I think the one thing I fear over the frigate issue is the navy ending up with a revamped Khareef class ship. as for the Carriers I would like to see a replacement for Ocean something like a Juan Carlos 1 which cost 450 million Euros in 2005

I think we have to keep a context here to be honest. The need to replace Ocean isnt essentially a very urgent one compared, for example, to getting T26/31 right. Replacing her with a vessel thats actually bigger than the Albions and with a completely unnecessary well deck represents an investment thats quite hard to justify.

Swerve asked the question ‘what happens if we need to run full strike carrier configuration and LPH configuration simultaneously’. The answer clearly is that, unless we can deploy both carriers, we dont. The question has to be asked though how frequently thats going to be an operational limitation?.

Even if we assume a full 3 squadron fastjet airgroup on the QE as a maximum effort component how long will we need that at max sortie generation rate?. At what point would we look to push an element ashore, if some austere short strip facility could be established, similar in concept to what we did in San Carlos?. Likewise with full LPH configuration how long, in an amphibious sequence, before we had put ashore all resources that needed air mobility to put ashore?. If we’ve established a beachhead and are operating rotaries between austere shore, LSD(A)’s and the carrier how much capacity is actually being tasked on the carrier deck?.

In the meantime, for the routine lower intensity and peacetime ops, the Tailored Air Group or ‘golfbag’ concept of some fastjet and some Jungly stuff looks optimal. A dozen -35B’s plus a wokka det and a squadron each of HM2’s and HC4’s and a few Apache and Wildcats thrown in is a very adequate platform for Libya, Sierra Leone, Mog type operations….which are more the norm than scenarios where we have to generate 100 plus strike sorties per day and, simultaneously, be prepared to put 3Cdo ashore in its entirety.

Refitting the Bays to add the basic, permanent, hangaring that should have been in place from the start shouldn’t be particularly difficult or expensive. The Bays were very carefully computer modelled when the exhaust system was redesigned and spaces were left empty after that work. Other than that the demountable hangar fit shows how a permanent structure could fit and what bunkerage is necessary and practical in cost terms to deliver an austere organic chopper capability. To my mind that….plus the QE’s ticks the box without the need for a 27000ton LHD. Especially when we already have, arguably, the most capable LPD’s in Europe in the fleet already.

John,

The amusing irony is that the behaviour you are so proud of is exactly what immigrant communities in this country do….yet, to you, thats non-integration isnt it?.

I’m not surprised you arent concerned about Norway, Iceland or Switzerland….I’m sure you actually go a bit further than that in actively trying to ignore their status for the purposes of this debate. It does rather make mockery of this idea of yours that being out of the EU is all thats needed to be free of open immigration. Lets face it when you see that all three of those countries are shackled to Schengen and, despite us existing purely at the beckon call of Brussels….as you would have us believe, we aren’t then your argument for ‘independence’ looks absurd.

Put simply…purely factually….this:

I’m an OUTER but, I don’t recognise myself in your delightfully inventive piece of caricature. Most of us simply want to be governed – regrettably in some cases – by elected representatives in Whitehall and not by unelected functionaries who presume to know what is best for us.

A simple notion for simple people of whom I am one, to get their simple heads around but, simply too complicated for you.

You may not recognise yourself in the picture there John, but, your published views make you look very much like that!. Did you not, on the thread discussing the UK Foreign aid budget, agree that you displayed a certain level of xenophobia…though we agreed it likely stopped short of basic common or garden racism.

The comment about governance may give you somewhere to hide in your own mind, but, thats part of the problem. Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are not EU states….all have had to sign up to Schengen though. What…I hear you cry?. They’re independent….they are free….they have no need to bend the knee to the insidious faceless march of the Eurocrat. Wrong!.

You seem to have a view of reality here John that is just in the possession of you and the other Daily Mail readers. Problem is we’re all going to pay for your mistakes and it’ll be too late when it dawns on you that the world doesnt work the way you want it to.

The Albion class was a big mistake, IMO. A pair of LHDs would have been much better.

I’m not sure the problem was the Albions to be honest Swerve…the LCU10’s are serious and useful assets in any across-the-beach scenario and they need big hulls to deploy 4 at a time. Putting that kind of landing ability in as well as high tempo chopper ops would’ve demanded a really big ship!. The Spanish JC’s are obviously bigger, for example, deploy the far lighter LCMs and, as far as I know, dont have the battle management facilities that the Albions have.

For my money the mistake was not building the Bays with even basic hangaring and some avcat bunkerage. At a stroke it offloads the carrier deck and you add the additional chopper spots in the landing force. No need to disrupt the necessary qualities of the Albions with a need to run air ops as well as everything else.

As for the CVF taking a C-130 it’s probably possible landing but not sure how it gets round the ski jump on takeoff.

The concept is simply described….you get the RAF pilot to reverse back up the ski jump right to the top and then get the skipper to put wind over the stern and then go all back full!. With the ship at full reverse the Hercules hurtles down the ramp along the flight deck and off the back. I’ve no idea if it’d get up….but I’d love to watch the attempt!

The amphib role for them is also worrying and risky. Use them as a helicopter platform if needed but don’t put them harms way. Much better to buy 1-2 replacement HMS oceans. Keep them cheap is a must.

Not really so much. In low intensity ops like Palliser the carrier will be quite safe 50 miles offshore over the horizon. It can sit there all day sending choppers ashore. For peacetime disaster assistance ops again its a hugely useful platform. Not very glamourous or ‘Top Gun’ fighty, but, definitely the most likely sorts of tasking in its near future.

Could a pair of Oceans do a job….yes….but we were buying the CVF anyway and its a lot easier to get the CVF to do the amphib job than it is to get the Oceans to do the strike carrier job!.

regarding Mr Blue Skys 6 point proposal:

1, If an EU common market is desired, as stated, best way to get that isnt to leave it. Its to stay in and change the EU to what it should be and not what, plainly, Europe doesnt want it to be. You dont fix something valuable by throwing it away and hoping someone else fixes it for you. Its stupid and juvenille.

2, See point 1. You fix something yourself and you fix it properly and to your standards. Britain sells roughly half and half between the EU and Rest of World. You dont throw one away to pursue the other….unless you are stupid and juvenille.

3, Political integration is a dead duck. The EU leadership has accepted the fact that European integration has no support publicly. Monetary union has put the final torpedo into that particular Gaullist pipedream. Meantime at least 45% of our exports go to Europe…that number represents livelihoods of tens, if not, hundreds of thousands of families in this country. Threatening them for fear of a discredited and visibly unworkable gaullist pipedream is again stupid and juvenille.

4, Meaning what?. We would do better alone when compared to the US, India, China?. Hardly. Australia has natural resources to trade on that we dont and is now suffering from the downturn in the Chinese market. New Zealand doesnt count as it is middle earth.

5, Prove it!. What do you mean “you cant?” you are gambling all our futures that we might be able to negotiate, as a market of 65mn (compared to an EU one of 500mn), these deals and that BRIC and NAFTA will be falling over themselves to offer us deals?. The only evidence I’ve seen is an outgoing US president telling us we’ll be bigger news staying in Europe and a potential future US president saying that the UK/US special relationship wont last into his presidency. That and a German finance minister saying that if the UK want out then they will be all the way out!.

6, A Remain vote will be seen around the world as proof that we havent abandoned common sense and haven’t flushed half of our export trade down the tubes. We will not jeopardise our trading links with the likes of Japan and the US who perceive the UK as a safe harbour with access into the EU. Basically we wont show ourselves a nation of blustering halfwits who believe they can dictate to all comers as if they still lived in the days of empire.

I think most baffling aspect in the whole affair is the claim that when drafting the specifications they “were not envisioning long deployments to Persian Gulf”.
I’m speechless…

You would be right to be so. It’s a lie. There was an attempt to sell a couple of hulls from the RN build run to Saudi. One would assume the Saudis, decent sailors though they are, wouldn’t spend much time patrolling colder waters!.

Inquiry reveals UK’s Type-45 destroyers are even less reliable in warm waters

This is getting a little daft now. The WR21 recirculation system has routine maintenance challenges that can lead to a turbine shutdown….IEP is an Integrated system so a turbine shutdown can be more impactful than in previous, non-integrated, propulsion platforms. The promise was for a destroyer twice the displacement of a 42 running on lower fuel consumption than a 42 though….it was worth the risk to reach for that goal. The problem is a known one though and there are fixes to be applied. Line drawn. Its still, until SPY-3 joins the USN fleet, arguably the most capable antiair radar/missile fit afloat.

As to this issue the article is dead on…electric motors get warm and need additional cooling in higher ambient temperatures…warm moist air hitting a cooled metal surface invariably generates condensation. Can condensation, despite protective measures, form where its unhelpful….course it can. These aren’t new, unpredictable or unmanageable issues. The difference is that in older classes there was a direct drive alternate propulsion source, diesel or whatever, with IEP there isnt so its more noticeable.