The harrier is very manoeuvrable, it can change direction by changing the direction of its thrust. Although to do it at high speed may cause G force problems. It could even stop but the fuel used tends to negate this tactic. Its prim ability is that it can land and tack off from the road out side your house, as I have seen done on a number of occasions from a road 3-400m long. They only stop the traffic from 5 mins. By dispersing the base in the same way as chopper are you have a much smaller turn round time and longer on target.
Will the yanks be replacing their harriers as well then?
The F35 should replace the lot but I have my doubts as to its capabilities and cost. I have also heard that it is over weight for its task. The government has/is about to scrap all the RN sqns as a prelude to getting the F35 but there will be a long flash to bang. Again it is Brown telling the MOD how it is to run the forces.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-35.htm
According to the DOT&E, weight growth is a significant risk for all three variants of the F-35 JSF. Aircraft weight is not a key performance parameter, but weight does impact the aircraft’s ability to satisfy key performance requirements. No variant of the F- 35 JSF design exceeds the weight at which key performance parameters predictions are breached; however, the STOVL design remained consistently above target weight projections.
RAF site.
http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/jsf.html
edited to add RAF site
I hope some cretinous beaurocrat somewhere is regretting canceling the twin-engine mach 2 “Superharrier” back in the seventies :evil: .
The SHAR has one of the highest theoretical and practical interception to kill ratios in the world…ask the Argentinians except for our resident moon howler who will tell us that the Argentine Air Force shot down more Harriers than BAE built.
Even against aircraft such as the F16 the SHAR remains, within it’s optimum operating envelope, a superior platform.
Here is an interesting article about:
Comparison of 21st century fighter aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_21st_century_fighter_aircraft
I remember footage of an RN, FAA sea harrier in action circa 1982, preforming VIF (vector in flight ) which allowed the chasing aircraft ( super entarde ) to over shoot and recive a missile up the rear. It was a spectacular kill and an impressive example of the capability of the Harrier in airial combat. I’ve not seen the footage posted on the net but if any members have, a link would be most appriciated.
Wonder why that is - it’s a G-36 derivative which is in service just fine elsewhere and they’ve been playing with the modified design for OICW for long enough (IIRC, the XM8 being the product of deciding “actually, can we have the rifle and the launcher separately until you can bring the weight of the combo down?”). Wonder which changes have messed it up? Do you have a link I can read?
It is possible that they will adopt a weapon from Colt or someone else. Personally, I think they should stick with Colt.
I wouldn’t expect too much loyalty to Colt. The US Army has sourced M-16’s from Fabrique Nationale’s US arm for years (although Colt might have picked up another contract, not too sure, plus they provide M-4’s) along with FN’s own M249 and M240 (Minimi and FN MAG respectively). Their M9 handguns are Beretta, an Italian firm.
Also - if they do stop XM8, H&K are now doing their AR-15 based weapons so yet more competition for Colt.
however, F-22 does have its disadvantage, it is reported that their heavy weapon are not usable during supercruise
What I find interesting about this war is the Naval situation. The Napoleonic RN was biggest and most experienced navy in the world yet the US gave it considerable trouble.
The most obvious successes were the inshore Great Lakes battles but the US had several notable successes offshore. The American utilisation of their big (44 gun) frigates showed how inflexible the RN had become in the years of the French blockade with ponderous 74s being too slow while the majority of frigates were obviously too weak, despite this several captains believed that a White Ensign was worth several guns and paid the price.
The RN was slow to realise it’s problems of complacency and the wrong sort of ships and it took HMS Shannon’s demolition of USS Chesapeake to remind them that it’s strengths were rigorous training and good design. Newly cut down 74s and 64s on the Indefatigable mould were prepared but the war was over before they could be deployed in sufficient numbers.
I completely agree old chap. The RN had become complacent especially after Trafalgar when the only Navy that was of any threat, the French, was destroyed therefore with no real challenge to strive against, until the US that is, the Navy became complacent. Let us also not forget that at the time of the 1812 war the American theatre was not considered of any great importance in naval terms, and wrongly so, and therefore the RN didn’t put in their best effort.
Also a further reason why the American navy gave the RN some serious bother was the fact that they were new, they had a spirit of adventure which made them more daring and more prepared to take risks whereas the Brits were fairly set in their ways and lacked inspired leadership such as that of John Paul Jones, who was really a pirate, but a bloody good one.
I also understand that the American crews at this time were wellpaid volunteers, who were treated reasonably well, while the RN still used press gangs in harbours to get their crews and was still quite liberal in using the cat o´ nine tails.
Jan
Whilst press-ganging was highly unpopular it is fair to say that once in the service awhile most ‘recruits’ got used to the life, some benefits couldn’t be found on civvy street, i.e. guarenteed work, something not always available to the average merchant sailor, food and pay(when it arrived :lol: ). It is quite interesting to note a significant proportion signed back on once demobbed about 30-40%.
I also understand that the press gang was not as wide spread, as some would have us believe. Conditions in the RN improved after Spit Head. Unlike the army the RN had a professional officer class who were promoted more on merit than money, I do not believe you could buy a command in the navy. The life in the RN also had its advantages over the merchant marine in that RN ships needed to be fully manned, and womaned in some cases, to be able to fight the ship, so the workload was not excessive. The ships were also better maintained coming from the public purse and not investors.
The problem with the fresh water fleet (FWF) was that they used what was at hand and not purpose built ships and boats. I can’t find my Napoleonic source book so cannot back this up with references or quotes. Sorry. The FWF also tended to be small ships if my memory serves.
Jan,
You are, of course, absolutely right to compare the spirit of volunteer crews of the American ships with the mixed nature of the British crews, although in general, it never seemed to tell against them.
The British Navy of the time drew it’s sailors from three sources.
Volunteers, “pressed men” and “quota men”.
While volounteers were preferred (Nelson’s dictum was that “one volunteer was worth three pressed men”), this was never enough to make up the large crews required to sail and fight the ships of the time.
The Impress Service was entitled to take up for service “any man making his living by the sea”, a definition capable of wide interpretation.
Despite this, even allowing for the smaller populations of the day, the numbers were relatively small when compared with the universal conscription which WW1 would bring.
The quota system set forth numbers of men to be supplied, according to population, by each county.
Although bounties for signing up were offered, the majority of men supplied under this system were usually in fact men convicted of petty offences.
Although life at sea was harsh by our standards, it has to be viewed in light of the times.
Flogging was still used at sea and on land, both in the Army and as a civilian punishment, while the Georgian penal code dictated death or deportation for almost all offences.
Life expectancy at sea in the British Navy actually compared well with that on land, the main difference in health being the large number of hernias among sailors, caused by the heavy nature of the work.
One aspect often overlooked is the polyglot nature of the Navy, especially since it was illegal to press a foreign national, unless they were married to a British wife.
It was, of course, the definition of a foreign national with regard to differentiating between Americans, and British deserters claiming to be American, which was one of the root causes of the war to begin with.
At Trafalgar, the crew of the Victory, Nelson’s flagship, comprised:
441 English, 64 Scots, 63 Irish, 18 Welsh, 3 Shetlanders, 2 Channel Islanders, and 1 Manxman.
The 71 foreigners comprised 22 Americans, 7 Dutch, 6 Swedes, 4 Italians, 4 Maltese, 3 Frenchmen volunteers, 3 Norwegians, 3 Germans, 2 Swiss, 2 Portuguese, 2 Danes, 2 Indians, 1 Russian, 1 from Africa and 9 from the West Indian islands.
One thing the British had never done, strangely enough, was to build particularly good ships, in terms of their sailing characteristics.
It was widely acknowledged at the time that the best ships in the British Navy were those captured from the French, who built wonderful ships, but fought them badly.
The Americans too built ships with excellent sailing qualities, heavier gunned than their British equivalents, and they fought them very well indeed.
The War of 1812 led to some major heartsearching at the Admiralty, and accelerated substantial improvements in several areas of the Navy.
It should be remembered however that the blue water component of the War of 1812 was of limited relevence. After all the US had no Ships of the Line and thus no hope of inflicting anything other than embarrassing defeats over lone frigates and sloops, conversely the tooled-up RN had no serious opposition to occupy them so their responses tended to be half hearted and confused. For example they did not mount as comprehensive a blockade of the US as the one maintained for over a decade against France, indeed while Napoleon was on Elba the Admiralty was more interested in paying off ships than the Americas.
The war also highlights one of Wellington’s major deficiencies - his unwillingness or inability to educate his subordinates this is witnessed in the woefull performance of Pakenham who had been close to Wellington in the Peninsular compared with the more independant Ross.
Another British problem highlighted was one that remained from the American Revolt - poor co-ordination between the Navy and Army and an inability to place one man in “theatre command” with the authority to command both Services towards a common objective. Thus Pakenham’s force is considered more of an obstruction to prize-hunting by the Admirals than an important part of their mission.