Agreed that it was right to bail on the F-35B, but a short-to-medium term alternative would be to upgrade the Harriers to something like the AV-8B+ standard – or acquire such aircraft secondhand – to provide a radar-equipped swing-role air-defence and strike/ground attack aircraft.

That would provide a breathing space of around 10 years, until the BAe/Saab Sea Gripen becomes available. :diablo:

But who would sell them to us? Second hand AV-8B+ are not exactly in large supply, nobody that has them wants to sell them.

Sea Gripen would probably need a carrier with a decent sized flight deck, larger than what is proposed here.

For the British finances (£), a LHD was much more radically cheap, versatile & flexible than a larger 60 000 carrier…
(2 large LHD were sufficient for future UK need)

Ships comparaisons:

HMS Queen Elizabteh // Juan Carlos I
Ships Crew: 600 (ship crew) + up to 800 (airwings) // 243 (ship crew) + 172 (airwings)
Additionnal Crew: hundred of additionnal troops possible (carrier used as a LPH) // Up to 900 troops
Speed (max): 25+ knots // 21 knots
Airwings: Up to 40 aircrafts/helico // Up to 30 helico (or +/- 10 aircrafts & +/- 12 helico)
Cost (without airwing…): 3+ £ billion per ship // +/- 500 ? £ million per ship

But you can’t use a Juan Carols I as an aircraft carrier and an amphib, it’s swing role not multi role, to do both is would need to be bigger.

Just having an idle look through the General Atomics website and I noticed that Qinetiq were on the team developing the AAG Advanced Arresting Gear:

http://atg.ga.com/EM/defense/aag/index.php

I must admit this long wait to get any concrete details about the changes required for the QE class is driving me up the wall!

Couldn’t agree more, still, patience is a virtue I suppose :rolleyes::mad:

The USN is switching to a 5 year procurement cycle. That means a permanent switch to a 10 carrier fleet (by I think 2040?). However this assumes that between now and then, no further cuts are carried out.

For some reason I think the US is going to have to make massive cuts to spending, including to the military in the next few years time, they can’t keep printing money forever.

Couldn’t agree more, it’s going to have to happen sometime, deficit reduction measures will come, same as they have in the UK.

I have noticed that in all the discussion about the use of Apaches there has not been one word about where they will operate from, ie a ship. It seems sea blindness continues apace.

On the matter of them wearing a Navy logo, don’t they belong to the army? In which case why would they be badged Navy?

Most of the articles I’ve seen have mentioned that they will be operating off of Ocean.

Well Emcat will be used for launching drones

From what? UK won’t have any ships capable of catapuilt launching UAVs except the Queen Elizabeth class.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I can’t recall if the UK Apaches will have been used in a more potentially hostile environment where an opponent might have access to higher quality defenses than they have seen before ?

Pretty sure they haven’t.

Lots of good points raised by OBI, Swerve and Fedaykin, I’m all for joint RAF and FAA airgroups as long as the commitment is there providing a minimum commitment that can be augmented to a serge capacity at ‘reasonably’ short notice, for me it would make the most sense if the F35c force was 2 x RAF and 2 x FAA, whether the money for that exists is a little doubtful though.

From sideways the hull looks actually quite long & sleek, with the bridge squarely positioned in the middle and a low, almost-wave piercing bow. Very yacht like compared to most OPVs (more like the Holland class). Some people will like it, others won’t.

To me the superstructure just looks to damn high and it rises up at too steep an angle, it’s just like a lump in the middle of the hull.