Sunday 9 September 2007

Waste of Money - or Bear Necessity?

The RAF's new Typhoon fighter has received its share of criticism as being a weapon designed for a Cold War that no longer exists - or, less kindly, as an expensive toy for Air Marshals wanting to get their rocks off.

Truth be told, even the Air Marshals were beginning to wonder whether they'd backed the wrong horse.
To impress Tony Blair when the Defence Budget came around, you needed to be seen to be pointing in the direction he favoured. And so, in last year's official RAF Strategy 2006 document, the priority was to 'develop expeditionary airpower', which means supporting the Army in far-flung operations, for which the Typhoon is not at all ideally suited.

And then along comes our old friend the Fighting Bear - no, not Sackerson, but the Tu95. And not just in ones or twos, but now trying its luck in wings of eight at a time over the North Atlantic.
Not much of a threat ? Don't laugh: the Tu95 is no older than the B52 - both perfectly serviceable airframes into which modern avionics and missiles can be loaded.

And that's how quickly events move on in the real world. Trouble is, though Russia can turn stroppy overnight, new aircraft programmes take, ooh, around 20 years. Maybe not such a bad investment after all.

(Which doesn't excuse the aircraft carriers, though !)


ND

20 comments:

James Higham said...

This is just a bit of sabre rattling on our part, to prove we're still relevant, coming up to Gosduma elections which are pretty vital over here.

hatfield girl said...

'Which doesn't excuse the aircraft carriers..'

What aircraft will they carry in 2014 or whenever they are actually welded together if the bits are ever built? The American aircraft that need advance orders so they can gain government funding and then get started on the drawing board? Or is our valiant Leader going to restart the British aircraft industry as well as dragging ship building from its grave?

Nick Drew said...

Welcome to Capitalist Corner, HG

The aircraft carriers are a bit of a puzzle. If we need anything on that scale at all (and we never have), how come we can wait until 20xx? We'd easily be able to lease one from Uncle Sam if there was an ongoing need.

Also, the old Polaris / Trident logic is that a minimum of 4 were required to be sure of having one on station at any given time. That was probably a bit conservative: say 3.

So what is 2 all about then ?

And if 'expeditionary airpower' is the name of the game, you can comfortably make do with vessels one quarter the size (of which we could have several, with the same or even greater 'benefits' for British industry).

Finally, you don't need carriers at all to launch strikes against L'Ennemi Traditional !

It adds up to Admirals getting their rocks off !

So what do the Generals get then, eh ?

Steven_L said...

There are some interesting military forums around where you can read what the guys on the ground have to say.

Obviously the infantry see it as a bit of a white elephant and the air-force love it to pieces.

It makes me proud to be British and soon (fingers crossed) we will have our sticky fingers on the F-35.

Blair's biggest failure was failing to secure a few F-22 Raptors from the yanks for all thses wars we are fighting for them.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Agreed. We need a bit of insurance.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, it seems that our military's continuing obsession with the threat from Russia was well-founded. Putin is increasingly going off his rocker. He is bumping off his own citizens at a rate of knots, even those that have defected to other countries long ago. I should imagine that the Typhoon is a good aircraft for the purposes of shadowing Bears. Of course, at the present time you can't expect the government to actually spell things out: The Cold War is back with a vengeance.

There are some that say that the Russians are quietly giving the Arabs nuclear weapons technology in order to start a nuclear attack on the West by proxy. In which case you can see why the US is keen to take Iran out fo the picture....

Newmania said...

Why not just give up on this world power thing and have a coastal defence ?

Newmania said...

PS just read the last few days, an inetresting assortment and I See even I get a mention.

Old BE said...

Can't we get some of those high quality carriers off the French? You know, the ones that were built too short to save money.

Anonymous said...

Those horrible russian planes are a dnager to their pilots and crew more than to anyone on the ground - unless they drop on them of course.. There was said to 8 which are flight worthy after canibalising maybe 200 of them...

Stan Bull said...

NuLabour neither understands or particularly feels there is much importance in defence infrastructure and resources. In its infinite wisdom, the MoD had originally decided in 1999 that it could make savings of £90 million by not having a machine cannon in the British version of the Eurofighter.Then in 2004, the MoD decided that the cheapest option was, after all, to fit the cannon but to secure a saving of £2.5 million they would have no rounds to fire. NuLabour....you just have to love it.

Nick Drew said...

Steven, Mark, Anon - yes, I guess none of us endorse defence spending for spending's sake, but being able to shoot stuff out of our skies does seem a perennially worthwhile capability.

Anon - as regards the Bear sharing its nucs, I doubt it very much: Russia never known to share power or control in any important degree (see my several posts on Gazprom), & certainly not nucs with nutters. Also, credit where it's due,they were pretty responsible with their nucs during the Cold War. (Which doesn't rule out accidents, blunders & leakage in the current climate.)

Nick Drew said...

Mr Mania - yes, we are broad-minded and inclusive here, and will even afford a mention to worthy bronze (bronze) medal-winners.

I do think we can comfortably afford something a bit better than coastal defences, however. Even so, why should we do so ? Because you are either on the front foot or the back foot in this world.

Nick Drew said...

Ed - see undiplomatic comment on L'Ennemi Traditional above ...

Mutt - I have flown in a Tupolev and it seemed well-built to me, if a little basic in its creature comforts (the goat in the back was not at all happy). At least they have spares for them: it's the Airbuses they have bought which they don't know how to maintain.

Stan - yep, another in the catalogue of infamy, a fat volume adorned by a photo of the TSR2 on its front cover.

Anonymous said...

Nick - fair comments re. Russia's recent past. But unfortunately I think Putin could indeed be a whole new breed of nutcase of a kind right up there with Stalin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko


There are more bodies around Putin than around... well Tony Blair for one.

Still, I should be careful what I say. Putin seems a little over-sensitive to criticism and I'm not sure I want the KGB/FSB dropping Polonium in my tea.

Man in a Shed said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Man in a Shed said...

The problem is that the now aging Tornado ADV is better suited to this task. The Eurofighter may have great air to air fighting capability, but the Tornado has better range and endurance - which is what is needed to protect British airspace.

Agree on the carriers part. The US has actually stopped building careers because it is so worried about the new Russian "Sizzler" missiles that approach ships doing crazy dodging man overs at mach 3.

Their Navy's logic is - why would we want to just build new targets before we've sorted this out ?

Russia, China and Iran will all have these sub launched missiles.

So why the carriers ? Well look where they are being assembled for your answer.

Nick Drew said...

Shed-man - thanks for the (late!) input, I missed your comment first time around.

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