UK Defence Forum

ACC Sorry to take a while to respond. A trip to watch a Prince’s homecoming intervened. We were still capable of Minesweeping after the demise of the “TON” class, as the “HUNT” class, although not minesweepers retained the ability to Sweep for some time before the gear was removed. The capability to...

SW1

We don’t have any Minesweepers and neither have we had any since the demise of the “TON” class. Not too different from saying that the RAF should give up it’s “V- Bombers”. !!!

Moved now ......... SW of IOW.

Either unwilling (or a little too slow) to support Boris as Party Leader. Alternatively bad blood between them within the last year or two. She was also awfully quiet about Brexit during her brief tenure as Secretary of State for Defence. Maybe just busy getting to grips with her brief, however? Sha...

ACC, I had a little chuckle at your post. A Water Jet of course, is neither a CPP nor an FPP. Even an "Idling Prop", if it could effectively be isolated from it's shaft would create additional drag that the remaining Propellor(s) would have to cope with. A ship not running on both (or all)...

I do know what CPP and FPP are. My last post still stands. A propellor cannot possibly be both, it is either one or the other.

And a non-turning propellor is of course a "brake" on the movement of a ship, let alone two of them. Or do you intend to send a diver or three over the side to remove the blades of the (about to be) "non-turning" propellor(s) and fit the blades to the required propellor(s) every ...

ArmChairCivvy Wrote

Anyone done the two together yet: FPP for drifting (slow speed), and bringing along CPP(s) for higher speeds?

I must have been asleep for 5 months, I did not realise it was 01 April already.

Good job spreadsheet Phil has stood down as an MP as well then. No longer will he be in a position to evaluate the cost of everything on his spreadsheet, whilst ignoring the value of those (defence) assets that were either cut, or insufficiently invested in.

If you take this stupid argument to it’s conclusion, why have the F35 or any other strike aircraft at all, “just get a bigger missile” and launch it from a ship (I mean the real thing and not an AIR ship).

I am not saying that we do not need Voyager, far from it. It is just that it does, depending on the location of the area of “Carrier Operations” have its limits. AAR from a voyager would be preferable, provided that it’s presence is possible and availability not an issue. Having options increases fl...

So you would use two (or more) of them in the AAR role, i.e. one for each F35 on the sortie.

Well it is up to all of us to make sure we do what we can to prevent "Cost Accounting" depriving the nation of the defence assets that it needs rather than Accounting for the "Value" of those same items. Sort of like buying a car and telling the Salesman that you want wheels on o...

Only four (4) x Buccaneers involved; 2 x "strike" aircraft and 2 x "tankers". Sorry CJ74, but the principle is just as valuable for today's aircraft. If you don't have onboard tanking, you are missing out on the capabilities of the assets that you do have. The reason that you hav...

Same primary reason for the RN back in the day, but AAR is refuelling nonetheless, and the example of the Belize operation shows what can be done if the need arises. By the time any Victor (Voyager) Tankers could have been arranged, the operation would have had no point, because it would have been t...

Forgot to mention; On the way back as well.

Who and what re-fuelled the 2 x Buccaneers on there way to Belize in '72 then ?

Preserves stealth and with a potential increase of up to around 40% in range/flight duration, enabling both aircraft and carrier to operate in "safer" conditions. Cheap at the price.

Onboard tankers would be better.

We must all hope then, that neither the T26 or T31 suffer any delay before becoming operational and that the required T23s can be kept operationally available until the last (batch 2) T26 & the last (batch 1) T31 are delivered.

There is also the point, that having lost the LPH (Ocean) part of the Amphibious Group, a way needs to be found (other than the strictly limited use of a QEC Carrier as a stand-in LPH) to restore the lost capability. This can only be provided by the acquisition of 2 x LHDs as the replacements for Al...

Well it is supposed to be a Stealth Jet.

Plenty of White Lightning being consumed in the Wardroom methinks.

Well with these excuses, just how well are the less than 2 years between IOC (Land) and IOC (Maritime) being used (or squandered). Only around 50% of that time remains remember.

No, I am not forgetting the “Test & Evaluation Aircraft”. However, F35b trials at this years WESTLANT were supposed to be about operational flying & maintenance of “Frontline Squadron Aircraft” on HMS Queen Elizabeth.