WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Falklands anyone? Trying to make the Harrier a CAP aircraft brought about the losses incurred. I believe the Limeys lost five ships due to the inability to keep enough of the jump-jets aloft at a sufficient range to protect the fleet.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I dig the Furious class- looks like a sister to the original Holoship sketch by Eaves.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote: Falklands anyone? Trying to make the Harrier a CAP aircraft brought about the losses incurred.
Actually, there's been a lot of debate about this issue, mostly focusing on the manner in which 800NAS was deployed off Hermes, rather than range difficulties. I know the then OC801NAS has written a book in which the use of 800NAS in a low CAP is criticised and which blames this on insufficient understanding of the Sea Harrier FRS.1's capabilities, particularly as regards the Blue Fox radar (one CAP flight was diverted to make a visual recce of a reported contact when the radar would have been sufficient). I believe Adm. Woodward has acknowleged the lack of understanding of the SHAR's capabilities among Hermes's staff officers. Also it should be noted that the SHAR was designed as a CAP aircraft from the beginning; it's not the same aircraft as the RAF's GR varients or the US AV-8 series.
In addition it should be remembered that the FAA had no AWACS at that time, further inhibiting the early detection of attack aircraft.
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Pretty much all of the grievous shortcomings highlighted by the Falklands and itemized by the body bags that need not have been filled resulted from the Royal Navy's increasing focus on becoming an almost single role anti-submarine force. Less charitable observers of the time referred to the RN as the United States Navy North Atlantis ASW fleet. The adoption of this tunnel vision NATO doctrine of focusing norther Europes naval efforts on combating the Soviet sub threat was used as a handy excuse by the politicians to cut back on capabilities which did not directly serve this doctrine. Among the losses were the planned big deck carriers to replace Ark Royal 4 and Eagle, and which should have been in comission to this day. These ships would have been around 60,000 tonnes and would have provided serious CAP and CAS capability in the Falklands, in addition to the ever vital AWACS capability which only carriers of that size are able to properly deploy.
It puts things in perspective when you consider that the Invincible class carriers were designed only as helicopter cruisers whose function was to act as an ASW escort for the carrier or to form the centre of an ASW task force attacking Soviet subs in the North Atlantic. That the RN was forced to modify them into relatively effective fixed wing carriers (and could only do this thanks to the development of the Harrier) is a prime example of how bad an idea small, single role ships really are. Generally such ships are only built under two conditions: 1. War emergency ships, as in escort construction during WWII. Almost all such ships built for that purpose were useless in peace time and were disposed off. 2. Government budget cuts. The RN's Falklands fleet contained a fair number of such ships.
Sorry for dragging it all off topic.
Registered: Jul 2006
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