Shipbucket

With the Royal Navy's new carrier starting to look very cool indeed, I can't help wondering if the navy has got the right deal here and I'm curious to see what the more informed on the forum think. The MOD has a poor track record in acquisitions which has often been a toxic mixture of politics, civil service incompetence and inter-service penny-pinching. Examples of this could be seen with the cancellation of CVA-01 project (effectively spelling the end of fixed wing carrier ops), Nimrod AEW.3 to name a few. The fact that the Royal Navy wasn't sent to the bottom in the Falklands in '82 was more by luck than by judgement and the heavy losses that were incurred were a direct result of short sighted cuts to the navy.

Bearing in mind the two carriers were ordered in 2007 and QE will not be fully operational until 2020 at a cost upwards of $10bn, what has the navy actually gained from this project?

Are these ship's overpriced and oversized VSTOL carriers?

Would it have been cheaper to retain Sea Harrier and replace the 3 Invincibles with 3 Juan Carlos type ships similar to the two the RAN have bought?

Can these ships be given effective protection from the current fleet mix?

That's without getting on to the F35B...

Are these ship's overpriced and oversized VSTOL carriers?

In short yes.

Would it have been cheaper to retain Sea Harrier and replace the 3 Invincibles with 3 Juan Carlos type ships similar to the two the RAN have bought?

Again I think yes. Only time will tell whether they will prove to be a worth while investment. Even if the governments over their life times equipe them with sufficient airwings and don't try to save a few quid.And if indeed they both enter service as planned. The problem being is it's still only two platforms when a larger number of smaller carriers may have proved a better choice ?

Can these ships be given effective protection from the current fleet mix?

With only six Type 45 probably not.

The great tragedy for me is that to pay for them we will have had to go without any fixed wing capability for at least ten years. This need not have been the case if smaller cheaper replacements had been ordered instead in timely fashion. To add insult to injury they have got to be the pig ugliest ships the RN has ever bought.

I'll bet they will probably form in an aircraft carrier task force inside the NATO fleet. so I bet it would be multiple Nation escorting here, them. So i will not be surprised to see an Norwegian frigate escorting here along with the Brits.

When it come to design... well Brits have an unique way to look at fashion!

To have three smaller one than one or two big one can be ideal for any Navy you can do an three point attack and still flank an enemy, but you can also defend from three different places making it harder to fight against them, but two of them, and what I think is quit a small air-wing for the size of the carrier compared to the just a little larger US carrier, would be an disadvantage.

But Brits have often over many year now after the .... we can call it, fall down from the throne of how was biggest, specially Navy. So I bet these carriers came around with that the British want to show the US that they also can build big and advance.

They should have built the ships as CATOBAR carriers, since I think V/STOL is only good for small carriers and amphibious assault ships.

The size of the carriers was determined by the need or the ability to at an undisclosed cost convert to CATOBAR in the future don't forget the old STOVL / CATABAR fiasco as to which version of F35 we were actually going to buy.

Originally QE was to be built as STOVL to make use of the harriers, and POW as CATOBAR to use the F35C, QE would then be converted at its first refit for CATOBAR and the harrier de activated. Then we had the infamous SDR of 2010. The harrier was withdrawn and the F35B was chosen instead of the C. QE was now to be STOVL as was POW but she would remain in extended readiness or shared with another European naval power (undisclosed) or even sold. Then in 2014 David Cameron anounced both QE and POW will both commision QE IN 2018 and POW in 2020 both with the F35B. But at what cost.....

At the moment there doesn't seem to be any casualtys directly linked to the carriers, on the contrary all plans are proceeding even rumours of a purchase of upto 8 Boeing P8's. But let's watch this space and keep an eye on the number of type 26's at the moment it's 13 one for one on type 23's. Even Astute seems safe at 7 with parts now on firm order and with now rumours of an 8th.......

Another item to watch is F35 numbers, at present we have 102 Panavia Tornado GR4 but at present only orders for 48 F35B more orders are promised but to what extent, F35 is supposed to replace Harrier and Tornado so in theory we should order 160 but that's a large figure. And the RAF is still targeting 232 typhoons of which 136 have been delivered. With a desition to be made in 2015 about follow on orders of F35A to replace these fro 2030.....

[quote="heuhen"]
When it come to design... well Brits have an unique way to look at fashion!

What's wrong with Britsh fashion ?


It's bad enough having to get the French to design it for us. I bet they are still cracking up over the other side of the channel. Why didn't we just build these ?

shippy2013 wrote:The size of the carriers was determined by the need or the ability to at an undisclosed cost convert to CATOBAR in the future don't forget the old STOVL / CATABAR fiasco as to which version of F35 we were actually going to buy.

And then there were decisions to make them just a bit smaller which removed the low cost conversion option. You guys were going to get EMALS #s 5 & 6, and then 11 & 12.

Thank god US procurement isn't quite that screwed up yet.

I'd thought one of the key points of having carriers this size was the ability to operate non-STOVL aircraft. Having removed this option, apparently through our own incompetence (I seem to recall that around the time it was found out that they wouldn't, couldn't be CATOBAR it was realised that this was because the MoD had not asked for this in the spec), it's difficult to view them now as anything other than yet another example of poor value for money from the MoD. For instance, I understand that, as shippy's pointed out, we don't need a carrier the size we've bought ... because we probably can't afford the number of F-35C's to make a carrier that size a requirement - not now that we've committed to paying for the carrier!

This could be a massively unfair view of things, but the impression I've been given is that the MoD's main purpose is to buy shiny kit from BAe in the hopes that we never have to use it, thereby finding out how awful it is.

apdsmith wrote:I'd thought one of the key points of having carriers this size was the ability to operate non-STOVL aircraft. Having removed this option, apparently through our own incompetence (I seem to recall that around the time it was found out that they wouldn't, couldn't be CATOBAR it was realised that this was because the MoD had not asked for this in the spec), it's difficult to view them now as anything other than yet another example of poor value for money from the MoD. For instance, I understand that, as shippy's pointed out, we don't need a carrier the size we've bought ... because we probably can't afford the number of F-35C's to make a carrier that size a requirement - not now that we've committed to paying for the carrier!

This could be a massively unfair view of things, but the impression I've been given is that the MoD's main purpose is to buy shiny kit from BAe in the hopes that we never have to use it, thereby finding out how awful it is.

I think you, and other people here fail to appreciate the fact that the size of the ship is such that she can sustain operations for an extended time, much longer than a smaller 30k ton ship would be able to, and that advantage is worth having - especially as the low cost of steel (relative to high cost things like electronics) means that she wasn't dramatically more expensive than the smaller ship would have been.

The reduction is size does not stop conversion, the carriers are still larger than the CDG. not to mention the reduction in size from Bae and Thales original concept pictured by Bombhead above took place when France was still heavily involved and a third French carrier was planned this would have been CATOBAR. What is the preventing issue now is cost, due to the fiasco during the early stages it would now be necessary to completely rebuild or massively modify no fewer than 5 of the ships blocks, namley the forward and port flight deck level blocks.

The size as TJ states does allowed sustained operations for longer periods that possible with a design of 30-35k tons.

I personally like the design of the ships, yes I think a CATOBAR version would have been better not for any operational benifits of the ships themselves but it would have offered a greater choice on aircraft as now we are stuck with the F35B, CATBAR would have given back up palms from the F18 to Rafale or maybe navalised Typhoon not to mention the F35C which is marginally better than the B.

What I have reservations about is the ships protection, not only in escorts but as pointed out it is most likely these ships will be part of a multi national force than simply the RN on its own, I would have liked the inclusion of maybe SYLVER launcher with at least ASTER 15's...... Even the CDG and Cavour have this level of protection..... Phalanx, 30mm auto's and mini guns doesn't seem enough....