I see from last night's tv news that the latest "war conoe" is about to be fully operational...... do I smell an F.35C somewhere with that deck...... ?
Canberra is a LHD. F-35C is CTOL i.e. assisted by catapults and arresters. Only F-35 type the Adelaide could use that ski ramp for is the F-35B which is V/STOL. I say Adelaide (sister vessel of Canberra) because the Canberra lacks the deck coating and fuel tanks to operate VSTOL aircraft from. If AU govt wants to buy F35Bs later and project from their LHD carriers, they better make up their minds pretty smartly before the Adelaide is finished otherwise it will be an expensive retro fit for either. May already be too late. Main problem to getting Canberra to FOC is when their first (F100) AWD will be finished and the purchase of new replenishment vessel. Without those 2 ships, Canberra's footprint is restricted - even with the upgrades to their Frigates and presuming the Aussies can manage to spare one of their few operational Collins subs to protect.
I see from last night's tv news that the latest "war conoe" is about to be fully operational...... do I smell an F.35C somewhere with that deck...... ?
Suprises me, more here are so out of the loop, the Commonwealth govt has already indicated its defence white paper, is to consider the RAN/Fast Jet issue. From the RAN's point of view, this was always the plan, wisely they have "stepped" the entire project, to keep the politics doable!
Oh yeah, we kept the ski jump, because....ahhhhhh.....uhhmmmm ohh yeah, it's cheaper than removing it....apparently..yeah, that'll do......tell em that......
"The LHD is a helicopter-centric ship. Its flight deck is big, but its dock is small compared to US or UK amphibious ships, and it will normally carry only four small landing craft. But the landing-force order of battle is vehicle-centric."
The ASPI article ignores the additional load carrying abilities of HMAS Choules which I assume would operate as part of the amphibious task group, and the author has a "large navy" viewpoint. The RAN does not have the luxury of additional carriers or large amphibious assault vessels that the USN and RN have that allow a more specialised focus for their vessels. From my limited reading, it does appear that the landing craft ordered with the LHDs (LCM-1E or LLC) are of a reasonable size (1x MBT or 170 troops) , however some articles state they do not fit in the well dock of the Choules...! I don't know if this is correct as the RN operate the LCU Mk10 from their Bay Class vessels and they have a wider beam than the LLC the RAN have.
My prediction: The RAN/RAAF will operate the F-35B aboard these ships and the first refit of the Canberra will enable this capability.
www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2013/09/ship-shore-logistics-09-current-capabilities/ Is an interesting and well researched blog on UK defence issues (and they have many!), and in the article above the author looks at the amphibious ops for the UK military. As he writes "To summarise, HMS Ocean [HMAS Canberra/Adelaide] is aviation focussed, Albion/Bulwark has extensive command facilities and is assault landing craft focussed and the Bays [HMAS Choules] are logistics focussed, RFA not RN crewed.
What I also took away from his series, was the all the extra "stuff" that's required from all 3 services to do amphibious ops properly. The ADF has a ways to go before they declare combat ready for over the shore military ops.
The RAN's replenishment ships HMAS Success & Sirius have been prioritised for replacement. Success was refitted with a double-hull in 2013 that's suppose to see her last until 2020. RAN were looking at Cantabria or Berlin class designs. In the 2013 Defence White Paper, the defense ministry stated that replacement would be brought forward with either build replacement or leasing. Guess they did not want to face a scenario afloat like Canada's Navy recently. Hopefully a decision is forthcoming on those vessels smartly in 2015. The RN chose the MARS design for their Carrier group needs.
Agree with Barnsey, it will take a lot of support and investment to leverage those LHDs properly but you have to be envious the RAN have them.
My prediction: The RAN/RAAF will operate the F-35B aboard these ships and the first refit of the Canberra will enable this capability.
Much wise thought behinds your words, Barnsey, although it's worth noting that the entire RAAF fast jet establishment is already actively advising the defence minister, et al, against the capability.
This just-published article in the Australian Naval Institute's website addresses most of the relevant issues, inlcuding a rebuttal of the nonstop nonsense pushed around the media.
AIR power experts and aficionados cocked a collective eyebrow last autumn when Defence Minister David Johnston announced that F-35B strike fighters could operate from the two Canberra-class flat-tops.
Heavyweight endorsement by Prime Minister Tony Abbott propelled the Defence White Paper staff to examine the concept, and we await their words of wisdom in a 2015 review. The news has neither fuelled nor ignited political partisanship, and Labor’s assistant defence spokesman David Feeney has maintained an active and lucid interestin the concept in social media for most of the year.
The RAAF then put itself into play with the launch of Plan Jericho. Air Marshal Geoff Brown pushed the plan into the public sphere, giving notice to all and sundry that stale, obsolete and intellectually sclerotic gospels of current and former RAAF fast jet operations are unwelcome in its F-35 future. In short, Brown demands of all stakeholders that nothing should be excluded from delivering maximum impact from 100 Australian F-35s.
A mix of the 72 ground-based F-35As already on order and the mooted 28 F-35Bs for the Canberra ships is an easy and logical fit with Brown’s thinking and plan, as it offers far more capability to the ADF and options for government than retaining the limitations of only continental, ground-based air power.
Proximity means capability. Ground-based F-35As in their remote rear echelon bases will neither match or surpass the high tempo, high sortie capability of embarked F-35Bs launching and recovering to a Canberra LHD deck only 100 miles from target. A distant ground-based F-35A’s combat radius of 600 miles and extra ammunition is irrelevant when an ADF task group – its ships, helicopters, Wedgetail and Poseidon aircraft, land assets and several thousand personnel – are deployed, say, 1,500 miles from the nearest RAAF-friendly, F-35 capable base.
Extraordinarily expensive long-range transits, burning eye-watering amounts of fuel and racking up even pricier airframe-hour maintenance costs, can not, do not and will not offer round-the-clock strike fighter support for amphibiosity anywhere in the world. No-one does it, because it cannot be done. Assertions to the contrary are provably false.
Australia has a provable truth to hand. With only six or eight embarked F-35Bs the ADF could cycle decisive air power on and off a Canberra as, where and when chieftains choose, 24 hours per day, foul weather or fair, delivering immediate, on-call strike for ground forces and critical air defence to surface ships and their crews. Without that air cover all are exposed and vulnerable. Total reliance on the area and point defence missiles in the Hobart destroyers and Anzac frigates would be what Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby called “a courageous decision, Minister.” It was not a compliment.
Distance disarms capability. It degrades it. It reduces options. Oft-asserted claims that Host Nation Support and overflight clearance can be counted on for long-range, ground-based F-35A support for an LHD task group are woefully misplaced. HNS and overflight are frequently denied, even among formal treaty allies. Both the 1986 and 2011 air offensives over Libya were degraded and delayed by the denial of overflight by multiple Nato allies of the United States and the refusal of HNS by Malta. At the time of writing Nato’s Turkey still refuses HNS to the US for strike-fighter operations against ISIS.
In all these cases the capability of ground-based fast air was dramatically degraded, leaving both commanders and governments with fewer options and fast-jet pilots with precious little time where they needed to be but plenty of hours in operationally useless transit. At the same time, proximate air strike over Iraq continues apace and unabated from US flat-tops in the North Arabian Gulf, hundreds of miles and millions less flight-cost dollars closer to the coalface than ground-based fast jets based in the far south or in the Mediterranean. Commanders cannot wish-away the very real problems of HNS and overflight with optimism.
Bewildering rubbish masquerading as expert opinion and fact has flowed in the media as if on-tap beer since Johnston and Abbott piped the F-35B concept. From fiscal phantasms of $500 million here, to $12 billion there, and spurious nonsense about “decades” of implementation to “severe challenges” and “what for?” to “helicopter displacement” and “melting decks” and “niche capability” to we have not been treated to excellence by either journalists or very, very learned PhDs in the echo chambers of their think thanks. Their whistled-up and fabulous amounts of money cited are just that – fables. All up, the Australian F-35 programme is slated to deliver 100 aircraft and all they need, including permanent support systems, for around $20 billion. The costs of buying 28 F-35Bs and the minor refits required to the Canberras will not bust that bank.
Minor refits indeed. The never-ending claim that the Canberras are not F-35 capable is the bloviating of spectacularly ill-informed mugwumps. The Canberras are delivered with the same hardened fast-jet deck and underpinnings as the Spanish navy’s lead ship, and all essential internal aviation spaces for fast jets have been retained. All of them. This was intentional and a specific factor in the acquisition process. The much-maligned aviation fuel bunkers and weapons stowage spaces have near-identical capacity to the enormous ones in the Spanish ship. Senior personnel have been poorly briefed if they state otherwise.
The fast jet and helo aviation capabilities of the French Mistral and Italian Cavour class were closely examined at the time, and the Spanish design came up trumps in all respects. Right now, the known requirements at refit for F-35Bs are a precision landing light called a HIHAT – it looks like a long green crucifix and is attached the middle mast – some sensor enhancements and Thermion coating on the flight deck. Some existing kit might need to be moved from A to B for electro-magnetic reasons. The glide slope kit, known as GLIS, is already fitted to the Canberras. This is the stuff of minor refit, and no more.
Read the whole thing via the link
*** David Baddams MBE was a fighter pilot in Australia and UK from 1978 to 1999. He commanded 800 Naval Air Squadron (FA2 Sea Harriers) on operations from HMS Invincible over Bosnia, Iraq and Kosovo. David submitted a detailed analysis of the F-35B/LHD concept available on the Defence White Paper website at www.defence.gov.au/Whitepaper/docs/082-Baddams.pdf
While testing the F35s on LHD USS Wasp, the US also trialed a new thermo-blast coating called Thermion. It apparently bonded well to harden their flightdeck and endured the thrust and blasts from the F35. It will now be applied to their LHDs for the F35Bs. (Fast forward to 1:38 to see F35B night landing and taking off from Wasp.)
If not so interested in that, then here is footage of the F35Cs being catapulted off the Nimitz recently
First deck landings, while alongside in Sydney. Both helos were moved to the hangar and displayed as part of the commissioning hoopla. Initial underway deck trials are currently scheduled for March.
Yep video shows " MRH-90 and an S-70B-2 on 26 November while the ship was alongside at the RAN's Fleet Base East in Sydney ...the purpose of this first embarkation was to conduct deck-handling trials including parking and lashing procedures, and did not involve flight operations. ...actual flight trials at sea will be conducted for about eight weeks from early March 2015" Source: www.janes.com/article/47018/ran-prepares-for-march-2015-flight-trials-on-first-of-class-lhd
Took this quick snapshot of Canberra when I was in Sydney this month. Just to the right is one of the ASMD upgraded ANZACs for size comparison
The public debate over the F-35B business is heating up a bit. The nonstop diatribe of technical, tactical, strategic and even financial error is prompting some superb rebuttals.
While this issue has nothing to do with the ancient history of WW2, it is important for Kiwis who happen to be alive in the here and now and plan on doing so in the future, as if the jets appear in the ships, then they will, by default, fill the air power vacuum created by Wellington. The much-touted "benign strategic environment" of Uncle Helen is not quite the permanent fixture of New Zealand's geo-poli reality, is it? Things are changing........
I'm a betting man so I shall stick the neck out. Australia shall purchase F.35s for the Canberra class. They may be operated by RANFAA and maintained by RAAF personnel. Lets see, where has that ever happened before... oh yes.... the HMAS Albatross and the Walrus/Seagulls off the RAN capital vessels......... I agree with the above. What is the cost/benefit of long range flights, expending very expensive airframe time for the F.35s and the tanker fleet to get to a position where they are effective for 25 mins when a "carrier" by any other name can be positioned to act in concert with our allies close to the opposition.? Just does not make sense to underutilise an asset like the Canberra. Although we are participating in the ISIL?ISIS ops it it sucking up a huge amount of transit/maintenance time... I'm guessing that even our illustrious PM can eventually do the math on that one and come up with the F.35B.
......operated by RANFAA and maintained by RAAF personnel.
Following from a Defence White Paper submission on the F35B/LHD concept.....
"Generating an embarked air power capability would possibly prompt sensitive inter-service issues. It is stressed that re-establishment of RAN- owned fixed wing aviation is not necessary or practicable. A unique, lean and joint solution can deliver the high tempo operations required for effective embarked aviation. This would involve ships’ crews and F-35 units, RAAF and RAN command staffs and core joint ADF staffs.
In developing concepts for command and control of embarked F-35Bs, the ADF must focus on operational delivery instead of petty issues of asset ownership, administrative differences or single-service tribalism. A possible solution could use the RAAF air combat group as ultimate proprietor of the F-35B force, with common training and support policies and facilities up to the point of sending aircraft to sea. F-35B units would be optimised for embarkation, formed with joint air force and naval personnel, but would be available for land based operations if required.
Up to the point of embarking for a ship-based period of operation, the units would remain under air command’s command and control. At the point of embarkation, command and control could ‘chop’ to sea command. Responsibility for safe operation of the aircraft would also ‘chop over’ at the same time."
Always seems the air power capability come down to a debate about the sea platform (Canberra) and the aircraft being embarked (F35-B) from it, where the bigger costs to projecting this kind of capability is in the manpower, training, logistics, MRO and fleet elements to accompany these assets.
To field one of their super carriers, the USN Carrier Strike Group (CSG) typically includes: A Supercarrier and carrier air wing of up to 9 squadrons 1 or 2 Aegis guided missile cruisers (CG), of the Ticonderoga class 1 escort destroyer squadron (DESRON) of 2-6 guided missile destroyers (DDG) - the Arleigh Burke class - to serve as multi-mission surface combatant and anti-aircraft (AAW) or as anti-submarine (ASW) warfare 2x attack submarines, usually of the Los Angeles-class to screen the CSG 1x combined ammunition, oiler and supply ship (AOE/AOR), to provide logistic support
The Queen Elizabeth Battle Group will comprise at least: 2 Type 45 Destroyers (AWD) 2 Type 23 Frigates (ASW) 1 Astute Class Nuclear Attack Submarine 1 Wave Class Fast Fleet Tanker
So what will be needed to defend and supply the Canberra and Adelaide by 2018 for them to project this air capability? Will it be; 1 Hobart Class for AWD? (readiness: late - Project SEA 4000) 1 ANZAC Class for ASW and AAW? (readiness: available) 1 Adelaide Class as multi-mission? (readiness: due for upgrade - Project SEA 1390 Phase 2.1) 1 Collins Submarine for screening? (readiness: sub-par operating avaibility, upgrades Project SEA 1429 & 1639, 2020 replacement Project SEA 1000) 1 Replenishment Ship? (readiness: low, due for replacement Project SEA 1654 Phase 3)