A parliamentary answer has clarified that the UK has carried out only basic fit checks of the Future Cruise/Anti-Ship Weapon (FC/ASW) on the F-35B Lightning while maintaining no programme to integrate the missile onto the jet.
Lib Dem MP James MacCleary asked for the planned timeline to equip the Joint Strike Fighter with FC/ASW. Defence minister Luke Pollard made clear that FC/ASW is not being developed with the F-35 in mind.
“The Future Cruise Anti-Ship Weapon programme is designed to be integrated on Typhoon and Rafale aircraft, as well as future platforms including the Global Combat Air Programme,” he said.
Pollard added that “fit checks on F35 have been successfully conducted to test if FC/ASW can be integrated if required.”
These checks are limited to confirming that the missile can be physically mounted and that basic clearances appear feasible. They do not amount to a funded integration effort and do not include software work, fire-control integration, aerodynamic trials or release testing. In practice, this level of work preserves the option without committing to it.
The minister closed by stating that “all decisions on capabilities will be in the Defence Investment Plan,” placing any future integration behind funding choices not yet published.
The UK’s FC/ASW roadmap is centred on Typhoon, Rafale and the future GCAP fighter. The F-35B continues to operate without a long-range anti-ship strike weapon and remains outside the formal FC/ASW pipeline.
As we reported earlier this year, the planned in-service date for the SPEAR Capability 3 air-to-surface weapon, the system long expected to be the F-35B’s principal medium-range strike missile, has slipped into the early 2030s. The Ministry of Defence confirmed that SPEAR 3 is undergoing re-baselining with dates still considered “draft and of low confidence” pending the programme review due at the end of 2025.
No chance of any leading European missiles beyond ASSRAAM being integrated with the F35 ‘Boondoggle’ in any relevant timescale.
Nothing can be integrated until the block 4 software allows the F35s system to talk to the weapons. Pandemic delys plus issues with block 3 has pushed the block 4 programme back at least a year.
“Basic fit checks” hmmm.
So how much did it cost to have a person use a Tape measure ?
To the nearest million will be good enough.
I reckon someone could get away with a £10 million contract for that…. I am available with my tape measure for half that price… I would even go digital to secure the contract…
I could sell you a Solar Generating System to power your Digital Measuring device.
How does £4 million grab you ?
Certification please. Not certified? That will cost you 2 million & take a minimum of 2 years. Yes I am aware Ukraine can do it in 2 weeks, but we aren’t Ukraine are we.
Ohh.
what If I gave you the Isle of Wight and £35 billion then ?
Only if you first remove all the Wihtware first. I understand USN may be looking for a Chagos replacement.
Passing a basic fit check is considerably more complicated than tape measure. Air safety regulations require far more work than that. Unless you want to go back to the days of the Supermarine Scimitar when pilots had a 52% chance of being killed per calender year, thats the way its going to stay
I’m envisaging a Heath-Robinson ‘big clunky switch’ on the dash, with some twisted pair to the launcher bracket. That wouldn’t work of course, on its own ….. you’d need another twisted pair to the targeting computer, of course! 🤣
Of course there’s no plans to fit a naval jet with an anti ship weapon. Why give it the teeth it needs to do its job? That’s too logical and not at all the way we do things.
So let me get this right.. our brand new main long range cruse missile will only be integrated onto an aircraft the RAF seem determined to bin as quickly as possible in favour of the F35A ( and B) an aircraft that has no available long range cruise missile strike option.
We now have 6 billion dollars worth of carrier we are buying the wrong F35 for and a new missile we are developing that does not fit on the F35s the RAF are buying… soo well planned.
Six (and a bit) billion sterling for the carriers
I don’t agree we have the wrong F35 variant. It just needs to be properly supported with ££££.
None of the F35 variants will have FCAS etc
This is the problem with the budgets for carrier fast air being RAF controlled. Carriers are not their priority when budgets are super stretched.
Yep I put dollars in because I was thinking about F35s.. when I said buying the wrong f35 I meant the 12 As they are buying ( the Bs are needed), that purchase of 12 F35As is pure politically motivated by the RAF so they can buy more.. they clearly don’t want more that 2 F35b squadrons and they clearly want to drop the number of typhoon squadrons.. they want the F35A and seem willing to have all the other capability programmes compromised to get it.
I bet by 2030 we will have 4 front line typhoon squadrons ( as that is all the 96 FGR4 tranche 2-3 numbers can reasonably support) 2 f35b squadrons ( 50 odd aircraft) and 2 f35A squadrons ( 50 odd aircraft).. when all common sense says we should be maximising our typhoon squadrons numbers as cheaply as possible for air defence and long range surface strike and the F35 buy should be about providing the optimal air wing for carriers to maximise sea control.. anything else is just weakening our ability to wage war with Russia and deter Russia.
Personally I would like to see a plan for 8 front line typhoon squadrons and 4 F35b.. those 30 tranche one aircraft should have been preserved and brought back into service as well as a possible second hand purchase from someone offloading tranche 2 typhoons ( Spain) ..the RAF should have had a plan to scrap up a total of 150 FGR4 typhoons and 100 F35Bs for 2030.. that would have been a good plan to increase overall capabilities and resilience across the fleets as well as maximising the key conventional deterrence and offensive capabilities we have against Russia .. storm shadow attacks and the carrier battle group taking sea control over is high north bastions….
The RAF is actually one of the worst offenders for scrapping perfectly good capabilities for the shiny and new.. as an example the 30 tranche 1 typhoons and those 200+ tonkas that were scrapped and had a good half their airframe hours left on them when scrapped..and we could still be running a couple of squadrons worth easily as long range storm shadow truck… it’s would actually be a far better aircraft for taking stormshadow shots at Russia than FGR4 because it could hit Russia with storm shadows without the need for tanker support.
I actually think one radical option is to go with the Gripen to increase mass of squadrons.. it’s very keenly priced at 65 million pounds a unit and is very significantly cheaper to operate than the typhoon and insanely cheaper than the F35, it’s also got the highest sortie rate of any modern western fighter and takes UK missiles.. what more do you want..it’s essentially the perfect air defence platform, in which sortie rate and cheap mass is probably the most important issue.. as Russia will send lots of cheap missiles and drones to attack the UK..
So if we were being completely pragmatic and as cost effective as we can be with a ligh low mix: 4 typhoon squadrons for expeditionary activities, 4 f35b ( 3 for carrier surge and 1 as fifth generation land expeditionary to support the typhoons) and 4 squadrons of gripen for air defence work across the Uk and territories.. but that’s fairyland stuff.
Firstly it is a function of tiny budgets.
With a real world 1.6% defence spend – what do you expect?
I agree RAF are tech edge obsessed rather than mass obsessed.
Tonka would be of zero use these days.
I agree the F35A thing is nutty when we can’t even fully operate the B due to resources.
Is it because F35A is part funded by DNO I wonder?
The thing is Ukraine is doing very well with aircraft that are far below the capability of the Tonka.. it depends how you use it, as a storm shadow truck in a conflict with Russia it would actually be better than typhoon.. simply because what you want most for strategic strikes against another nations systems is long legs and the ability to stay low for a long time ( efficient low level flight), it’s storm shadow that actually penetrates the air defence.
Let’s look at a mission and why the Tonka would have been a very very good capability to have in a UK Russian conflict.. it’s got a hi low strike range of 1500km at to that the 500km range of storm shadow and your can launch a Tonka sortie at Russia without any need for strategic tankers.. a typhoon strike would need you to have a strategic tanker sortie and air to air refuelling within halfway between home and the strike point..so it’s actually easier and less risk filled to undertake a Tonka strike.. especially if you pair that up with the fact the RN uses the carrier battle group to gain sea and air control right up to the point of the strike…
But the simple truth is no fast jet is useless.. and most western nations and all other nations have a trail of older 4th ( and sometimes even 3rf generation aircraft) after their cutting edge 4.5 or 5th generation tip of the spear.. because everyone it’s seems understands that mass wins wars.. technical edge only takes you so far.. and it’s generally always the side that can have more in more places that wins in the end.
I honestly think the who F35A was the RAF seeing the stars align to make the case of levering the door open to F35A.. they have never really wanted to pay more than lip service to the carrier battle group air wing and have essentially always wanted F35A.. the spit buy argument has something the RAF has kept alive ever since the first f35B order and there was after all a reason the FAA was given over to RN control in 1939..
I agree that FAA should be all RN.
It could be why F35B budgets are so strangled so that when RAF divests it only divests that limited budget.
There is something about the whole mess that doesn’t quite make sense….
Meanwhile in the real world. Russia’s 300 odd tactical aircraft and 100 strategic bombers failed to gain air superiority against at best mid 80s vintage Soivet systems at the start of the war. 35 Israeli F35s took apart Iran’s air defences against the 1990s upgrades of the same system and current generation Russian “anti stealth” search radars. Hows that mass worked out?
The Russian anti stealth is just more wonder weapons.
A hybrid force is what is needed such that there is day 1 and standoff as well as stealth.
Mass is needed as well as tech.
The F35B is specifically designed to not need a very very expensive long range cruise missile option. It’s design to get in close and use much more cost effective weapons like Pave-way IV which is 20 times cheaper than Storm shadow and probably many times more that than FC/ASW.
As as Ukraine and Russia are finding out economics is the most important factor in major wars
SPEAR 3 is designed to further enhance the longevity of F35’s ability with a range sufficient to keep the F35 outside of the detection envelope of the latest generation of SAM systems yet still have a cost effective unit price per weapon.
The F35 is not very good at lobbing big expensive cruise missiles so it’s not surprising it’s not being equipped with one.
For an anti ship strike it’s entirely probable that 6 spear III missiles would be more effective than 2 JSM missiles (carried internally in F35A which is the only anti ship missile set for internal carriage)
All any of these missiles can do to a warship is a mission kill and hitting 6 targets rather than two gives you a better chance of setting fires or knocking out something useful like the radar or power generator
No 5th Gen stealth jet can carry large anti ship missiles internally (GCAP will likely have this capability hence 6th gen) and if you have to mount them on the exterior then it’s better to put them on a faster more manuverable aircraft able to give them a high inertial boost and extend their range.
Typhoon is probably the best aircraft in the world for this role.
No pilot would want to use Paveway in a peer conflict. The launching aircraft is pretty much forced to fly within visual range of the target which makes daylight attacks suicidal. What we should be doing is spending money on huge stocks of Spear and a cheaper Spear-glide using a passive seeker, not relying on Gulf War tech to fight IADS.
The rest I all agree with, especially if the loadout were 6 Spear 3 and 2 Spear EW for extra chance of success.
The U.S. are putting their own heavy..long range strike missiles on F35..simply put you are not bringing a nation to its knees and to the table with a weapon that has a 10kg warhead and a range of 100kms.. spear three is a tactical weapon I’m talking about conventional strategic weapons.. storm shadow has a 450kg broach warhead.. thousands of storm shadows will do massive damage to a nations capability to fight and shatter infrastructure.. spear three will tickle it.
Spear three is designed to help win a battle not a war.. it’s for killing tanks and damaging ships etc, but wars are won by shattering your opponent nations systems, will and ability to fight and for that you need very very big bangs and lots of them… you could throw huge amounts of spear three weapons at a nations transport infrastructure and it would all be fixed in a few days.. 10 storm shadows is 10 key bridges gone.
So at present for f35 to take part in the bit of the war that matters in the long run, which is the strategic reduction of the enemies systems allowing them to wage war all the F35 can bring is free fall guided bombs.. that has 2 problems 1) it has to risk penetration of the enemy air defence systems and therefore loss if an irreplaceable aircraft 2) because it’s not firing a cruise missile with a 500km range it will need to air to air refuel very very close to the enemies AEW and air to air combat aircraft.. that puts your strategic tanker force at risk… if your firing a 500km range cruise missile you can tanker your fighter 1000km away from the enemy..
That is our entire problem the F35 with its preset and planned capabilities is supreme at fighting a campaign or short war or pounding a non peer nation for a political settlement.. if the UK and Russia got into a pissing match and NATO was politically neutralised ( a possibility ) it would be decided by hurling strategic weapons ( not the nuclear type) at each other.. and the nation that could both absorb and keep its systems running and shatter the others systems with long range big bangs will win.. why do you think all of a sudden there was a plan for 7000 of this type of weapon and the ability to make lots of them.. our enemy is 2000miles away and has a lot of long range big bangs.. a Uk Russia war will not be clever or subtle and a 10kg warhead clever missile will be tactically brilliant but do sod all to win.
Wow you really have been drinking the LM Coolade by the gallon !
It’s funny how the Norwegians, USA, Belgians, Germans, Australians, Fins, Italians and Japanese all disagree with your assessment and have ordered the JSM for use in their F35A/Cs and under the wings of their F35Bs.
They must have missed you off their list of consultants before spending 00’s millions of dollars !
Maybe they thought well the F35 is stealthy but it may not be in 10,20 or 30 years and why risk the Aircraft if you don’t need to and can just launch a missile instead ! After all it isn’t like it can’t carry both, so launch the missile then attack with bombs etc.
Right now I would bet that China and Russia are very busily trying to figure out how to detect and shoot down F35’s, and chances are they will succeed so not having a stand off missile available would be a pretty bad decision.
Also Stealth is great but in daylight it’s just as vulnerable as any other aircraft to a fighter and in Norther latitudes daylight can be 24 hours long !
As you rightly point out EO aided by AI is a thing. Silly resolution CCD is a thing too.
IRST as well. Plus there are radars that can see F35 but not suitable for missile lock. Once you know something is there you can act accordingly.
Yep a 2 point beginers guide to pounding the crap out of a nation and getting them to the peace talks AKA “winning a peer war with an enemy nation at distance or at least not losing it”
1) pound the ever living crap out of the nation you are at war with.. most people seem to forget it’s not militaries that are at war, it’s nations if the nation has the capability and will to keep rebuilding its military it will keep on fighting.. you have to kill the nations ability and will make war.. you are trying to destroy the systems of that nation so it can no longer wage war and the military are only one of the sets of Systems that must be reduced.. you need tons and tons of strategic weapons.. these need to be long ranged and have big warheads to be able to reduce things to rubble.. not tickle them with a 10kg bast frag warhead, you could shoot spear three at a nation’s infrastructure for all eternity and not get beyond their ability to repair it each day.. you need warheads in the 100kg-500kg range to do infrastructure and systems damage that is not easy to repair.
2) keeping your strategic war-fighting assets alive and ticking.. you need to be able to keep dealing strategic damage to the enemy nation if part of that strategic warfighting ability is not replaceable you keep it alive at all costs. That means your strike fighters that carry your air launched cruise missiles are not to be placed in harms way.. don’t put 1000lb freefall bombs on them and drive them through other nations air defences on a hope.. use them from a safe distance.. launching attacks from 500Kms+ away, this also means your strategic AAR assets don’t have to refuel within 500-1000km of the enemy putting them at risk..have your SSNs engaged the enemy nation from 1000km away.. have your carrier battle group 1500km away from their coast instead of within 1000kms… long range strategic effectors keep your irreplaceable strategic platforms safe and allow you to keep on hitting the enemy.. loss your strategic platforms ( SSNs, carriers with carrier borne aircraft, surface combatant with long range cruise missiles, land based longe range cruise missiles, conventional Medium/intermediate range BMs and strike fighters with AAR ) and you have lost.. simple as.
That is not the same need as winning a battle or even a campaign such as the Falklands war or if you happen to live next door and have a land boarder with your enemy ( in the land boarder case a functional field army becomes critical as a foundation even above strategic weapons).
This has been the plan for many years, when they gave up any hope of integrating anything further beyond Meteor and Spear. Some of this goes all the way back to when the Cameron government were dithering around trying to turn the Prince of Wales CATOBAR. We are long past any sane attempts to make the Navy work and apparently moving into some Through-the-Looking-Glass fantasy.
with all the British F35 news i’ve been reading lately, one can’t help but come to the conclusion that this procurement was a very big mistake that had no planning or foresight and no roadmap to its name.
Totally. Underarmed carrier with underarmed jets. Why not resucitate and rebuild an upgraded Harrier with Tempest tech ? Can believe the lack of urgency here. Why not even upgrade existing Typhoon’s withheld MBDA ER-Marte as an interim? And the P-8s with something like LRASM if easy.
*Can’t believe….
It did originally. Up to 150 airframes to be ordered between 2002 and 2012 was the original plan
That was when they were meant to be cheap because of the bulk buying.
Slated price pretty much doubled and the operational costs tripled.
I admire their dogged determination to make sure the money invested in the carriers, instead of the escort fleet, is put to waste.
Adding these weapons to give our carriers some serious punch, what a shame, I guess they’ll have to stick to air-to-air missiles and bombs.
Good job Typhoons and Tempests will be able to sink orc ships before they get out into the Atlantic then isn’t it?🤞😡 or we could rely on the French with their carrier that WILL have anti ship missiles on board!
don’t they mean Stratus LO and Stratus RS?
Good spot, slightly worrying that Pollard refers to a single variant rather than both types going on Typhoon.
Another brilliant plan from H.M. Government. I do wonder why Pollard has a job. He never says anything useful.
FFS NFC
Hang on, didn’t they say that carriers was getting strike capability from flight deck. I assumed it was going to be this.
The only “strike” capability planned for a Carrier group is the RFA not being able to turn up. No weapons need be purchased.
I mean flight deck launched from a f-35
What about integration on Merlin or Wildcat. Italian’s have heavy MBDA Marte anti ship missiles integrated to their naval rotary airframes.
Marte is not ‘heavy’ other than in the ‘Spear’ definition of heavy. Most of the heavy AShM have warheads well above 100kg. NSM/JSM – 120kg, Exocet – 165 kg, Harpoon – 227kg, RBS 15 – 200kg, Otomat – 210kg.
Hang on a minute. The Storm Shadow integration on the F35 was supposedly cancelled to free up a slot to fit FCASW. Is this one of those cases where the MoD cancel a program and say its being replaced by a future one, that down the line also gets cancelled, just to save a few pennies? By which stage they hope people have forgotten that FCASW was supposed to be on the integration program.