UK Defence Forum

Having the Americans on board the carrier and escorting it serves two purposes, filling the gaps until 2023-24 and more importantly it will put a restraint on China's belligerent behaviour when we enter the South China Sea. If this was just a purely British effort, the level of intimidation and thr...

Japan has already developed a new air launched supersonic AShM, and they always seem to be more interested in this role than land attack, with their Self Defence moniker. For the UK the main issue will probably be whether the FCASW is integrated on the F-35B. If the weapon lives up to its billing t...

Neither are interested in JSM on F-35B's. I don't know any nation that is That's true. But the main integration cost is the weapons system integration. With UAI once this is done for F-35A it is immediately available for B and C users. A flight test campaign for carriage and release of a wing mount...

Just to clarify my understanding the JSM is too long to fit into the shorter F-35B weapons bay and will require external carriage degrading its stealth capabilities plus to be effective assume it will need Block 4 a/c with the upgraded AN/APG-81 radar capable of wide area surface search by 'big SAR...

As an aside, I haven't seen any mention of LRASM being incorporated with a box launcher for a while. Anyone know if that is still the plan now that up-arming the LCS is out of favour? There is a version of the Mk41 that is deck mounted at around 45 degrees from the vertical, in the developmental st...

Is there any suggestion of the types of missiles carried by U.A.V.s accompanying aircraft ? Not at present. Most of the proposed Loyal Wingmen haven't shown their cards on armament. The Australian Boeing one for example appears to be unarmed with the focus on ISTAR. The Kratos Valkyrie has the abil...

True but if the UK goes down the route of the triple pack for Typhoon, I think it unlikely they will not add that to F-35 as well. Time will tell. MBDA do seem to be pushing their racks. I suspect we'll go with Triples on Typhoon and Cobham BRU-61 Quad's internally in the F-35, then see if the US p...

Thanks Xav, in particular for this section... "According to official sources, the Harpoon system is due to go out of service (OSD) in December 2023. It is installed on 13 (thirteen) Type 23 frigates, 3 (three) Type 45 destroyers and 3 (three) land-based reference systems. The new support contra...

Block 4 F-35Bs with capability of carrying ASRAAM CSM, Meteor and Spear 3, only 13 a/c? My understanding of UK contracts and future buy at current time LRIP - Number lot 3 ---- 2 4 ---- 1 7 ---- 1 8 ---- 4 9 ---- 6 10 ---- 3 11 ---- 2 12 ---- 2 13 ---- 6 14 ---- 8 15 ---- 7 16 ---- 6 Total -- 48 Un...

They will carry 8 Spear 3's plus 2 Meteors internally plus more Spear 3's on underwing pylons if required. Truth is we don't know. Nothing has ever been said about external carriage of Spear. I think a lot will depend on if the US decides to attach BRU-61's on the inner and mid pylons for SDB1, SDB...

BlueD954 wrote:What is CSM?

He means CSP (Capability Sustainment Programme). Essentially its ASRAAM Mk.2. New seeker head and other improvements ported over from CAMM. Totally new production to replace the UK's stocks of legacy ASRAAM.

seaspear wrote:interesting if used by helicopters forces

Spear would need alteration to be used by helicopters. It would need a booster rocket to bring it to a speed where the jet could function.
This is also the reason why Kongsberg proposes the NSM not the JSM for helicopter use.

Thanks for your clarification. You'll struggle to get a cost for integration as there is money being spent with MBDA direct (see below). These will relate to changes to the missile to make them fit and some integration. https://defense-update.com/20170421_f35_meteor.html And then there are contract...

NickC wrote:What did surprise me if the figures correct was the high cost of integrating Spear 3 with the F-35B at £411 million.

That was the design and development costs for Spear, not integration.

Would a weapon that targets instead the radar systems like the AARGM-ER be also of use https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing ... avy%20(USN)%20recently,enemy%20radar%20and%20communications%20systems.&text=The%20warhead%20was%20also%20tested,lethality% I did note that there is the future devel...

If it takes 7 years, how about buying JSM now? JSM is in production and can be carried underwing of F35, as I understand? SPEAR3 and JSM is in different class, so they can go along with after SPEAR3 introduction. JSM MIGHT have some overlap with FCASW, but it all depends on FCASW specification. As ...

I imagine that if shit really hit the fan and there was an operational requirement for them they'd be integrated in weeks(?) Not a hope I'm afraid. Spear will only be doing guided trials over the next 2 years, and thats from Typhoon. Won't be ready for operational service until at least 2023/4. Int...

Lord Jim wrote:I wonder, could the Apache E act as a forward controller for "Loyal Wingmen" conducting CAS sorties, have the latter fly into a control zone and then have the Guardians influence/control their actions.

Thats exactly what its designed to do.

With the target tonnage range of the Sea Venom, let’s hope we only fight foes with very small ships... To be honest receiving 8 hits from Spear would put most warships out of action, won't sink them (unless fire gets them). But they're not going to be mission capable. It's not an ideal position to ...

Genuinely shocked that this wasn't already on P-8...

Hopefully the RAF will be looking to integrate our own towed decoys (of which there will soon be some spare sets from Sentinel...)

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/20 ... a-poseidon

Are the Norwegians fitting NSM to their P-8s by any chance? JSM not NSM You'd assume so, but the Australians were the ones who were driving it a number of years ago. And they've been ominously quiet recently over it, they've have ordered LRASM for their F/A-18E/F fleet in the meantime. Despite the ...

Excellent, looks like we are getting that OTS, or 'on the deal' then. MUMT definitely means control. For the US thats the MQ-1C Gray Eagle (an updated, improved Predator for the US Army). For the UK it means god knows what....seen numerous Defence figures speak about it as an advantage of Apache E,...

Not sure how I missed this....first news out of Airbus regarding Zephyr for an age. The interesting bit... - They're back in the US, not Australia where they had a new facility....no reason given - Looks like a series of short flights, focus on aircraft agility and control, lower altitude flying - P...

BlueD954 wrote:https://www.gov.uk/government/news/carr ... -milestone

Carrier strike IOC reached.

Thats massive news. Particularly with CSG21 (hopefully no issues with COVID there..). Full Operating Capability still on track for December 2023.

UK to buy Turkish Drones to complement Protector?! No. Not a chance. Plenty of UK 'drone' companies. But the easy solution will be adopting the Fury munition on Watchkeeper. Both Thales products and Fury is derived from LMM (aka Martlet). Add in the imminent arrival of Protector, the probable dusti...