer vehicles, to give them a better situational picture. The Stormer’s ADAD, has the resolution to detect small UAVs. Once the lasers have painted the target, the HVM is pretty much guaranteed a hit against a UAV.

We will hopefully by 2025 have SkySabre through initial operating capability. This system will be a step change in capability over Rapier.

Indeed, EFA was designed as a Phantom and Jaguar replacement (it always annoys me when people state that Typhoon’s ground attack capability was an after thought). By the time EFA became Typhoon the Cold War had ended and the Phantom fleet scrapped as part of the peace dividend, so Typhoon replaced Tornado F3. Had the Cold War continued i wonder what F3 would have been replaced by? Typhoons and F22’s ( in my dreams anyway)

Cost. And it had and has Tornado, noting the last Tornados for then (ECRs iirc) were delivered only in the late 90s.

Germany’s nuclear posture is very odd frankly, being entirely a client of the US in a way that makes Trident look almost homegrown UK!

Given the pacificist streak in Germany it amazes me they still have a nuclear capability.

I do remember at one point, in the media, in the mid 1990’s that Germany wanted to cancel the Typhoon, Mark?

Germany always wanted a smaller simpler (single engines) fighter more like an F16, which makes perfect sense as they wanted lots of something that could fight over Germany so range and payload werent an issue.
The UK forced Typhoon to be larger as we had longer range tasks in mind.

Iirc the German concepts of the late 70s for efa were single engines? The secretprojects forum probably has a lot more on all of this and will be a lot more accurate!

Hence post cold war spending reductions the Germans forced EF2000 to be significantly less capable than the UK wanted it to be as the price of staying on board.

Tempest is very much more the size and “amount of aircraft” the Uk has wanted for a long timez

I think the whole program was delayed by about a year because the Germans conducted a cost review. They wanted something cheaper. I believe they looked at installing an ‘in production’ radar, possibly taking the upgraded F4F radar in order to save money. The conclusion was it would actually cost more to integrate the cost saving measures, so all that was achieved was an expensive delay to the project.