With the Scottish budget worries about some major projects like the new forth bridge crossing under threat in the next few years we could have a great use for the CVF’s if hte get cancelled half way through building. Line the 2 of them up and make a bridge. Brilliant no that’s what i call multi role.

I don’t think the tories will be any different. Remember what happened last time the tories were in. I don’t remember any big defence budget increase. Tories are out to make the rich richer and stuff the rest. What ever party comes in we will just see more of the same. Some one needs to shake up the MOD and stop it from using so much of the budget on civilians it’s crazy how much of the budget and time for projects get’s taken up from these people. 1 man can do a job, get 100 people doing that job and it takes 3 times as long and cost 100 times more and you end up with a comprimise. The main problem is 1st the MOD has far to many staff and makes a **** up of every project they get there hands on cause they have 2 many staff to puzzle and adjust things. 2nd the budget isn’t big enough for what the UK want’s it’s armed forces to be

Yeah i doubt a 3rd CVF would happen but who know’s what situation we will be in in 10-15 years and if the French want 1 who knows. But i agree highly unlikely.
One question about a Cat and trap CVF is people on here are always saying how much the waist catapult impacts on flight operations. What is the advantages/disadvantages of having 2 catapults running off the front? Maybe keep the waist one there for emergency’s or just have the 2 off the front.

Just i thought about how the UKIP party had a defence review that called for a 3rd CVF. Not that they will ever get into power but i just thought that France will still need a 2nd carrier so just maybe we could do a deal in the future of ordering another 2 CVF’s. 1 for France and 1 for the UK. They should be able to be built cheaper as lessons will have been learned during construction. Also the MOD might discover that it is really hard trying to operate 2 CVF’s and that to have 1 on station we need a third one. Or maybe in 10 years time we will see France ordering 2 CVF’s to be built in their yards. Wonder how much the UK could get a third for if they added it to the order for the 2 French ones. Could we get a CVF for £1.2 Billion or less? We would be looking at at least 2016-2024 for construction.
In my eyes to build a CVF 10 years after the previous 2 will help as the CVF out of service dates won’t all come at once. Also should help make sure we can run them for 50 years if the load is spread over 3 instead of 2 ships.

What would be the advantage of stripping the island? Is it easier to install equipment? If you removed the whole island would this leave you with a big hole maybe to install heavy machinery ie engines etc? Or does the Varag actually need this big an island, could they be going to rip this one off and put a smaller prefabricated island on there. This would maybe be seen as easier than trying to fit the old one with all the necessary equipment.
Maybe 1 day we will know if this ship is coming into service but not for a few years yet anyway.

With the SLEP, the first Vanguard replacement needs to be in the water by 2023. Without it would be 2017. It takes 17 years to get a new SSBN class into serivce, which is why they had to make the decision in 2007.

The new missile probably would need to be start being designed by 2030 yes, giving time for adequate tests. I’m not sure which Trident would be going in 2040 (actually 2042), I assume all of them.

Again, a final missile compartment design WILL be in place by the time we start building, work was begun on it last year.

And no the American’s won’t wait for the new missile for their next class either, the first Ohio goes out of service in 2029. Hence the reason they decided to design a joint missile compartment, we have the same problem as them, the need to build a compartment capable of firing Trident and the next missile. For the second time now, the Americans and British are JOINTLY designing the new missile compartment, to be used on both of our future SSBN projects. So if the new missile doesn’t fit our class, they won’t fit the American’s either.

12 missile tubes should be sufficient. If necessary they can always increase the number of warheads aboard to give them the capability to fire upto 120 warheads at once. If you don’t think that is enough to seriously mess up a society then you seriously underestimate the power of a nuke. With the current limit of 48 warheads per boat, it makes more sense to deploy 12 instead of 16 missiles, it means more warheads per missile. That’s the same destructive power, but a little cheaper. If 12 aren’t enough to deal with a country then we are pretty screwed anyway, 4 more missile wouldn’t make the difference. You’d just launch the reserve boat and have them send another 12. Remember that it’s basically a policy of MAD, if we have to launch then they will launch, it’s not about stopping another nation from destroying Britain, its about deterring them from attacking at all. In any of the nations you mentioned we could do enough damage to that end with 12 missiles.

As a side note, the Taliban will never be allowed to come to power in Pakistan as long as they have Nuclear weapons. No one cared enough about Afghanistan to stop them, but the thought of nuclear jihad would spur either India or the USA or the international community at large to stop them.

And I wasn’t aware Brazil was after the nuke, they were pretty strong advocates for a nuclear free South America weren’t they? Even by 2050 I can’t see it happening.

EDIT: Kev, you’re right, that thought occurred to me too. I guess people assume we’d just slap them on a Typhoon, which would be the worst deterrent we could have quite frankly.

Costs in an air launched weapon would be massive now too, there’s the stealthy long ranged cruise missile we’d need to design and build, the building of a decent stealthy bomber to deliver it, the purchase of a dedicated refuelling fleet, the complete move of all our current nuclear storage facilities, reacquiring lost techniques for delivering the weapons etc. And to top it all off it is acknowledged as a less effective deterrent.

I didn’t know they are jointly developing the missile compartment togther. Normally when it comes to these kind of things the americans design it and we buy it. That is better news that the americans replacement boat will have to have a missile compartment that fits both trident and the new missile. my main worry was that the US navy would not be using trident on the new boats. But the US Navy can get away with running there boat numbers down and just going for a new sub with the new missile but as you say they are designing the compartment together.

I don’t think Brazil want the Bomb either i was just meaning that 50 years is a long time. who would have thought in 1959 that the USSR would colapse. Or that China would become an econmic power house or that the USA would be 9 Trillion dollars in dept. My point was 50 years is a long time.

I think if we could SLEP the vanguards so they can run until the US navy needs to replace Ohio class that would be a step in the right direction. I can’t believe the UK is trying to design the ships just now when we don’t even know what kind of missile they will carry or how wide long it will be. I think i heard we only need to SLEP them for 5 years and then the missile design will be complete. The RN can’t rely on the US saying the missile will probably be 130 inches wide we need to wait and see what the design looks like. To build new boats that will run with Trident for 5 years and then will be refitted with a new missile is costly and has a big chance of going wrong.

The deterrence is important but if needs be i would prefer to not have the 365 days a year capability for a few years than to build a ship when we don’t know what it’s going to carry.
The best situation i can think of is that the Vanguards are SLEPed until the missile design is finalized and then we build 4 new SSBN’s.
Another situation could be we run the Vanguards into the ground and hopefully we still have 2 running when the new ships are launched. We could put vengeance out of service just now and then as Vanguard gets retired bring Vengeance back and she should have 10 years left. Maybe 15-20 with a Major SLEP. The boats shouldn’t need a major overhaul when they are in the last few years so 3 should hopefully be enough.

Hopefully the US missile project doesn’t get delayed or we are all up clyde without a paddle. Thank goodness the MOD ain’t running the project it would be 10 years late and cost 10 times as much. Then we would only be 10 missiles cause they offer a quantum leap in capability.

Do we think the US boats will go with 16 or 24 tubes or maybe more? Has the UK commited to how many tubes we will have on our SSBN? Also has the US said we can have the Trident replacement? These boats will be the biggest ever seen in the US navy and RN as i’m thinking the missile will be bigger and will take a bigger sub to carry them.
The boats should also be able to get a reactor to run for hopefully 30 years without needing refueled. This is one thing i’m not keen on the Astute reactor for is that it can run for 25 years. I’m guessing we will need it in service for longer than that going by the MOD previous record of getting subs in service. Look at Swiftsure class. Heading for over 35 years in the water!

One quick thought before finishing for the day is back to the AEW platform. With new radars for mounting on an AEW plane could it not be designed so that it provides considerable lift. Just thinking that with thousands of modules you could have them arranged in a lifting shape and mount them on top of the fuselage. This could act like a third wing.
Any thoughts anyone?