Challenge; more Harriers.

I like Harriers, but they just aren't common or long lived enough. How can those things be changed?

I think if the P1154 was not pursued then funds wouldn't be wasted and hopes not raised and then let down.

More recently the Sea Harrier was retired in2006 to save money on an upgrade that would only last until the JSF entered service in 2012, which doesn't look too prophetic today.

Riain said:

I like Harriers, but they just aren't common or long lived enough. How can those things be changed?

I think if the P1154 was not pursued then funds wouldn't be wasted and hopes not raised and then let down.

More recently the Sea Harrier was retired in2006 to save money on an upgrade that would only last until the JSF entered service in 2012, which doesn't look too prophetic today.

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I assume you are talking about more British Harriers.

You could alter the specifications on the Invincible class ships just before they were about to be laid down in the early 1970's.

Originally they were supposed to be 'through deck cruisers' since for a variety of reasons Britain decided to abandon the concept of the aircraft carrier. These ships were designed for ASW and were supposed to be carry mostly ASW helicopters. The fixed wing Sea Harriers were just supposed to be give minor air cover to the helicopters if they somehow strayed out of range of land based RAF planes.

So the ships were only designed to carry 5-8 planes. In the end I think only 34 Sea harriers were ever built.

So you get more harriers by convincing the Government that if you are going to have a fixed wing component then 5-8 planes isn't enough. Convince them to make the carriers 2-3000 tonnes larger and make room for a force of 12 harriers each. Immediately you get a larger requirement for Sea Harriers and so you increase the chances of them lasting longer.

Until about 1984 there were only British Harriers.

The Invincibles ended up comfortably carrying a dozen Harriers by replacing the Sea Dart launcher with parking space and bomb magazine.

Perhaps they Brits don't bother with the Jaguar and instead build more Harriers.

Riain said:

The Invincibles ended up comfortably carrying a dozen Harriers by replacing the Sea Dart launcher with parking space and bomb magazine.

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This was only later after The Falklands and adding phalanx guns and stripping the ships of their missile defences.

You also had to sacrifice the Helicopter component. The ships were primarily designed as ASW helicopter cruisers with a few harriers attached. They were not intended to carry 12 fixed wing planes but if they were then you get what you want. A bigger inital order for Harriers.

There was the proposed sale of Harriers to China - 100 to be produced in Britain and up to 250 to be produced locally. And that was before the Falklands War!

Devolved said:

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So the ships were only designed to carry 5-8 planes.

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There was an intersting post on another board I am on about the Harrier complement.

Interestingly, although the RN first commissioned the SHAR sqns with five aircraft complements, they always intended to increase the size during wartime (to at least 8 aircraft each on an Invincible drawing pilots and planes from the HQ sqn 899) as the mathematics of maintaining a two aircraft CAP round the clock were well known. Keeping them to five aircraft (albeit with at least 8-10 pilots aboard ship) was 'for show' in peacetime. Also according to 'Sharkey' Ward's book, just prior to the Falklands war 801 sqn was already operating with six aircraft, so perhaps the RN was already trying to creep up the sqn sizes slowly so as not to draw attention (from the RAF!).

I believe that the whole point of Harrier development was aimed at the progression to supersonic P 1154. It's cancellation was somewhat disheartening to many, showing, as it did, the British government's lack of faith in the concept.

What if the Army buys in? Harriers have some theoretical advantages for close-air support, notably that if your airfields get nuked/slimed/cratered they can operate (admittedly at reduced capability) from quite a wide range of improvised sites.

Perhaps also the Army decides that in the event of war all the forward airfields will be crammed with US and French aircraft, and wants to preserve its own CAS capability without using them. Instead it forms airfield engineer units to make temporary strips and buys Harriers to operate from them.

Riain said:

I like Harriers, but they just aren't common or long lived enough. How can those things be changed?

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FR.51 Forest Harrier (or Swamp Harrier)

During Cold War Finnish arms purchases were dictated largely by trade policies. United Kingdom was an important export market for Finnish goods but imports were lacking. Faced with a crunch on manufacturing industries the British government launched an export drive to export those few manufactured goods the British were really good producing at, ie. weapons. Thus the Finnish Sea Harrier purchase was decided after heavy lobbying by Finnish industry which received very favorable conditions for exporting goods to UK in addition to opportunities to purchase factories from UK.

In many ways the purchase of Sea Harriers was a continuation of a trend. Before the Second World War a number of Finnish fighters (Buzzard, Gamecock and Bulldog) were purchased from United Kingdom and after the war Vampires and Gnats flew with Finnish Air Force roundel.

The Finnish Air Force would have preferred SAAB Draken, the Mach 2 beauty, but were somewhat satisfied as Sea Harrier brought some distinctive advantages of it's own. First, Sea Harrier promised opportunities for truly dispersed basing. While this had important propaganda value of it's own the more important advantage Sea Harrier had was the advanced Blue Fox radar which was much better than anything Draken had to offer.

As a downside the modernization of Finnish Air Force was again delayed as the first "Forest Harriers" (nicknamed Swamp Harriers by some aviation journalists) arrived in Finland on 2 January 1979. Finnish purchase included a total of 60 Sea Harrier FR.51's (S nomiker was eliminated) and 7 Harrier T4N's. 12 FR.51's and all 7 T4N's were produced in Britain while the rest were assembled by Valmet. Final deliveries were made in 1985.

In order to maintain a balance between purchases from NATO and the Warsaw Pact Finland purchased it's new advanced jet trainer from Czechoslovakia. L-39 served it's role as well as the preferred BaE Hawk would have had.

While the purchase of Harriers was often criticized as political boondoggle the pilots learned to love their planes. During late 1990's all planes were upgraded to FA.2 level, just before FA.2's would have become available as second hand purchases.

the french navy could have bought some Harriers - instead of Super Etendards.
As a bonus, we might have kept the old Arromanche carrier slightly longer. Or maybe the Jeanne D'Arc could have housed some jump jets, too !

How about if the Harrier GR1 was entering production a touch earlier and the Israeli destruction of the Arab airforces on the ground stimulated a buying spree. Jordan for example had it's Hunter sqn destroyed on the ground, and the Harrier could be a perfect replacement for them.

And/Or the GR1 enters production a couple of years earlier and the USMC gets its AV8A early enough to to see combat in Vietnam.

Also WI in a push to get exports BAC develops some of the stuff like twin Aim9 rails and 190gal fuel tanks privately and it gets ordered with each next batch of production planes from the mid 70s?

[FONT=&quot]I think that Switzerland was a potential customer for the Harrier in the late 1970s.

After all [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Switzerland [/FONT][FONT=&quot]did buy the Hawker Hunter, the Harrier would be a natural replacement for the [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Hawker Hunter.[/FONT]

Thailand’s commissioning of the Chakri Naruebet in 1997 inspires an aircraft carrier arms race in South East Asia with The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia all buying short carriers equipped with Sea Harriers.

Australia is certainly an option... I mean up until Labor got voted in in the lat 1980s there were plans to replace HMAS Melbourne with a new carrier (including the infamous almost-sale of Invincible)

Jukra said:

FR.51 Forest Harrier (or Swamp Harrier)

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Finnish Harriers? You win.

Cook said:

Thailand’s commissioning of the Chakri Naruebet in 1997 inspires an aircraft carrier arms race in South East Asia with The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia all buying short carriers equipped with Sea Harriers.

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I'm wondering if there's any way to get Australia in a position to be able to afford or even want a Harrier carrier after the Melbourne is stricken from the rolls. No offense, but you guys had a pretty shitty time with that poor ship. When it wasn't running over a destroyer it was in dock getting fixed so it could go out and run over some more.

I don't think carriers are the way to go to get more Harriers, I think land based airforces need to want them to really get the numbers up.

What about if the Nth Vietnamese fired a few scuds at airfields in Sth Vietnam during Rolling Thunder or Linebacker. Or if the Syrians and Egyptians had managed to hit Israeli airbases in 1973. It's one thing to rationalise away second rate airforces being caught on the ground and losing a few cheap Migs. But when the best start losing expensive and capable Phantoms then it's time for countries to pay attention.

How about this for a POD - The P1154 is cancelled by the British government. Hawker Siddeley instead pursue it to pre-production status privately. Rumoured customers include the Gulf States, (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran), India, West Germany, Norway, Australia and New Zealand, Spain and Italy.
The Perigrine, (as it has become informally known at HS/BAC, due to it's higher dive speed than the Harrier), is also offered to the Royal Navy under the name Osprey with an upgrade on the Feranti Radar that the Sea Harrier has.
Embarressed into action by the commercial orders gained privately, the British government reinstate funding for the the Perigrine and an order is placed for 50 Perigine 1 and 10 Perigrine 1T aircraft.
Other countries followed suit and in 1970, MDD purchased the rights to manufacture an American version for the USMC, this one nicknamed Cranehawk.

The big question is was the P1154/BS100 practical in the mid/late 60s? The P1127, with its much lower performance aims, was plenty feasable and while it lacked the glamour of planes such as the TSR2 there were thousands of medium performance planes in dozens of airforces around the world in the 70s.

Riain said:

The big question is was the P1154/BS100 practical in the mid/late 60s? The P1127, with its much lower performance aims, was plenty feasable and while it lacked the glamour of planes such as the TSR2 there were thousands of medium performance planes in dozens of airforces around the world in the 70s.

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Another question. Is the F-35B practical in a couple of years?

Riain said:

The big question is was the P1154/BS100 practical in the mid/late 60s? The P1127, with its much lower performance aims, was plenty feasable and while it lacked the glamour of planes such as the TSR2 there were thousands of medium performance planes in dozens of airforces around the world in the 70s.

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Short version is yes. The technical ability was there, the political will was not.