UK Defence Forum

Not sure if this has been posted before, first time I've seen it, RAS with HMS QE from the perspective of a Tide Class tanker:

PoW returns home to Portsmouth

HMS Warrior LIVE webcam: https://www.pscp.tv/w/1lPJqVYXdNexb?t=19





(@@SteveMo95030589) 25th March 2020





(@Laller75) 25th March 2020






(@HMNBPortsmouth) 25th March 2020


(@GrantyNUFC2020) 25th March 2020

And some videos....



(ships, planes and gaming) 25th March 2020


(STRN/PortsmouthProud) 25th March 2020

serge750 wrote:That makes me think, could we one day see a STOVL long range picket style airbourne early warning subsonic autonomous aircraft with a couple of air to air missiles, (far from the carrier doing long endurance CAP/AEW ) then use the manned F35b when the picket craft have a contact?

The Turks are looking at using a new jet powered drone to do the same (it's essentially a jet powered Bayraktar drone). You could argue that the RAF should use other aircraft to do peacetime QRA than Typhoon in a lot of circumstances, if you're sending a Voyager up anyway why not just use that to shadow a Bear instead of sending Typhoon all the time as well. A Gulfstream business jet could shadow any Russian long range aviation probing our defences and not require constant refuelling...

Long range UAV's with modern long range missiles change all this though. A Reaper style drone that could be launched from QE Class would bring a lot to the table. With a couple of Meteor onboard it wouldn't need extreme speed to get to an intercept, the range and speed would be there. As a standing 24 hr CAP it would save a lot of flying hours on the limited numbers of F-35B onboard.

Timmymagic wrote:

serge750 wrote:That makes me think, could we one day see a STOVL long range picket style airbourne early warning subsonic autonomous aircraft with a couple of air to air missiles, (far from the carrier doing long endurance CAP/AEW ) then use the manned F35b when the picket craft have a contact?

The Turks are looking at using a new jet powered drone to do the same (it's essentially a jet powered Bayraktar drone). You could argue that the RAF should use other aircraft to do peacetime QRA than Typhoon in a lot of circumstances, if you're sending a Voyager up anyway why not just use that to shadow a Bear instead of sending Typhoon all the time as well. A Gulfstream business jet could shadow any Russian long range aviation probing our defences and not require constant refuelling...

Long range UAV's with modern long range missiles change all this though. A Reaper style drone that could be launched from QE Class would bring a lot to the table. With a couple of Meteor onboard it wouldn't need extreme speed to get to an intercept, the range and speed would be there. As a standing 24 hr CAP it would save a lot of flying hours on the limited numbers of F-35B onboard.

What do we consider long range ?

Would AAR apply or be needed ?

Jake1992 wrote:What do we consider long range ?

Would AAR apply or be needed ?

Protector can stay up for 24 hours+. Dependent on payload thats at least 3,000 mile range. No need for AAR.

Timmymagic wrote:

Jake1992 wrote:What do we consider long range ?

Would AAR apply or be needed ?

Protector can stay up for 24 hours+. Dependent on payload thats at least 3,000 mile range. No need for AAR.

From what Iv seen being planned it’ll be a real struggle to get a UAV with that range and duration in a STOVL formate.
The best Iv seen so far is the planned V-247 that’s planned to have a range of 1,000nm and a duration of up to 18 hours, but some sites Iv read on it do say it’ll be AAR capable. This sort of design would give a STOVL reaper like UAV.

So how does the Protector detect oncoming threats ? why wouldnt oncoming aircraft simply destroy it or go around it as it would not have for instance the sensors like an f35b or even a Typhoon

QRA requires supersonic performance no if no buts no maybes. The aircraft being intercepted will be at height and possibly moving away from intercepting a/c’s launch point. Subsonic a/c would never catch up.

Point defence may not require supersonic performance because you know we’re the enemy is heading eg straight for you.

If you UAVs with the range and endurance specified why bother with the ship or making it stovl. Something along the lines of the kratos concept maybe a very interesting addition to naval ships.

SW1 wrote:QRA requires supersonic performance no if no buts no maybes. The aircraft being intercepted will be at height and possibly moving away from intercepting a/c’s launch point. Subsonic a/c would never catch up.

Point defence may not require supersonic performance because you know we’re the enemy is heading eg straight for you.

If you UAVs with the range and endurance specified why bother with the ship or making it stovl. Something along the lines of the kratos concept maybe a very interesting addition to naval ships.

The carriers are no bother to us Mr RAF man.

Jake1992 wrote:From what Iv seen being planned it’ll be a real struggle to get a UAV with that range and duration in a STOVL formate.

The Turks are looking to put full size UAV's on their F-35B less Andadolu Class. Lets see how that goes...

seaspear wrote:So how does the Protector detect oncoming threats ?

Stick a radar on it. Plenty have been demo'd on Reaper.

Timmymagic wrote:

Jake1992 wrote:From what Iv seen being planned it’ll be a real struggle to get a UAV with that range and duration in a STOVL formate.

The Turks are looking to put full size UAV's on their F-35B less Andadolu Class. Lets see how that goes...

seaspear wrote:So how does the Protector detect oncoming threats ?

Stick a radar on it. Plenty have been demo'd on Reaper.

It’ll be interesting to see that’s for sure but does any UAV need a range of 3,000nm or a duration of 24hrs with out AAR? That is far greater than any manned fighter.

I keep coming back to it but the plans for theV-247 seems to give a good range and duration along with potential AAR. All this in at least 3 different variants, AEW ( taking crowns nest role )
Attack ( STOVL protector )
Electronic Warfare ( giving us a similar capability to Growlers )

Jake1992 wrote:It’ll be interesting to see that’s for sure but does any UAV need a range of 3,000nm or a duration of 24hrs with out AAR? That is far greater than any manned fighter.

When you've got high lift, are efficiently cruising at 180 mph at 40,000ft with no need to carry a pilot it's very possible. The Reaper-ER (which became with other improvements the Protector RG.1) can allegedly stay aloft for 42 hours...no external stores though. Stick anything on and you're going to come close to halving that though. Remember the Protector that flew into RAF Fairford for RIAT? It flew non-stop from North Dakota..over 3,800 miles with fuel to spare.

Timmymagic wrote:

Jake1992 wrote:It’ll be interesting to see that’s for sure but does any UAV need a range of 3,000nm or a duration of 24hrs with out AAR? That is far greater than any manned fighter.

When you've got high lift, are efficiently cruising at 180 mph at 40,000ft with no need to carry a pilot it's very possible. The Reaper-ER (which became with other improvements the Protector RG.1) can allegedly stay aloft for 42 hours...no external stores though. Stick anything on and you're going to come close to halving that though. Remember the Protector that flew into RAF Fairford for RIAT? It flew non-stop from North Dakota..over 3,800 miles with fuel to spare.

Timmymagic wrote:

Jake1992 wrote:It’ll be interesting to see that’s for sure but does any UAV need a range of 3,000nm or a duration of 24hrs with out AAR? That is far greater than any manned fighter.

When you've got high lift, are efficiently cruising at 180 mph at 40,000ft with no need to carry a pilot it's very possible. The Reaper-ER (which became with other improvements the Protector RG.1) can allegedly stay aloft for 42 hours...no external stores though. Stick anything on and you're going to come close to halving that though. Remember the Protector that flew into RAF Fairford for RIAT? It flew non-stop from North Dakota..over 3,800 miles with fuel to spare.

I get that but as we’ve seen with manned air craft once you get in to the whole STOVL set up the range and duration come down. The question those wasn’t so much can it be done but is it needed, so we really need a carrier based UAV to do 3,000nm or would 1,000nm odd do the job ?

When you add addittional abilities to the U.A.V would you be thinking of a litening or sniper pod for innfra red tracking against stealthy targets certainly link16 for targetting ,I understand the U.S is in the process of adding link16 to the mq-8c unmanned helicopters
https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/us ... 18.article
but rotary aircraft have a much lower ceiling height of course and dont provide the radar range of conventional powered aircraft and aremore detectable of course

Well the lad is home and has a lot of interesting tales of being out at sea, apparently Uncle Ivan was very interested in the PWLS and was often out and about in the same area as them 'by chance'. He also came back with a lovely hardback book commemorating the Commissioning of the ship, in fact all the crew at that time got one free of charge, the book details the UK Carrier History, design, build and float out of PWLS as well as some shots of the crew at work and play. He is back on board Sunday evening for the 'forseeable' future, so not sure when we will see him again.

Not surprised phillyj uncle Ivan was around pwls and greater than usual Russian activity around UK shores ,it's the old tactics of push harder in time of crisis on a country and see if there's any cracks appearing , response times , ability etc ,and it will probably continue apace.but probably one of the safest places to be right now onboard pwls which is comforting for you and your lad ,keep safe folks and don't add to the burden

seaspear wrote:When you add addittional abilities to the U.A.V would you be thinking of a litening or sniper pod for innfra red tracking against stealthy targets

To all intents and purposes thats what any MQ-9 is carrying already.

Back to the carriers themselves now gents.

The Armchair Soldier wrote:Back to the carriers themselves now gents.

Well that stopped the chatter!

Not much to report from me here, other than both Carriers will be laid up in Pompey for the foreseeable future as expected.

I see the USN has a potential problem on one of their Carriers, albeit one not deployed, with the virus and to be honest can see this impacting a RN vessel at some point due to the closeness of crew on them.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... -multiply/

Alongside they may be, but they are most definitely not “Laid Up”!

Scimitar54 wrote:Alongside they may be, but they are most definitely not “Laid Up”!

Perhaps bad use of phrase there, but I don't know, they've had to close down the on board Gym and are practising the 2m distance rule...somehow! Do not despair though, the NAAFI is open and my lad says the mess fridge is well stocked with suitable refreshment.

A mess without the possibility of a “Wet”, is after all (regrettably) a USN mess!

I hope this discussion does not go off the thread but recent comments on U.A.V,s for the carriers suggested some with a twenty metre wingspan some nine metres greater than the f35b and not how a aircraft that size would impact deck operations nor was there any mention if such a sized uav would be able to be stowed in the lifts
The article attached from save the R.N provides some earlier concerns from 2015 on this and unless as the article suggests back then some "black" program is being developed for a stovl type craft then its still being kept in the dark
https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/unmann ... l-systems/
Another option is the use of drop tanks on the present f35b operating from the carrier to perform such tasks at a longer distance from the carrier and having a much better sensor array than any of the uav,s ,drop tanks are not cheap of course but compared to some of the uav,,s a bargain
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/2 ... good-thing

seaspear wrote:I hope this discussion does not go off the thread but recent comments on U.A.V,s for the carriers suggested some with a twenty metre wingspan some nine metres greater than the f35b and not how a aircraft that size would impact deck operations nor was there any mention if such a sized uav would be able to be stowed in the lifts

Could that be a Thales Watchkeeper? It could be easily dismantled on deck?