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

[Rii]

This is a single-source story, and not exactly the first of its kind to emerge over the last four years, but in light of MoD's dire financial straits (protip for Her Majesty's Government: don't wade into wars you don't have to; let the Americans make their own mistakes) at the moment, the old adage about smoke and fire comes to mind.

From The Sunday Times:

THE Royal Navy is set to save £10bn from the defence budget by dropping plans to buy the most expensive fighter aircraft ever built to fly off its new aircraft carriers.

It is set to swap the £13.8bn Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project for an improved stealthier version of the Boeing F/A18 Super Hornet which currently flies off US Navy carriers.

The potential move was discussed at a meeting between Liam Fox and defence chiefs last weekend to discuss cuts to be made in the ongoing Strategic Defence and Security Review.

“JSF is an unbelievably expensive programme,” a senior defence source said. “It makes no sense at all in the current climate and even if we continued with it, we cannot afford the aircraft we said we would buy.”

The Joint Strike Fighter, produced by Boeing’s main US rival Lockheed Martin, would have been the most expensive single project in the defence budget with costs already put at £13.8bn and rising.

The 138 aircraft Britain planned to buy to replace the Harrier jump jets flown by the RAF and Royal Navy were originally supposed to cost a total of £7bn.

But they are currently expected to cost £100m each, making them effectively unaffordable given the dire state of both the defence budget and the nation’s finances.

Now aside from the immediate issues of MoD finances and the F-35's qualities as an aircraft, there are some interesting and complicating issues here:

1. This is all tied up in the QE-class carrier business, which itself has several interesting facets: since inception the carriers have been 'fitted for but not with' CATOBAR capability in mind, so conversion to operating the Hornet is certainly plausible. Further, some have raised the possibility of the RN accepting an F-35 for Hornet substitution in exchange for operating the two carriers originally planned instead of the "one plus" model which has been floating around more recently.

2. The RN has no naval AWACS capability. It's not so much an issue with VTOL-capable aircraft, but CATOBAR carriers have far lower 'surge' capacity for responding to an unexpected threat, which the lack of AWACS makes rather more likely. In the event of the switch, the RN may well have to bite the bullet and buy E-2Ds as operated by the United States and France.

3. If the RN's plans go through here, it's going to leave the RAF in a lurch. HMG has been adamant about moving to a 2-jet mix. If those jets are Typhoon and Hornet, there's no room for RAF's planned F-35s. And with the Harriers and Tornados retiring shortly, that's going to leave the RAF with a massive shortfall in aircraft; and they're unlikely to be able to squeeze any more dollars out of MoD to buy more. Methinks someone is going to regret the decision to sell some of the UK's Tranche 3 Typhoon allocation to Saudi Arabia.

4. In its latest incarnation (as currently being delivered to the Royal Australian Air Force and shortly to the US Navy) the Super Hornet is an impressive aircraft; but more importantly it's an aircraft with robust future growth potential, with Boeing pitching concepts for it - JSF-esque cockpit, internal weapons bays - left and right. They can sense the blood in the water re: F-35 and future western airpower acquisitions.

The other wild card in all this is France. I mean, hello, the Rafale is right next door. Short-term political interests argue for the Hornet (don't want to piss the Americans off too much by buying from another nation entirely) but in the long-term France and the UK have very similar defence priorities and make natural partners. What if the UK were to buy Rafale in exchange for a commitment from France to buy a QE-class carrier? Further, looking ahead there's the SSBN-replacement issue, the cost of which is making both the UK and France skittish about maintaining their nuclear deterrent in that form. Cooperation on that program is also eminently desirable, perhaps even extending to multinational operation of the vessels. And of course every instance of cooperation goes towards the furthering of a pan-European security framework, which is in everyone's long-term interests.

 

[Deckerd]

The Treasury has already told Fox (and therefore the MoD) they have to find the funding from a trident replacement from their own budget, which raises the interesting spectre, for a Conservative government, that the trident isn't replaced. They're also very likely being forced to reduce the fleet from 4 to 3 subs, thus saving millions at a stroke. The upside for the RN is that they probably will get their two aircraft carriers along with the destroyers being built at Glasgow.

 

[Rii]

The Treasury has already told Fox (and therefore the MoD) they have to find the funding from a trident replacement from their own budget, which raises the interesting spectre, for a Conservative government, that the trident isn't replaced. They're also very likely being forced to reduce the fleet from 4 to 3 subs, thus saving millions at a stroke. The upside for the RN is that they probably will get their two aircraft carriers along with the destroyers being built at Glasgow.

I think the most responsible option at this point re: Trident replacement is to cooperate with France; which given traditional French inflexibility means 'give them whatever they want so long as they sign on the bottom line.' Switch to the American Blue/Gold alternating crew system and have a French crew constitute one and a British crew the other, with observers from the opposite nation along for the ride. Build 4-5 boats together (as opposed to the 8 current operated separately by France and the United Kingdom) and away you go.

Handing over Trident to MoD, I agree that the most likely response from MoD is "fuck Trident". The military has never liked nukes, they've always been political tools. I only hope that if that happens, that the UK is courageous enough to become the first real nuclear power to relinquish nuclear weapons rather than switching to Storm Shadow or w/e.

 

[Deckerd]

A Conservative government would never ever do this. It's sabre rattling. The mothballing of a sub is a real possibility though, which means the RN will get lots of new boats to play with.

 

[Rii]

A Conservative government would never ever do this. It's sabre rattling.

Necessity is the mother of invention. It's far more interesting to see the kinds of decisions which are made under financial pressure than those that're made with a blank cheque. Anyone can come up with an endless list of 'stuff we really, really need' when they have an infinite amount of money to buy it with.

The mothballing of a sub is a real possibility though, which means the RN will get lots of new boats to play with.

Or maybe just avoid further cuts like the reduction in Type 45 destroyer numbers from 12 to 6 units.

 

[Rii]

List of modern and projected carrier-capable fighters:

F/A-18E/F (USA)
F-35B/C (USA, UK)
Rafale (France)
Sea Gripen (Sweden*)
MiG-29K (Russia, India)
J-15** (China)

Russia and India will probably want to deploy a navalised PAK FA at some point - I suspect that was the impetus for making the PAK FA smaller than the Flanker it's replacing - but that's at least 10, probably 15 years away. Brazil is likely to deploy a carrier air wing based upon the Rafale or Sea Gripen in that timescale also.

* Does not operate carriers but is offering a carrier-capable Gripen NG to India/Spain/Brazil/Italy.
** Likely to be a carbon copy of Sukhoi's Su-33 (which I omitted from the above list as not being modern enough) with upgraded/domestic avionics. Sukhoi claims it plans to produce its own upgraded Su-33 (to Su-35BM-class standards, i.e. glass cockpit, AL-41F/117S powerplant, Irbis M, IRST, RAM treatments, etc.) but exactly who it plans to sell this aircraft to is unclear. I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[STR]

I think the most responsible option at this point re: Trident replacement is to cooperate with France; which given traditional French inflexibility means 'give them whatever they want so long as they sign on the bottom line.' Switch to the American Blue/Gold alternating crew system and have a French crew constitute one and a British crew the other, with observers from the opposite nation along for the ride. Build 4-5 boats together (as opposed to the 8 current operated separately by France and the United Kingdom) and away you go.

No offense, but that's an incredibly awful idea. You might as well scrap all the subs and live under the American nuclear umbrella like Japan, Australia and Canada do. Even when the United States supplied Canada with nukes (mostly air-to-air missiles like the AIM-26A and AIR-2B) during the Cold War, it was still up to Canada as to when to use them. And I'd like to see an argument where France has a closer relationship with ANYONE that's as tight as US/Canada relations.

I'm not saying a unified European nuclear strike force is impossible. You just need to unify the chain of command, top to bottom, with one official having the ultimate authority. Basically, a single European military, with a single commander in chief. Otherwise you risk countermanding orders by someone else who may disagree with your strategic choice. Given the stakes in a launch scenario, it would be entirely possible to have a plan in place where (say) the French crew would mutiny, take over the sub, and refuse to launch on British orders. Yes, there would be hell to pay for such an act, but it's entirely plausible that it would be preferable to the alternative. The moment you tie nuclear strike in with bureaucracy (who makes the call to launch? Does it alternate? UK PM get's it MWF, French Prez gets TuThS, and they alternate on sunday?) you're pretty much neutering it.

Even the unified European force will have problems unless the crew has complete loyalty to the single Euro government, ahead of their own national interests.

As for the F-35, the fact that there's so many chefs in the kitchen is actually an asset. The moment you cut your orders, it FUBAR's the cost calculations for everyone else in the project. This is why the JSF hasn't been cut back in the US, or anywhere. There's lots of talk, sure, but no one is going to pull the trigger. It would be far too big of a hassle. You'd be creating a diplomatic incident in 20 countries simultaneously, plus local backlash because a lot of JSF partner nations got at least some kind of cut of the manufacturing.

 

[Rii]

No offense, but that's an incredibly awful idea.

So's actually using nuclear weapons. It doesn't have to be workable, it merely has to avoid being demonstrably unworkable.

And it's such an awful idea that France and the UK have actually conducted talks along those lines. From the House of Commons Library, May 2010:

"As part of those technical options has reportedly been a recent French proposal for the creation of a joint UK-French nuclear deterrent as part of proposals for greater procurement collaboration between the two countries in the current economic climate. While a number of analysts have suggested those proposals involve the sharing of nuclear patrols in order to maintain a continuous-at-sea deterrent, others have speculated that France is looking to promote the sale of its newly developed M51 submarine-launched ballistic missile as an alternative to the Trident strategic weapons system. The pooling of nuclear sovereignty envisaged in these proposals have, however, been widely reported as politically unacceptable to the UK."

Certainly there have and continue to be low-level talks going on that are not in the public domain.

As for the F-35, the fact that there's so many chefs in the kitchen is actually an asset. The moment you cut your orders, it FUBAR's the cost calculations for everyone else in the project.

Don't look now, but everyone is cutting their orders. That's part of the reason nobody knows how much it's going to cost: because all projections to date are based upon production targets from a decade back which everyone knows are utter fantasy at this point.

This is why the JSF hasn't been cut back in the US, or anywhere. There's lots of talk, sure, but no one is going to pull the trigger.

Bullshit it hasn't. Why do you think the US Navy just ordered another ~120 Super Hornets? Did they suddenly discover a pressing need for another 120 aircraft or did someone run the numbers and come up with the fact that the US Navy will be buying at least 120 fewer F-35s than it initially planned?

Why did USAF announce a couple months back that its F-15Cs are to be upgraded and maintained in active service in the air superiority role well beyond their previously planned retirement date? No, nobody's announced just how few F-35s they're buying yet, but everyone knows they can't afford the damn thing. And yeah: the structure of the program means it's gonna snowball.

 

[Deckerd]

The UK has been dancing round a European 'force' for a decade now. Part of them thinks it's a good idea but the other part can't thole the idea of the French telling them what to do. If the UK and French could just set their jingoism to one side, the might actually come up with a plan.

 

[Rii]

The UK has been dancing round a European 'force' for a decade now. Part of them thinks it's a good idea but the other part can't thole the idea of the French telling them what to do. If the UK and French could just set their jingoism to one side, the might actually come up with a plan.

"Russians? Who's talking about the Russians?"
"Well, the 'independent deterrent.'"
"Is to protect us against the French!"
"But ... the French? That's astounding!"
"Why?"
"Well ... they're our allies."
"They are now, but they've been our enemies for most of the past nine hundred years. If they have the bomb then we must have the bomb!"

That whole episode was great.

 

[STR]

No offense, but that's an incredibly awful idea.

So's actually using nuclear weapons. It doesn't have to be workable, it merely has to avoid being demonstrably unworkable.

Having two people in charge is incredibly unworkable. It's why no one has been dumb enough to actually follow through on it. Hell, what happened to the talks citied in your article? Nothing. In fact, it was dismissed as France trying to export missiles. "Low Level"=dead. This isn't so complex that you need years of talks. The issues are fairly straightforward, yet insurmountable with the status quo of Anglo-French governments. As such "low level" is polite speak for "enough for now, we'll talk again later."

Don't look now, but everyone is cutting their orders. That's part of the reason nobody knows how much it's going to cost: because all projections to date are based upon production targets from a decade back which everyone knows are utter fantasy at this point.

Really? Who? The Dutch? That's about all I can come up with and that one has a few caveats, the biggest one being that the caretaker government ignored parliament and pushed ahead. Other governments have increased orders (Turkey), or expressed interest in doing so (Canada), or are interested in joining (Israel, Japan, Taiwan).

The UK has been throwing a fit and threatening to pull out since halfway through last decade. If it wasn't fights over which variant to buy, related design decisions on the CVF, or jingoists preferring the Typhoon, it was occasionally valid concerns over how Lockheed wasn't going to open the F-35's source code to BAe. However, like I said, it's all talk.

Bullshit it hasn't. Why do you think the US Navy just ordered another ~120 Super Hornets? Did they suddenly discover a pressing need for another 120 aircraft or did someone run the numbers and come up with the fact that the US Navy will be buying at least 120 fewer F-35s than it initially planned?

Actually, that purchase was because the USN was roughly 180 aircraft below specifed needs. Even after the order, they still need 60 more fighters to meet required force levels.

Why did USAF announce a couple months back that its F-15Cs are to be upgraded and maintained in active service in the air superiority role well beyond their previously planned retirement date?

Because you don't need and F-35 to do everything you need to get done in the air. As such, you make a trade-off. Sure you'd rather thave 100 F-35's rather than 100 F-15's, but that's not the choice here. You either keep 100 F-15C's in the air, or replace them with and additional order for 40 F-35's. The F-35, despite its technical ability, cannot be in two places at once. Hence, sometimes the tradeoff ends in favor of the Eagle.

 

[Rii]

Gentlemen, we have entered the spin zone.

P.S. My favourite bit was using 'the F-35 isn't an air superiority fighter' (something its detractors have been saying all along) in defence of the aircraft. Balls man, balls.

 

[STR]

In other words, you can't argue with facts, so you resort to bluster.

Also, I cleaned up the my last paragraph in the previous. While there are circumstances where the F-15 has more valuable performance (dash speed, missile payload and range) that would make it a better air superiority fighter, that's only under certain circumstances. It is also irrelevant to the discussion, which is deciding what's the best use of finite resources. Sometimes that answer is buying the latest and greatest. Sometimes it's an overhaul.

 

[Rii]

It is also irrelevant to the discussion, which is deciding what's the best use of finite resources. Sometimes that answer is buying the latest and greatest. Sometimes it's an overhaul.

Far be it from me to suggest that the F-35 represents anything other than a spectacularly poor use of any level of resources.

 

[STR]

Given that you've run out of facts are now just spitting out snide remarks, I think I'm done here.

 

[Rii]

The degree of wilful ignorance of budgetary realities required to believe that the United States and its allied partner nations are actually going to buy the ~3000 JSFs originally planned makes any other approach superfluous.

 

[Marc]

The degree of wilful ignorance of budgetary realities required to believe that the United States and its allied partner nations are actually going to buy the ~3000 JSFs originally planned makes any other approach superfluous.

Well the Canadian Government has just signed up to buy the JSF and it's not going down well becuse of the way it was handled (sudden announcment made while the Parliament was in recess for the summer so the government puts off having to answer any hard questions).

 

[MANT!]

The UK has been dancing round a European 'force' for a decade now. Part of them thinks it's a good idea but the other part can't thole the idea of the French telling them what to do. If the UK and French could just set their jingoism to one side, the might actually come up with a plan.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j20voPS0gI[/yt]

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Ya know what, if it saves our country money and ensures we're more reluctant in future to go to war, I'm all for it.
We don't need a large nor super up to date military, many cheaper fighter aircraft still are advanced enough to take on many of the worlds air forces.
Let the US have all the neat super duper stuff, we'll just get by on cheaper stuff. It's not like the Cold War is still here.

 

[Rii]

This is from Jane's:

An uprecedented number of UK Royal Navy (RN) Harrier pilots have begun training for catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) carrier operations in the United States, information obtained by Jane's has revealed.

The news further fuels rumours that the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) may be re-assessing its previous commitment to fulfilling the UK's Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) requirement with the F-35B short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), instead opting for a conventional aircraft launched by catapult.

The latter could be the F-35C carrier variant of the JSF, which has a greater range and payload capability than the JSF STOVL variant and also costs slightly less per unit, or even the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet on which the UK pilots are likely to be certified. The RN's two future Queen Elizabeth-class carriers that would operate the JCA are designed for, but not yet intended to be fitted with CATOBAR equipment.

Interesting...