A dilemma and request for thoughts

[Weaver]

I have for a while been formulating an alt-universe "Falklands War". This takes place on a planet with different geography, geopolitics and military hardware, but one which still has the same level of technology as the real world in 1982, and which produces broadly the same result. The point is to generate a series of Shipbucket profiles and, perhaps, aircraft models at some point in the future.

In general I've found this easy enough and have had quite a bit of fun with it, on and off, over the last few years (nothing finished to show yet though), and have taken particular interest in concocting a "Royal Navy" that looks different but has the same capabilities and limitations as the real one did in 1982. However there is one sticking point that I can't get past, and that's the aircraft to use on the "British" light carriers. These aircraft need to have enough of a question mark hanging over their theoretical capabilities pre-war to embolden the "Argentine" Junta to attempt the operation in the first place, enough actual capability to win once battle is joined, and be significantly and interestingly different to the real-world Sea Harriers (otherwise, what's the point?). In real life, this question mark was provided by the SHAR's subsonic performance: could you really call it a "fighter" if it was subsonic? Surely supersonic aircraft like Mirages and Daggers would run rings round it, right? Of course with hindsight we know things didn't turn out like that, but those were the questions being asked in April 1982.

So here's the dilemma:

If the carriers are V/STOL:
If the carriers are V/STOL, then the only credible configuration I can think of that makes their fighters subsonic is the Harrier layout, and once you adopt that layout, a near carbon-copy of the SHAR practically falls off the drawing board automatically (just look at Dassault's Cavalier projects to see what I mean). All the alternative layouts are more expensive and less practical, hence why 99% of them never saw production, and only justified their existence by providing supersonic capability, which will ruin the story by making them a credible threat in the eyes of the Junta.

If the carriers are CTOL:
You could make an "alt-universe-interest" case for the carriers being CTOL and using small subsonic aircraft instead. After all, both Australia and Argentina used subsonic Skyhawks as their carrier-bsed "fighters". The problem with that is that the UK isn't Australia or Argentina. It had a domestic design-and-manufacture capability which could certainly have designed, or modified, around fifty to sixty light supersonic fighters for a projected Fleet Air Arm strength of three air groups (for the CTOL "Invincibles") plus a training establishment and reserve.

Here's just some of the things that the UK could have done in the real world in the 1960s/1970s:

1. Design and build a new aircraft for the role, either aloner or as a joint project with France, justifying the project with the prospect of export orders.
2. Write the naval fighter requirement into the Jaguar specification, the most likely result being a higher power:weight ratio.
3. Licence-build Northrop F-5Es, modified for carrier ops.
4. Copy the French and buy/refurbish F-8 Crusaders for the job.

The point is that if the alt-universe carriers are CTOL, then there's no credible reason for their aircraft to be subsonic, and if they're supersonic, the whole scenario goes down the pan.

So what do you think? Have I missed something or is this a circle that can't be squared? I'm stuck, so I'd appreciate any and all thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

[Wardukw]

Aircraft wise a F-5 wouldn't even be worth looking at...it's so lightly built it would be a totally different bird after all the mods needed for to handle carrier landings .
F-8 Crusader is supersonic ..weren't ya not wanting to go there order I miss something...the Corsair ll tho could be right up your ally mate.

[Old Wombat]

Hi, H!

1st up: The F-8 Crusader is definitely supersonic, so it's definitely not on the table.

For the Harrier replacement, perhaps a more developed British Aerospace Kingston P.1214-3? Possibly with Harrier-like hot & cold nozzles, instead of the plenum chamber burning concept?

[Weaver]

Aircraft wise a F-5 wouldn't even be worth looking at...it's so lightly built it would be a totally different bird after all the mods needed for to handle carrier landings .
F-8 Crusader is supersonic ..weren't ya not wanting to go there order I miss something...the Corsair ll tho could be right up your ally mate.

The F-5A was actually offered to the USN in a carrier-compatible form while it was under development. I'm sure it would have been heavier than the land-based version, but Northrop obviously didn't think it made enough of a difference to make it unviable. Fast-forward a few decades and the F/A-18 being carrier compatible didn't stop it from being selected for several land-based air forces over the lighter F-18L that Northrop was pushing.

The Corsair II just proves the point: if the UK was adopting it as a light fighter (and it's right on the upper edge of "light") than why on earth wouldn't they modify it to have an afterburner? It was literally powered by a US-built Spey, for which an afterburner already existed. Sticking an F-4K burner on an A-7 would be no more work than went into adapting the Harrier GR.1 into the Sea Harrier.

The point of the exercise is not to find a real-world aircraft that might have dome the job, it's to come up with a scenario for the alt-universe that gives the "British" (not really the British, just the country playing that "role") a small, subsonic fighter of questionable value that isn't a carbon-copy of the SHAR. I'm more interested in finding a credible reason for them to adopt such a thing than a real-world aircraft that meets the spec.

[Weaver]

Hi, H!

1st up: The F-8 Crusader is definitely supersonic, so it's definitely not on the table.

For the Harrier replacement, perhaps a more developed British Aerospace Kingston P.1214-3? Possibly with Harrier-like hot & cold nozzles, instead of the plenum chamber burning concept?

Firstly, the forward-swept P.1214 and the conventionally swept P.1216 were early 1980s projects making extensive use of then-new carbon-fibre composites, so they're a bit too modern to be in-service in 1982. We're looking at Jaguar/Harrier levels of technology, i.e. designed in the 1960s and fielded in the 1970s, here.

Secondly, the whole point of the exotic P.1214/P.1216 configurations was to prevent the high-energy exhaust from scrubbing past the rear fuselage. Harriers suffered significant acoustic damage to rear fuselages, most going through two or three in their lives, and PCB would have made this much, much worse. Why would you adopt an awkward layout specifically designed to avoid problems with PCB if you weren't going to use PCB, and the supersonic performance it provides?

[Dizzyfugu]

There WAS a naval Jaguar prototype (le "M" pour maritim), and with a multi-mode radar it might have become a CTOL alternative for the Sea Harrier?

[Gondor]

There WAS a naval Jaguar prototype (le "M" pour maritim), and with a multi-mode radar it might have become a CTOL alternative for the Sea Harrier?

Use the Agave radar for the Indian IM version. https://air-graphics.uk/shop/ols/products/ac-038-sepecat-jaguar-im-nose-conversion

Gondor

[Pellson]

I find this interesting, but I do not understand some of the limitations you're imposing on yourself, mainly the dilemma with a British supersonic CTOL aircraft. As has been shown in other conflicts, supersonic performance is basically only used in two scenarios:

• interception of fast flying targets, where supersonic performance is a must to catch up with your adversary, and
• fast egress (for a very limited time/distance) from high threat target areas, this whether you're a fighterbomber having unloaded or a reconnaissance aircraft trying to get home with your "catch"

In every other instance, you basically don't fly that fast for fuel preservation reasons. Hence, why not allow supersonics on the British carriers? Given the definitely supersonic Mirage opposition and provided reasonably limited size/weight/numbers due to need to fit onboard your medium-sized carriers, I fail to see that such an addition would tip the odds massively.

But - this is my input in your universe. I might be totally off mark, and if so, please accept my apologies.

Besides using some BAe development derivates, Jaguars and Crusaders, may I suggest Mirage F1 derivates, SAAB Viggen (a carrier version was actually briefly studied for offering to some of the countries using ex-British Colossus's) and last but not least, the Grumman F-11 Tiger that, had it been developed into a fully supersonic version, quite likely would have been rather competitive.

[Weaver]

There WAS a naval Jaguar prototype (le "M" pour maritim), and with a multi-mode radar it might have become a CTOL alternative for the Sea Harrier?

Indeed, but it was supersonic and thus a "credible fighter" by pre-1982 standards.

[Weaver]

I find this interesting, but I do not understand some of the limitations you're imposing on yourself, mainly the dilemma with a British supersonic CTOL aircraft. As has been shown in other conflicts, supersonic performance is basically only used in two scenarios:

• interception of fast flying targets, where supersonic performance is a must to catch up with your adversary, and
• fast egress (for a very limited time/distance) from high threat target areas, this whether you're a fighterbomber having unloaded or a reconnaissance aircraft trying to get home with your "catch"

In every other instance, you basically don't fly that fast for fuel preservation reasons. Hence, why not allow supersonics on the British carriers? Given the definitely supersonic Mirage opposition and provided reasonably limited size/weight/numbers due to need to fit onboard your medium-sized carriers, I fail to see that such an addition would tip the odds massively.

But - this is my input in your universe. I might be totally off mark, and if so, please accept my apologies.

Besides using some BAe development derivates, Jaguars and Crusaders, may I suggest Mirage F1 derivates, SAAB Viggen (a carrier version was actually briefly studied for offering to some of the countries using ex-British Colossus's) and last but not least, the Grumman F-11 Tiger that, had it been developed into a fully supersonic version, quite likely would have been rather competitive.

It's to do with the motivations of the "Argentine" junta: if the UK could send two carriers with supersonic fighters that were rated a credible threat by most pilots, would they have still gone ahead with the invasion? The decision to sell HMS Invincible to Australia is known to have influenced them, so the size and shape of any prospective carrier force was clearly on their minds. Conventional wisdom is that if we'd still had something like HMS Ark Royal, with F-4K Phantoms aboard, then they definitely wouldn't have tried it, so where's the limit? At what point on the scale from Ark+F-4s to Hermes+SHARs does the carrier threat become non-credible enough to change their minds? Would Clemenceau+F8s still be enough to deter them?

It's worth remembering that prior to 1982, most fighter pilots discounted the Sea Harrier as serious opposition on the grounds that, if one did get behind them they could just accelerate away, supersonic fighters generally having higher power:weight ratios as well as higher top speeds. The number of pilots who believed in the SHAR was less than the number of pilots in the Fleet Air Arm. The general opinion, including in half the FAA, was that it was only good for scaring Bear-Ds away.

Whatever solution I come up with, the aircraft will be fictional as will the entire setting, so suggestions of real-world fighters aren't really the point. I know what small CTOL fighters look like: what I don't know is how to get my combatants into the same situation as Britain and Argentina in 1982, without the former using a near-carbon-copy of the Sea Harrier.

[Gondor]

A lot of what led up to the events of 1982 had to do with the Argentinian perspective of how committed the UK Government was to protect such a small and insignificant set of islands on what was effectively the other side of the world.

Gondor

[RAFF-35]

Could you do something based off the Yak-141? But maybe have a pair of tilt nozzles at the front a-la harrier, but have the swiveling exhaust like the Yak?

[McColm]

What about using the RAF Harrier GR.3s or the Blackburn Buccaneer? Even the maritime boys of 12 Squadron were convinced that the Bucc could still have landed safely on one of the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers. They even tested the theory on HMS Hermes before it was sold to India, okay so it was after the war and they paintballed the runway at Port Stanley to prove their point that there's still life in the old dog, years before the Gulf War.

[jcf]

Aircraft wise a F-5 wouldn't even be worth looking at...it's so lightly built it would be a totally different bird after all the mods needed for to handle carrier landings .
F-8 Crusader is supersonic ..weren't ya not wanting to go there order I miss something...the Corsair ll tho could be right up your ally mate.

The F-5 series, especially the redesigned F-5E/F, have a robust structure as it was expected that they would have to operate in a variety of environments. Yes, they've been classified by some as an LWF, but that was all well after the fact and primarily done to get it considered for various competitions. The series was designed to be a "simpler", robust aircraft for the developing world. Beefing up the structure for carrier ops wouldn't be that difficult.

[jcf]

How much is your alternate-UK able,
and willing to spend?

Something along the lines of a "small" VG aircraft like the VG versions of the BAC P.45 comes to mind. It's roughly the size and weight of an F-5E and could have been a contender in the program that ended up with Jaguar. The F-5E has a top speed in excess of M1.6 but that capability is rarely used, it's cruise and operational speeds are below M1. Also going supersonic eats up fuel rapidly.

A P.45ish aircraft would probably have
a similar performance and could fulfill both the fighter and strike roles, thus more flexible than the SHAR and you don't have to muck about getting RAF GR.3 to the fight.

Twin-engine VG concept, single engine fixed wing concepts were also explored. Several P.45 related topics are on the Secret Projects Forum.
P-45 Drawings
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