Asw F-18...hmmmmmm

[PolluxDeltaSeven]

Especially when the likes of France and Russia are prepared to sell its most advanced systems and weapons to anyone that has the cash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep. Even if I will be more worried about all the German, Spanish and Swedish little subs! Close to the shore, those subs are very deadly!

For me, the retirement of the carrier capable ASW planes in both US and French Navy was a mistake (I don't know for the USN, but our Alizé aircrafts still had a 15 years potential, and with a good modernisation, they probably could stay operationnal for 20years or more). Well, French Navy even retire its conventional ASROC systems!!

It's bizarre to see that the ASW abilities are going down worldwide while the sub threats are growing up everywhere!!




For my part, I imagined a ASW Rafale to compensate the Alizée retirement. With 3 X 2000l. tanks, 2 X CFT tanks, anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and MAD pods under the wings and fuselage, it could have a good payload and a very good range.
So, it's not impossible to imagine the same with a Super Hornet, after all a quite equivalent fighter.

Of course, a V-22 would probably be a better solution!


But if we stay with a fighter based ASW plane, what about the external carriage of torpedoes? Don't those weapons suffer from high speed cruise (just under Mach 1 I suppose)?
I initially thought that it could be a problem, but later remembered that ASROC and SUBROC carried Mk-46 torpedoes at quite Mach 1 speed.

So, do you think their is a problem for the torpedoes carriage?

Other question: what would be the minimal size of a MAD pod for external carriage?
I asking that because the one I build for my Rafale is about the size of an AMRAAM, maybe longer. Is that enough for short range detection?