The worst written book and scenario he ever wrote in my opinion, and it is very obvious that he did not get technical help from retired RN people like he did in his previous books (he states as much in the forward IIRC).

1) He has T45 firing sea dart
2) He has the RN fleet surrendering rather then just sailing away
3) He has the Russians sinking an RN carrier and then getting away.
4) He has the RM’s refusing to go ashore without air support, that would not happen, they would obey orders.
5) How the hell are the argentines being so damaging with their Airforce when they only have about 30 active fighters in their entire inventory at the moment?
6) The RN carriers are old and decrepid but the older USN carriers are not?

This is just going from memory, and I could go on….

True, he has the Type 45 with Sea Darts indeed.
But the RM in the story do not refuse to go ashore. They already are ashore in numbers when the air support lacks entirely because Ark Royal is sunk and the Rapier batteries… well, they are worth little more than nothing, let’s not kid ourselves. In fact i’m hoping that, whatever the SDR cuts, the Rapiers left are the first thing to go. They are too limited in range and ceiling anyway to give any real protection against anything more than choppers.

The fact that the soldiers are ashore and under fire is what justifies the surrender of the battlegroup. The cease fire is allowed only after the surrender.

Russia’s intervention is apparently a “never going to be” scenario… But you never know. They wouldn’t risk a submarine, but they could very well supply one at bargain price, or secretly supply missiles (the Sunburn or the BramHos are nasty things to contend with, far worse than any Exocet) and thus you can’t exactly just say that it is folly. In wars, especially when there’s large amounts of oil on the table, many things can happen.
USA gave some intelligence support to the Uk. Someone else may have interest in helping the other side, you can’t know.

And planes are the worst enemies of ships, second only to SSNs.
A lot of people wondered how the Hell the Argies could do so much damage to the RN in 1982. As a matter of fact, they did.

Robinson exagerates on purpose because he’s in open criticism of the severe cuts to the Navy, and he says it clear in the end of the book. But he’s not totally unrealistic either. There’s some wise warnings in that book, if you look at the conditions of the navy.

I’m going to disagree with you and Patrick Robinson about how a “new Falklands” would turn out. The current air group that would be taken to sea I would argue is better than the one in 1982. The Harrier GR9/Seaking ASaC 7 combo would do better in the same scrap than the SHAR FRS1 only air group. The only advantage the SHAR has is a tiny non-look down radar. The GR9 carries more stores, has better endurance/range and other than the radar is fitted with far superior avionics and when tied up with an AEW system as good as ASaC7 there is no contest. In fact a task group going south today would have so much more going for it, kit that those in 1982 could only dream of, a couple of minutes thought has given me….
– ASaC 7, when its not spotting raids hundred of miles away, its mapping enemy troop positions.
– Harrier Gr9, more range, more missiles, longer CAPs further from the fleet…
– TLAM, absolute battle winner in that scenario, forget Vulcan.
– A dedicated Helicopter assault carrier, no yomping.
– 6 LPD, more kit and vehicles landed more swiftly (no Galahad etc)
– CIWS Phalanx/Goalkeeper/VL Seawolf, turkey shoot in San Carlos.
– Harpoon, the range of leathality around the task group massively increased.
– GPS guided munitions, accurate 24hr CAS, now reimagine Goose Green, Longdon etc.
– Merlin HM1, the flying frigate, an MPA with rotors.
-Type 2050 sonar, ok lots of dead dolphins but lots of dead subs too.

There is more, but basically I think people need to stop sweating so much, time and technology has moved on.

Correct. If you read what i wrote, you’ll see i pointed out that Patrick did exagerate in his dark vision. But he has some points. And not just UK technology moved onwards, the technology of many potential enemies did move onwards as well, let’s not forget it.
Argies could easily buy, say, MICA long range missiles for their Mirages, at any day.
MICA against Asraam is going to be a serious trouble.
The RN may be forced to urgently put AMRAAMs on the GR9 planes, and aim them via data-link from a Sea King ASaC, like it has been tried between Typhoon and Sentry.

And it is not just about argies. Iran is another potential troublespot… And Iran is much more dangerous. Anti-ship missiles and air-to-air missiles of far greater relevance are already there.
A task group would have a very hard time relaying on Asraam only.

I don’t think any of us like “Fitted for but not with” but it is better then “not at all”. At least it means growth capability beyond primary role for the Type 45 rather then the Type 42 which had virtually no growth capability and the only way they got the Phalanx on was by taking off the ships boats.

I look forward to the beer with all on hand when we get to that day! Actually it might be quite nice for us naval fans to have a bit of a gathering when it happens. Youtube regulars often organise meetups, it might be interesting to organise something like that in the future. Maybe with some lectures, I think there are a few of us here on this forum who could probably give us an interesting talk about their experiences.

Indeed, i can say that we’d all be far more happy if the Daring already had CEC, Phalanx, Harpoon, Stingray launchers and the 16 additional VLS, possibly MK41 type fitted with TacToms. But i certainly agree with you… since there’s no money for that at the moment, it is certainly good to know that the ship is ready for all that, and will hopefully get all her capabilities in time. And when she does, she’ll be a truly amazing ship, with no par in the world.

And who knows, the launch of QE may be the first time a meeting pops up outside the internet. God knows how much i want to be present when the ship is rolled out of the yard after all!

However the ceremony will be, it will be such a wonder to see the ship getting out the dock and into the water! It will worth the travel from Italy, for sure.

The only thing that Cavour can held against the CVF is its armament. The Cavour is almost a destroyer, with the Aster missiles fit and the 76 mm Dardo guns. The CVF will be very lightly armed in that sense… Assuming, of course, that they are not completely unarmed. I’m sick of “fitted for but not whit”, seriously. That phrase is the ruin of the finest warship in the world, the Type 45, and it would be a shame to have the QE going at sea without Phalanx and DS30 guns at the very least.

What reassures me a bit is the wonder of CAMM missiles: their cold launch and lack of dedicated mission system and radar would allow to bolt a good load of canisters to the sides of the flight deck if there was a need for that.
The Artizan radar of the carrier would target them for launch.

As to the cost and capability analysis of “Cavour instead of CVF”, you’ve been perfectly clear. I totally agree, the savings would be non existant… and the RN would never, never get 6, not 5 nor 4. 3 would have already been a miracle.

No way, CVF is the right way to go, definitely.

As to a beer at the launch of QE, it would be a pleasure and a honor to have one with you all in such happy day!

Not true. It was the green paper that suggested that however the Defence Sec Liam Fox has firmly stated that he and his party does not agree with that.

Whilst most acts will be as part as a coalition, he said the UK must retain the ability to act alone if unique UK national interests are threatened.

Let’s hope so.
You’ll pardon me and my doubts about it, but i have no confidence left for this kind of things, you know.

The proof is simple: if the carriers survive BOTH and are equipped decently with planes, we’ll have a UK capable to act outside its islands even on its own.
If the carriers aren’t saved, i don’t see how they can claim to be able to act independently outside the reach of land-based Typhoons.

As the Army said in 1982: “without air cover, we won’t get there.”
Be it COIN or state-on-state, you’ll need air cover. And carriers will be handy.

There are probably a whole lot of more parameters to compare with, for example RCS comparisons between F35A and C and so on. Best left to the technical guys in the RAF and RN.

Well, then there’s no F35A problem. The UK choice at the most goes from B to C. The A version never awakened any interest in the UK, since the RAF has a better performing plane to use for air defence and, once the weapons will be integrated, for strike role too.
The need was, at the most, for a FOAS-like deep-strike, first-hour stealth weapon, for which the RAF expressed some interest in the form of F35C.

Now, money problems dictate that the choice is between C and B for the carriers.

Can someone explain to me why the RN needs such massive carriers? At 65,000 tonnes, they will be three times the size of the Invincibles and almost twice the size of the Charles de Gaulle. Yet they will only operate 40 aircraft, the same as the CdeG. And furthermore, the aircraft they are currently planned to operate – the F-35B – is a STOVL design: does it really need a 284 metre long flight deck? Seems to me the RN are obsessed with ‘keeping up with the Joneses’, in this case the US Navy. Such a pity: for the vast sums being spent on these great big white elephants, the Navy could have got half-a-dozen smaller but almost equally capable carriers.

You live in the “Invincible age”.
But the small little VTOL carriers aren’t as capable as people believes, they have limits. The two Queen Elizabeth carriers born from the experiences dating back all the way to the Falklands war, but also to later usage of Harrier carriers in Sierra Leone, Iraq, even Afghanistan operation.

And 40 planes isn’t little. Nor is the maximum load for the QE, i believe. It is the optimal size of its air group, but the ship could carry more if needed, it’s almost sure.
After all, if you read the planned capacity of the Invincible, you’d see 8 Harriers and 12 Sea Kings. The Illustrious can carry up to 22/25 instead, even if it becomes damn cramped.
Similarly, you could cramp up the QE as well.

And no. The RN wouldn’t definitely get six small carriers in exchange for the QE. Knowing how the military is treated, they would ask for 3 and get 2. Maybe.
It makes perfect sense to have the QE class… but both must be built, otherwise it will lose sense and utility. With a single hull, not even nuclear propelled, the RN would be worst served than the french with their troubled CdG.

Regarding F35A vs F35C:

A larger wing has advantages and disadvantages. If there were no downside to a larger wing, the F-35A would have a wing as large, if not larger than the F-35C’s. The main reason the F-35C has a larger wing is to meet its carrier approach speed requirements, if I’m not mistaken. If the US Navy didn’t have all of those slow speed landing requirements, the F-35C would most likely have smaller wings. A larger wing creates more total drag, so don’t automatically assume that larger wing = more range. Aircraft design is not a simple process… even for a subsonic, prop-driven aircraft. A stealthy, supersonic fighter is a very complex design problem. The wing area of the F-35A was no doubt well thought out. Give Lockheed Martin engineers a little more credit. They knew what they were doing.

You are perfectly right about the reason why the F35C has larger wings. But i can ensure you that i’m also totally right in saying that the F35C has far longer reach than the other two versions. It is a fact, not an assumption.
Simply because the larger wings and slightly different fuselage allowed for much greater fuel tanks.
This very, very interesting graphic from Richard Beedall’s Navy Matters summarizes the results of the F35 versions: effective performances against requirements:

You can notice that the F35C and A exceded the requirement for range, the F35C scoring 732 naval miles combat radius against a 600 nm requirement.
The F35A scored 605, and the F35B failed to meet the requirement of 450, scoring 442.

Other noticeable thing is that the F35C scored a slightly higher mission reliability result than the UK STOVL F35B.
It also scored an higher sortie-for-day value, but i dunno how this was calculated: if the evaluation was carried out around the numbers of an US Navy air wing, it is evident that the UK would not have enough planes to score the same result.
However, the logistical footprint of the F35C resulted only slightly higher than those of the F35B UK: again, if the analysis was carried out considering US Air Wing number for the C and UK air wing numbers for the B, we have a confirmation of my assumption that the F35B has a far larger unitary logistic footprint than the F35C.

Last noticeable thing, the failure of the F35B to meet all the STOVL requirements. This should have been fixed, at least partially, from 2004 to today. Save for the Bring-Back weight, and in fact the Royal Navy is planning short rolling landings for its F35B and NOT vertical landings: in order to do the vertical landing, the F35B would have to drop unsed bombs in the sea.
A No-No for a laser guided bomb costing half a million dollars.

As to the AEW, it is correct, the italian navy already uses a Merlin-based AEW platforms from the Garibaldi and Cavour STOVL carriers. The Royal Navy is hoping to get an AEW platform a bit more ambitious, though, and undoubtedly centered around the proven Cerberus mission suite from the current Sea King 7.
The announced Merlin AEW that will be shown by AgustaWestland may have the charachteristic radome from the current SK sticking out for the rear loading ramp, if they followed the initial artist impressions they had let out.
Short wings had even be suggested to increase range and endurance of the Merlin flight. Again, i link you to Richard Beedal’s excellent Navy Matters site where an image of this proposed Merlin ASC is exposed: http://navy-matters.beedall.com/masc.htm