“Well I don’t think any of us are in doubt that Prince of Wales will get the first catapult set”
Not to be rude, but since i was the one saying it all along since months ago and was pretty much insulted and accused of having no clue, i can’t agree. Plenty of people here had (and some might still have) the full certainty that QE would be converted, and PoW mothballed.
As to your plan, that’s how it is going to work, pretty much. But if the economic situation improves a bit and the Navy continues to ride the current renaissance of carrier interest following Libya, QE might avoid the mothballing entirely.
Considering that there’s a requirement for ONE Carrier and ONE LPH, and that the first major refit for QE is planned in 2022, QE could serve as LPH even while PoW comes into service, and get her cats and traps during the 2022 refit.
The carriers, anyway, under the new “Carrier Enabled Power Projection” concept are likely to work as Landing Helicopter Aviation ships, US Navy LHA-style. The separation between Strike Carrier and LPH might be a lot thinner in the coming years. And there is scope to operating both.
They are likely to resemble the carrier USS Kitty Hawk in 2001 during Afghan ops: a dozen F35C, some AEW platforms, and the rest helicopters and Marines.
And i’ve nothing at all against that.
I also believe that the conversion could be done in one year or so, not several ones.
“MARS has all but gone”
MARS Fleet Tanker preferred bidder is to be announced early next year. In april or may this year Frazen Nash was selected by the MOD to help with the selection. It is not gone. Thankfully.
It was in this month’s parliamentary written answers.
Plan for the Fleet Tanker element is to have four ships. First one in service by 2016. Contract in 2 + 1 + 1 shape, cost should be somewhere around 540 million pounds, with the hull built abroad and kitted in the UK, probably with the new Rolls Royce RAS kit (5 tons capacity instead of current 2) which was recently acquired to build an ashore RAS training facility.
I suspect that the new tankers will replace also RFA Fort Victoria. Her sister Fort George is gone during the SDSR, and Fort Victoria will go as well: a big oiler with single hull is a no-no, after all.
The 4 MARS FT vessels will then be replacement, numerically like for like, of:
RFA Black Rover
RFA Gold Rover
RFA Orangeleaf
RFA Fort Victoria
MARS Solid Replenisher for replacing the two Fort Solid Replenisher vessels (Fort Austin which is being re-activated now, and RFA Fort Rosalie) should follow in the early 2020s.
MARS Joint Sea Based Logistics, instead, is at serious risk. A pity, because it was a massively interesting concept, and an undoubtedly useful ship type.
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