Some unrelated recent military procurment storiess since I am getting bored of Ukraine

[Pielstick]

A joint programme that would leave the UK with an independent deterrent would be a very tempting deal on the face of it. There would be a lot of jostling about what gets built where and who supplies what systems as the UK certainly wants to retain its own submarine building industry.

You might be able to get away with a common hull and propulsion and missile systems, but sonar etc sourced from the respective countries. That could work I suppose? From what I understand the UK and US already share a considerable amount of submarine related technology including reactors, propulsion and noise reduction.

At the moment I think the generally accepted plan is our next SSBN class will be using whatever the US develops to replace Trident II D-5 and we will continue with the current arrangement - i.e. a shared pool of missiles that are serviced in the US, but the UK manufactures and fits its own warheads.

[conon394]

@ Pielstick - more or less what I think is potentially viable - but I suspect politics will see both the US and UK opt for the more expensive option.

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So is Germany going soft?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...creen-TVs.html

Now on the one hand its an easy headline to write but... it is sort of the cost of a volunteer military. If you want the best and the brightest at what they do be Military intell or shooting or maintance the volunteer military has to compete with the privates sector. Since unlike bake in Roman days you don't get to come home what you looted and house slaves...

[Farnan]

So is Germany going soft?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...creen-TVs.html

Now on the one hand its an easy headline to write but... it is sort of the cost of a volunteer military. If you want the best and the brightest at what they do be Military intell or shooting or maintance the volunteer military has to compete with the privates sector. Since unlike bake in Roman days you don't get to come home what you looted and house slaves...

If we force Joe (or Gerhardt I guess in the German Army) to live in the barracks we should give them a decent life. As long as they work hard they should be able to go home to enjoy life. Hardship for hardship sake is not good training, its stupidity.

[Condottiere 40K]

Now that the immediate Soviet threat is gone, the Germans don't feel that patriotism that motivated them during the Prussian era, and continued to the end of the Cold War. They may have to follow the American example and automate and robotize a great many weapon systems, balancing the military between the maintenance personnel and a smaller more elite combat troops, rather than taking in anyone who couldn't find a job in the civilian economy.

[Condottiere 40K]

AirTanker and Thomas Cook Airlines agree landmark civil leasing deal

AirTanker, the company behind the RAF Voyager (UK Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft) programme has agreed in principle a ground-breaking A330 civil leasing deal with Thomas Cook Airlines.AirTanker, the company behind the RAF Voyager (UK Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft) programme has agreed in principle a ground-breaking A330 civil leasing deal with Thomas Cook Airlines.
Under the terms of the three-year agreement, Thomas Cook Airlines will lease a single Airbus A330-200 from the AirTanker/FSTA ‘surge fleet”, to support long haul routes as part of its UK flying programme.
Flying under the new Thomas Cook Airlines livery, the aircraft will be operated by AirTanker under its civil Air Operator’s Certificate from May 2015 in support of scheduled routes from Glasgow, Manchester and Stansted to Las Vegas, Cancun and Orlando.
Dave Mitchard, Managing Director, AirTanker Services, said that the deal represented ‘a first in civil aircraft leasing’.
He said: “AirTanker and Thomas Cook Airlines have reached provisional agreement on leasing terms against one of our A330-200 surge fleet aircraft with a full agreement expected shortly.
“This is a significant milestone and achievement for AirTanker and one which is representative of the significant progress that we are making across both our core service to the RAF and in our developing aircraft leasing capability.”
Signed in 2008, the FSTA contract between AirTanker and the Ministry of Defence tasks AirTanker, whose shareholders include Airbus Group, Rolls Royce, Thales, Cobham and Babcock, with the delivery, military conversion and subsequent operation and support for, 14 Airbus A330-200 aircraft.
This includes a core fleet of nine aircraft, flown in support of and by the RAF and a further five – the surge fleet - which are available to AirTanker to lease to the civil market.
Completing its core RAF fleet with the delivery of the ninth Voyager aircraft last month [May], all subsequent aircraft delivered as part of the programme will sit within the surge fleet, with the final aircraft scheduled for delivery by Q4 2016.
In its civil specification, the aircraft will be delivered from Airbus and set-up by AirTanker to an all economy Thomas Cook Airline 323 seat configuration.
As part of the ‘wet leasing’ agreement six Thomas Cook Airlines Captains and four First Officers, will be seconded to AirTanker, flying alongside AirTanker’s own civilian pilots. The cabin service will be performed by a cabin crew provided by Thomas Cook Airlines. Thomas Cook will also provide line maintenance with base maintenance delivered by AirTanker.
Christoph Debus, Chairman, Thomas Cook Group Airlines said: “Over the last few months we’ve announced new routes to the Caribbean and more recently a scheduled service to New York and Miami from Manchester alongside new long haul routes to the US from Belfast, Glasgow and Stansted.
“This ground-breaking deal with AirTanker, which may be extended in the future, will allow us to bring a brand new A330 to serve our new routes alongside our refurbished long haul fleet and illustrates the transformation of our airline as we look to bring a new level of reliability and comfort to our customers.”
Thomas Cook Airlines seconded flight crew will also support AirTanker’s civil/charter service in support of the Falklands air-bridge. This is operated by AirTanker on the Civil Aircraft Register under an independent Air Operators Certificate, with its own pilots and civilian cabin crew.
The deal with Thomas Cook Airlines, is agreed directly between AirTanker and Thomas Cook for AirTanker-owned aircraft and sits outside that already in place with the MOD. No RAF crew will be employed in its delivery.
Flights will be bookable as part of the Thomas Cook package holiday programme through Thomas Cook and Co-operative Travel high street stores or online at www.thomascook.com . Flight-only, can be booked through www.thomascookairlines.com .

24 June 2014

https://www.airtanker.co.uk/news-cen...l-leasing-deal

1. Monty June 24, 2014 at 11:05 am“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. Unfortunately, your Thomas Cook flight has been diverted by an urgent operational requirement. We are now going to Camp Bastion where you will reinforce British Forces in Afghanistan for the next two weeks. We apologise for this change in schedule, but we haven’t been able to recruit enough Reserve Army soldiers.

[Condottiere 40K]

[Farnan]

Well the A-10 has been saved by Congress

[Condottiere 40K]

Only if Congress opens it's purse further. A directive is empty without funds.

[Farnan]

Only if Congress opens it's purse further. A directive is empty without funds.

Actually its weird. The amendment states the Air Force can't use any money to retire the A-10 so they can't retire it.

[Condottiere 40K]

But they'll deteriorate if they aren't maintained, which makes the question of retirement moot if they aren't certified to be airworthy.

[conon394]

A different note and I lost the links I meant to post anyone familiar the I dunno second generation V-22 argument.

On the one side the V-22 has actually got a recent boost of 'its all fixed and works fine stories'. Which in turn generated a lot push back about the plane -'still an expensive death trap and no better than helicopters (which are death traps anyway but that is not the point of my rant)'. But from what I've seen it looks like haters going to hate and Marine backed cheering to make sure they the full amount they want. So I would be interested if anyone has seen any shall we say unbiased looks at how it has done in Iraq and A-stan?

Here is a positive view:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/...nding-critics/

[Adar]

A different note and I lost the links I meant to post anyone familiar the I dunno second generation V-22 argument.

On the one side the V-22 has actually got a recent boost of 'its all fixed and works fine stories'. Which in turn generated a lot push back about the plane -'still an expensive death trap and no better than helicopters (which are death traps anyway but that is not the point of my rant)'. But from what I've seen it looks like haters going to hate and Marine backed cheering to make sure they the full amount they want. So I would be interested if anyone has seen any shall we say unbiased looks at how it has done in Iraq and A-stan?

Here is a positive view:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/...nding-critics/

Loren Thompson is on Russia Today levels when it comes to credibility.

In this case he carefully omits the USAF which had a fatal crash roughly a year before the article was published (4 dead, read more here) and the year after his article two marines died in another crash which the Marine corps blamed it on pilot error (which is controversial as they have previously been caught manipulating the safety record).

Personally I also got some huge issues with anecdotal evidence such as the rescue of the pilot. If we ignore the hyperbole and check distance (150 nautical miles) and cruise speeds of the Osprey and NH90 (a modern helicopter used for rescues). Then his argument pretty much state"Pilot saved 20 minutes earlier than previously possible, totally worth 35.6 billion dollar".

I have absolutely no idea if the Osprey is worth it's cost but Loren Thompson isn't the guy who's opinion I would base my decision on.

[conon394]

As I said I'm not buying the Thompson piece at face vale but neither do I trust Axe for example and older piece by a good reporter but one tends to go out of his way to dislike some things the V-22 for example. In any case it seems doubtful any first generation aircraft would be cheap. From what I read Israel is planning buy some which sort of say the Marines are just not insane.

Plus Both pro and con sides seem to cherry pick issues and success. Even your own example the NH90 type helicopter is not was is beeing replaced as I understand but the CH-47 wich has had it own record of crashes in Iraq and A-Stan killing quite a number of people.

[Condottiere 40K]

The sunk costs are gone.

The USMC is correct that they need the solutions that the Osprey represents, but they also need a successor to actually fully realize all the promises made when the tilt rotor programme was initialized.

[Adar]

As I said I'm not buying the Thompson piece at face vale but neither do I trust Axe for example and older piece by a good reporter but one tends to go out of his way to dislike some things the V-22 for example. In any case it seems doubtful any first generation aircraft would be cheap. From what I read Israel is planning buy some which sort of say the Marines are just not insane.

Plus Both pro and con sides seem to cherry pick issues and success. Even your own example the NH90 type helicopter is not was is beeing replaced as I understand but the CH-47 wich has had it own record of crashes in Iraq and A-Stan killing quite a number of people.

The NH90 is an European helicopter and I chose it for an example as it entered service at roughly the same time as the Osprey and I am sure that the Americans could have developed something as least as good within the time frame.

[Condottiere 40K]

[Pielstick]

the V-22

Back in 2010 my ship was part of a joint US-UK amphibious warfare exercise and I was watching V-22s operate from USS Kearsarge. Pretty cool, but I wouldn't want to take a ride in one

Not really able to autorotate and from what I've read they have some really nasty vortex ring state characteristics.


Some other stuff, catching up with Typhoon happenings:

P1E is up and running on operational RAF Typhoons now... headline new capabilities and improvements are full integration of Paveway IV (in addition to the EPW the RAF used in Libya in 2011), as well as full LITENING capability, improvements to DASS and its subsystems including better threat identification and countermeasure systems, and full digital integration of IRIS-T on the German and Spanish aircraft.

P2E is currently under development and the big one here is Storm Shadow/Taurus integration.... including a two way datalink for the weapons.

As Adar mentioned to me the other day the Swedish AF will be getting an IOC with Meteor in the not too distant future, the RAF planning to have it on Typhoon in 2016. BAE has stepped up its testing programme for the CFTs on Typhoon, and CAPTOR-E has been fitted to one of the test aircraft and should be flying in a few months. BAE has also just been given the contract to begin work on integrating Brimstone 2 on Typhoon. Also, Eurojet is also saying it can develop new versions of the EJ200 with 20% or even 30% more dry thrust than the baseline EJ200.

[Adar]

Apart from the Iris-T is also looks like SAAB is grooming Gripen to become really good at getting close to the enemy and then utilizing it's small size. Forward firing flares (ESTL below), IRIS-T and the helmet mounted display gives the Gripen some pretty good capabilities for both reaching close range combat and using it's small size to quickly turn and quickly deploy the IRIS-T

“This successful first flight is an important step for the ESTL project and we look forward to continuing test flights and increased customer interest in many countries worldwide,” Carl-Johan Bergholm, head of the Electronic Warfare Systems business unit at Saab, says in a company statement.
ESTL is a self-protection system available for any fixed-wing aircraft that can be installed on a mission-to-mission basis, and configured for different threat scenarios, says Saab.

The system provides “covert sustainable pre-emptive dispensing”, missile warning and forward firing of flares.
“ESTL offers enhanced survivability in combat and conflict situations,” Bergholm says. Traditional countermeasures may encounter difficulties with the latest generation of air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, but the ESTL concept includes a module of forward-firing flares, he adds. “This, together with the missile approach warning sensors and an optional chaff capability, makes ESTL a powerful shield against the latest missile developments.”

To examplify the scenario based on input from another forum:

Source

Google translated from: http://blogg.forsvarsmakten.se/flygv...ts-perspektiv/Max turn against one target, the helmet feels like it's made of lead. I do not have time, switch turn and finds the other rising vertically to put their energy into height. He stands still in the sky and quickly get an IRIS-T as company. Turn back, after that I went over in the vertical allows me to take an incredibly large angle change back to the first aircraft. That means I lose all energy and if I miss now I'm a wing-clipped bird.

Far out in the periphery can I find him, I turn my head out to the max and get in their sights but no tone. Of exercise technical reasons I wear just one missile and it is in this maneuver on the wrong side of the aircraft and homing is shaded by the fuselage. I continue the maneuver in a role with the aircraft inverted and homing then find the target. The battle is over 9 seconds.

I think it may be appropriate to point out that the event described is a part of methods development rather than simulated combat. The article is not a Dassault style brag but describe how Gripen pilots on the MEATBALL-14 exercise are testing how to optimize their engagement procedures.

In this scenario the two sides were not allowed to fire until they had passed each other to turn it into a WVR combat focused on turning quickly while using the HMD to get quick kills. In this case both sides made some mistakes within the combat which in total only took 9 seconds and the next time both sides will probably try different tactics to end the battle even quicker in their favour.
...
The results were not preordained according to the article but some of the starting parameters where decided.

Essentially they started out with some test parameters (no fire until after the fighters had passed each other).It should however be mentioned that certain other parameters were very unclear. The Gripen fighter was for example simulating that it was carrying 4 IRIS-T but was delayed when firing as it only carried a single IRIS-T radar simulator. So when targetting the second Typhoon he could get a HMD lock but had to make a roll with the aircraft before ending the simulation as the IRIS-T target seeker was obscured by the fuselage.

Tacticswise it seem like the Typhoon fighters tried to gain a height advantage while the Gripen pilot turned quickly, lost almost all his energy but was able to use his HMD to quickly get a lock on both targets while they maneuvered to a superior position for a prolonged fight.

As Adar mentioned to me the other day the Swedish AF will be getting an IOC with Meteor in the not too distant future, the RAF planning to have it on Typhoon in 2016. BAE has stepped up its testing programme for the CFTs on Typhoon, and CAPTOR-E has been fitted to one of the test aircraft and should be flying in a few months. BAE has also just been given the contract to begin work on integrating Brimstone 2 on Typhoon. Also, Eurojet is also saying it can develop new versions of the EJ200 with 20% or even 30% more dry thrust than the baseline EJ200.

So they are replacing the "Typhoon smile" with "Typhoon I had my eyes pushed into my cortex when accelerating"?. If jamming techniques become dominant I think the Eurofighter will seal the deal as the worlds supreme air superiority fighter in the premium bracket.

It might not be the stealthiest (F-22) or have the longest range for ground strikes (Rafale) but it does come with the best radar and a configuration that makes it extremely potent in WVR combat. Are they getting a Helmet Mounted Display for it? As described above it seems to be a potent combination with Iris-T.

[Pielstick]

So they are replacing the "Typhoon smile" with "Typhoon I had my eyes pushed into my cortex when accelerating"?

LOL. All I've read is Eurojet have done some studies and reckon the engine has the growth potential. They're touting two upgraded versions with either 20% or 30% increase in dry thrust. That's pretty mind blowing when you consider the Typhoon is already at the front of the pack in terms of thrust:weight. I've heard that the partner nations aren't prioritising an upgraded engine precisely because of this.

RAF Typhoons have already been flying with the BAE Systems Striker helmet for a while now. Flight performance, weapons cueing, night vision and FLIR imagery can all be projected onto the visor.

Speaking of Gripen, with IRIS-T and Meteor it's going to be punching way, way above its weight for quite some time I think. Meteor is supposed to have up to a 3x larger no escape zone than contemporary AIM-120 models. Throw in the two way datalink and you've got a pretty fearesome weapon.

I was also just reading about BriteCloud developed by Selex ES for Typhoon, Tornado and Gripen, supposed to be entering service now. Basically a dispensible jammer cartridge that can be dispensed from an existing flare launcher, and will use DRFM to decoy incoming RF missiles. Very cool stuff. When you consider stuff like that along with the Towed Radar Decoy and advanced EW suite on Typhoon, Rafale, F-22, etc and forward firing flares it doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to see the WVR dogfight is far from obsolete.

[Condottiere 40K]

Africa is a growth market for armaments, though most of the regimes prefer to opt for Soviet legacy aircraft. The Swedes need to figure out ho to tailor the Gripen to that environment.