Rumour: UK to drop F-35 in favour of SH+?

[Rii]

Daily Telegraph

Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, has said that, instead of "salami-slicing", where pain is shared equally across the department, the cuts must be allocated strategically.

Defence sources have suggested this will result in the Forces giving up entire capabilities, like aerial surveillance and amphibious landing.

Britain would have to rely on allies until the defence budget recovered, when these operations could be resumed.

The cuts could also have serious implications for the Navy's two new aircraft carriers, which will cost £5 billion and are due to enter service in 2014 and 2016.

Defence sources said at least one of the carriers was almost certain to be completed, but questions hang over the second.
If the second carrier is built, it could be adapted to carry helicopters instead of jets. A more radical option would see the second carrier shared with another country, most likely France.

The Treasury is understood to be budgeting for the cost of the carriers as empty hulls, and balking at the additional cost of planes to fly from them. A military source said: "The Treasury seems to think it's quite normal to budget for aircraft carriers with no aircraft to carry. It's rather bizarre."

To ensure both carriers are built, Navy chiefs are considering making several sacrifices. These include retiring Britain's 45 Harrier jump jets ahead of schedule.

The Harriers, operated by both the Navy's Fleet Air Arm and the RAF, are due to retire in 2018 and be replaced with new Joint Strike Fighters. But the jets could be retired earlier, saving more than £1 billion. That in turn could mean that the first carrier enters service in 2014 with no British aircraft to carry.

This would lead to the possibility of using borrowed US Marine Corps aircraft.

To help fund the carriers, Navy chiefs are also likely to give up the service's amphibious task force of landing ships and commandos.

"It comes down to a choice between carrier strike capability and amphibious landing, and they're not going to give up the carriers," said one Whitehall source.

Seems there's a real possibility of multinational carrier operations with France emerging from all this; which, needless to say, would be spectacularly good news re: the furthering of pan-European security frameworks.

At the very least it seems that all options are on the board here. Interesting times.

 

[FPAlpha]

Leave it to bureaucrats to greenlight an aircraft carrier but not the planes that are carried by it.

I think it would be best if the RN would ditch the hyperexpensive state of the art US models for which there is no immediate need and go for tested affordable designs with modern upgrades.

Let the Americans play with their new toys and strain their budgets.

 

[Rii]

It just occurs to me that if the second QE carrier does eventuate as a multinational venture with France; what will they call it? Somehow I don't think the Royal Navy would be down with 'Richelieu' (the name the Marine Nationale has long favoured for its next carrier).

Although given that the most likely arrangement would seem to be 'our ship, your air wing' (Dassault would certainly welcome the additional Rafale orders, that's one defence expenditure it wouldn't be too difficult to persuade the French government to make) the question could well be moot.

Of course any cooperative venture with France would require that the carriers (strictly speaking, carrier, but economies of scale and interoperability requirements virtually guarantee that what's true for one would be true for both) be CATOBAR, in turn ruling out the currently planned F-35B acquisition in favour of either the somewhat cheaper C model, or Super Hornet, or - in the extraordinarily unlikely event that HMG is willing to give the US the finger - Rafale. The C model would have the added advantage of being compatible with RAF's future acquisition plans. The only question would be whether the F-35C can actually operate from Charles De Gaulle given that it's some 50% heavier than Rafale. Not that it's necessarily a deal breaker if it can't.

Leave it to bureaucrats to greenlight an aircraft carrier but not the planes that are carried by it.

It's not that ridiculous; the hull itself is valuable as a helicopter platform or, in a pinch, troop transport. I don't think either Spain or Italy have actually allocated funds to purchase the F-35Bs which their new carriers are so clearly intended to operate in future (once their Harriers are retired) either. The difference is that those were intended to be multipurpose vessels from the very start.

 

[Rii]

Well, The Times is getting on board, and with rather stronger language too:

Britain and France are preparing to reveal unprecedented plans to share the use of their aircraft carriers in a controversial step to maintain military power in an era of cost-cutting.

[....]

David Cameron and President Sarkozy are expected to outline the proposal in a November summit, which will lead to British and French flagships working together and protecting the interests of both countries. The arrangement, expected to come into force soon after the announcement, would ensure that one of three ships — one French, two British — was always on duty.

Note the bolded text above. This suggests that both carriers will be completed and that the savings therefore must be in the air wing; in turn implying that it will be a French air wing on the second QE-class carrier. Further, the carriers must be CATOBAR to operate French aircraft, so F-35B is out. And with the French operating the American Hawkeye platform, maybe the RN'll get some naval AWACS capability out of all this too.

 

[Deckerd]

Doesn't the UK already have carriers? The way you're talking we don't currently have any.

 

[Rii]

None that are going to last. The QE-class carriers were supposed to replace Invincible and Illustrious. I suppose if they only built one QE-class carrier the RN could keep one of the current carriers in operation for another few years, but it'd only be a stopgap thing.

There's a slim chance it could be referring to a combination of one QE carrier and the amphibious assault ship/helicopter carrier HMS Ocean; but besides that arrangement resulting in a seriously lopsided 'triad', all indications are that the RN is willing to give away virtually all of its amphibious capabilities (incl. HMS Ocean) to ensure the second QE carrier is built.

 

[Deckerd]

Define 'few years'. Lusty's in Rosyth at the moment for a refit that'll take about a year.

 

[Chaos Descending]

There's also still the Ark Royal, and Invincible is basically decommissioned now anyway. She's supposed to be available on 18 months notice, but from what I hear, that's a pipe dream as some of her gear was cannibalized to support Ark Royal and Illustrious.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

It's about time we had an EU defence force to replace NATO, which doesn't really seem to have a role nowadays apart from irritating the Russians by trying to pinch thier natural allies. That might also force all the neutrals in the EU to stop hiding under NATO's skirt.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Well, The Times is getting on board, and with rather stronger language too:

Britain and France are preparing to reveal unprecedented plans to share the use of their aircraft carriers in a controversial step to maintain military power in an era of cost-cutting.

[....]

David Cameron and President Sarkozy are expected to outline the proposal in a November summit, which will lead to British and French flagships working together and protecting the interests of both countries. The arrangement, expected to come into force soon after the announcement, would ensure that one of three ships — one French, two British — was always on duty.

Note the bolded text above. This suggests that both carriers will be completed and that the savings therefore must be in the air wing; in turn implying that it will be a French air wing on the second QE-class carrier. Further, the carriers must be CATOBAR to operate French aircraft, so F-35B is out. And with the French operating the American Hawkeye platform, maybe the RN'll get some naval AWACS capability out of all this too.

UK Defense Secretary nixed idea of sharing aircraft carriers with the French.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11176489

...at a press conference with French Defence Minister Herve Morin, Dr Fox dismissed suggestions the two could share aircraft carriers as a cost-saving measure.

"In terms of actually being able to share an aircraft carrier, I would have thought that was utterly unrealistic," he said.

 

[Rii]

^ I was just reading that story.

Oh well; trading military relevance for military independence is certainly one way to go about things, and in any case Europe can afford to muddle its way through the next generation or so. What's important is that it emerges from that period with a solid underlying political/financial framework able to adapt to the changing world.