us designs for the british forces

[uk 75]

I must admit to having a weakness for US designs being used by the British
armed forces as in some cases they would have been more capable.
The Australians used a version of the US Adams class destroyer with Tartar
and Ikara. A similar ship would have been useful for the RN
The Standard missile couldvthen have beenadopted for these ships and
an Anglo Australian DLG in the 70s.
For the RAF the F14 with Phoenix Skyflash and AIM 9l would have been a formidable
air defence asset fromv1978 to the 2000s A longer service life and possibly fewer
aircraft as well as earlier phase out of Phantoms would have helped the cost.
The M113 family of vehicles for the Army. Greater standardisation with our alles
and much easier upgrades

 

[pathology_doc]

Go back even further for an actual example - the P-51 was originally designed by North American to a British requirement, and if only they had put a Merlin in it from the start (even a high-blown single-stage), it might have done wonders earlier than it did. And everyone forgets just how many B-29 bombers and F-86 fighters served with the RAF...

No need to play what-if, though it is fun; there are more than enough examples of WHEN.

 

[CJGibson]

"For the RAF the F14 with Phoenix Skyflash and AIM 9l would have been a formidable
air defence asset fromv1978 to the 2000s A longer service life and possibly fewer
aircraft as well as earlier phase out of Phantoms would have helped the cost."

You'd also need more tankers and AEW support for F-14s than the F.3s. This was examined and dismissed in the mid 70s.

Chris

 

[Mike Pryce]

70s studies were based on the paper version of the Tornado F.2. Engine and drag issues later revealed toned things down a bit.

Was a TF41 (Spey) F-14 looked at? More thrust/better SFC than TF30 and commonality with F4K/M. DOAE studies I've seen at Kew don't seem to look at options, just vanilla F-14/F.2

 

[yellowaster]

Go back even further for an actual example - the P-51 was originally designed by North American to a British requirement, and if only they had put a Merlin in it from the start (even a high-blown single-stage), it might have done wonders earlier than it did. And everyone forgets just how many B-29 bombers and F-86 fighters served with the RAF...

No need to play what-if, though it is fun; there are more than enough examples of WHEN.

FWIW, the B-29s were something of a failure in RAF service. Suffered from poor serviceability and were eventually returned to the US earlier than planned.

 

[pathology_doc]

Go back even further for an actual example - the P-51 was originally designed by North American to a British requirement, and if only they had put a Merlin in it from the start (even a high-blown single-stage), it might have done wonders earlier than it did. And everyone forgets just how many B-29 bombers and F-86 fighters served with the RAF...

No need to play what-if, though it is fun; there are more than enough examples of WHEN.

FWIW, the B-29s were something of a failure in RAF service. Suffered from poor serviceability and were eventually returned to the US earlier than planned.

Now that I did not know. I know there were plenty of engine issues in the bomber's early service, but I thought they had those sorted out (more or less) by the end of the war. Was the issue the airplanes, or poor awareness/insufficient experience among RAF ground crew in the demands of servicing them?

 

[CJGibson]

"DOAE studies I've seen at Kew don't seem to look at options, just vanilla F-14/F.2"

Very true and it was a MRCA AD they were looking at as well, which was pretty much what became the F.2.

They were interested in the F-14B with the F401, but it didn't perform. I think the real reason was that having seen the money pit that was the re-engined F-4K/M, the probable spiraling cost of fitting the F-14 with Speys, UK AIR (what became Blue Circle) and Skyflash, put the Air Force Department off the Tomcat.

Mind you the First Sea Lord was keen to have a separate Tomcat unit within the RAF to defend his fleet.

Nice wishlist.

Chris

 

[Rickshaw]

Go back even further for an actual example - the P-51 was originally designed by North American to a British requirement, and if only they had put a Merlin in it from the start (even a high-blown single-stage), it might have done wonders earlier than it did. And everyone forgets just how many B-29 bombers and F-86 fighters served with the RAF...

No need to play what-if, though it is fun; there are more than enough examples of WHEN.

FWIW, the B-29s were something of a failure in RAF service. Suffered from poor serviceability and were eventually returned to the US earlier than planned.

Now that I did not know. I know there were plenty of engine issues in the bomber's early service, but I thought they had those sorted out (more or less) by the end of the war. Was the issue the airplanes, or poor awareness/insufficient experience among RAF ground crew in the demands of servicing them?

As far as I am aware, the Washingtons were old, they had seen extensive service with the USAF and were suffering from their age when the RAF took them up. Interestingly, the RAAF had two Washingtons on charge and in service at Woomera in the late 1940s-early 1950s.

 

[CJGibson]

Were those RAAF Washingtons the ones whose reliability held up UK guided weapons development or was that RAF examples?

Chris

 

[Rickshaw]

Were those RAAF Washingtons the ones whose reliability held up UK guided weapons development or was that RAF examples?

Chris

As they were the only ones, it would have been them.

 

[pathology_doc]

"DOAE studies I've seen at Kew don't seem to look at options, just vanilla F-14/F.2"

Very true and it was a MRCA AD they were looking at as well, which was pretty much what became the F.2.

Here's a question for you. Was the MRCA (as such) ever intended for or capable of the airborne interception role? I know it was primarily a strike/interdictor airplane, but was its weapon system capable of interfacing with, launching and successfully guiding AIM-7, either in service or at any time in planning/development? If so, where were they planning to hang the missiles?

Granted, using Tornado IDS in this role would have been suboptimal to say the least (though not as suboptimal as the F.2 as delivered with "Blue Circle radar"), but could it have been done in extremis? The airplane was, IIRC, quite fast at least on the deck (though doubtless dangling AIM-7's off it would have changed that).

 

[kaiserd]

"DOAE studies I've seen at Kew don't seem to look at options, just vanilla F-14/F.2"

Very true and it was a MRCA AD they were looking at as well, which was pretty much what became the F.2.

They were interested in the F-14B with the F401, but it didn't perform. I think the real reason was that having seen the money pit that was the re-engined F-4K/M, the probable spiraling cost of fitting the F-14 with Speys, UK AIR (what became Blue Circle) and Skyflash, put the Air Force Department off the Tomcat.

Mind you the First Sea Lord was keen to have a separate Tomcat unit within the RAF to defend his fleet.

Nice wishlist.

Chris

In this context seems churlish not to plug a really excellent book that deals with this subject
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1902109260/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1495731892&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=chris+gibson&dpPl=1&dpID=51lgaWa18UL&ref=plSrch

 

[uk 75]

Quite agree about Chris's excellent book.
I have to admit it is the 9 year old in me that prefers Tomcats to MRCAs..
The F14 in RAF or RN colours just looks so good...

 

[pathology_doc]

Quite agree about Chris's excellent book.
I have to admit it is the 9 year old in me that prefers Tomcats to MRCAs..
The F14 in RAF or RN colours just looks so good...

It's the nine year old in us all which can't understand why you can't just sling a quartet of Phoenix under the wings of an ADV Tornado and head off on an intercept mission with them.

As a matter of fact, the nine year old in me broke down and cried the other day when he read Norman Friedman's Fighters Over the Fleet and found out that not only was the Tomcat (as it existed when I was nine) deeply flawed in some ways, but that its legendary six-Phoenix warload almost never carried because of performance issues and the missile was actually not that crash-hot at maximum range against a manoeuvering target. In short, the Tomcat's bubble was thoroughly and utterly burst.

"But... but..." he blubbered, and then the tears began and I still don't think he's recovered yet. I'm trying to comfort him with the fact that whatever the Tomcat's problems might have been, at least it isn't the F-111B.

 

[Mike Pryce]

Quite agree about Chris's excellent book.
I have to admit it is the 9 year old in me that prefers Tomcats to MRCAs..
The F14 in RAF or RN colours just looks so good...

It's the nine year old in us all which can't understand why you can't just sling a quartet of Phoenix under the wings of an ADV Tornado and head off on an intercept mission with them.

As a matter of fact, the nine year old in me broke down and cried the other day when he read Norman Friedman's Fighters Over the Fleet and found out that not only was the Tomcat (as it existed when I was nine) deeply flawed in some ways, but that its legendary six-Phoenix warload almost never carried because of performance issues and the missile was actually not that crash-hot at maximum range against a manoeuvering target. In short, the Tomcat's bubble was thoroughly and utterly burst.

"But... but..." he blubbered, and then the tears began and I still don't think he's recovered yet. I'm trying to comfort him with the fact that whatever the Tomcat's problems might have been, at least it isn't the F-111B.

Don't worry. The Tomcat will always be better than the MiG 28!