Article by Eric Grove: RN versus RAF argument late 50s early 60s

[uk 75]

I was talking to someone the other day who had found an article by Eric Grove recording the massive argument between the RAF and the RN at the end of the 50s and up to 1963 about the fate of aircraft carriers.  This is only some of the gist as my friend had not got the original article.

The RAF proposed that the Navy should get out of the big carrier business and settle for a small (the Pike ship after the Air Marshal who suggested it) operating RAF vstols and helicopters for the Royal Marines.

The RN countered by offering the RAF spaces on a big carrier (the later CVA 01) and proposing a joint RAF/RN force East of Suez (shades of Joint Force Harrier) using Buccaneers and HS 1154s.

The OR 346 swing wing aircraft (fighter attacker) was cancelled because the RN and RAF could not agree on its primary role and deployment. The same then happened to the HS 1154 joint service version.

A single CVA 01 emerged from this wrangle as a political compromise to meet the carrier requirement.

As subsequent events showed, neither the RAF nor the RN were content with this outcome.  The RN helped kill off TSR 2 and the RAF returned the favour by ensuring the demise of CVA 01.

From this account, the politicians (Thorneycroft and then Healey) and the Treasury cannot necessarily be blamed for getting fed up with the top military men and so imposed their own money based solution. (Has a contemporary ring to it?)

I often wonder what would have happened if the RAF had settled for a true Canberra replacement in the form of a Medway equipped Buccaneer. Might the RN then have played ball with HS 1154 and saved their carriers.  These would then have been replaced in the 80s by the swing-wing fighter attacker (Tornado-like).  The winners would have been the British taxpayer and the aircraft industry, the losers, the senior Military who dreamt as now of playing with the big boys (the US) on an equal footing.

Perhaps..

UK 75

[Lawman]

A better bet would have been for there to be a study done early enough (i.e. probably late '50s, maybe '58 or '59), showing that STOL would be more practical than pushing for VTOL. In fact, of all people, Sydney Camm, the father of the Harrier, was not convinced of the merits of going for VTOL, believing that such aircraft wouldn't reach the capability of more conventional fighters.

As such, going for a P-1154 class fighter (weight wise, not VTOL), quite possibly the same as discussed in the other thread on UK-French cooperation, i.e. the Mirage F-2. This could have satisfied the RAF and Royal Navy's need for a new fighter, instead of the American Phantom, and a twin engined version, using two Speys, could have been the solution to the unrecognised need, i.e. a practical fighter that had real export potential. By pushing for VTOL, the UK expended a lot of money, and ended up with an okay aircraft by default, namely the Harrier, being developed out of a testbed aircraft, i.e. the Kestrel. Instead, the UK could have pursued a low risk twin Spey/Medway engined fighter, and possibly a lighter, cheaper aircraft, similar to the Mirage F-1.

As discussed on the other thread, by going for cooperation with the French, some of the issues could have been dealt with - even the RN could benefit, probably by settling for a Clemenceau type carrier. By getting two Clemenceau-plus carriers in the late '50s in place of the rebuilds, and a third in the early '60s, thus allowing the Royal Navy to actually have a chance of preventing the rundown of carriers. The RAF abandons TSR-2 earlier, and switches instead to the Spey engined Buccaneer, and gets large numbers of them. Similarly, with no expensive P-1154, the RAF stands a much better chance of getting the lower risk F-2, especially if it is a joint Hawker-Dassault product.

Overall, just going for lower risk programs would have helped immensely, especially by taking advantage of the political timing - i.e. if you get procurement in well before Labour come into power, then it helps...

[Zen]

It would be the scaled Medway engine, aka the Spey as used on S.2 Buccaneers. In fact considering the periode this also explains references by Norman Friedman to a Medway powered Sea Vixen. Their both talking about the scaled down Medway we know as the Spey.

P1154 is a curious beast, but for the RN to adopt this, suggests a change of direction on the carrier front.
DAW and DNC seem to have had a debate on the merits of STOVL or CaTOVL carriers for the 'trade protection role' during the early 50's, rather precipitous since VTOL machines did'nt really develope enough in the periode to be of serious consideration. But DAW rightly recognises the merits of a wide deck on such a carrier and proposes a design that could operate eight Scimitars from a 180ft mk4 catapult and be convertable for VTOL later on. This scheme seems to be based on a Colossus type hull of 695ft length in the waterline.

The Medium Fleet CV of 35,000tons (from all the information I have it seems likely its full load was roughly 42,000tons considering its power, speed and airgroup) was designed to take advantage of VTOL aircraft at the insistance of the First Sea Lord (Mountbatten). That design seems to be favoured from 1953 to 1956. Likely Suez and the '57 defence review along with the firming up of the performance parameters of the NA39 Strike aircraft, ending of the DLI mission (and the Saro P.177) and increasing size of the CAP fighter pulled the plug on this one.

In May 1962 during a meeting of the Admiralty Lord Carrington proposed a 40,000ton CV costing around 43 million operating 24 fast jets (Buccaneer and SeaVixen) to be replaced by V/STOL aircraft.
That figure on the tonnage is a curious one since it keeps cropping up for STOVL carriers.

But the CVA-01 periode concludes in favour of supersonic V/STOL and ASW operating off CVs, with the RN dropping the strike, attack and anti-shipping missions. This is seen in the OSSS (off shore support ship) of 15,000tons standard and 20,000tons full load. But such a ship was too small, operating too small and airgroup. 4 P1154's and 2 AEW, plus ASW helicopters.
Focus for such a airgroup is fighter cover for the ASW fleet and possibly limited light support of land forces, though the numbers preclude this.

P1154 to operate well from a carrier needs a set of changes on the carrier.
A move to the ski-ramp, cuts the need to catapulting, not only saving money on the CV but reducing stresses and weight on the aircraft.
"landing grids" a part of the sponsoned deck that is a a grid rather than a solid plate of decking allowing jet efflux to mainly pass through down to the sea below, idealy cooled of course to withstand the 1,000 degree heat of the PCB reheat, this solves the issue ot hot gas reingestion.
During at least one part of the design phase CVF had something similar.

These seem within the scope of a conversion of an existing CV if it has sufficient deck sponson.
So adoption of the P1154 would create the circumstances of a battle royal between proponets of STOVL and CTOL carriers, with the Buccaneer as the target of the STOVL crowd and the P1154 as the target of the CTOL crowd.

So if the RAF accepts the Buccaneer and the RN the P1154, the likleyhood is the RN will loose its Buccaneer fleet to the RAF, but retain its smaller CVs operating the P1154.
Lord Carringtons CV proposal might be the winner on such a front for the RN, the RAF might even back it realising it precludes what they can see in the future of CTOL carrier aircraft at the time (F111 then F14).

What the RN should find of course is even with the limitations of the P1154 its sortie rate is very high compared with CTOL, and the running costs of the CVs should be less.
In fact the anti-shipping mission would return with the introduction of the Sea Eagle missile anyway and the Attack mission would never leave since the RN P1154 should be able to utilise the same ordinence as the RAF machine.
Thus the RN apparently trades these missions with one hand only to regain them by tagging along with the RAF, the RAF of course has been fooled into thinking it has killed the RN FAA only to find it in a stronger position.
So the biggest loss to the RN is essentialy range payload and endurance, compared to the sort of requirements they had for CTOL carrier aircraft.
Without the cancelation of the P1154, the drive to make Jaguar work for the MRI mission is gone for the RAF. Jaguar might never happen after the end of the AFVG.

Considering this the biggest gap on the project lists is STOVL AEW. If the Brough P139 AEW platform is still developed or the RN opts for Hawkeye, then obviously CTOL elements need to be retained on the carriers, and thus the door is kept open for a return to CTOL aircraft. Doubly so if the RN expects to operate P1154 and Buccaneer together.
AEW is the RN's best argument since sensor coverage of the sea is required whether they are to go down the route of a CV fleet, no CV fleet but retain strike or ASW fleet and loose strike.