Another capability gap...?

[EGDR]

Penny Mordaunt, Minister of State for the Armed Forces

The RAF will reach its Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010 manpower targets through a managed programme of reductions. This includes the retirement of platforms such as Tornado GR4 and Sentinel and their associated squadrons. The reductions will affect a broad range of ranks across the RAF and will be achieved through the previous two tranches of redundancy and forecast exits.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id ... 8#g1816.r0

[Flightline UK]

I don't think that answer is anything new over what was said in SDSR 2010. Nor did it actually answer the question - what a surprise!

SDSR 2015 is due later this year.

[ColintheCaterpillar]

No surprise. Both were expected to be out of service before the end of this parliament anyway.

[acw367]

Sentinel will be replaced by F-35B. The distributed aperture system/electro optic targeting/AESA radar capabilities on that jet are a generation beyond sentinel and E-8 JSTARS SAR/MTI.

[thorny1a]

Does that mean the Sentinel will no longer be upgraded for maritime ops? http://www.janes.com/article/45057/uk-t ... operations

[Davef68]

Sentinel was due to be retired when we finished comabt operations in Afghanistan in 2014, however it's performance there and in Op Ellamy was such that it has been extended to 2018. Longer term, if the RAF orders the P-8, the look out for AGS fitted P-8 replacing Sentinel

[Vulcanone]

And the help the Sentinel played in Ops for the French pointed out how good it is

T

[EGDR]

Sentinel will be replaced by F-35B. The distributed aperture system/electro optic targeting/AESA radar capabilities on that jet are a generation beyond sentinel and E-8 JSTARS SAR/MTI.

To a certain degree, yes, however the F-35 could not fulfill the role entirely. The ideal system is for Sentinel (or similar) to operate with a long loiter time at high altitude with F-35s or Typhoons below. The advanced ISR systems in these aircraft would collect additional data and relay that back to the Sentinel to build an overall picture of the battle scenario, which could then be interpreted by the staff in the back end or on the ground who will then coordinate attacks for the F-35s and Typhoons. Sentinel is designed to act as a flying command post, not solely as a flying radar.

If F-35 were able to fill all of that, then why is the US, who have ordered thousands of F-35s, continuing to develop systems for aircraft like the Sentinel? E-8s are often picked up rotating into (presumably) the Middle East by us in the UK, so they must be an effective asset.

[page_verify]

Doesn't look like the GR4 is going just yet - big shortage of Navs in the RAF right now, especially in Norfolk.

[C24]

Sentinel will be replaced by F-35B. The distributed aperture system/electro optic targeting/AESA radar capabilities on that jet are a generation beyond sentinel and E-8 JSTARS SAR/MTI.

Are you certain? I thought that the F-35 was a fighter/bomber.

[Vulcanone]

I believe that the EOTS system is capable of performing this.

While I am not yet back upto speed with whats happening with everyones favourite fast jet. I recall something about the USMC are using its capabilities to replace EA-6B Prowlers at some point....

I don't think it can make the tea yet however

T

[nickowen]

The Septics have never been able to make tea, they even tried to make it with seawater in Boston.

[C24]

Aren't they part of Army's inventory? A vehicle? A sort of Tank?

[Vulcanone]

I don't know what remaining lifespan the JSTARS E-8s have left, given that some they were not new. And NATO has just retired a new build E-3A

I guess the B-52 is still going to be around post 2040 so they could always get it to do the same job....

T

[DUI]

I'm not convinced that the F35 is a subsistute for the Sentinel. Firsly when it comes to Radar size matters, a bigger aerial gives a tighter beam and a narrower reception angle. This is why the radar on the E3 AWACS is so huge, a big aerial gives better range, but needs a bigger aircraft this also accounts for the large size of the F14/F15 nose the designers wanted to fit as big an aerial as possible.
Different radars are optimised for different targets. The E3 AWACs radar takes advantage of the doppler effect to identify fast moving targets (read aircraft) at long range. The aircraft is large enough to allow to allow fighter controllers to be carried and it provides both radar converage and fighter "ground" control.
The Sentinel radar is a synthetic aperature device, it uses the motion of the aircraft to provide the illusion of the radar having a much larger aerial and can provide more detailed radar images, this I suspect works rather better against slow moving/stationary targets say tanks or pickup trucks than against aircraft. The Sentinel / JSTARS are very much about looking and tracking ground targets and much of the information gathered will be of interest to the army. Both Sentinel and JSTARS carry mission specialists to study the information returned by the radar and to pass it down to those who can make best use of it.
As for using Sentinels as sub hunters, I'm not sure how useful radar is for hunting submarines these days. I would imagine that if anything is going to be easy to make stealthy then submarine periscopes / snorkle tubes would be high on the list. However the Sentinel radar might be just the thing for locating a life raft/ship wreck survivors mid atlantic (rather better than a C130) .
The USAF has been considering replacing its JSTARS with a Sentinel lookalike, generally the program seems to have been a great success: it seems to work well, and it was delivered on time and on budget.
The main reason for thinking that the F35 is an unlikey Sentinel replacement is operating costs, I would be suprised if the F35 works out at less than £50 000 per flying hour. This is wild guess but I would think that Sentinel with its executive jet core would be closer to about £5000 an hour. The Sentinel would also have significantly better endurance so would need less tanker support.

I suspect that the Sentinel's near death experience had a lot to do with inter service rivalries (the RAF funding a system designed to gather information for the army who pays?) than with the quality or usefulness of the system.