Thread: Naval Wish List

F-35C is a medium attack aircraft
F/A-18E/F is a medium attack aircraft
Rafale is designed as a fighter with air to ground capability. Too small and short legged for Navy uses,
F-22N would be far too expensive.

A carrier full of bombers isn't going to be much good if its sitting on the bottom of the sea and the Super Hornet isn't going to be of much good unless its intercepting 40 year old Skyhawks.

Originally Posted by BenRoethig

F-35C is a medium attack aircraft
F/A-18E/F is a medium attack aircraft
Rafale is designed as a fighter with air to ground capability. Too small and short legged for Navy uses,
F-22N would be far too expensive.

A carrier full of bombers isn't going to be much good if its sitting on the bottom of the sea and the Super Hornet isn't going to be of much good unless its intercepting 40 year old Skyhawks.

So you want a fighter with air to ground ability to replace fighters with air to ground ability?

F-35C is a fighter with air to ground ability built-in as secondary function. Primary is still a air to air fighter.

An American Rafale is still too French. The French won't let us have any control over anything. And we will end up with basically a whole new design that looks like a Rafale but does what the F-35s do.

Originally Posted by gunnut

So you want a fighter with air to ground ability to replace fighters with air to ground ability?

F-35C is a fighter with air to ground ability built-in as secondary function. Primary is still a air to air fighter.

An American Rafale is still too French. The French won't let us have any control over anything. And we will end up with basically a whole new design that looks like a Rafale but does what the F-35s do.

I have to agree - F24 instead of F18E/F maybe. I'm no great fan of the F35 (esp the B) but the stealth abilities plus the cash already spent make it a no-brainer in lieu of any realistic alternatives.

It should really be the F22N (or ST-21 for that matter) but it isn't. Even ideally (as a wish list) a Rafale derivative combined with SH doesnt fit the bill...

Originally Posted by gunnut

So you want a fighter with air to ground ability to replace fighters with air to ground ability?

F-35C is a fighter with air to ground ability built-in as secondary function. Primary is still a air to air fighter.

An American Rafale is still too French. The French won't let us have any control over anything. And we will end up with basically a whole new design that looks like a Rafale but does what the F-35s do.

No, like the gen 4.5 superhornet, the gen 5 F-35 is a medium attack bomber with defensive air to air capability. Stealth aside, the Raptor either either one of the euro-deltas would have a definite advantage in higher speed engagement. They are designed to fight back if jumped by enemy fighters on the way to the target, not high speed intercepts. Stealth won't help you get to a target before it can fire a anti-ship missile at the carrier.

In a perfect world, I'd love to have a F-22N/F-35C carrier wing, but the chair force has too big of a lobby for that to happen.

What kind of speed can the F/A-24 or the Rafale reach? Rafale has not demonstrated supercruise yet. Using afterburner to reach a target can be done by the F-35C as well. Is the Rafale faster than the F-35 in no-holds-barred afterburner dash?

Modern seaplanes to support Marine Expeditonary Forces and Naval Special Operations. We could land on water in WWII, in 2006 we can't. Something seems wrong with that picture.

Originally Posted by gunnut

What kind of speed can the F/A-24 or the Rafale reach? Rafale has not demonstrated supercruise yet. Using afterburner to reach a target can be done by the F-35C as well. Is the Rafale faster than the F-35 in no-holds-barred afterburner dash?

IIRC Rafale is supercruise at Mach 1.1 in pretty much in a clean config ( EF2000 is 1.2 with 4 AMRAAM + ASRAAM). The a-burner side is clasified so harder to draw comparisions. Rafale failed to demonstrate supercruise in Singapore which was a major prob.

Ideally, a stretched Rafale (F24) would be better than a F18, esp with an AESA radar. If we are really dreaming, then such an a/craft would have replaced the F14/18 and the A12 would have taken the place of the Intruder. There would have been no need for the F35 and the F22 would have had a greater budget. And the USAF would have a variant of the A12 too and there would still be no need for the F35 "Bast*rd".

Equally, the RN wouldn't want the crappy "B" variant, cuz it wouldnt exist... we can be dream lol

Originally Posted by Rifleman

Modern seaplanes to support Marine Expeditonary Forces and Naval Special Operations. We could land on water in WWII, in 2006 we can't. Something seems wrong with that picture.

What would you have these seaplanes do that would increase the combat capabilities of the MEF?

Originally Posted by Gun Grape

What would you have these seaplanes do that would increase the combat capabilities of the MEF?

Seaplanes are the cats pajamas for SAR aint they?(i dunno, im actually asking)

Originally Posted by PubFather

IIRC Rafale is supercruise at Mach 1.1 in pretty much in a clean config ( EF2000 is 1.2 with 4 AMRAAM + ASRAAM). The a-burner side is clasified so harder to draw comparisions. Rafale failed to demonstrate supercruise in Singapore which was a major prob.

Can F-35 supercruise? If so, then it's internal weapon bay is a huge plus over the Rafale and EF.

Originally Posted by PubFather

Ideally, a stretched Rafale (F24) would be better than a F18, esp with an AESA radar. If we are really dreaming, then such an a/craft would have replaced the F14/18 and the A12 would have taken the place of the Intruder. There would have been no need for the F35 and the F22 would have had a greater budget. And the USAF would have a variant of the A12 too and there would still be no need for the F35 "Bast*rd".

But then we would need to find the budget for the A-12, which I'm sure the Pentagon will make it an extraordinarily complex machine each costing $70 million to make.

Originally Posted by PubFather

Equally, the RN wouldn't want the crappy "B" variant, cuz it wouldnt exist... we can be dream lol

RN needs carriers with catapults and F-35C. None of that 60000t STOVL crap dictated by the socialists.

Frankly i don't see how a 60k ton carrier CANT handle catapulted A/C.

How big is the Kuznetsov? That's only about 65k tons. That flew SU-33s for gods sakes. The F-35C should have a massive P/W ratio to boot.

I don't get it.

I have a wish for the USN, enough missiles to actually fill as many of the vls tubes as people think we can fill. Especially SM-6(eventually) and Tac Tom, those two make me a bit tingly. A few more ESSM wouldn't hurt either. I think I read that only something like 500 have been produced so far, and that they are shared between several countries.

Originally Posted by HKDan

I have a wish for the USN, enough missiles to actually fill as many of the vls tubes as people think we can fill. Especially SM-6(eventually) and Tac Tom, those two make me a bit tingly. A few more ESSM wouldn't hurt either. I think I read that only something like 500 have been produced so far, and that they are shared between several countries.

Straight up man. You can probably toss sono-buoys on that list too. The USN has always had very low stocks of those, even during the cold war.

I really hadn't known about the missile shortage until I read about it here. Googled it and was really horrified to find out what the numbers of SM-2IIIB and ESSM really are. It just hadn't crossed my mind earlier to look into that sort of thing. The assumption is that VLS tubes will be filled. What an unpleasant surprise. Makes me more worried about the Super Bug than I had been.