They can’t be used as LPDs, since the D in LPD stands for Dock, & they don’t have docks.

They could be used as LPHs, but –

They’ll all be at least 30 years old when QE enters service.
They’re expensive to run, & hard to find crews for. They have the same crew (without air group) as CVF, & machinery running costs much higher than Ocean.

There are much better ways to spend scarce defence pounds.

As for selling ’em on – who to? There aren’t any Harriers out there for any potential customer to fly off them, which limits them to the LPH or ASW helicopter carrier (what they designed for!) role. Who might want an old, costly to run, LPH or ASW helicopter carrier? Well, India maybe, going by recent procurements, but who else?

and more importantly more expensive to run compared with the QE old Olympus engines 4 of them and old train engines no longer in use in the UK obsolete systems from company’s that have gone bankruptcy. Compared with the Latest in lean manning an advanced electric system which has already proven savings on other vessels with new kit.

Would be nice to have one as museum, I can’t think of anyone who would like a marginal harrier carrier which can only just take the F35

So what replaces Sea Wolf?

CAMM is also the replacement for Sea Wolf.

I think he getting at replacing it with a french, German, US system(such as MICA, RAM,) which is in service. discounting the usefulness of a defense industrial policy and work for UK companies and having a system suited to the UK.

I strongly have to disagree with you, unfortunately. By now, we’ve overcome that stage. If there was money and a contract was placed, we could have all Astutes, up to the much needed 8th, no problems.

The fact is that there is no money. We’ve some certainty up to the 6th Astute, some money has been spent on it. A 7th is planned, but we’ll see if it’ll ever be built.

The 8th has already been dropped from plans: the official confirmation came in 2008. At the best, the RN will have 7 Astutes. More likely 6.
Unfortunately.

And the SSBN may be only 3, no matter the risk of being unable to provide continuous presence at sea. Liam Fox seems to have said it today, for what i read in the news.
Most likely, four Vanguards will be replaced by 3 boats at this point. The shrinking continues, regardless of who is in power.

sorry to disappoint you gloom but the long leads for Astute 7 have been ordered indicating it will be ordered. This are only plans we have many many of these some they do other they don’t. Reducing the deterrent is unlikely Fox has made some interesting comments from Chateem house http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100047163/liam-fox-sometimes-you-have-to-fight-for-peace/
I’ve just come back from Chatham House, where Liam Fox has been outlining his thinking on British defence. In a nutshell, he says we have to have the means and the willingness to deploy serious military power in order to deter potential threats to the realm. (I’ll try to get a link to the full text soon.)

In the question and answer session that followed, Dr Fox was challenged about some of the alleged contradictions in his approach. One of the main issues: how does the whole full-spectrum conventional-forces-as-deterrent notion relate to the admission that the greatest probable threat comes from non-state actors. (”Oi, Osama, stop that terror plotting now or I shall unleash my Astute-class subs on you. When I find you, that is.”)

But my favourite exchange went like this:

Q: Are you concerned that you sound like a bellicose neo-con? What happened to peacekeeping?

A: I hope that to those who might pose a threat to the UK, I sound bellicose. The trouble with peacekeeping is that there has to be a peace to keep. Sometimes you have to fight for the peace. Sometimes you have to die for the peace.
seems that all power projection stuff seem safe to me with those sort of comments.

The USN did with its 1945 Fleet Carrier design.

The abandoned islands altogether then came back to a single island.

as did the 1952 carrier, and early drafts of CVA-01 before they were merged. I don’t know about the Malta drafts. I think the main drawback of twin islands was that the Steam Turbine trunking meant that though the islands were smaller they had a lot less space than a bigger island with space for the trunking, and C&C required bigger islands.

Also although it was widely reported ive seen precious little evidence of 3 T-42 lacking active sea dart systems of the 5 remaining vessels. Temporarily inactive if their going hunting for drug runners is understandable but with the possibility of making the system active if needs be is another matter.

depends on bugs and all that other stuff that always happens with flight testing. 2018 sounds reasonable as UAV’s and UCAV seem to have a quicker flight testing (although they have been simpler).

It could be ramp mounted which would deal with the disruption. as its outside the props problem being it would only be a single Drogue

On another note of good news Vince Cable looking into the air tanker deal

I don’t see how Sea Dart could easily have been fitted to the Counties, which were literaly built around Sea Slug (has there ever been a worse name for a missile?)

I have always wondered why Sea Slug could not have been converted to semi-active homing? The Americans and French both did this, and elements from Sea Dart might have served. It is a shame that the eight Counties were built around a weapon system which became obsolete almost as soon as it was installed in them, yet another sad indictment of British defence procurement.

Im not too harsh about sea slug as it was initially considered very good with A good hit rate of any of the early systems of 92%. So in the 60s they were state of the art by 80s they were hopelessly obsolete.

The biggest problem with the system was the size and lack of updates

The Story goes that they weren’t given capital ship names so as to slip under the RAF’s radar so to speak, capital ships then as now meant aircraft carriers and they were decidedly ‘off the menu’ as far as the RAF were concerned. The first ship was therefore given the name Invincible because it was tradionally a cruiser name, not a carrier name. The ships themselves you’ll recall prior to the Falklands War were referred to officially at least as ‘Through Deck Cruisers’ and occasionally ‘Helicopter Carriers’, not ‘Aircraft Carriers’. The other two however were given carrier names Illustrious and Indomitable (renamed Ark Royal), possibly because by then the Sea Harrier had been ordered and the ships were all being built or had been approved so the RN could ‘come out of the closet’ so to speak.

according to ‘Age of Invincible’ Ark Royal was named because the popularity of the previous ship and the public desire for Ark Royal to live on.