how long could HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Duke of Edinburgh lasted
- Thread starter Ward
- Start date
Unmentionable Sea Mammal
Though I disagree, the USM was a real a plan. MacPherson's South Georgia fever dream is more akin to the Frisian Islands invasion plan cooked up be a previous member of this site.
McPherson
Banned
But did it work?
Sheffield and Coventry were the radar pickets. Both armed with Sea Dart. Both... SUNK. QED.
Please read. It amuses me to see another viewpoint so well expressed but to come out with a statement that is not true, still must be politely refuted. The Aleutians Campaign was a horror show that makes Operation Corporate look like a stroll in the park.
You might not have completely thought through how a staged ferry mission for Tornadoes works in this example or how the US built airfields on glaciers (Ever hear of Greenland?)
But here is how you stage using 1983 technology.
The gaps are the bulge of Western Africa and at St Helena/Ascension to South Georgia.
Step 1. Britain to Gibraltar: 2000 nautical miles. Your Tornado with 4 drop tanks and 1 KC-130 over the Bay of Biscay mid-air refueling makes the trip easily.
Step 2. Gibraltar to Liberia (If you do not know where it is, tucked just where the African beer belly coastline starts to turn east) Another 2000 nautical miles again with 1 refueling, tankers out of Gibraltar. Or out of Monrovia. Prefer Gibraltar, safer.
Step 3. St Helena's Island from Monrovia; the distance is a manageable 1800 nautical miles. No mid air refueling required.
Step 4. St Helena to South Georgia is the tough one. 3000 nautical miles. Ascension island is an alternate out of Monrovia, base KC-130s out of there, Now that last step is 3200 nautical miles. Need 2 mid air refuelings, one out of Monrovia and one out of Ascension.
Total air packages; two sections of 12 + 2 Tornadoes each. Ferry configuration. Tanker support. Four (4) out of possibly RAF Coningsby? Forward to Gibraltar. Another tanker element of four (4) KC-130s at Gibraltar, (possibly bribe the Morroccans for a half step and save the tankers). Then on to Monrovia, Liberia. (1983, the USAF is not kicked out and the country has not gone into chaos, yet.) There you will need another section of four (US?) (4) KC-130s to top off on sortie out to either St Helena's (1800 nm.) or to Ascension, (1400 nm), but in either case the final step is the one where tanker support must be at both ends of the leg, which if we use Ascension means 8 Kc-130s and 4 to receive at South Georgia.
Now here's the thing. The ferry mission as described above is how the Tornadoes got to the Falklands AFTER THE WAR. There was no step at South Georgia, because Stanley air field was the last step in the RTL mission instead.
If you want to take that Stanley airfield (First thing on the to do list once an amphib force lands is head for the enemy airfield and take it.) and not lose 1/4 of the effective RN, as Operation Corporate cost the Thatcher gov't; then you have to build a runway on South Georgia. It is the only piece of manageable real estate in region that allows a land-based strike package of tac-air to cover the landings. It can be done.
because the US has done it under far worse conditions.
Moreover, since the landings go in just south of Stanley on that peninsula, where the airfield is located, the assault force is a manageable brigade sized sea-lift. The trek is a miserable one of a few hours instead of almost a week and the fleet is in open ocean where there is no land clutter to mask Argentine air units. FURTHERMORE... if the land forces do their jobs right, a radar site can be landed and established which will give the RN the needed early warning to defend itself which it could not in the confined waters of San Carlo. Open ocean I expect British SAMs to work better with the radars they had. Convoy navy, remember? Designed that way, FIGHT that way. And do the things with decoys and passive defense I've already covered. This stuff is just basic to me. And no, the weather is not a factor in it. You plan for the weather. I did in this example. Better bring lots of WW II balsa planking and MARSTON Matte. (British inventions) cause YOU WILL BUILD THAT RUNWAY ON TUNDRA.
oooooooooor
Don't go through all that ridiculous effort with non-existant aircraft, and instead deploy a fleet carrier and accompanying battlegroup to wipe out the Argentine Airforce with long range radar missiles from fleet defence fighters.
Come on, I understand you've backed yourself into a corner, but surely at some point you have realise that what you are suggesting is adding in an entirely superflous step to the whole oepration that will increase the cost both financial and political exponentially. And that is before we get into how hard it would be to build a fully functioning airbase, and radar defence network on top of a glacier, in antarctic winter.
I've said that befoire, but I don't thiok it has really sunk in for you. Really just look at South Gerorgia on Google maps, and tell me where this airbase should be built. I'll wait.
Don't go through all that ridiculous effort with non-existant aircraft, and instead deploy a fleet carrier and accompanying battlegroup to wipe out the Argentine Airforce with long range radar missiles from fleet defence fighters.
Come on, I understand you've backed yourself into a corner, but surely at some point you have realise that what you are suggesting is adding in an entirely superflous step to the whole oepration that will increase the cost both financial and political exponentially. And that is before we get into how hard it would be to build a fully functioning airbase, and radar defence network on top of a glacier, in antarctic winter.
I've said that befoire, but I don't thiok it has really sunk in for you. Really just look at South Gerorgia on Google maps, and tell me where this airbase should be built. I'll wait.
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But did it work?
Sheffield and Coventry were the radar pickets. Both armed with Sea Dart. Both... SUNK. QED.
Please read. It amuses me to see another viewpoint so well expressed but to come out with a statement that is not true, still must be politely refuted. The Aleutians Campaign was a horror show that makes Operation Corporate look like a stroll in the park.
You might not have completely thought through how a staged ferry mission for Tornadoes works in this example or how the US built airfields on glaciers (Ever hear of Greenland?)
But here is how you stage using 1983 technology.
The gaps are the bulge of Western Africa and at St Helena/Ascension to South Georgia.
Step 1. Britain to Gibraltar: 2000 nautical miles. Your Tornado with 4 drop tanks and 1 KC-130 over the Bay of Biscay mid-air refueling makes the trip easily.
Step 2. Gibraltar to Liberia (If you do not know where it is, tucked just where the African beer belly coastline starts to turn east) Another 2000 nautical miles again with 1 refueling, tankers out of Gibraltar. Or out of Monrovia. Prefer Gibraltar, safer.
Step 3. St Helena's Island from Monrovia; the distance is a manageable 1800 nautical miles. No mid air refueling required.
Step 4. St Helena to South Georgia is the tough one. 3000 nautical miles. Ascension island is an alternate out of Monrovia, base KC-130s out of there, Now that last step is 3200 nautical miles. Need 2 mid air refuelings, one out of Monrovia and one out of Ascension.
Total air packages; two sections of 12 + 2 Tornadoes each. Ferry configuration. Tanker support. Four (4) out of possibly RAF Coningsby? Forward to Gibraltar. Another tanker element of four (4) KC-130s at Gibraltar, (possibly bribe the Morroccans for a half step and save the tankers). Then on to Monrovia, Liberia. (1983, the USAF is not kicked out and the country has not gone into chaos, yet.) There you will need another section of four (US?) (4) KC-130s to top off on sortie out to either St Helena's (1800 nm.) or to Ascension, (1400 nm), but in either case the final step is the one where tanker support must be at both ends of the leg, which if we use Ascension means 8 Kc-130s and 4 to receive at South Georgia.
Now here's the thing. The ferry mission as described above is how the Tornadoes got to the Falklands AFTER THE WAR. There was no step at South Georgia, because Stanley air field was the last step in the RTL mission instead.
If you want to take that Stanley airfield (First thing on the to do list once an amphib force lands is head for the enemy airfield and take it.) and not lose 1/4 of the effective RN, as Operation Corporate cost the Thatcher gov't; then you have to build a runway on South Georgia. It is the only piece of manageable real estate in region that allows a land-based strike package of tac-air to cover the landings. It can be done.
because the US has done it under far worse conditions.
Moreover, since the landings go in just south of Stanley on that peninsula, where the airfield is located, the assault force is a manageable brigade sized sea-lift. The trek is a miserable one of a few hours instead of almost a week and the fleet is in open ocean where there is no land clutter to mask Argentine air units. FURTHERMORE... if the land forces do their jobs right, a radar site can be landed and established which will give the RN the needed early warning to defend itself which it could not in the confined waters of San Carlo. Open ocean I expect British SAMs to work better with the radars they had. Convoy navy, remember? Designed that way, FIGHT that way. And do the things with decoys and passive defense I've already covered. This stuff is just basic to me. And no, the weather is not a factor in it. You plan for the weather. I did in this example. Better bring lots of WW II balsa planking and MARSTON Matte. (British inventions) cause YOU WILL BUILD THAT RUNWAY ON TUNDRA.
None of your mythical Tonkas make it (ignoring the fact they don't exist).
And why?
Because they crash trying to land at a non-existent airstrip on St Helena.
Or they crash trying to fly over 3,400 miles from Ascension to a dirt strip on a glacier at South Georgia. 6 hours in a Tonka is going to be beyond the safety limits. You are going to lose men and machines due to exhaustion.
The mythical support/supply chain shipping would be better taking crated Tonkas and assembling them on the glacier on South Georgia!!
At best it will be mid-1983 before a 9,000ft runway plus additional taxiways and hardstandings will be ready.
It will be interesting to see how the country manages to maintain the Task Force "down south" for so long along with the thousands of personnel and thousands of tonnes of material to build Joint Forces Base Sealion.
The benefit of having full employment (it will take the whole country working to support such an endeavour) will be balanced against the bankrupting of the state to pay for all this activity.
McPherson
Banned
What non-existent aircraft? Just because the UK does not have it, mean that others cannot "lend lease" the needed resources (as the US did, during and post war.). And i'm not the one backed in the corner. Do the numbers on what it cost to replace all those sunk ships and pay-off for the unnecessary dead as a result of Corporate. Do the costs in bribes to Liberia and in shipping engineering equipment, shelters, portable air traffic management, fuel and bombs to South Georgia.
I can tell you what it should cost. About $350,000,000 1983 USD assuming that South Georgia needs a battalion lift to take the place, 1 Red Horse engineering unit (Alaskan Air Guard), and about a month to carve in the airfield and set up to receive the Tornadoes. Might have to lease a 40,000 GWT tanker for avgas to top lug that fuel forward to Ascension. I don't think they ever solved the Blackbuck fuel storage bottleneck there.
I can tell you what it should cost. About $350,000,000 1983 USD assuming that South Georgia needs a battalion lift to take the place, 1 Red Horse engineering unit (Alaskan Air Guard), and about a month to carve in the airfield and set up to receive the Tornadoes. Might have to lease a 40,000 GWT tanker for avgas to top lug that fuel forward to Ascension. I don't think they ever solved the Blackbuck fuel storage bottleneck there.
McPherson
Banned
You note I wrote ASCENSION, too? I'd go ahead and build an airstrip at Helena just for G and G (Thanks for the suggestion and the correction). Redundancy is something you pad a high risk plan with (^^^) and I overlooked that bit. So thanks.
If RAF pilots cannot do a twelve to eighteen hour in a Tornado, then they are inferior to USAF Eagle pilots who ferried from Conus to Saudi Arabia direct during Desert Shield? Just asking. Cause the Eagle had one guy flying that loooong ride. The "Tonka" has a Backseater and an auto-pilot.
Six hour safety limit? Peacetime? What about war?
P.S. I did mention that this ferry mission happened RTL to the Falklands post war? (Not South Georgia). AFAIK, the RAF still does a rotation of personnel and aircraft out of there, though it may have been scaled back. (Budget cuts.)
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you really don't know much about the details of the Falklands war do you
Both Sheffield and Coventry were lost due to equipment failure, not some fatal flaw in tactics or incompetence on the part of the men operating them.
Sheffield was lost due to a combination of her satcoms suite interfering with her primary air search radar set and a flaw with the set up of her water main preventing the crew from being able to effectively fight the fires caused by the missile.
Coventry was lost due to problems her radar had when operating very close to shore and the general limitations of Sea Dart against low level targets, this was compounded by failures in the SeaWolf system fitted to the accompanying HMS Broadsword which prevented her from engaging the skyhawks till they were practically on top of the pair of ships.
Please read. It amuses me to see another viewpoint so well expressed but to come out with a statement that is not true, still must be politely refuted. The Aleutians Campaign was a horror show that makes Operation Corporate look like a stroll in the park.
You might not have completely thought through how a staged ferry mission for Tornadoes works in this example or how the US built airfields on glaciers (Ever hear of Greenland?)
But here is how you stage using 1983 technology.
The gaps are the bulge of Western Africa and at St Helena/Ascension to South Georgia.
Step 1. Britain to Gibraltar: 2000 nautical miles. Your Tornado with 4 drop tanks and 1 KC-130 over the Bay of Biscay mid-air refueling makes the trip easily.
Step 2. Gibraltar to Liberia (If you do not know where it is, tucked just where the African beer belly coastline starts to turn east) Another 2000 nautical miles again with 1 refueling, tankers out of Gibraltar. Or out of Monrovia. Prefer Gibraltar, safer.
Step 3. St Helena's Island from Monrovia; the distance is a manageable 1800 nautical miles. No mid air refueling required.
Step 4. St Helena to South Georgia is the tough one. 3000 nautical miles. Ascension island is an alternate out of Monrovia, base KC-130s out of there, Now that last step is 3200 nautical miles. Need 2 mid air refuelings, one out of Monrovia and one out of Ascension.
Total air packages; two sections of 12 + 2 Tornadoes each. Ferry configuration. Tanker support. Four (4) out of possibly RAF Coningsby? Forward to Gibraltar. Another tanker element of four (4) KC-130s at Gibraltar, (possibly bribe the Morroccans for a half step and save the tankers). Then on to Monrovia, Liberia. (1983, the USAF is not kicked out and the country has not gone into chaos, yet.) There you will need another section of four (US?) (4) KC-130s to top off on sortie out to either St Helena's (1800 nm.) or to Ascension, (1400 nm), but in either case the final step is the one where tanker support must be at both ends of the leg, which if we use Ascension means 8 Kc-130s and 4 to receive at South Georgia.
Now here's the thing. The ferry mission as described above is how the Tornadoes got to the Falklands AFTER THE WAR. There was no step at South Georgia, because Stanley air field was the last step in the RTL mission instead.
If you want to take that Stanley airfield (First thing on the to do list once an amphib force lands is head for the enemy airfield and take it.) and not lose 1/4 of the effective RN, as Operation Corporate cost the Thatcher gov't; then you have to build a runway on South Georgia. It is the only piece of manageable real estate in region that allows a land-based strike package of tac-air to cover the landings. It can be done.
because the US has done it under far worse conditions.
South Georgia is not the Aleutian islands, they are windswept hunks of craggy mountainous rock in the middle of the single most unaccommodating stretch of ocean on earth, there is no nice wide stretch of tundra on which to build an airbase capable of supporting your mad cap scheme of waiting 3-6 months before launching an opposed amphibious assault on the most heavily fortified section of the Falklands.
This to be honest shows that you really do know very little about the Falklands war and amphibious operations in general.
All of the beeches usable for landings directly around Port Stanley were heavily mined(and still are to this day) this is the obvious move when defending, and is why the British Military chose to land at San Carlos where they could build up the mass of force and supplies necessary to retake the islands relatively unhindered by Argentine counter attacks and counter landing measures.
To attempt what you suggest would have resulted in untold casualties amoungst the landing forces as they assault their way through a minefield directly under the guns of the Argentine defenders, who have had months and months to improve their defences far beyond that which the British faced IRL.
This isn't even touching on what the Argentine response to your South Georgia airbase would be, one can only imagine that they would not leave you in peace to conduct your herculean task of constructing and supplying a base larger then RAF Mount Pleasant but on a vastly less suitable area of land and in far more adverse conditions.
The first Tornado F.2 was not delivered to the RAF for another two years after Operation Corporate ended, the first Tornado Air defence squadron was not operational until 1987. The Tornado ADV variant didn't actually work properly until the early 90s when the F.3 variant was introduced.
The KC-130J that you used to illustrate how the Tornados could be ferried down to Habbakuk Mk.2 does not enter service until 2004, a full twenty two years after Operation Corporate, during this time period far less capable versions of the KC-130 were in service with smaller fuel loads. (This is not to say that there were not tankers that could have later ferried Tornados down to the South Atlantic, but it just illustrates that you haven't done proper research and have no clue what you are talking about.)
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So who leases them ADV Tonkas?
The first operational ADV was delivered in 1984 and it was to the RAF. So two years earlier where are they coming from?
If you think you can set up a base for Tonkas in a month on South Georgia then explain why it took 18 months to build the runway at MPA and then a further 12 months to complete the rest of the base?
I would posit that the build for MPA was far easier than your projected base in terms of both location and supply chain.
As to your cost-benefit analysis of "lost ships and war dead" versus "
bribes to Liberia and in shipping engineering equipment, shelters, portable air traffic management, fuel and bombs to South Georgia" ignoring the offensive nature of your comments lets concentrate solely on the logic at hand. You make a very simple mistake here and I wonder if you or anyone else can spot it.
McPherson
Banned
Equipment failure as you describe is a factor in not doing things the right way. I would not use the word "incompetence". I would say that it was not tested and trained for properly. I would say the design faults were in the same category. As for the ship employment, nothing you wrote changes that they were used as pickets and they FAILED in that mission. You can quibble about why. I just know they were sunk and did not perform the role as intended.
Sea Dart, for example could not work, did not work (wrong radars) and you simply stated more additional reasons why. And not very good reasons because operators could have worked around those named faults. Turn the conflictors OFF. Train for damage control when the automatics don't work either. Sheesh.
Have you ever been in the Bering Sea? I think from what you write the answer is certain no.
McPherson
Banned
My example uses the GR-4. I so stated. These planes have to BOMB. I wrote that three times.
McPherson
Banned
800 nautical miles is the problem.
General characteristics (GR-4)
Performance
- Crew: 2
- Length: 16.72 m (54 ft 10 in)
- Wingspan: 13.91 m at 25° wing sweep, 8.60 m at 67° wing sweep (45.6 ft / 28.2 ft)
- Height: 5.95 m (19.5 ft)
- Wing area: 26.6 m2 (286 ft2)
- Empty weight: 13,890 kg (30,620 lb[264])
- Loaded weight: 20,240 kg (44,620 lb[265])
- Max. takeoff weight: 28,000 kg (61,700 lb)
- Powerplant: 2 × Turbo-Union RB199-34R Mk 103 afterburning turbofans
- Dry thrust: 43.8 kN (9,850 lbf) each
- Thrust with afterburner: 76.8 kN (17,270 lbf) each
Cut that in half for grins and giggles.
- Maximum speed: Mach 2.2 (2,400 km/h, 1,490 mph) at 9,000 m (30,000 ft) altitude; 800 knots, 1,482 km/h, 921 mph indicated airspeed near sea level
- Range: 1,390 km (870 mi) for typical combat mission
- Ferry range: 3,890 km (2,417 mi) with four external drop tanks
- Service ceiling: 15,240 m (50,000 ft)
- Rate of climb: 76.7 m/s (15,100 ft/min)
- Thrust/weight: 0.77
Specifications (KC-130J)
Data from Lockheed Martin KC-130J Super Tanker fact sheet,
General characteristics
- Crew: 4 (two pilots,one crew chief and one loadmaster are minimum crew)
- Capacity:
92 passengers or
- 64 airborne troops or
- 6 pallets or
- 74 litter patients with 2 medical personnel
- 2–3 Humvees or an M113 armored personnel carrier
Performance
- Payload: 42,000 lb (19,090 kg)
- Length: 97 ft 9 in, 29.79 m (for C-130J-30: 112 ft, 9 in, 34.69 m)
- Wingspan: 132 ft 7 in (40.41 m)
- Height: 38 ft 10 in (11.84 m)
- Wing area: 1,745 ft² (162.1 m²)
- Empty weight: 75,562 lb (34,274 kg)
- Useful load: 72,000 lb (33,000 kg)
- Max. takeoff weight: up to 175,000 lb (79,378 kg); normal 155,000 lb (70,305 kg)
- Fuel offload capacity: 57,000 lb (26,000 kg)
- Powerplant: 4 × Rolls-Royce AE 2100D3 turboprop, 4,637 shp (3,458 kW) each
- Propellers: Dowty R391 6-blade composite propeller, 1 per engine
It seems to me, eminently doable. One tanker per two GR-4s. Figure 24 fighters and 12 tankers. Pucaras wiped out in a lo-lo-lo as the transports chug in. Be a VERY ROUGH landing at Rookers and Surf Bay, but the Argentines if you've done your prep work (naval gunfire, have heard of this?) won't be in too good a shape either and the airfield is a two hour fight after that. I figure no worse than Tulagi and that was a stiffer fight against longer odds.
- Maximum speed: 362 knots (417 mph, 671 km/h)
- Cruise speed: 348 kn (400 mph, 643 km/h)
- Range: 2,835 nmi (3,262 mi, 5,250 km)
- Service ceiling: 28,000 ft (8,615 m) with 42,000 pounds (19,090 kilograms) payload
- Takeoff distance: 3,127 ft (953 m) at 155,000 lb (70,300 kg) gross weight
QED.
HABBAKUK, the iceberg carrier, was nixed due to inadequate WW II refrigeration technology. The Saudis have recently looked at it again as a way to move fresh water to their water parched land. So...
Just because it is hard to do, does not mean that if it has to be done, it cannot be done. The methods do work. I have seen nothing (^^^) that makes the South Georgia plan a non-starter.
As for bribes to "friendly governments", what is offensive about the truth? Liberia was and is a corrupt failed state. Morocco is not filled with moral politicians, either. These are operational facts that affect military planning. Mission requires bribes. Suitcases full of money follow the JAGS to the needed mission sites. Part of the mission.
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So how does building RAF Arendelle on top of a glaciated mountain one and a half thousand kilometres from port Stanley, and then flying dedicated ground attak aircraft from them, help with the issue that British Air defence system in during the conflcit were inadequate?
Hint: It doesn't
What would help is having radar equipped air defence fighters with AEW support, and and radar guided missiles flying CAP for an invasion task force. There is a much better way to get those on station than having to build a brand new airbase in the harshest conditions imaginable, by airlift alone. I know this is going to souind crazy but hear me out.
What if there was a kind of ship that, had a long flat deck for aircraft to land and take off from. Kind of like an mobile air base. It also has a hanger to store the aircraft and service them. I know it couldn't be that big, so maybe we could sue some kind of catapult ot launch the aircraft off, and some strong wires and hook to catch them again for landing. I know it sounds mad, but I think it could just about work.
Also whether or not we have been to the Bering sea is irrelevant. Firstly I don't think you have either, and secondly it has nothing to do with the South Atlantic.
This is the place you are proposing to build FOB Niflheim. Take note of the shots of the glaciers, and the giant deep crevasses that cover them, which coincidently were also mentioned in that video you linked that talked about how bloody awful the place is. (Though perhaps you didn't even watch it, at this point I have my doubts.)
No airbase is being built there.
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So we're using tankers that entered service in 2004 to refuel strike aircraft that entered service between 1996 and 2003 to win the Falklands War in 1982 by basing them in possibly the worst place on Earth it's possible to attempt to build an airbase and you think that makes more sense than using a hypothetical fleet carrier?
Considering that part of their role was to draw attacks away from the landing ships and carriers it would be more accurate to say that they were partially successful, being attacked and potentially damaged or sunk is part and parcel with being an Escort.
sea dart did work in it's intended mission of engaging medium to high level Russian maritime bombers at long range in open waters, low level close range defence in littoral conditions was not what it was designed for.
yeah if only the operators has just been better at their jobs they could have changed the frequencies the radars and satcom systems operated at though sheer force of will, or radically redesigned the radar system so that it functioned perfectly in a littoral environment using only 5 feet of household electrical wire and a few rubber bands.
Fighting fires when one has no functional fire fighting equipment tends to be somewhat futile, though i will note the automatic fire suppression system in the ship's magazine did function flawlessly
Of course you haven't.
I am reminded of the perhaps apocryphal tale of Lord Nelson putting his telescope to his blind eye and proclaiming he sees no ships.
I predict that in time to come this "proposal" will be become infamous.
I am glad I could be here at the creation of a meme.