rickusn

C de G can operate Hawkeyes. They made the angled-deck a little tooooo short(for all weather operations) but have since rectified that shortcoming(pun intended). LOL

Building carriers is an incredibly difficult undertaking. thats why China has shelved their plans and the UK(now sorta joint with France LOL) program has major problems. And India time will tell.

30000fl or less small carriers are fairly easy but over that the difficult issues become greatly magnified.

Anon

I agree Russias ships are a wreck, but their large fleet of TU-22Ms would still dominate the N.Atlantic without the US to counter them, IMO.

It is of course, all a matter of opinion.

rickusn

There are less than 50 Backfires still existing in Russian naval aviation. They have no refueling probes. It is a matter of conjecture how many are still fly-able much less operational. There pilots get little flight time much less over-the-water flight time.

At the moment Russia is something of a Paper Tiger. However that could change in a hurry.

There are alot of objective measures. The opinion issue comes into play which of these measures you give priority and weight to. Quality counts as do #s among other things.

The relative lack of info available officially from China and Russia make discerning there real abilities difficult at best.

Examples of some(certainly not all) objective measures:

Japan has nearly two dozen quality escorts but no small carrier. Yet anyway. That may(is?) changing as we speak.

Yet India, Italy & Spain have a dozen or less. And France has not many more. The UK & Russia have around two dozen but many of them are obsolete. In the case of Russia they could easily drop to a dozen in the next year or two.

What is the true value of a carrier and when is out-weighed by other considerations?

How about Replenishment? Mine warfare? And Amphibious ships?

Training? Funding? Modernization and replacement programs? Reasonable maintenance? Days of the month actually at sea? How about interoperability with othe navies(Is it a practical, realistic force multiplier)? What about surveillance and recon assets? Shaing of info?

Do a 1/2 a dozen or so SSN outweigh three or four times that many SSK?

In fact which is more important submarines or Cruiser/Destoyer/ Frigate surface combatants. Or are they complementary? If so what should the mix be?

Are operating SSBN's a measure of a Navy's abilities?

Which is better fast, powerful missles or the sensors, command & control systems and sufficient targeting means used?

China? A huge inventory of submarines and surface comabatants. But quality is highly suspect.

Then we have Taiwan, Turkey and Greece compared to Germany, The Netherlands, Austrailia, Canada & S. Korea.

Its easy to be blithely subjective or have a "opinion" based on ???? but objectivity is a much more challenging past-time by which to base an opinion.

Not denigrating you Sniper.

But rather just stating how I feel about opinions and how they should be formed and how they shouldnt. LOL

Anon

Peace-time operational is not the same as wartime operational, which you well know.

In war, if it can fly, it flys. We do the same thing in the US military.

50 Backfires represents approx. 3 Regiments worth. More than enough to make any non-US escorted NATO TF into a collection of Viking funeral pyres IMO.

rickusn

Maybe if they can target them.

And with the new AAW ships now in service or building along with the land airforces of NATO nations of possibly destroying them on the ground or intercepting them in the air it becomes problematic how well they would do.

The scenario of Backfires during the Cold war vs the USN would not be the same as Backfires against Euro nations now.

Carrier air in Europe is planned to make tremendous strides in the next decade.

Certainly looks like a difficult scenario to me.

If they are not flyable now the future holds little promise. My best quess is that at least 1/2 are hanger queens now. Any war scenario in the short term would exacerbate this situation. You also give short thrift to training and experience. Not to mention targeting as I stated at the outset.

If Russia is going to do something the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

Anon

Outside of the US and the very small UK TLAM arsenal European NATO forces have no means of attacking the Russian airbases in the Kola.

Nothing they've got can get that far north and make it home without massive inflight refueling, and that far north, tankers would be toast.

rickusn

Your probably right.

I guess I just dont see them as all that effective like you.

Im much more concerned about Russian submarines.

Orcaborealis

Haven't you forgot about Storm Shadow and KEPD Taurus and Scalp Naval?

The offical range is stated to comply with some old treaty or something, the real range would be a lot more than 400 km.

Storm Shadow can take hardened targets, and has an advanced seeker. It's in the same league as TLAM and JASSM, although, from what I understand, JASSM has got a very basic seeker, but is good in stealth.


The French Scalp Naval is another European cruise missile, intended for launch from ships. Isn't the offical range for Scalp Naval now something like 1000 km?


Orca

Anon

You need to look at a map and see just how far the Kola is from the UK or Germany.

It's well outside the range of any non US NATO aircraft without massive tanking support, even with the new missiles.

Orcaborealis

And you need to look at a map and locate a NATO country called Norway. If you look closer at that map, you will se that Norway has a common border with Russia, 196 km long. Furthermore, provided you got the right map, you might find Banak air station, only ca 150 km west of Kola penninsula. There are also several other cicilian airports in the area: Alta, Kirkenes. Actually, Kirkenes is just 6 km from Russia....
A bit further to the southwest you have Tromsø, Bardufoss, Andøya and Bodø, the last are three air force bases, with F-16s stationed at Bodø.

Further south, at Ørland, you have a forward air base for AWACS and more F-16s.

European NATO countries routinely train in this area, and that includs in-flight refueling.

And don't tell me Russia would overwhelm the European air forces if they tried to get near Kola; those days are truly gone, the Russians can't even maintain the aircraft they have got, and their pilots are getting few flight hours.

The latest European fighters are multirole and quite capable, and in just a few years they will start to come into service in larger numbers, and then the tables will be turned. The European F-16s are all MLU and multirole.

Still, Russia has lots of nukes and lots of SSNs, those are the real danger.


As Rick said, the "window of opportunity" is rapidly closing, probably already closed.


And off course, there are the British sub launched Tomahawks.


Orca

Anon

Norway?

Are you kidding me?

The entire Country is in range of just about every serious weapons system the Russians have.

I'd be surprised if the Russians didn't take Northern Norway within days of any commencement of hostilities(and they'd need to, cause they couldn't win without it, but would probably lose badly without it).

Norway would be one of their highest priority targets.

Almost every fighter type the Russians have can deny air ops over Northern Norway from Russian territory.

In case of war N.Norway would be SU-27 central.

Iceland is a much safer bet for NATO fighters operating in the upper N.Atlantic and Arctic TO's. Iceland is also in a perfect location to deny air transit to the N.Atlantic(which is exactly why there's been a wing of F-15Cs there for decades)...lanes the Russians would need to use to attack NATO shipping.

Orcaborealis

Sniper, that analysis would be almost correct...if we were talking 1985.

The Russian weapon systems, so impressive on paper, is just that...paper tigers.

Basically, the Russians are trying to maintain a force structure FAR TO LARGE for their economy, which is now only a fraction of the economy of the European countries.

And the consequences are horrible for the armed forces.

Orca

rickusn

Hate to break in boys. LOL

But I havent had much feed back on my World Navies & Small Surface Combatant listings. World Navies I just reposted World Navies edited and with some updates.

Have I posted it on the wrong board?
Are they useful?
Are they user friendly enough?
Should I continue to keep them updated?
Should I just keep them to myself?
Any other suggestions?
Any questions?

Thanks for any feedback.

ajaybhutani

U are doing a good job ricksun. As of now u are providing most of the info in The Naval Forum.

TopHatter

Rick, definitely keep them coming.
As for user friendly, I might suggest using a different "lay out", so to speak.
Perhaps less spaces between each individual type
Maybe something like

United States
CV 2
CVN 10
CG 24

and so on