It's time once again for our regular open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't culture war.
The November Alexander Award on DSL went to Vitor, for a post on container logistics. Highly recommended for its perspective on the current supply-chain issues.
2017 overhauls are Iowa parts seven and eight, Mine Warfare Part 2, Ironclads and the deaths of HMS Victoria and Force Z. 2018 overhauls are G3 and Nelson, Commercial Aviation Part 2, Japanese Battleships in WWII, A Brief History of the Aircraft Carrier and Falklands Part 9. 2019 overhauls are Harpoon, Riverine Warfare - Southeast Asia Part 1, Information, Communication and Naval Warfare Part 4 and my review of the National Atomic Museum. 2020 overhauls are CSA Raiding Part 3, Merchant Ships - Research Vessels, Nuclear Weapons at Sea - Effects and the review of HMS Belfast from Alsadius.
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Begin 2021 Naval Gazing sports coverage:
Navy beat Army!
End of 2021 Naval Gazing sports coverage.
I was taking a look at the recent UK defence committee report, and while I've not read the body yet, there is something off about the included comparison of national fleets.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmdfence/168/report.html
For instance, they divide carriers into three categories, CVNs, CVs, and VSTOL carriers. But in addition to classifying the QEs as CVs (arguable because of their size perhaps) they also list Japan as having 4, which is absurd. The 'Rest of NATO' (excludes US, UK and France) are listed as having no CVs, and 2 VSTOL carriers, but somehow the Hyugas count, despite so far as I'm aware never operating a fixed wing aircraft. When it comes to classifying the UK ships, while I'm hazy on the distinction between AOEHs and AORHs, it seems wrong to group the Tides in with Fort Victoria, rather than the Waves, and it might make it harder to notice that we only really have one (rather old) ships capable of transferring significant solid stores during a replenishment at sea.
Am I being excessively picky, or are these oddly basic mistakes to make in a document like this?
Reading further, recommendation 26 shows they are aware of the issue with Fort Victoria, though I'd settle for foreign built replacements today over UK built ones tomorrow. I suppose that buying foreign ships won't necessarily mean they arrive any sooner, however.
That does sound a bit fishy. I'd have no problem classifying the QEs as CVs. They're probably the most capable carriers outside of the USN today. But the Japanese carriers don't meet those standards, AIUI. And yeah, they seem to be doing fishy things with their replenishment ships. The Tides have only 8 TEU slots for solid cargo according to the 2020 Seaforth WNR. The basic design behind the Tides also can be used for an AKE, but that's not what the RN bought.
@bean
How are you counting the air group in that calculation? Because I would rather have the degaulle with E-2Ds and a deck full of F-35Cs than a QE. And even if you're going with rafales, the lack of real AWACS is still a huge issue for the QEs that really evens the odds more than they should be.
I'm counting air group as carried, not a hypothetical air group that they might carry. When France joins the F-35 program and starts taking F-35Cs to sea, we'll talk about reevaluating. Definitely agree that the choice of STOVL over CATOBAR was a bad one, but that ship sailed when they let BAE get away with not doing the design right.
I've still not gone through the whole thing, and I'm a just complaining from my armchair, but I find myself disagreeing with one of their experts: "Professor Till recommended that the Navy consider acquiring vessels like a corvette or light frigate equipped with heavy weaponry, noting the effectiveness of the Israeli Sa’ar 5 and 6 and Russian Stereguschiy, Gremyashchiy, Buyan and Krakurt classes" Professor Geoffrey Till (Dudley Knox Chair of Naval History and Strategy at US Naval War College) is presumably far more knowledgeable than me, but I don't like his thinking at all. How would we crew them? And if we had the manpower, why by tiny overloaded corvettes with no growth margin?
Wait, he's recommending heavy corvettes for the RN? Or for the USN?
It doesn't seem to make much sense either way. The downside to those kinds of ships are short range, no growth margin and no damage tolerance to speak of. They also suck utter mold in heavy seas. They're solid for Israel who doesn't need to go far from their own coast, and even for the Russian Black Sea fleet - but it's noteworthy that Russia doesn't seem to put many of those in the North Sea or Pacific forces, preferring to retain their remaining cruisers and proper destroyers there.
He sounds like a nutjob. There are lots of people like that. A former director of Naval History Command and former naval aviator can't do math. Cebrowski was a Vice Admiral and pushed something similar. There was the guy writing about privateering being a good idea in proceedings, who was a colonel. As best I can tell, there are some bad ideas that appeal to even smart people.
A former director of Naval History Command and former naval aviator can’t do math.
I'm curious if you're thinking of what I think you're thinking of.
Jerry Hendrix, obviously. I get really annoyed every time I hear anyone mention Retreat from Range.
@Jade For the Royal Navy
It's reasonable that some of their experts would have different opinions, but I can't see anything in the report pushing back on that particular one, and it made it into the recommendations, which I don't like. The report is of poor quality in other areas too. There is discussion of how important amphibious capability is to the RN, but then in their 'Navy Transition Chart' showing ships going out of service, plans for replacements, and capability gaps out to 2040, the Albions and Bays are missing! And I can't find any discussion of plans for their eventual replacement, despite the fact that we should probably have started building them by the end of this decade.
Thought so. I can't believe that "analysis" has retained any currency after the games they played with the range figures.
Did anyone in the professional sphere take it seriously? I don't blame most laymen for assuming that an organization with the stature of CNAS actually knew what it was talking about. (OK, most laymen will assume that anyone capable of creating a pretty pdf is legit, but that's life.) But I'd assume that most people who know something about aviation operations would at least ask some questions. (Of course, I would also assume that Hendrix would know this.)
Hmm. Actually, a revised version of my debunking might make a good writeup in a proper publication. Maybe proceedings.
At least where I work, we keep track of these publications and talk them over via informal departmental (sometimes multi-departmental) email-threads. We also do weekly news-roundups on various topics (one of my side-responsibilities is preparing the one on relevant Australia, South China Sea, and Taiwan stuff).
R2R came in for some firm kicking, as I recall.
In gaming news, has anyone checked out Nebulous? Various dev videos here.
It's obviously very inspired by Homeworld, but is a more detailed tactical-level game. It's developed by a navy guy, so radar, fire control, and calling out track numbers to allied players is all in there.
Here is a video explaining why the B-52 engine replacement program will retain the original eight-engine configuration, rather than shifting to two or four engines, like in more modern aircraft of similar size. (link)
I actually disagree with that. I'm not saying that there aren't potential engine-out issues if you have four engines. There are. But they're very solvable. Specifically, if you fitted the control system so that it would automatically throttle back the engine opposite the loss, then it would be very possible to keep thrust asymmetry within limits and still have enough power for takeoff. A PW4000-92 weighs the same as two of the existing TF33s, but has as much thrust as 4 or 5 of them. You'd probably have to limit that some for structural reasons, but it shouldn't be a problem to take off on 2.5 engines. I'm still strongly of the opinion that they went with 8 for essentially political reasons.
Kind of like how the N1 dealt with engine failure.
Given the possibility of an engine explosion taking out two engines or even a whole pod just falling off I'd expect the BUFF to be able to handle loss of two engines without even needing to reduce power on the opposite side.
Depends on how fast it's going. The worst-case engine-out is at low speeds because that's when you don't have much ability to counteract the thrust asymmetry with the rudder. I have no doubt that the Buff can fly with two or more engines out and full power on the rest at cruise speed, but the same isn't true at the critical moments during takeoff.
What kind of political reasons?
@Anonymous I thought the N1 dealt with engine failure by exploding? Or did I miss the joke Ü
@Johan
For some reason, there are lots of people who get very hung up on how many engines planes have, when it just isn't relevant any more. For instance, the people moaning about how the latest airliner/MPA has only two engines instead of four, when in fact the lower number of engines actually makes the plane more reliable. Likewise the Navy with the F/A-18, even though a significant fraction of the planes it replaced had one engine. I suspect they didn't want a giant argument with those people.
@Alexander
I think in theory it was supposed to deal with engine failure by shutting down the opposite engine. In practice, yes, it exploded. (Or, in one case, shut down all of the engines, which also led to explosion.)
I thought planes (especially loaded bombers) used essentially full power on takeoff? Would it just take them longer to gain altitude with 1.5 engines out?
First, keep in mind that the 2.5 engines is equivalent to 10 of the engines we use today, so a B-52 set up this way will have more power than the ones I occasionally see flying overhead.
Beyond that, yes, there's a lot of safety margin in existing designs because they have to be able to cope with engine failures, particularly one that has been upgraded like this. The early B-52s had engines that produced barely 10,000 lb of thrust apiece. You can easily get that from a single engine now, although it's going to be a bit big/heavy for the pylons.
There must have been a good handful of plans to replace the B-52 over the years. Pretty much anything is going to look good compared to trying to keep sixty-year-old planes in service, particularly since no new ones are being manufactured. What happened?
The US defense procurement process happened. The problem is that it's hard to get a big system through procurement without it acquiring every bell and whistle anyone can dream up. So the replacement is going to look good, right up until you see the price tag. Even with all of the support costs, the B-52 is still the cheapest of the American bombers to fly, and it's by far the most reliable. If you need a bunch of ordnance a long way from base without having to get through really heavy defenses, the B-52 is the best option. (Not to say it can't deal with some defenses, but it's not nearly as good as the B-2 at dealing with them.)
My semi-serious proposal to replace it in the bomb truck role is to procure the BKC-46, which should have some protection against the Good Idea Fairy.
bean:
All but the engine it was meant to shut down.
There have been experiments with chucking bombs out of the back of a cargo plane. If you had to make do without B-52s, and the only real bomber was the B-21, how much could C-17s do to cover the gap?
You could build a system that would let you turn a C-17 into something approaching a B-52 for cases where there weren't defenses. Stores separation would be exciting, particularly for things like JASSM and MALD, but it's not impossible. The biggest issue is just having enough airframes. The C-17 buy was capped at 223, and the line was shut down in 2015. If we assume that they'll replace the 76 B-52s 1 for 1, that's a third of the force pulled off airlift duties and switched over to the bomber role.
I'm pretty sure JASSM was one of the test munitions, so that should be okay. Essentially, you slap them on a pallet and roll it out of the cargo door, aided by a parachute. The lack of new airframes is a potential problem though. How feasible would restarting the line be compared to producing a 767 variant? In terms of performance, what do you lose by going for a cargo plane rather than a dedicated (if very old) bomber? From the perspective of a country like Britain, where maintaining a separate fleet of bombers is basically not affordable, I really like the idea. We're already getting rid of our Hercules, and a few more airlifters already seems like a smart purchase, especially if they can also take over the bomber role in a pinch. Probably worth getting some refueling booms for the voyagers while we are about it.
I don't think a restart would be feasible. AIUI, the factory at Boeing Long Beach was shut down and sold off, so you'd have to set it up somewhere else and bring in as much of the workforce as you could scrape up from retirement. The 767 line is still going, if slowly, so that's a much easier task.
The ability to operate in the face of moderate to heavy air defenses. The BKC-46 or BC-17 would be essentially just a munitions truck. Don't plan on taking it anywhere it's likely to get shot at, any more than you'd take a C-17 or KC-46. The B-52 has an impressive EW system and its own radar, although right now that's of dubious utility because of how old it is. But there's a replacement program underway right now, which will give it an AESA. Yeah, the BKC-46 would lose that kind of capability, but after we have enough B-21s for the SIOP missions, I think they can handle those. The airlifter/tanker conversion will be more than capable of slinging JASSMs and dropping JDAMs on the Taliban or ISIS. Fit a targeting pod and some stations for battle management people, and it will cover essentially all of what the B-52 and B-1 actually do today.
Okay, so even if a BC-17 is as effective as a BKC-46 would be, they won't be building more, so they're only an option to the extent that they can be spared from transport duties. For new cheap bombers, the Poseidon is a varient of the 767 with a (small) weapons bay, and a few pylons. I'm not sure what weapons you could actually fit in the bay, but assume you successfully integrate JASSM and JDAM or whatever, would a Poseidon do the job? It's probably a fair bit more expensive because of the specialist MPA gear, with less payload, but being an in service aircraft, has excellent protection against the 'Good Idea Fairy'. It would be another good option for the UK, because as with the C-17 option, it would mean increasing the size of an existing fleet rather than buying an altogether new aircraft.
If it's EW equipment and a radar that is the difference between a B-52 and a KC-46 why not just fit the equipment to the 767?
But isn't the C-17 meant for tactical use anyway?
Alexander:
At least someone is willing to give me a laugh, even if at your expense.
The Poseidon is a 737, not a 767, and the bay is simply too small to be a viable replacement. AIUI, it's limited to torpedoes (although I think it could fit a couple of JDAMs), and if you want missiles, you're limited to the two underwing hardpoints for Harpoon/LRASM. A B-52 can carry 20 JASSM/LRASM, or 24 JDAM. You might be able to fit a 737 variant with some sort of internal rotary launcher and make it work that way, but I think you'd be better off with the bigger 767.
Even that stuff won't make a 767 into a bomber. The structure isn't built for running around at low level, for one thing. And this just seems like the good idea fairy creeping a bit too far. We want a cheap platform, and radar and EW is expensive. So leave it off, and use the B-21 if you need that sort of thing.
There's a big difference between "will probably be shot at by MANPADS from time to time" and "must penetrate in the face of fighters and serious SAMs".
To expand on my thinking here a bit, the reason you wouldn't want to give the BKC-46 the entire B-52 avionics package is because that's not what it's for. The basic idea here is that the low-end bomb truck does what the B-52 and B-1 do day-to-day, while the high-end bomber (B-21/2037 Bomber) do the difficult stuff. Spending money on avionics for our bomb truck is going to drive up the price up by probably tens of millions per airframe. Save the money and spend it on more good bombers instead.
Re:737-767 Oops, so the Poseidon is not at all what we're looking for. Well that makes ending C-17 production more annoying. Perhaps try the same idea with the Atlas instead?
I suppose you can do that with your weird foreign aircraft if you want. More seriously, that could probably work, although I would want to make sure BAe didn't get the contract, because in that case, it wouldn't fit into an Atlas, and it would cost five times as much as the original plan.
The new engines for the B-52, designated the F130, are basically the Rolls Royce BR700 that rate approximately 17,000 lbs. of thrust. This is quite a step up from the existing TF-33s. It is going to enjoy quite the decrease in fuel burn so I can imagine that some of the mission profiles won't be as tanker dependent. That tanker support has been baked in for so long though, that I wonder how much mission planning will really change. It seems the real driver of the switch to the new engines is the maintenance costs and not tanker support.
On the existing H models they have to account for a loss,of an outboard pod (2 of the engines). This requirement will obviously remain but the new thrust output will raise VMCG-- 34k thrust asymmetry vice less than 25. The video made a good point about the rudder not being optimum and normally you don't want to drive VMCG too high.
I would need to be schooled (in other words strongly convinced) that an auto reduction of thrust on the opposite side would be what I would want. The better solution would be, imho, the Thrust Asymmetry Compensation that Boeing has on the 777 to immediately feed in rudder trim in case of a thrust loss. Both systems however, require equipment that is probably way too difficult and costly to retrofit.
@Echo Airliners probably use reduced thrust on takeoff 95% of the time these days while the B-52, from what my colleagues who have flown it, can use it very infrequently as the aircraft is rather underpowered when it is heavy. With the new RR engines that should change.
The thrust figures given in Wikipedia for the new engines (F130) and the old (TF33) are about the same, at 17,000 lbf. Is that inaccurate?
TIL that at least one WW2 tanker is still operating (M/V Lee A. Tregurtha, nee USS CHIWAWA.
@Blackshoe: And she was the SS Lee A. Tregurtha until 2005. Who else is still operating under steam these days?
@John Schilling
Some of the MSC ships are still steam-turbine powered, but I think maybe you meant merchant ships? Can't think of any.
Well...it looks as if I was far off beam on my previous post regarding the B-52. I emailed a colleague of mine who has had recent (2015) experience in the airframe with a total time in type of nearly 3000 hours.
First it seems that they only do the takeoff data based on losing 1 engine--the outermost engine in an outermost pod. He stated:
"If memory serves, the only takeoff number we calculated/charted for engine failure for every initial takeoff was Vmsdc. It was calculated for the loss of only one outboard engine. Of course, we had charts for go-around with 2,3 and 4 engines out. But, we used those mostly for academic discussion or if we had an emergency requiring it.
We also had a chart to calculate a speed for ground directional control. That would be a transitory speed. If you lost an outboard engine at that speed both the rudder authority and the wheel steering would be insufficient to maintain directional control on the ground. Not enough airflow past the rudder and just enough lift to reduce the friction on the wheels to steer. Again, it was mostly academic because you would accelerate or decelerate through that speed so quickly, it would not really matter."
In the following you will also see his mention of possibly requiring an opposite reduction of thrust--something that Bean spoke to but that I was a little slow intuiting. It seems that might be the only way to maintain control in some cases.
You will also notice that I was WAY off on my recollection of them always doing max thrust takeoffs. It seems that these are the definite exception rather than the standard practice.
My question does stand though in how they will handle an outboard loss of 17K pounds of thrust now vice the old 12.5 (as he remembers the thrust to be). One would imagine the need for more rudder authority or of Bean's observation of a reduction of thrust on the opposite side.
I believe the mention of VMSDC is analogous to VMCG for other types. Also, the B-52 has body gear steering which most aircraft do not. It sounds as if both engines fail in an outboard pod that you in store for a very bad day...
Here is the fist part of his reply:
"I flew and instructed in the BUFF for my entire AF flying career (20 yrs -3 yr staff -1 UPT- 2 yrs enlisted) In total that was about 14 of active flying. The whole point of 8 engines, 4 generators, 6 hyd pumps, 12 fuel tanks, etc…was redundancy in combat to deliver a nuclear payload to the target and maybe recover somewhere safe. Of course the world has changed since then.
The video, although a little light in the technical discussion, actually hits most of the relevant points about 8 vs 2 vs 4 engines. The rudder is very small and not very effective. With the current turbojet engines, loss of one outboard engine (#1 or #8) at Vmsdc (minimum speed for directional control) requires full rudder with the max load on the rudder of 147 million ft-lbs + half of the available lateral control authority (spoiler only-no ailerons on the BUFF).
The wingspan of 185’ (92.5’ left and right) has the outboard engine pods out there approximately 70-75’ from the fuselage. That’s where that 147 mill ft-lbs comes from. It’s a huge moment arm. Now, if you consolidate the thrust of two TF-33 (MRT 12,500lbs) into one pod and lose one of those outboard engines below Vmsdc, you’ve doubled the capability of the rudder with airframe’s current engineering. You better have a lot of altitude to reach a much higher Vmsdc or reduce the opposing thrust on the asymmetric engine a lot. Essentially you have a two engine airplane at that point. Right after S2 (unstick speed…we didn’t use Vr) you probably won’t be able to recover at most gross weights.
The question was asked about partial thrust takeoff. We did that nearly 100% of the time. It was exactly because of the possibility of losing an engine on takeoff. It resulted in a safety margin by reducing the Vmsdc by reducing the asymmetric excess thrust on the operating engines. The only time you would need TRT for takeoff would be at the max gross weight of 488,000
Remember, I am not an engineer. So you engineers out there, please don’t throw a bunch of mathematical “rocks” at me. This discussion is a pilot discussion based on my 2800 hours of flying the BUFF. Also, I have not followed the engineering developments in the re-engine of the airplane. I am sure if the engineers can find a way to put 4 engines on the BUFF, they will. It just might require a lot of structural changes."
Neal, thanks for that. I will say that my B-52 Haynes Manual lists the thrust on the TF33 as 17,000 lb. It does seem odd that they'd not put more power on it, but I'd guess that it's for structural reasons.
That's awesome info Neal. Thanks to your friend for explaining it all.
Yes, approx 17k on the TF33. I believe he mis-typed with the 12.5k rating. Interesting aircraft to be sure.
Maybe it won't go as badly as the last attempt to put BR700s in old planes.
There's a couple of major differences. First, the Nimrod carried its engines within the wing, so changing the engines had much more impact on the airframe than it would on the B-52. Second, Boeing has a much better track record of delivering stuff within reasonable cost overruns and without too much schedule slippage than BAE does/did.