Was an opportunity missed with the Sea Harrier?

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peterjayy

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Hello to you all, i am a new member to this forum & i like a lot of what i see & read here & fulmars !(Feeble naval pun/typo intended!) full marks to you all, however, its only fair that i chip in as well. So here goes it. If you cast your mind back to the air shows of the late 70s & early 1980s. There would often be the chance to see a Hawker Harrier Jump Jet on display. It was often perceived as a novelty aircraft, VTOL, reverse thrust manoeuvring, jumping through a ring of fire !;) . All very impressive, but it`s not a real combat aircraft was often how it would be received. Fast forward to 1982 & the Falklands conflict and the Sea Harrier armed with Sidewinder AAMs proved to be very effective. Post conflict, i often wonder why the aircraft never really seemed to peak interest with other nations to operate it? The USA would go on to sell the MD- A/V8 to other nations & as far as i can recall and only the Indian Navy opted for the Sea Harrier. Maybe it was the lack of a suitable, `Invincible light` class of carrier design being available? Had Australia purchased HMS Hermes in 1985 & operated the Harrier, would the pilots be known as `Sailoroos`:D Would the RCN or the Netherlands navies have returned to fixed wing operations at sea? From a modelling perspective, the `WHAT-If` potential is always unlimited. Some of what i have mentioned maybe already covered in earlier posts, but who knows. In the meantime, please enjoy this photo on HMS Ark Royal showing the way forward as it was then. f2ffde7bbb8b61fb5b6e4f16664e81fc--navy-carriers-harrier.jpg
 
peterjayy said:
. Fast forward to 1982 & the Falklands conflict and the Sea Harrier armed with Sidewinder AAMs proved to be very effective. Post conflict, i often wonder why the aircraft never really seemed to peak interest with other nations to operate it?
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To put it simply, because it wasn't VERY effective. It was a subsonic, relatively short-legged attack jet with only very moderate anti-air capabilities. In contended airspace, Harrier's chances were pretty low. The Falkland sucsess was caused mainly by the geographical factor - mainly the distance from Argentinean airfield, that significantly reduced the capabilities of Argentinean supersonic jets.

So essentially, Harrier was useful in pretty limited set of potential combat situations. And operating Harriers was rather costly.
 
peterjayy said:
Hello to you all, i am a new member to this forum & i like a lot of what i see & read here & fulmars !(Feeble naval pun/typo intended!) full marks to you all, however, its only fair that i chip in as well. So here goes it. If you cast your mind back to the air shows of the late 70s & early 1980s. There would often be the chance to see a Hawker Harrier Jump Jet on display. It was often perceived as a novelty aircraft, VTOL, reverse thrust manoeuvring, jumping through a ring of fire !;) . All very impressive, but it`s not a real combat aircraft was often how it would be received. Fast forward to 1982 & the Falklands conflict and the Sea Harrier armed with Sidewinder AAMs proved to be very effective. Post conflict, i often wonder why the aircraft never really seemed to peak interest with other nations to operate it? The USA would go on to sell the MD- A/V8 to other nations & as far as i can recall and only the Indian Navy opted for the Sea Harrier. Maybe it was the lack of a suitable, `Invincible light` class of carrier design being available? Had Australia purchased HMS Hermes in 1985 & operated the Harrier, would the pilots be known as `Sailoroos`:D Would the RCN or the Netherlands navies have returned to fixed wing operations at sea? From a modelling perspective, the `WHAT-If` potential is always unlimited. Some of what i have mentioned maybe already covered in earlier posts, but who knows. In the meantime, please enjoy this photo on HMS Ark Royal showing the way forward as it was then.
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Sea Harrier was a byproduct of the RAF Harrier Mk.1 & Mk.3, unfortunately post 1976, AV-16 and Big Wing Harrier cancellations the UK lost - abandonned, really - control of Harrier sales in favor of the USA and AV-8B. It really didn't helped when the RAF itself bought AV-8B ! At the end of the day, Sea Harrier only sold to India, AV-8B swept all the other naval customers : Spain, Italy, as for Thailand they bought second-hand AV-8As from Spain (not USMC).

I think an interesting turning point might be Big Wing Harrier, circa 1977. That one was to literally unify the RAF and RN Harrier fleets around, well, a big modern wing : vastly improving performance. In the end it was the US AV-8B, flown in 1978, that used that idea.
 
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Not really a missed opportunity if we're being honest. The RN got very, very lucky with the Falklands. It was just far enough away from mainland Argentina that the vast majority of the Argentine fighters either couldn't reach it, or could just barely reach it with less than 5 minutes of combat time available to them if they wanted to get back home. On top of that, the airfield on it island at that time wasn't suitable for basing high performance aircraft at. This let the FAA pick and choose where to employ the Sea Harrier. And because of that, they were able to use it in a way that maximized it's advantages while minimizing its weaknesses. Had this battle taken place in almost any other theater of operations in the world, the Sea Harrier would likely have a very different reputation.

And personally, I think that most nations realized that. They saw that, employed in the right rolls, in the right theaters, the Harrier could be effective. But outside of those rolls, it would suffer badly going up against actual fighters.
 
Would any of the light carrier navies have ordered Sea Harrier if it had been available a decade earlier, in the late 1960s?

i.e. Could Hawker Siddeley have offered a radar-equipped Harrier from the start, when it was just starting to produce the first RAF GR1s? Would Australia / Canada / Argentina / Brazil have been interested, especially as an alternative to radar-less Skyhawks?
 
Think there are very few top tier navies that require local air support (from a carrier) because they're operating too far from their own Air Force yet close enough to the enemy that SAMs aren't enough. Australia is certainly one, and the RAN had arranged to buy the HMS Invincible in 1981 but this fell through because of the Falklands. Perhaps Canada if it had followed a different strategic path, the Dutch are not a contender once West Papua was invaded by Indonesia in 1962.
 
Harrier and Sea Harrier are niche aircraft. The Harrier offered a runway independent attack aircraft for NORTHAG/BAOR and the USMC; Sea Harrier offered the UK as a Harrier user a cheap way to turn an escort cruiser/helicopter carrier into a continuation of fixed wing carrier aviation.

If you're facing WWIII and continuous air and IRBM attacks on your fixed runways, or you're planning to deploy into the territory seized by an amphibious forced entry force, whether there are runways there or not, then Harrier may be the aircraft for you. OTOH other aircraft (A-10, Jaguar, Alpha Jet) offered different versions of runway independence with the ability to operate from roads and autobahns, while other nations may decide that the threat to runways is not so great as to make runway independence a capability they need.

If you're already a Harrier user, and CVA.01 just got cancelled, but its escort cruiser/helicopter carrier counterpart hasn't yet faced the axe and might just have room to squeeze in a Harrier airgroup, then sticking a basic fighter radar on Harrier to let it hack down recce Bears in the GIUK Gap makes a very narrow piece of sense for the RN and for no-one else.
 
Rule of cool said:
Think there are very few top tier navies that require local air support (from a carrier) because they're operating too far from their own Air Force yet close enough to the enemy that SAMs aren't enough. Australia is certainly one, and the RAN had arranged to buy the HMS Invincible in 1981 but this fell through because of the Falklands. Perhaps Canada if it had followed a different strategic path, the Dutch are not a contender once West Papua was invaded by Indonesia in 1962.
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There is a use case for Harrier for nations like The Netherlands and Canada. It would involve the NATO navies committing to the anti-submarine carrier longer for use as a close escort to CVBGs and north Atlantic convoys. IOTL, that role was pretty much usurped by the P-3 Orion for the convoys, and by swapping out an A-7 squadron for an S-3 squadron on the attack carriers.

ITTL, you'd have to convince the NATO navies that the P-3 wasn't enough on its own to provide anti submarine protection for the convoys, and that a single S-3 (or S-2 depending on time frame) squadron isn't enough to provide 24hr coverage for a carrier battle group. The second option is pretty straightforward. Have enough Admirals get a puckered ass over the thought of losing their multi billion dollar carrier because a decades old piece of shit Foxtrot got lucky and found a blind spot in their screen, and presto! ASW carriers get a reprieve.

It's the convoy escort roll that i want to focus on. Any NATO carriers assigned to the mission will need either Trackers or Vikings for their primary roll. Because if all they're going to operate is helicopters, you might as well just stick them on a few destroyers and call it a day. And since you already have a big deck, you might as well ship a few fighters to provide organic air defense to hunt down Bear recon planes and have a shot at breaking up the odd Badger or Backfire raid by Soviet Naval Aviation.

While this does make the case for the Harrier, it's also where the case breaks down. Because Trackers and Vikings need cats and traps. And because you'll already have a CATOBAR carrier, buying the Harrier doesn't make much sense. Not when you can buy an actual fighter like the Tiger, Crusader, or (unlikely) the Phantom. I'm honestly not sure how you can reconcile those two things.

Because the way I see it the only way to justify first line NATO navies buying the Harrier, is by keeping their light fleets. But keeping the light fleets also means you don't need the Harrier because you have cats and traps.
 
I'd envisage more utility in the Pacific than the Atlantic due to the greater distances involved. As mentioned the NATO P3 forces can cover the North Atlantic due to numerous bases, and there would be a lot of tactical aircraft on the periphery and on USN carriers. In the Pacific this isn't the case, leaving a lot more room for a light carrier with Sea Harriers to operate effectively.
 
Rule of cool said:
I'd envisage more utility in the Pacific than the Atlantic due to the greater distances involved. As mentioned the NATO P3 forces can cover the North Atlantic due to numerous bases, and there would be a lot of tactical aircraft on the periphery and on USN carriers. In the Pacific this isn't the case, leaving a lot more room for a light carrier with Sea Harriers to operate effectively.
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Yeah, that's a good point. But then you still run into the same issue. In that you've now kept your CATOBAR equipped carrier, and don't really need Harriers when you just buy a dedicated naval fighter instead (or even the extremely numerous and cheap as dirt A-4 as an anti-snooper fighter). So we're really back at the same problem. How do you justify Harrier when you're retaining your conventional carriers?
 
SSgtC said:
Yeah, that's a good point. But then you still run into the same issue. In that you've now kept your CATOBAR equipped carrier, and don't really need Harriers when you just buy a dedicated naval fighter instead (or even the extremely numerous and cheap as dirt A-4 as an anti-snooper fighter). So we're really back at the same problem. How do you justify Harrier when you're retaining your conventional carriers?
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In the North Atlantic? Because they can operate in sea states that would prevent CATOBAR operations. That was one of the findings of the Falklands War.
 
SSgtC said:
Yeah, that's a good point. But then you still run into the same issue. In that you've now kept your CATOBAR equipped carrier, and don't really need Harriers when you just buy a dedicated naval fighter instead (or even the extremely numerous and cheap as dirt A-4 as an anti-snooper fighter). So we're really back at the same problem. How do you justify Harrier when you're retaining your conventional carriers?
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The Melbourne was a total rustbucket by 1980 and the RAN only expected to keep her until about 1984. 24-28 years life for a carrier designed and laid down in WW2 is fantastic, but top tier navies don't keep ship like that forever and its replacement from the late 70s onwards won't be CATOBAR.
 
Rule of cool said:
The Melbourne was a total rustbucket by 1980 and the RAN only expected to keep her until about 1984. 24-28 years life for a carrier designed and laid down in WW2 is fantastic, but top tier navies don't keep ship like that forever and its replacement from the late 70s onwards won't be CATOBAR.
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At that point, if you're not going CATOBAR for a carrier who's primary mission is supposed to be ASW, you shouldn't even build a carrier. Just put your choppers on your destroyers and frigates for a much lower cost (plus you can build and man multiple ships vs just one carrier). Because the only way to justify retraining carriers in the ASW role is if they operate fixed wing aircraft. And that means cats and traps. That's why i brought it up.
 
Archibald said:
I think an interesting turning point might be Big Wing Harrier, circa 1977. That one was to literally unify the RAF and RN Harrier fleets around, well, a big modern wing : vastly improving performance. In the end it was the US AV-8B, flown in 1978, that used that idea.
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The problem was that the USMC had something like 2/3 to 3/4 of all Harrier sales, so the USMC want of a better bomb truck was going to win through sheer economics unless the UK Big Wing also made them a better bomb truck.
 
Because Trackers and Vikings need cats and traps.
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Or just screw the S-3 and replace the S-2 by Canadair CL-84. Hop, no need for catapults, back to the SCS square one.

It all boils down to the NATO ASW mission and how to achieve it best:

1-CATOBAR S-2 / S-3 carriers ?
vs
2-SCS with ASW Canadair CL-84 ?
vs
3-land-based P-3s with ultra-long endurance
vs
4-ASW Helicopters on frigates ?

A typical case then is The Netherlands navy. Karel Doorman's Tracker are 1- and they were replaced by a mix of 3- and 4- ; 2- was never an option.
The Spanish military however begs to differ.
 
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SSgtC said:
It's the convoy escort roll that i want to focus on. Any NATO carriers assigned to the mission will need either Trackers or Vikings for their primary roll. Because if all they're going to operate is helicopters, you might as well just stick them on a few destroyers and call it a day. And since you already have a big deck, you might as well ship a few fighters to provide organic air defense to hunt down Bear recon planes and have a shot at breaking up the odd Badger or Backfire raid by Soviet Naval Aviation.
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If i recall correctly, USN worked on STOL anti-submarine plane in 1970s, but the project got canned...
 
Archibald said:
It all boils down to the NATO ASW mission and how to achieve it best:
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Basically, a Tartar was a missile that killed the anti-submarine carriers. Before Tartar, an ASW carrier was viewed as more or less irreplaceable, since convoys needed air defense too, and it was clearly impractical to use big (and costly) missile cruisers for such role. But Tartar changed the equation; a small, cheap missile-armed escort became possible. And thus half of ASW carrier functions in convoy defense could now be relegated to escorts... and the development of anti-submarine helicopters allowed to relegate the other one, too. A fleet of helicopter-carrying, SAM equipped frigates was much cheaper to operate, and tactically more useful than single small carrier.
 
Archibald said:
Interesting. This explains why France converted four of its T47 destroyers to it in the early 1960's.
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Yep. Essentilally the "Tartar & helicopter escort" became ubiquitous concept for Western (and other US-aligned) navies in 1960s. They were much cheaper than light anti-submarine carriers, and have similar functionality. Not as capable, of course, but much more numerous and multi-functional. The governments loved the "cheap" part, the admirals loved "numerous and multi-functional" parts.

The realization, that short-range SAM and single (at most two) helicopter is not enough only came later. The resurgence of "small carrier" concept in 1970s was mostly based on the experience of operating helicopter cruisers of 1960s.
 
Rule of cool said:
the Dutch are not a contender once West Papua was invaded by Indonesia in 1962.
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Indonesian military actions in what was then Dutch New Guinea had already been going on for years in 1962, culminating in the Battle of Vlakke Hoek. Cue more Soviet and US involvement. In August 1962, under US pressure, the Netherlands signed the New York Agreement with Indonesia. Control of the territory was then passed to the United Nations, with Indonesia getting full control in May 1963.

Not much of an invasion. An extensive Indonesian operation was planned for later in 1962, but the New York Agreement intervened.
 
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