June 12, 2005
Sunday Times

RAF Nimrods may become bomber force
Peter Almond

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/nimrod/images/Nimrod_12.jpg

THE RAF is drawing up plans to convert a fleet of 25-year-old patrol planes into Britain’s first long-range heavy bomber force since the Falklands war.

The plan is being seen as Britain’s answer to America’s B-52 bomber, still in regular use more than 50 years after it first flew.

The upgraded Nimrod reconnaissance planes, developed from 1950s Comet airliners, would be able to fly non-stop from Britain to hit targets in countries such as Iraq with cruise missiles or precision-guided bombs.

The RAF’s current bombers, mainly Tornados, have a far shorter range and, as in the Iraq war in 2003, depend on the use of airbases in nearby countries for attacking an enemy.

Britain has not had the capability to launch long-range airstrikes since a Vulcan bomber attacked Port Stanley airfield during the Falklands conflict in 1982. The Vulcans were scrapped shortly afterwards.

The cost and practicality of converting Nimrods is being studied and no final decisions have been taken, but senior RAF officials said a “big, versatile platform” could be valuable in attacking terrorist targets because of its long patrolling time and speedy response.

“We need to be able to find, identify, locate precisely, decide about and attack a target all within a small number of minutes, rather than the hours, or even days, that it’s taken us in the past,” Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said in a speech to the Royal Aeronautical Society last week. “This is particularly true in the kinds of asymmetric [anti-terrorist] situations in which we increasingly have to operate.”

RAF sources said the Nimrod upgrade would be a relatively cheap way of filling the gap in capabilities.

A dozen Nimrods are already being modernised to double their range to almost 7,000 miles and improve anti-submarine capability. Few of Britain’s potential enemies have submarines, however, and it is being earmarked for intelligence and communications.

The study, by BAE Systems, is looking at the possibility of the planes carrying up to five Storm Shadows. These British-designed cruise missiles were first used in action by Tornados against Iraqi bunkers in 2003.

The latest upgrade of the Nimrod, the MRA4, could be adapted to carry two Storm Shadows under each wing and another in a bomb bay. It could fly missions of 17 hours or more, with air-to-air refuelling, and hit targets with the missiles from up to 400 miles away.

Seems like good news to me!

But can these perform well over an area with modern radars? Because the B-52 I think is OK to bomb useless countries like Iraq or places where the SAM’s were taken out by smaller planes for which you need to have ‘airbases in nearby countries’ anyway. What do you think?

But can these perform well over an area with modern radars? Because the B-52 I think is OK to bomb useless countries like Iraq or places where the SAM’s were taken out by smaller planes for which you need to have ‘airbases in nearby countries’ anyway. What do you think?

I think the plan Shohad, would be to generally to use Missiles and targetted airstrikes to destroy a country's air capability followed up by it's Air Defence Mechanism, ie it's SAM's then send in the heavy bombers to destroy the ground forces.

I guess if they work to that formula, it should be OK.

It all depends on how high the plane can fly. Something like a B52 with a large wing span, can simply fly so high the Sams can't reach them. So if the Nimrod's can fly above say above 40,000ft you would have a very effective weapon. The next problem would be fighters jets for that I you would need speed or long range cruise missiles.

A Nimrod taking off from the UK to go and bomb somewhere in the east with long range cruise missiles would be deadly.

Maximum Speed - Mach 0.77
Service Ceiling - 42,000ft
Unrefuelled Range - In excess of 6,000 nautical miles
Unrefuelled Endurance - In excess of 14 hours
Length Overall - 127ft
Wing Span - 127ft
Height Overall - 30ft
Wing Area - 2538 sq.ft
Weight Empty - 102,516lbs.
Maximum Take-Off Weight - 232,315 lbs.
Maximum Payload - In excess of 12,000 lbs.

What about the Airbus A380 Bomber :laugh:

http://forumst.free.fr/image.php?image=http://forumst.free.fr/home/Aero/A380/Presentation/Avant_presentation_1.jpg&adr=http://images.google.co.uk/imgres%3fimgurl=http://techno-science.net/illustration/Aero/A380/Presentation/Avant_presentation_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.techno-science.net/forum/viewtopic.php%253Ft%253D64&h=767&w=1024&sz=61&tbnid=vYs7R54G_ScJ:&tbnh=112&tbnw=150&hl=en&prev=/images%253Fq%253Dairbus%252BA380%2526hl%253Den%2526lr%253D%2526sa%253DN&frame=small

^lol,easy target, but its useless anyway.

it could have a gym and even a casino upstairs...

It all depends on how high the plane can fly. Something like a B52 with a large wing span, can simply fly so high the Sams can't reach them. So if the Nimrod's can fly above say above 40,000ft you would have a very effective weapon. The next problem would be fighters jets for that I you would need speed or long range cruise missiles.

A Nimrod taking off from the UK to go and bomb somewhere in the east with long range cruise missiles would be deadly.

What kind of sams are you talking about there? Altitude is no defence against certain kinds of sams. Just look at Gary Powers back in the fifties, shot down in his u-2 over russia by a sam, and he was well over 40,000 ft then. It all depends on the type of defences your opponent has. As far as I can tell, they want to use the Nimrods as platforms for cruise missiles, so penetrating hostile airspace hardly comes into it. if you want to deliver PGMs then you have to get right in there on top of em.

youre wrong about that. i talked to my dad about this earlier, if anyone is an expert he is. he was telling me about the english electric lightnings and how they could fly above russian missile cover (and faster than russian missile cover too). they had a rate of climb of 50,000 ft a minute and a maximum altitude of over 80,000 feet. they actually intercepted u2 spyplanes at 88,000 feet and were capable of doing 90,000ft!
gary powers was shot down by an AA missile not at SAM, they fired a salvo of 14 AA missiles to hit him just once and it was the shockwave that did it. had the u2 been able to go faster it would have been uncatchable - lightnings could go over treble the speed at that altitude. we used it as a spy plane if the target was in range, the americans then nicked the concept for their sr71 which was if there was a threat to simply accelerate.
the shocking thing was we scrapped this amazing plane instead of upgrading it because it was cheaper to have a combined fighter bomber than a dedicated fighter (and it out performs almost all modern fighters too) and its short range meant we needed more to cover some airspace but to put simply - in a dog fight one would take out an f15 or f16 or tornado and only the mig25 was faster but was less agile.

^The Lightning could zoom-climb to angels 80-90, but sure as hell coudn't maintain that. The engines whould suffocate on the thin-air up there. Those engines, which allowed the 50,000+ft/m climb rate, were fuel guzzling. With its high wing loading, it would not be able to outturn an F-14 or F-15, especially at high altitude.

The Lightning had blistering performance, but that came at the expense of range. Its radius was half that of a Tornado ADV. And that is what eventually killed it. The era of the short range interceptor (such as Lightning, F-104, F-106, Su-11) was ended by the big Soviet stand-off missiles.

The lighning was never used as a long range strateigic recon platform like the A-12/SR-71 Blackbird. It didn't have the legs. It could have been a tactical recon a/c, but it was never used as such.

One last thing, Gary Power's U-2C was shot down by an SA-2, not an ATA missile. At the time, the only ATA missiles in te Soviet arsenal were the AA-1 Alkali (a very rudimentary, unreliable radar guided missile) and the AA-2 Atoll ( a bad copy of the US Sidewinder). Given the capability of the fighters and missiles involved, I'd find it highly unlikely that Powers was down by one of them.

What about the Airbus A380 Bomber :laugh:

http://forumst.free.fr/image.php?image=http://forumst.free.fr/home/Aero/A380/Presentation/Avant_presentation_1.jpg&adr=http://images.google.co.uk/imgres%3fimgurl=http://techno-science.net/illustration/Aero/A380/Presentation/Avant_presentation_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.techno-science.net/forum/viewtopic.php%253Ft%253D64&h=767&w=1024&sz=61&tbnid=vYs7R54G_ScJ:&tbnh=112&tbnw=150&hl=en&prev=/images%253Fq%253Dairbus%252BA380%2526hl%253Den%2526lr%253D%2526sa%253DN&frame=small

I'd go with the A345, but to each his own.

the lightning was a fucking dangerous plane, more power than control excellent bit of british design. This however seems stupid to me, they have spent the last 5 years or so updating the Nimrods to make them more effective surveilance and theatre of combat communication centres. the project has gone hugely over budget, and at the same time been cut repeatedly during things like the strategic defence review. Originally all our old nimrods were going to have the MRA4 update, but now only something like six of them are. The latest nimrods have only just started flight testing, and now they want to change them again.

I think this is yet another situation where we could save a lot of money by buying off the americans, but we never will, the couple of hundred people in the hangar at BAE woodford may get jobs for another couple of years yet.

In terms of the combat situation, these kind of planes are used once the main air defence has been removed, normally through cruise missiles or american stealth bombers. This kind of plane delivers more powerful and greater numbers of bombs to a weakened war field, and doesnt require aircraft carriers.

Not a patch on the american B1B bomber:
http://www.astrosurf.org/lombry/Physique/transonique-b1b.jpg

caus at the end of the day if you've got a huge supersonic bomber, people wil be scared of you.

There will be 16 MRA4 updates, to provide an in use fleet of 12. A very expensive way of delivering ordnance, using such a sophisticated surveilance platform. Always a bit dubious about shoving aircraft into roles they werent designed for, ie using the Tornado as the basis for the F2/3 version, the performance was designed for the low level environment and it never was really up to much against opponents at other altitudes.


not related but:
Number 10 squadron is to disband, crews transferring to 216 and an expanded 101 squadron

spoke to my dad about nimrods... he said they were originally bombers designed for anti submarine work and the older models already have bomb bays in them.

str, you can find the performance of the lightning, and those american planes on wikipedia. it could indeed outturn them. the lightning was indeed used as a short term recon, my dad told me how theyd over fly the 6 day war from turkey doing just that. not only that but they have cameras in them that specifically allowed them to operate as that. the russians did the same with their mig 25s (one mig 25 was clocked at mach 3.2 over israel!)

You mentioned the SR-71, a long range strategic reconaissance ship, totally different from tactical, which though I was unaware of it being operationally used in that role, I assumed it could be quite good at it.

As for Lighning vs other fighters, the Lightning was an interceptor. The F-15 is an air superiority fighter. The difference? The Eagle can turn, the Lighning can't. Both can hit M2.5 and neithr can exceed it without damaging/melting their aluminum airframes. The speeds listed at Wiki (which is a bad source to begin with) are theoretical and are never achieved in normal flight. Only aircraft, like the A-12/SR-71, XB-70 and MiG-25/31 could reach higher speeds than M2.5 due to the exotic materials used in their construction

Interesting fact about those Foxbats. The pilots were ordered not to exceed M2.8 except during a emergecy. The reason was that M3.0 stress would wreck the engines.

For those not familiar, this awesome plane is the Lightning F.1
http://www.abcsl.btinternet.co.uk/pmc1886d.jpg

The single seat A-12. Note the Two seat trainer in pic#2
http://jpcolliat.free.fr/f12/a12/a12_09.jpg
http://jpcolliat.free.fr/f12/a12/a12_15.jpg

The A-12's two seat successor, the immortal SR-71 Blackbird
http://home.earthlink.net/~cur8mach/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/bbap-2jet1.jpg

The prototype XB-70 Valkyrie, a proposed Mach 3 Bomber.
http://picts.idl.com.au/picts/PLANES/xb70.jpg
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/davittsaircraft/images/7_xb70_g_wallpaper_1024.jpg

MiG-25 Foxbat
http://membres.lycos.fr/algaf/Mig25R01.jpg

What kind of sams are you talking about there? Altitude is no defence against certain kinds of sams. Just look at Gary Powers back in the fifties, shot down in his u-2 over russia by a sam, and he was well over 40,000 ft then. It all depends on the type of defences your opponent has. As far as I can tell, they want to use the Nimrods as platforms for cruise missiles, so penetrating hostile airspace hardly comes into it. if you want to deliver PGMs then you have to get right in there on top of em.
Places like Afghanistan and counties that arnt or werent big on arms spending would likely have the small sams which can only shoot down low flying aircraft such as helicopters and certain types of fighter jets. The bigger boys such as Russia, China, India etc will have spent silly amounts of money of state of the art missiles which can shoot most things down so you would be a bit fucked using most aircraft.

They were using B52s when they went into Afghanistan. One of the reasons they used them was nothing could touch them and also the fact they have long flying hours. Now if you were going to attack a target in China I recon you would risk stealth bombers with long range missiles or ballistic missiles.

manpads are not even remotely capable of reaching any kind of altitude. granted. Why bother modifying aircraft to deliver standoff missiles to places where there are no significant integrated air defences and we already have air cover?

They were using B52s when they went into Afghanistan. One of the reasons they used them was nothing could touch them and also the fact they have long flying hours. Now if you were going to attack a target in China I recon you would risk stealth bombers with long range missiles or ballistic missiles.

Why not send the Trafalgar Class submarines for conventional weapons, or Vanguard Class submarines if you want to get nukey?

They carry a lot more punch than a few Nimrods ever could, albeit slightly slower at getting to the target.

Man!! I jumped into this subforum only to discover that everything has todo with militaria........the barracks.....me was so candid, thought of old industrial buildings or so...... something has to be wrong in the britons heads.....600 hundred years of piracy has its effects......JAWOHL!

spoke to my dad about nimrods... he said they were originally bombers designed for anti submarine work and the older models already have bomb bays in them.

true, but designed for torpedos and depth charges, which are of very different dimensions to a Storm Shadow missile- they would need to be carried underwing. Trials were carried out in the Falklands War regarding bombing up the Nimrod, but the bombs (1000lb) wouldnt fit. have you also noticed the ground clearance underneath a Nimrod with its bomb bay doors open? Its a miracale that they get anything inside

they can stick the stormshadow on eurofighter and tornado, so shouldnt be a problem on a big plane like nimrod.

and hows a plane gonna beat a cruise missile to a target?

Why not send the Trafalgar Class submarines for conventional weapons, or Vanguard Class submarines if you want to get nukey?

They carry a lot more punch than a few Nimrods ever could, albeit slightly slower at getting to the target.
1. Because that could take weeks.
2. Cruise missiles do not have the range to fly 1000s of miles.

they can stick the stormshadow on eurofighter and tornado, so shouldnt be a problem on a big plane like nimrod.

and hows a plane gonna beat a cruise missile to a target?

Cruise missiles aren't that quick any plane going over the speed of sound would be able to beat one to the target. Which is what Tornado GR1 was originally intended to do.

i believe the sr71 was originally developed partly as a tactical fighter and performed successfully but was cancelled because it was so expensive. as for the lightning vs everything else -

Carroll reports in a side-by-side comparison that the F-15C Eagle is "almost as good, and climb speed was rapidly achieved. Take-off roll is between 2,000 & 3,000 feet, depending upon military or maximum afterburner-powered take-off. The Lightning was quicker off the ground, reaching 50 feet height in a horizontal distance of 1,630 feet".

In British Airways trials, Concorde was offered as a target to NATO fighters including F-15s, F-16s, F-14s, Mirages, F-104s - but only the Lightning managed to overtake Concorde on a stern intercept. During these trials Concorde was at 57,000 ft and travelling at Mach 2.2

Now if you were going to attack a target in China I recon you would risk stealth bombers with long range missiles or ballistic missiles.

A full blown nuclear strike on China would probably go as follows:

1: Ohio SSBN's would take out Chinese ICBM's, bomber airfields, missiles aimed at at Taiwan, and other time sensitive targets
2: ICBM's would target other airfields and naval stations.
3: B-52's would use cruise missiles to destroy air defense sites.
4: B-1's and B-2's would take out remaining military targets.

For a somewhat limited strike you'd eliminate step 2. An extremely limited strike would have B-2's and their AGM-129 stealth cruise missiles taking out ICBM's and bomber bases. Then the B-52's would clear the way for the B-1's.

As matter-of-factly as I put this, any of these scenarios are beyond awful.

i believe the sr71 was originally developed partly as a tactical fighter and performed successfully but was cancelled because it was so expensive.

The SR-71 was developed from the A-12. The A-12 was designed as a strategic recon aircraft for the CIA to replace the U-2. There was a pair of YF-12 M3.3 fighters spun off, but they were far too expensive and were cancelled. The biggest mark the YF-12 left is that the aircraft holds the world records for both sustained speed and altitude. About the same times, the two seat SR-71 was developed when the Air Force took over the program and decided that the workload was too high for one person.[/QUOTE]

Converting Nimrods to 'bombers' is a wet dream and just a ploy to draw funding from the CVF project; if the RAF can be seen to provide a valuable alternative (long ranged bomber force, strike force, plus a full buy of 232 Typhoons), who needs carrier-based expeditionary warfare?

The Nimrod 'bomber' wouldn't be based on the MRA4 - which is a maritime surveillance, reconnaisance/strike platform - shoddy journalism. All that would be a required is a big dumb bomber... minimal modifications to the MR2 airframe would suffice. But then again, it'd cost money - therefore, unlikely to happen. If there were any serious impetus behind a big dumb bomber proposal, I'd look at leasing/buying a few B52s - the RAF could probably afford to use them once and would then run out of money for ordnance!

Besides, high-altitude bombing isn't a characteristic of the RAF - we leave that to the Americans. The RAF, for the last 60 years has been a low-level air force, epitomised by the excellent handling of the Buccanneer at low-level in RAF/RN. When Telic kicked off, the RAF had gone to some degree of being a medium-low air force, with Paveway IV, CASOM etc. We just don't 'do' high-altitude bombing anymore, and procurement for the foreseeable future is configured to consolidating the medium-low altitude specialisation of the RAF.

FOAS is intended to replace the GR4s in around 10-15 years... I really don't see a bomber force being a component of that. F35As (or whatever variant is latest at the time) are my preferred option... We're unfortunately likely to get something like a squadron or two of Predators, and some rehashed C130J/A400M dropping cruise missile pellets.

Man!! I jumped into this subforum only to discover that everything has todo with militaria........the barracks.....me was so candid, thought of old industrial buildings or so...... something has to be wrong in the britons heads.....600 hundred years of piracy has its effects......JAWOHL!

You wouldnt be living in the wonderful modern world you enjoy to today if it wasnt for us and our "piracy" :cheers:

....

Besides, high-altitude bombing isn't a characteristic of the RAF - we leave that to the Americans. The RAF, for the last 60 years has been a low-level air force, epitomised by the excellent handling of the Buccanneer at low-level in RAF/RN. When Telic kicked off, the RAF had gone to some degree of being a medium-low air force, with Paveway IV, CASOM etc. We just don't 'do' high-altitude bombing anymore, and procurement for the foreseeable future is configured to consolidating the medium-low altitude specialisation of the RAF.

Well maybe your RAF wants to re-acquire abilities such as high altitude bombing so it could be more independent and able to carry out a wider variety of missions (???)

SDR and the 2003 Defence White Paper imply that it doesn't.