Cue for briefings, or a major rebellion? Can't think of an occasion when I Labour leader was so isolated by his own side.
Wonder what his spin doctors get paid for? Was Dianne too busy on those Christmas cards again even to sit there? I so so wish Thick of It was still on, can you imagine Mr McSweary's react to see that photo, it would be priceless.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
I think that at the time the two carriers were ordered certain other assumptions were made about the number of escorts and submarines that would be provided. Twelve Type 45s ith a few re-built T23s, or even half a dozen Leander class.
and yet Mr L has there been a war in the last 100 years where we;ve stumbled in to it with all the right equipment ? Possibly Gulf 1 where we had a cold war bonanza to blow, after that I;m stuck. And if it applies to us it applies to the other side as well. It's all about what we do with what we've got.
WW2. We didn't have enough of it but overall we had the best equipped armed forces in Europe.
Anyway, I am going to spend the rest of the evening in the XIVth century. The aftermath of the Black Death awaits. Play nicely, all.
Nah, our tanks were total crap. We only matched the Germans in 1945, by which time it was all over, Oddly if you'd said that about WW1 I might have agreed.
In 1940 most German tanks were armed with machine guns. They did have Stukas of course and the organisation to use their mobile forces.
Only the Panzer 1s were armed with machine guns and they were in a minority in 1940. Fast forward to 1943 and the brits had nothing eqivalent to the Panther or Tiger. Only the Centurion introduced in 1945 could hold its own. Pretty much the same for the yanks.
It also depends on whether we're talking of SRBM, IRBM or ICBM, and whether there are associated glide-flight bodies.
But to hit a carrier with a non-nuclear payload, you're talking about higher accuracy than the CEP of a few hundred metres of many ballistic missile systems. It's non-trivial.
As for taking them out: I think you need to read up more on the technology. The best time to get them would be during the boost phase anyway.
Surely if we are talking about a carriers ability to defend itself then this is purely about the carriers ability to detect, target and destroy a ballistic missile. Which is quite limited and may not be effective.
The boost phase is well outwith the capability of a carrier to defend itself.
You should read up on some naval architecture - D.K. Brown for example. His series on the development of the RN from HMS Warrior to the present day is *the* work for those who are interested in this stuff.
(snip interesting stuff)
Thanks for that. We got married on HMS Warrior, and I'm on the lookout for books mentioning it. Would you recommend 'Warrior to Dreadnought' ?
"Why ban dual passports? Are you saying that somone who has an Irish and a UK passport has to choose? What would that achieve?
That just seems like another version of Tebbit's absurd "cricket test" which would not even affect or impact the major risk we face at the moment."
It seems to me that a lot hinges on nationality. William Joyce was executed for treason despite there being a very good case that he was Irish.
Now that questions of divided loyalty are being flung daily at Muslims (among others) and the wealthy can effectively buy a passport for any country that promises them even greater riches I see nothing Tebbit like about asking passport holders to choose.
There is also the strange anomaly that a British Jew can simultaneously belong to the Israeli defense force and the British army which surely can't be healthy.
A lot of countries ban multiple citizenship, including the Netherlands. It would be quite reasonable to require a citizen to declare for one or other country from age 18 or over.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
The carrier aset should be seen as part of our contribution to NATO and other NATO navies will contibute to its active service. Hence of course all the combined NATO exercises we read about. If we use ourbnave for non NATO purposes then other navise will take over our specific commitment.
Well let's take a historically important naval military like Denmark.
They currently field a total of ZERO ships which would be capable of providing Carrier defense. They have three air defense Frigates which might at a push be used as cover for missing DDGs but would be vastle inferior to a real air defense capital ship.
Most small NATO powers base their navies around their own practical needs.
The UK is the muggins wasting billions on boats that serve no practical purpose to her own defense.
Built in Scotland by a Scottish PM!
In a major shooting war with Russia or similar no fleet would be safe for long. Neither ours nor theirs.
The major use of these supercarriers is as floating expeditionary platforms, such as the way the frogs are using theirs against Daesh.
Indeed. Or look at the way the US were able to use their carriers in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Sitting offshore providing critical search and rescue, communications and hospital facilities for disaster relief.
Which is the sort of role an Albion Class boat can do for £200m a pop and much lower running costs.
Regarding the graph from Number Cruncher that compared sympathy for Muslims fighting in Syria between British muslims and other Brits, I am simply flabbergasted that no one on here thought the fact it compared
Non Muslim attitudes before Tunisia, Sharm & Paris
to
Muslim attitudes in the aftermath of the latest terrorism
...made it utter nonsense
If you were aiming to promote a narrative that "British muslims aren't as bad as you might think" etc etc, surely the way to do that, using this data, is to point out that 28% were sympathetic in March, and only 20% are now
Using the non Muslim response from March, without knowing what it is now, is beyond stupid
March was in the aftermath of Paris as well as plenty of other events and news.
Cue for briefings, or a major rebellion? Can't think of an occasion when I Labour leader was so isolated by his own side.
Wonder what his spin doctors get paid for? Was Dianne too busy on those Christmas cards again even to sit there? I so so wish Thick of It was still on, can you imagine Mr McSweary's react to see that photo, it would be priceless.
Milne must be worth every penny. The Guardian must be laughing at Labour for taking the fool on.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
The carrier aset should be seen as part of our contribution to NATO and other NATO navies will contibute to its active service. Hence of course all the combined NATO exercises we read about. If we use ourbnave for non NATO purposes then other navise will take over our specific commitment.
Well let's take a historically important naval military like Denmark.
They currently field a total of ZERO ships which would be capable of providing Carrier defense. They have three air defense Frigates which might at a push be used as cover for missing DDGs but would be vastle inferior to a real air defense capital ship.
Most small NATO powers base their navies around their own practical needs.
The UK is the muggins wasting billions on boats that serve no practical purpose to her own defense.
Built in Scotland by a Scottish PM!
In a major shooting war with Russia or similar no fleet would be safe for long. Neither ours nor theirs.
The major use of these supercarriers is as floating expeditionary platforms, such as the way the frogs are using theirs against Daesh.
Indeed. Or look at the way the US were able to use their carriers in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Sitting offshore providing critical search and rescue, communications and hospital facilities for disaster relief.
Which is the sort of role an Albion Class boat can do for £200m a pop and much lower running costs.
yes but if the Faroe Islands started pushing their weight around, could it survive a ballistic missile ?
OT Anyone watched The Leftovers? A show from S2 is getting some great reviews.
Yes - it's by far and away the best thing on TV at the moment. Fabulously emotionally manipulative. Very high up my all time list. Hope it gets the awards it deserves so HBO keep it going.
No.
The Leftovers is by Damon "Lost" Lindelof. He has even given interviews where he's said that not a single question raised in the series will ever be answered. Not just the big question over the Disappeared but ANY question.
Which is why Season One ended with absolutely nothing answered (the Dogs, the National Geographic, the Sleepwalking, the White Shirts, etc, etc, etc) and Season Two did nothing but move the location (thus making it impossible to answer some questions) and add more.
While all the Season One questions remain up in the air.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
I think that at the time the two carriers were ordered certain other assumptions were made about the number of escorts and submarines that would be provided. Twelve Type 45s ith a few re-built T23s, or even half a dozen Leander class.
and yet Mr L has there been a war in the last 100 years where we;ve stumbled in to it with all the right equipment ? Possibly Gulf 1 where we had a cold war bonanza to blow, after that I;m stuck. And if it applies to us it applies to the other side as well. It's all about what we do with what we've got.
WW2. We didn't have enough of it but overall we had the best equipped armed forces in Europe.
Anyway, I am going to spend the rest of the evening in the XIVth century. The aftermath of the Black Death awaits. Play nicely, all.
Nah, our tanks were total crap. We only matched the Germans in 1945, by which time it was all over, Oddly if you'd said that about WW1 I might have agreed.
In 1940 most German tanks were armed with machine guns. They did have Stukas of course and the organisation to use their mobile forces.
Only the Panzer 1s were armed with machine guns and they were in a minority in 1940. Fast forward to 1943 and the brits had nothing eqivalent to the Panther or Tiger. Only the Centurion introduced in 1945 could hold its own. Pretty much the same for the yanks.
What the Americans had were the Detroit production lines.
It also depends on whether we're talking of SRBM, IRBM or ICBM, and whether there are associated glide-flight bodies.
But to hit a carrier with a non-nuclear payload, you're talking about higher accuracy than the CEP of a few hundred metres of many ballistic missile systems. It's non-trivial.
As for taking them out: I think you need to read up more on the technology. The best time to get them would be during the boost phase anyway.
Surely if we are talking about a carriers ability to defend itself then this is purely about the carriers ability to detect, target and destroy a ballistic missile. Which is quite limited and may not be effective.
The boost phase is well outwith the capability of a carrier to defend itself.
You should read up on some naval architecture - D.K. Brown for example. His series on the development of the RN from HMS Warrior to the present day is *the* work for those who are interested in this stuff.
(snip interesting stuff)
Thanks for that. We got married on HMS Warrior, and I'm on the lookout for books mentioning it. Would you recommend 'Warrior to Dreadnought' ?
Yes - some say it is his best book. They need to get the whole lot into re-print. There is actually more about Warrior in the book "Before the Ironclad" but that is very hard to find.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
I think that at the time the two carriers were ordered certain other assumptions were made about the number of escorts and submarines that would be provided. Twelve Type 45s ith a few re-built T23s, or even half a dozen Leander class.
and yet Mr L has there been a war in the last 100 years where we;ve stumbled in to it with all the right equipment ? Possibly Gulf 1 where we had a cold war bonanza to blow, after that I;m stuck. And if it applies to us it applies to the other side as well. It's all about what we do with what we've got.
WW2. We didn't have enough of it but overall we had the best equipped armed forces in Europe.
Anyway, I am going to spend the rest of the evening in the XIVth century. The aftermath of the Black Death awaits. Play nicely, all.
Nah, our tanks were total crap. We only matched the Germans in 1945, by which time it was all over, Oddly if you'd said that about WW1 I might have agreed.
In 1940 most German tanks were armed with machine guns. They did have Stukas of course and the organisation to use their mobile forces.
Only the Panzer 1s were armed with machine guns and they were in a minority in 1940. Fast forward to 1943 and the brits had nothing eqivalent to the Panther or Tiger. Only the Centurion introduced in 1945 could hold its own. Pretty much the same for the yanks.
The german panzer 2 had a 20mm main weapon, and the panzer 3 a 37mm, so not very different to the 2 pounder on our infantry tanks in 1940. The major difference was in doctrine and combined arms co-ordination.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
I think that at the time the two carriers were ordered certain other assumptions were made about the number of escorts and submarines that would be provided. Twelve Type 45s ith a few re-built T23s, or even half a dozen Leander class.
and yet Mr L has there been a war in the last 100 years where we;ve stumbled in to it with all the right equipment ? Possibly Gulf 1 where we had a cold war bonanza to blow, after that I;m stuck. And if it applies to us it applies to the other side as well. It's all about what we do with what we've got.
WW2. We didn't have enough of it but overall we had the best equipped armed forces in Europe.
Anyway, I am going to spend the rest of the evening in the XIVth century. The aftermath of the Black Death awaits. Play nicely, all.
Nah, our tanks were total crap. We only matched the Germans in 1945, by which time it was all over, Oddly if you'd said that about WW1 I might have agreed.
In 1940 most German tanks were armed with machine guns. They did have Stukas of course and the organisation to use their mobile forces.
Only the Panzer 1s were armed with machine guns and they were in a minority in 1940. Fast forward to 1943 and the brits had nothing eqivalent to the Panther or Tiger. Only the Centurion introduced in 1945 could hold its own. Pretty much the same for the yanks.
What the Americans had were the Detroit production lines.
"A secret British cell of Islamist women is brainwashing young female Muslims in the UK and encouraging them to join Isil, an undercover investigation has revealed."
The RN was only gonna get 8 dedicated ASW vessels as that's the number of 2087 sets we are buying. The rest - as with the T23 - GP (and we do not know what a 'light - frigate will look like in 2025). [Hopefully a modern T22 BIII. ]
Steam cats are a non-starter for a navy that switched to COGAG decades ago. 'Leccy was the only way to power a cat-set (but even the Septics are struggling).
:now-play-fantasy-fleets-nicely:
The towed array sonar already exists, they are on the type 23 being replaced.They will be transferred, I'm guessing. The general purpose T26s are the ones probably not being ordered and will be covered by some new smaller ship. Bear in mind these T26s are 6500 tonnes, light cruisers really, so it should not be difficult to build a capable frigate a bit smaller. It's because of the need for steam (I hate to sound like that chap on the shopping channel) that we should have gone for nuclear propulsion with the carriers.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
I think that at the time the two carriers were ordered certain other assumptions were made about the number of escorts and submarines that would be provided. Twelve Type 45s ith a few re-built T23s, or even half a dozen Leander class.
and yet Mr L has theas well. It's all about what we do with what we've got.
WW2. We didn't have enough of it but overall we had the best equipped armed forces in Europe.
Anyway, I am going to spend the rest of the evening in the XIVth century. The aftermath of the Black Death awaits. Play nicely, all.
Nah, our tanks were total crap. We only matched the Germans in 1945, by which time it was all over, Oddly if you'd said that about WW1 I might have agreed.
In 1940 most German tanks were armed with machine guns. They did have Stukas of course and the organisation to use their mobile forces.
Only the Panzer 1s were armed with machine guns and they were in a minority in 1940. Fast forward to 1943 and the brits had nothing eqivalent to the Panther or Tiger. Only the Centurion introduced in 1945 could hold its own. Pretty much the same for the yanks.
The german panzer 2 had a 20mm main weapon, and the panzer 3 a 37mm, so not very different to the 2 pounder on our infantry tanks in 1940. The major difference was in doctrine and combined arms co-ordination.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
bizarrely we even sent some of our own crappy tanks to equip the Red Army. They didn't perform well on the Eastern Front needless to say.
You should read up on some naval architecture - D.K. Brown for example. His series on the development of the RN from HMS Warrior to the present day is *the* work for those who are interested in this stuff.
Since carriers were invented people have been trying to stuff anti-aircraft weapons and anti-surface weapons on them. Hence the comic look of the original HMS Hermes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hermes_(95)
The giant lump on the top of the mast is the gunnery control position. The Americans tried it. The UK kept on trying with the guns on the original Invincibles. The Russians actually contemplated firing their giant anti ship missiles from silos in the flight deck of one of their designs... The waste of space radar on the USS Enterprise was the last gasp of this in Western designs.
All a waste of time. It is always simpler to mount the radar and weapons on the escort ships. The Type 45 was designed with this in mind. The radar was deigned to have a full spectrum capability for tracking targets from supersonic sea skimmers to ballistic missiles. Given that the much older Aegis system can do this, it is not surprising that PAAMS/SAMPSON can.
You can't get such a system onto a ship muck smaller than a Type 45 - the radar is heavy, and demands alot of power. But, what you get for that is a 120km "dome" - enter that zone and your probability of survival goes down very rapidly as you approach the ship.
You mentioned the Chinese anti-carrier ballistic missile. Did you know that the much older Aegis ships regularly shoot down ballistic targets? - as well as supersonic sea skimmers. It is actually part of the their qualification (as a ship & crew) of being ready for deployment. HMS Daring has been undergoing trials on the US ballistic missile defense range in the Pacific, and the ASTER missile does have ABM capability
As to the numbers of F-35 being bought - the new carriers can carry up to 35 fixed wing aircraft in the hangers, with a surge capability (deck park) up to 50. 138 planes would be a full surge for both, plus attrition air frames.
Interesting stuff, I didn't realise that weight was still such an issue for the arrays on modern ships.
But this also goes back to my original point. Carriers require significant compliments of Capital ships or they are going to get sunk.
But also remember that the QE class has a 280m length and 70m beam. The bigger the carrier, the bigger the target. Even at a 50% CEP over 200m, you don't need that many Ballistic Missiles which cannot be stopped to guarantee a hit.
Out of interest, isn't it very likely the Chinese and Russians will be able to paint the target with satellites making the circular error much, much lower?
''Paint the target with satellites' ? Do you mean locate, or are you saying the satellites 'beam' down some form of laser onto the target?
If so, no. A major part of the problem with ballistic missiles comes from high-altitude winds. Not as much for modern designs with lower drag coefficients, but significant nonetheless.
I'm not sure you quite realise the complexities of what you're saying. Manoeuvring a hypersonic vehicle is non-trivial. The only experience of it is really the Shuttle / Buran (*), and that was a fairly special case. And if it goes slower, it is easier to hit.
There is a long and illustrious history of countries claiming their weapons have near-magical capabilities. It looks good domestically, and forces the opposition to waste money trying to develop countermeasures. After all, that's one of the things that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union.
I'm not saying the Chinese and Russians have not, and could not, develop such technology - they have some incredibly clever engineers. It's just that the complexities in such a system are fairly immense. Temperature management alone is a major issue. True, the problems are not as immense as they would be for a powered hypersonic vehicle, most of which have been utter failures (e.g. HTV-2)
(*) We're talking about speeds twice what the X-15 achieved.
Suggest you look at the AMaRV program. The net result was that, yes, you can maneuver a rentry vehicle. All you need to do is fill the entire vehicle with the maneuvering system - it takes quite alot of force to change direction at Mach 20. Not having any spcae left to carry Mr Bang is somewhat annoying, though.
Because of the physics of the intercept, a missle flying from the target of the maneuvering reentry weapons can maneuver much more easily than the warhead. There is a reason that the Americans studied the concept and put it back on the shelf - no advantage.
It also depends on whether we're talking of SRBM, IRBM or ICBM, and whether there are associated glide-flight bodies.
But to hit a carrier with a non-nuclear payload, you're talking about higher accuracy than the CEP of a few hundred metres of many ballistic missile systems. It's non-trivial.
As for taking them out: I think you need to read up more on the technology. The best time to get them would be during the boost phase anyway.
Surely if we are talking about a carriers ability to defend itself then this is purely about the carriers ability to detect, target and destroy a ballistic missile. Which is quite limited and may not be effective.
The boost phase is well outwith the capability of a carrier to defend itself.
You should read up on some naval architecture - D.K. Brown for example. His series on the development of the RN from HMS Warrior to the present day is *the* work for those who are interested in this stuff.
(snip interesting stuff)
Thanks for that. We got married on HMS Warrior, and I'm on the lookout for books mentioning it. Would you recommend 'Warrior to Dreadnought' ?
Yes - some say it is his best book. They need to get the whole lot into re-print. There is actually more about Warrior in the book "Before the Ironclad" but that is very hard to find.
Thanks. Time to get myself an early Christmas present or two.
OT Anyone watched The Leftovers? A show from S2 is getting some great reviews.
Yes - it's by far and away the best thing on TV at the moment. Fabulously emotionally manipulative. Very high up my all time list. Hope it gets the awards it deserves so HBO keep it going.
No.
The Leftovers is by Damon "Lost" Lindelof. He has even given interviews where he's said that not a single question raised in the series will ever be answered. Not just the big question over the Disappeared but ANY question.
Which is why Season One ended with absolutely nothing answered (the Dogs, the National Geographic, the Sleepwalking, the White Shirts, etc, etc, etc) and Season Two did nothing but move the location (thus making it impossible to answer some questions) and add more.
While all the Season One questions remain up in the air.
It is Lindelof. Do not give the bastard a chance.
I adored Lost, crappy finale though it had, I thought it one of the best shows ever, so I give Lindelof chances. I didn't know he was behind The Leftovers though, which I thought was utter garbage.
Although speaking of other Lost alumni, Once Upon a Time is from a couple of Lost writers, and given how its timeline and characterisation is all over the place without a lick of sense, it's the guys who had to be reined in by all the rest of the staff on Lost I'd bet.
''Paint the target with satellites' ? Do you mean locate, or are you saying the satellites 'beam' down some form of laser onto the target?
If so, no. A major part of the problem with ballistic missiles comes from high-altitude winds. Not as much for modern designs with lower drag coefficients, but significant nonetheless.
I'm not sure you quite realise the complexities of what you're saying. Manoeuvring a hypersonic vehicle is non-trivial. The only experience of it is really the Shuttle / Buran (*), and that was a fairly special case. And if it goes slower, it is easier to hit.
There is a long and illustrious history of countries claiming their weapons have near-magical capabilities. It looks good domestically, and forces the opposition to waste money trying to develop countermeasures. After all, that's one of the things that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union.
I'm not saying the Chinese and Russians have not, and could not, develop such technology - they have some incredibly clever engineers. It's just that the complexities in such a system are fairly immense. Temperature management alone is a major issue. True, the problems are not as immense as they would be for a powered hypersonic vehicle, most of which have been utter failures (e.g. HTV-2)
(*) We're talking about speeds twice what the X-15 achieved.
Would the complexities be significantly harder than that of getting a human to the moon with the computing power a mere fraction of the average cellphone in everyone's pockets?
Suggest you look at the AMaRV program. The net result was that, yes, you can maneuver a rentry vehicle. All you need to do is fill the entire vehicle with the maneuvering system - it takes quite alot of force to change direction at Mach 20. Not having any spcae left to carry Mr Bang is somewhat annoying, though.
Because of the physics of the intercept, a missle flying from the target of the maneuvering reentry weapons can maneuver much more easily than the warhead. There is a reason that the Americans studied the concept and put it back on the shelf - no advantage.
Again, thanks.
I'd read some stuff on that ages ago, but I think the Chinese and Russian claims are of systems a generation or two ahead of that.
My main question is accuracy: even with steering, what is the accuracy wrt the target?
Oh, and surely kinetic energy would mean you wouldn't need much of a warhead? *If* you can hit the target, the energy of the hit alone would be immense. Not quite "Rods from God", but near.
The german panzer 2 had a 20mm main weapon, and the panzer 3 a 37mm, so not very different to the 2 pounder on our infantry tanks in 1940. The major difference was in doctrine and combined arms co-ordination.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
I was going to post the same thing myself. The T34 was clearly a Panzer beater and the other Allies were supplying the Soviets with materials and parts to manufacture them. Yet none built them. Bizarre.
I appreciate this is getting boring, but the majority of German tanks in 1940 were armed with either twin machine guns or a single 20mm cannon, both with tin foil armour. These were obsolete by any strech of the imagination. The other principal main battle tank was the Mk 3 with a 37 mm cannon. To be fair Rommel had a good Czech built tank but again with a 37mm gun. I appreciate about 'later' but the comment originally was about the start of war conditions. There were a few infantry support Mk 4s and StuG 3 self propelled guns with short barrelled 75mm gun on the Germans side which pointed to the future.
We were not brilliant either, but the French were quite well equipped.
''Paint the target with satellites' ? Do you mean locate, or are you saying the satellites 'beam' down some form of laser onto the target?
If so, no. A major part of the problem with ballistic missiles comes from high-altitude winds. Not as much for modern designs with lower drag coefficients, but significant nonetheless.
I'm not sure you quite realise the complexities of what you're saying. Manoeuvring a hypersonic vehicle is non-trivial. The only experience of it is really the Shuttle / Buran (*), and that was a fairly special case. And if it goes slower, it is easier to hit.
There is a long and illustrious history of countries claiming their weapons have near-magical capabilities. It looks good domestically, and forces the opposition to waste money trying to develop countermeasures. After all, that's one of the things that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union.
I'm not saying the Chinese and Russians have not, and could not, develop such technology - they have some incredibly clever engineers. It's just that the complexities in such a system are fairly immense. Temperature management alone is a major issue. True, the problems are not as immense as they would be for a powered hypersonic vehicle, most of which have been utter failures (e.g. HTV-2)
(*) We're talking about speeds twice what the X-15 achieved.
Would the complexities be significantly harder than that of getting a human to the moon with the computing power a mere fraction of the average cellphone in everyone's pockets?
No, especially as they're not starting from the state the US were starting from in 1961, when they had not even put a man into orbit. The Chinese and Russians have SRBMss and ICBMs, and the Russians have certainly developed Mirvs.
But the complexities are different. Like Apollo, I guess much would depend on materials science.
You should also remember the cost of the Apollo program when making that comparison.
The german panzer 2 had a 20mm main weapon, and the panzer 3 a 37mm, so not very different to the 2 pounder on our infantry tanks in 1940. The major difference was in doctrine and combined arms co-ordination.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
I was going to post the same thing myself. The T34 was clearly a Panzer beater and the other Allies were supplying the Soviets with materials and parts to manufacture them. Yet none built them. Bizarre.
Not Invented Here syndrome. With some good reasons, and some bad.
The RN was only gonna get 8 dedicated ASW vessels as that's the number of 2087 sets we are buying. The rest - as with the T23 - GP (and we do not know what a 'light - frigate will look like in 2025). [Hopefully a modern T22 BIII. ]
Steam cats are a non-starter for a navy that switched to COGAG decades ago. 'Leccy was the only way to power a cat-set (but even the Septics are struggling).
:now-play-fantasy-fleets-nicely:
The towed array sonar already exists, they are on the type 23 being replaced.They will be transferred, I'm guessing. The general purpose T26s are the ones probably not being ordered and will be covered by some new smaller ship. Bear in mind these T26s are 6500 tonnes, light cruisers really, so it should not be difficult to build a capable frigate a bit smaller. It's because of the need for steam (I hate to sound like that chap on the shopping channel) that we should have gone for nuclear propulsion with the carriers.
A Type 23 is 4900 tonnes and is a Frigate not a light Frigate.
The Offshore Patrol River 2 will be 2000 tonnes. The current MPV Jura is 2200 tonnes without arms or helicopter deck.
That's a fairly narrow gap for the "Light Frigates" to fill. It is not hard to assume we are looking at bulked up River 2 which effectively removes the boats as being considered Capital Ships.
The german panzer 2 had a 20mm main weapon, and the panzer 3 a 37mm, so not very different to the 2 pounder on our infantry tanks in 1940. The major difference was in doctrine and combined arms co-ordination.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
I was going to post the same thing myself. The T34 was clearly a Panzer beater and the other Allies were supplying the Soviets with materials and parts to manufacture them. Yet none built them. Bizarre.
The whole point of the Arctic convoys was to sent them equipment, not to steal their much needed tanks. We actually sent them our tanks, Valentines I think.
OT Anyone watched The Leftovers? A show from S2 is getting some great reviews.
Yes - it's by far and away the best thing on TV at the moment. Fabulously emotionally manipulative. Very high up my all time list. Hope it gets the awards it deserves so HBO keep it going.
No.
The Leftovers is by Damon "Lost" Lindelof. He has even given interviews where he's said that not a single question raised in the series will ever be answered. Not just the big question over the Disappeared but ANY question.
Which is why Season One ended with absolutely nothing answered (the Dogs, the National Geographic, the Sleepwalking, the White Shirts, etc, etc, etc) and Season Two did nothing but move the location (thus making it impossible to answer some questions) and add more.
While all the Season One questions remain up in the air.
It is Lindelof. Do not give the bastard a chance.
If you don't get what the show is about and feel upset at the lack of trite answers to irrelevant questions then it will definitely leave you disappointed.
The 2nd series is getting rave reviews precisely because of the ambiguous setup leaving far more interesting possibilities than just spending 10 hours giving some stupid explanation of a rapture that ends up pissing off atheists or theists or both.
The german panzer 2 had a 20mm main weapon, and the panzer 3 a 37mm, so not very different to the 2 pounder on our infantry tanks in 1940. The major difference was in doctrine and combined arms co-ordination.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
I was going to post the same thing myself. The T34 was clearly a Panzer beater and the other Allies were supplying the Soviets with materials and parts to manufacture them. Yet none built them. Bizarre.
The whole point of the Arctic convoys was to sent them equipment, not to steal their much needed tanks. We actually sent them our tanks, Valentines I think.
Which the Russians liked. In fact they rather liked the Shermans the Americans sent them. Unlike the T34, you could actually drive it for a couple of hundred miles without it breaking down.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
The carrier aset should be seen as part of our contribution to NATO and other NATO navies will contibute to its active service. Hence of course all the combined NATO exercises we read about. If we use ourbnave for non NATO purposes then other navise will take over our specific commitment.
Well let's take a historically important naval military like Denmark.
They currently field a total of ZERO ships which would be capable of providing Carrier defense. They have three air defense Frigates which might at a push be used as cover for missing DDGs but would be vastle inferior to a real air defense capital ship.
Most small NATO powers base their navies around their own practical needs.
The UK is the muggins wasting billions on boats that serve no practical purpose to her own defense.
Built in Scotland by a Scottish PM!
In a major shooting war with Russia or similar no fleet would be safe for long. Neither ours nor theirs.
The major use of these supercarriers is as floating expeditionary platforms, such as the way the frogs are using theirs against Daesh.
Indeed. Or look at the way the US were able to use their carriers in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Sitting offshore providing critical search and rescue, communications and hospital facilities for disaster relief.
Which is the sort of role an Albion Class boat can do for £200m a pop and much lower running costs.
It is a matter of scale. The carrier and the landing ship the US put off Aceh at the start of the relief operation between them provided 46 helicopters. An Albion Class ship can carry 2 - but only on the landing pads as they have no hangers.
Suggest you look at the AMaRV program. The net result was that, yes, you can maneuver a rentry vehicle. All you need to do is fill the entire vehicle with the maneuvering system - it takes quite alot of force to change direction at Mach 20. Not having any spcae left to carry Mr Bang is somewhat annoying, though.
Because of the physics of the intercept, a missle flying from the target of the maneuvering reentry weapons can maneuver much more easily than the warhead. There is a reason that the Americans studied the concept and put it back on the shelf - no advantage.
How much explosive potential would a Ballistic Missile really need given its Kinetic Energy if it could accurately hit a target carrier. Remembering that just hitting the flight deck without any detonaation would put it out of effective action.
''Paint the target with satellites' ? Do you mean locate, or are you saying the satellites 'beam' down some form of laser onto the target?
If so, no. A major part of the problem with ballistic missiles comes from high-altitude winds. Not as much for modern designs with lower drag coefficients, but significant nonetheless.
I'm not sure you quite realise the complexities of what you're saying. Manoeuvring a hypersonic vehicle is non-trivial. The only experience of it is really the Shuttle / Buran (*), and that was a fairly special case. And if it goes slower, it is easier to hit.
There is a long and illustrious history of countries claiming their weapons have near-magical capabilities. It looks good domestically, and forces the opposition to waste money trying to develop countermeasures. After all, that's one of the things that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union.
I'm not saying the Chinese and Russians have not, and could not, develop such technology - they have some incredibly clever engineers. It's just that the complexities in such a system are fairly immense. Temperature management alone is a major issue. True, the problems are not as immense as they would be for a powered hypersonic vehicle, most of which have been utter failures (e.g. HTV-2)
(*) We're talking about speeds twice what the X-15 achieved.
Would the complexities be significantly harder than that of getting a human to the moon with the computing power a mere fraction of the average cellphone in everyone's pockets?
Three straw men... The moon shots were manned and had the long recognised certainties of the laws of gravity on the side.
The german panzer 2 had a 20mm main weapon, and the panzer 3 a 37mm, so not very different to the 2 pounder on our infantry tanks in 1940. The major difference was in doctrine and combined arms co-ordination.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
I was going to post the same thing myself. The T34 was clearly a Panzer beater and the other Allies were supplying the Soviets with materials and parts to manufacture them. Yet none built them. Bizarre.
The whole point of the Arctic convoys was to sent them equipment, not to steal their much needed tanks. We actually sent them our tanks, Valentines I think.
We sent them Matildas, Valentines and Churchills. Hurricanes played a minor, but important, role in the defence of Moscow. Soviet tanks were generally poor in terms of command capability (small turrets, few radios). They got a heck of a lot better after '42.
Suggest you look at the AMaRV program. The net result was that, yes, you can maneuver a rentry vehicle. All you need to do is fill the entire vehicle with the maneuvering system - it takes quite alot of force to change direction at Mach 20. Not having any spcae left to carry Mr Bang is somewhat annoying, though.
Because of the physics of the intercept, a missle flying from the target of the maneuvering reentry weapons can maneuver much more easily than the warhead. There is a reason that the Americans studied the concept and put it back on the shelf - no advantage.
How much explosive potential would a Ballistic Missile really need given its Kinetic Energy if it could accurately hit a target carrier. Remembering that just hitting the flight deck without any detonaation would put it out of effective action.
The problem is that to hit it, you have to actually go to it. And no, you aren't going to do 90 degree turns at mach 10 in lower atmosphere. Which means that the Aegis Cruiser/Type 45 next to your carrier has intercepted you in mesosphere. It's a choice - travel fast and have little maneuverability. Travel slow and be an easier target.
And no, if the the vehicle is disrupted, it won't hit where it was going. At these energies the intercept is pretty much an annihilation - you end up with a shower of very small debris that decelerates in the denser air to almost nothing. Ironically the less dense parts of your missle survive better than the warhead. But a fuel tank will spin away from the target and hit the water at 100 mph at best.
The german panzer 2 had a 20mm main weapon, and the panzer 3 a 37mm, so not very different to the 2 pounder on our infantry tanks in 1940. The major difference was in doctrine and combined arms co-ordination.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
I was going to post the same thing myself. The T34 was clearly a Panzer beater and the other Allies were supplying the Soviets with materials and parts to manufacture them. Yet none built them. Bizarre.
The whole point of the Arctic convoys was to sent them equipment, not to steal their much needed tanks. We actually sent them our tanks, Valentines I think.
We sent them Matildas, Valentines and Churchills. Hurricanes played a minor, but important, role in the defence of Moscow. Soviet tanks were generally poor in terms of command capability (small turrets, few radios). They got a heck of a lot better after '42.
Yes. The soviets were good designers. And they recognised the benefits of Christie suspension. But they needed all the equipment they could get.
@Dair - I'm not an expert but the simulations I've seen from the carrier alliance show a carrier group consisting of carrier + type 45 + type 26 + astute attack sub + RFA supply ship.
I expect in reality that would be augmented by additional escorts from allies or requisitions if necessary.
However, I do agree with you the order of only 8 x type 26s is too light. It could easily end up pushing up the per unit cost to justify the R&D and not save much over the original x 13.
FWIW, for a balanced navy, I think we need around 8 x type 45 destroyers and 14-16 x frigates. Not that we will ever get that many. Our sub numbers are probably about right.
I think that at the time the two carriers were ordered certain other assumptions were made about the number of escorts and submarines that would be provided. Twelve Type 45s ith a few re-built T23s, or even half a dozen Leander class.
and yet Mr L has there been a war in the last 100 years where we;ve stumbled in to it with all the right equipment ? Possibly Gulf 1 where we had a cold war bonanza to blow, after that I;m stuck. And if it applies to us it applies to the other side as well. It's all about what we do with what we've got.
WW2. We didn't have enough of it but overall we had the best equipped armed forces in Europe.
Anyway, I am going to spend the rest of the evening in the XIVth century. The aftermath of the Black Death awaits. Play nicely, all.
Nah, our tanks were total crap. We only matched the Germans in 1945, by which time it was all over, Oddly if you'd said that about WW1 I might have agreed.
In 1940 most German tanks were armed with machine guns. They did have Stukas of course and the organisation to use their mobile forces.
Only the Panzer 1s were armed with machine guns and they were in a minority in 1940. Fast forward to 1943 and the brits had nothing eqivalent to the Panther or Tiger. Only the Centurion introduced in 1945 could hold its own. Pretty much the same for the yanks.
The Matilda was a very decent tank in the early war given that only a 88 could penetrate it's armour - it didn't get the sobriquet "Queen of the Desert" as a joke.
And the 17 pounder made any tank or tank destroyer it was fitted to a match for the opposition in the late war.
In general British and American tank reliability was streets ahead of the Germans and advanced of the Russians too.
Comments
The Leftovers is by Damon "Lost" Lindelof. He has even given interviews where he's said that not a single question raised in the series will ever be answered. Not just the big question over the Disappeared but ANY question.
Which is why Season One ended with absolutely nothing answered (the Dogs, the National Geographic, the Sleepwalking, the White Shirts, etc, etc, etc) and Season Two did nothing but move the location (thus making it impossible to answer some questions) and add more.
While all the Season One questions remain up in the air.
It is Lindelof. Do not give the bastard a chance.
By 1942 it was apparant that the T34 was a world beater. It alwas surprises me that we did not build some ourselves rather than inferior designs like the Churchill, Crusaders etc. Surely the Arctic Convoys could have brought a few back. Equipped with better gunsights and radios they would have cut through the Germans lines very smartly indeed.
It's because of the need for steam (I hate to sound like that chap on the shopping channel) that we should have gone for nuclear propulsion with the carriers.
But this also goes back to my original point. Carriers require significant compliments of Capital ships or they are going to get sunk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuverable_reentry_vehicle#/media/File:Advanced-Maneuvering-Reentr.png
Because of the physics of the intercept, a missle flying from the target of the maneuvering reentry weapons can maneuver much more easily than the warhead. There is a reason that the Americans studied the concept and put it back on the shelf - no advantage.
Although speaking of other Lost alumni, Once Upon a Time is from a couple of Lost writers, and given how its timeline and characterisation is all over the place without a lick of sense, it's the guys who had to be reined in by all the rest of the staff on Lost I'd bet.
I'd read some stuff on that ages ago, but I think the Chinese and Russian claims are of systems a generation or two ahead of that.
My main question is accuracy: even with steering, what is the accuracy wrt the target?
Oh, and surely kinetic energy would mean you wouldn't need much of a warhead? *If* you can hit the target, the energy of the hit alone would be immense. Not quite "Rods from God", but near.
I appreciate about 'later' but the comment originally was about the start of war conditions. There were a few infantry support Mk 4s and StuG 3 self propelled guns with short barrelled 75mm gun on the Germans side which pointed to the future.
We were not brilliant either, but the French were quite well equipped.
But the complexities are different. Like Apollo, I guess much would depend on materials science.
You should also remember the cost of the Apollo program when making that comparison.
The Offshore Patrol River 2 will be 2000 tonnes. The current MPV Jura is 2200 tonnes without arms or helicopter deck.
That's a fairly narrow gap for the "Light Frigates" to fill. It is not hard to assume we are looking at bulked up River 2 which effectively removes the boats as being considered Capital Ships.
If you don't get what the show is about and feel upset at the lack of trite answers to irrelevant questions then it will definitely leave you disappointed.
The 2nd series is getting rave reviews precisely because of the ambiguous setup leaving far more interesting possibilities than just spending 10 hours giving some stupid explanation of a rapture that ends up pissing off atheists or theists or both.
The moon shots were manned and had the long recognised certainties of the laws of gravity on the side.
And no, if the the vehicle is disrupted, it won't hit where it was going. At these energies the intercept is pretty much an annihilation - you end up with a shower of very small debris that decelerates in the denser air to almost nothing. Ironically the less dense parts of your missle survive better than the warhead. But a fuel tank will spin away from the target and hit the water at 100 mph at best.
And the 17 pounder made any tank or tank destroyer it was fitted to a match for the opposition in the late war.
In general British and American tank reliability was streets ahead of the Germans and advanced of the Russians too.