In addition to the jets, Illustrious provided a large (by UK standards) deck for helicopter operations, logistics and medical support, and command and control.

As argued here on PPRuNe, what if the the rebels had used some of their money from blood diamonds to get a renegade pilot to shoot down a Chinook? Plenty of MiGs are the like lying around in Africa. And don’t talk about Apache as it wasn’t in service at the time.

For Europe yes, but for the UK not. The last skirmish to British naval aviators in some usefull way was 1982.

I assume you are refering only to fixed wing operations, and are not deliberately dismissing helicopter operations (such as these).

Even if they had been a suitable UK reactor (or a US reactor was used – as with the first British SSN Dreadnought, it wouldn’t solve the current problems caused by the early retirement of the Sea Harrier, namely loss of organic air defence, loss of air defence skills, and lack of aircraft on deck and the loss of skills by flight deck crews etc.

And the decisions would have had to be made over a decade ago…

Blimey there’s so much heat on this thread I think I’ll warm myself up. Not much light though.

I’m very lazy so I can’t go through the entire thread but:

For western navies this is currently the priority, they face no conventional threat and thus build their ships to exert influence in a world in which they have absolute naval supremacy.

The world is full of attack aircraft, surface warships, submarines, mines and land based anti ship missiles. Just a few MiGs with long range missiles, missile armed craft, the odd diesel electric submarine or the odd well place minefield could cause choas.

Imagine what would have happened if Saddam had a few submarines under his belt when he invaded Kuwait, and instead of allowing the US led coalition to spend several months preparing and gathering intelligence, he sent his forces into Saudi Arabia, drawing the allies into a fight on his terms?

What is Britain defending its SLOC’s against exactly?

The same as the US. Who can predict the future? The threats that materialised in 1914, 1982, 1990 and 2001 bore very little relation to percieved priorities. We have no idea what is around the corner….

The priorities of an aircraft carrier (certainly in the British context) are:
1.AIR DEFENCE OF THE FLEET And this includes the Merchant fleet too;

Wrong, that is why the F/A-2 has gone, Britain has virtually no threat to its surface fleet from air attack.

That’s certainly what the Government think. Or at least it was the main excuse for saving (not vey much) money by scrapping the Sea Harrier six to eight years before its replacement enters service. A dangerous decision, discussed at length in various places (such as here). Not everyone was convinced – including the RN themselves.

Britain is a nation with interests worldwide, not just in her coastal waters. Over 90% of Britains trade goes by sea, and not just across the channel. We import almost everything we need to survive on a daily basis for nations on the far side of the world, and as far as I am concerned the number one defence priority for Britain is her SLOCs which extend globally.

It’s actually more like 95%!

Too many here and elsewhere have got it into their heads that Carriers are all about power projection from the sea to the land, whereas I see it differently.

The beauty of a carrier is flexibilty. You could use carrier based fighters to protect your fleet or logistics, to escort strike aircraft or to enforce a no fly zone. You could use carrier strike aircraft against sea or land targets. You could operate helicopters in seaborne roles like ASW, or for amphibious assault and ship to land logistics roles.

n 2010, HMS Invincible will have spent less time in commission then either of them

I think you might be right. However she hasn’t had the same refits and upgrades that her sister ships have. Janes claims that she could be regenerated and put back into the front line in 12-18 months, although I suspect the real problem would be finding a crew. Generating the RNSFDO Sea Harriers, finding pilots, and even getting them back up to speed would be less of a challenge. Never say never…

Here are some more pretty pictures.

PS No more talk of integrating a weapon (or sensor) onto an aircraft (or ship, or anything else) as being simple (sic), please.

Fritz X – Wikipedia

Bat – Wikipedia

It seems odd there were no WW2 anti ship missiles projects in the UK, unless you count the use of unguided rockets, often against U Boats. Don’t forget about the use of conventional iron bombs, particularly in the 1970s context of this thread. Since it was during the Cold War, nuclear weapons also had anti shp roles.

Did it fly from a deck operating other types of aircraft – fixed wing or rotary wing? If so, how much did it effect deck operations?

As well as fixed wing aircraft, naval helicopters can carry anti ship missiles, and have been able to for many years. These include smaller missiles like Sea Skua as well as larger ones like Sea Eagle (carried by Indian Navy Sea Kings) or Exocet (carried by the Super Frelon amongst others). Helicopters armed like this could be carrier based, or they might be carried by smaller ships. This adds the option of over the horizon anti ship attacks to Navies without carriers.

For example, Argentina has fitted Exocet to a number of SH3 (I think) helicopters to carry Exocet, meaning they have regained much of the capability lost when their carrier was scrapped. The fact that long range anti ship weapons can be helicopter launched adds to the complexity of a modern naval scenario.