In message Z4_mh.1884$IT2.1222@trnddc06, Ski
writes

Happy to jump back in, but aware that some F-14 drivers are reading

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message ...
Some issues there - the Hornet's much more survivable than the A-7 or
A-6, and certainly much more flexible (you couldn't multirole a Corsair
or Intruder airframe, let alone swing-role it - but the Hornet's been
doing that for twenty years).

The Hornet gets you flexibility and affordability, which is what the
Navy needs at the moment.
*
In my opinion, the Hornet gets you all that and to its lasting credit - but
had it been mixed with a "like" maintainable "high-far-fast" fighter the
modern CVN would be at its peek in potential, without it there is nothing
but adjustments.* At first the so-called "outer-air battle" would shift to
escort ships with many naval SAM's - then the ship numbers dropped, the
enemy employed lots of ECM and the cruise missiles became lower and
faster and more numerous.

Add "and launched from a lot closer in". We're not fighting blue-water
warfare any more, and aren't likely to in the near future. The cruise
missile threat remains real, but it's exemplified by incidents like the
attack on HMS Glamorgan in 1982, the Gloucester shootex of 1991, or the
Hanit attack last year: ships not too far from shore getting attacked by
a late-unmasking threat, often in conditions of air superiority or even
air supremacy.

So now the air wing can't do the outer battle
despite higher sortie generation

Who are fighting the outer air battle against? The Bad Guys aren't going
to form up alpha strikes and come at us over a couple of hundred miles
of open ocean for us to work on: and if they do, Hornet plus AIM-120
remains an effective counter. (Arguably, since we're more likely to be
talking fighters than Backfires, more effective than Tomcat plus
Phoenix).

The Tomcat was a very specific answer to a very particular question,
that being "How do we deal with a regiment-plus of Badgers or Backfires
armed with supersonic high-diving carrier-killing ASMs?". Lacking that
threat, there's no urgent requirement for a Tomcat or replacement.
*
Unfortunately that is not the case but it was the Navy's position when it
trashed the Tomcat, and like Iraq intelligence it was a political position not
facts.* We still have a*growing threat from all kinds of cruise missiles
(sliders, high-divers, skimmers, combos, etc.) from ships, subs, tactical
aircraft, UAV's, ballistic missiles and bombers - it did not suddenly stop, it
only got worse.*

Very true, but again the danger is - and for the near future remains -
inshore and in confined or busy conditions. When you've got forty-plus
surface contacts within five miles and are within spitting distance of
Iranian territorial waters, with "IRGCN incursion!" being piped several
times a day, your priority and the primary threat is *not* the outer air
battle: current and near-future Bad Guys who make their intentions known
at 250 miles are well within the ambit of current capabilities.

Hezbollah don't have an air force or any significant over-the-horizon
targeting, but that didn't stop them putting a C802 into an Israeli
warship despite the skies being black with the Heyl Ha'Avir.

In half a sentence you lose most of the customers. The STOVL variant
was
added because there was a user requirement (US-led and then others
bought in) and if you "slide a decade" then you lose your export sales,
who didn't sign up for an extra ten-year gap.
*
The customers are leaving anyway - what is needed are some new ideas
that will revigerate the JSF into something needed by everybody - it is
clearly not needed now. If the JSF is slid a decade and joined by other
critical technology driven add-ons the key customers will remain.*

Okay, but the UK won't: we need the JSF to replace the Harriers and to
fly from the new carriers, and we can't wait a decade. I doubt we'd be
unique in having problems with "just keep flying what you've got for a
decade".

Trouble there is that submarines are great for sea denial, but hopeless
for sea control. How do you escort oil tankers through the Straits of
Hormuz, or shiploads of evacuees out of Lebanon, with a submarine?
*
Mahen would faint - that's showing no faith in the future.* Believe me the
sub-surface world will take over, the question is not will it, but just when.*

That being the point - we're not ready to do this now, nor in the
immediate future.

If
you can communicate to surface ships a virtual support or escort ship
then you are there are you not;

The problem being that communication, which requires the submarine to be
slow with a mast up.

the sub can be anywhere but the invisible
support ship could direct weapons if attacked just as well as a real boat
could.*

You still need someone to be there with a sensor, meaning a decent-sized
hull with a radar at useful height, plus all the datalinks or whatever
black magic is getting you comms with the submarines: lose that and your
submersible forces have lost the Recognised Air Picture..

So, perhaps that unit needs weapons to protect itself, and crew to
operate them... and it's become a warship and we're back to where we
were.

And to remove evacuees there are smaller ships and if necessary a
large inflatable used by SOF may suffice or in the end surface.*

Which all get you back to the same vulnerabilities as surface warships,
but more so.

We are in a time of great change in the very nature of warfare itself, the
actual character of conflict - not whether one technology or thing is
superior or inferior.* We are dealing with a profound debate over just what
war is and what it is not.*

Actually, I'd say rather that we're moving away from an aberrant period
where "war" with equivalent powers could be clearly and obviously
defined, planned and prepared for; lesser conflicts were sideshows to be
managed discreetly while preparations for the Next Great Conflict were
made. Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, were all heavily influenced and
overshadowed by the ongoing Cold War.

The time of counting chips and comparing force
structures is well gone and it is very hard to comprehend.* We elude to it
think about "effects based" concepts, but in the end it reduces all
hierachies of power to issues of national will and values.* Clauswitz is
stressed at this juncture in the purpose of conflict. ***

This assumes that your opponent is an identifiable nation, of course.

--
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done
by fools.
-Thucydides


Paul J. Adam - mainbox{at}jrwlynch[dot]demon(dot)codotuk