StevoJHThe Astute is a excellent SSN……….I wonder if Australia would consider such a type???
The Anti Nuclear Powerplant lobby (Labour Party) are currently running the government here, what do you think they’d say about Nuclear Sub’s?
StevoJHMy point exactly as the American Carriers carry vastly larger AirWings?
In Dimensions the Queen Elizabeth’s are very similar in size to the midway class, though they have a much higher displacement which makes sense as the midways had so many modifications done to them that it was not funny. They also have a similar sized Airwing to the Midway (~50).
The Queen Elizabeth’s have the same beam as the Forrestal class, however they are abouth 30-40 metres shorter in length, though i’m honestly not sure about the difference in internal volume between the two. The QE’s are also *currently* around 15,000t lighter then the Forrestal class though they will displace around the same as them once they are converted to CTOL at some stage.
StevoJHI’d agree.
Re Atlantic Conveyor? No one any length/beam stats?
If you can find out who built her, you could probably send them an email if they are still operating. 😉
StevoJHThey aren’t his pics; they’re hosted by FlightGlobal.
I think a better question is why you’d want to put a F-35 model on the Illustrious, because it gives an entirely incorrect impression. If anything, it suggests that the CVFs aren’t necessary, and that the Illustrious and Ark Royal will embark the F-35, which seems altogether improbable.
Of course, with all of the talk of killing off, delaying, or more likely, scaling back, Britain’s F-35 buy, the entire purpose might simply be to promote the F-35. Right now, I doubt that the CV-Fs will ever have a substantial air group embarked, and there is an outside chance that they won’t have a fixed wing RN airgroup after the last Harriers are retired.
They probably had a model of CVF not far away. Then they can say that “those” will go on “that”, because the current ships are too small. Or something along those lines.
StevoJHI was using 1970 prices for comparison. Inflation would have put all those prices up together, so the relative prices stay the same. Two tigers doesn’t equal one CV in manpower terms but it gets you most of the way there, about 1900 men. Eagle required a crew of 2700 give or take, so now we only have to find another 800. And she actually had these crewmen up to 1972 so it’s a matter of making cuts elsewhere. I would argue those men were more usefully employed aboard a carrier than some of the more obsolete escorts then in service with the fleet. Royal Navy manpower during this period was a lot igher than today even with the shortage, so finding the extra crew was not as big a deal as today. That is not to say it would have been easy by any means. As for running costs, the aircraft for Eagle’s air group were flying anyway (albeit in RAF colours) and her crew were spread out amongst the fleet. I’m only saying the priorities could have been different, and I’d gladly trade 5 or 6 1970s frigates to keep a carrier in service. Selling Hermes as a going concern whilst still CTOL will also free up manpower and resources. The path taken wasn’t the only option.
In 1970 prices Invincible was estimated to cost £60million for comparison purposes.
There was a 3rd tiger decommissioned in 1972. The last of the Darings, Battles and the converted World War 2 destroyers were decommissioning around this time as well. Albion Also decommissioned 1973.
The Manpower was there.
Personally I’m curious about whether the Sea Vixen could have been fitted with the radar of a Phantom and given Sparrow/Skyflash. Still subsonic, but unlike the sea harriers they would have at least had a Radar guided missile (and they look good too). (The Centaurs could operate both these and the Buccaneer’s).
StevoJHI agree completely, but you are talking common sense here and that is an alien concept to politicians! I am hoping for the best here but bracing myself for the worst. Hopefully someone in the MOD will have a quiet word in the ears of the pollies before thay make any announcemments that are set in stone as regards the paying off dates. I still think it odd that they are proposing to pay off Ark Royal before her older sister Illustrious, though perhaps Ark can then be retained in the LPH role permanently after that date, alternating with Ocean as now (with one in refit/ reserve at any one time).
In 2010, HMS Invincible will have spent less time in commission then either of them. 😉
StevoJHForgetting the carriers for a sec, the current escort problem would possibly be a lot less severe had all the T42’s been all to the Batch 3 Design, or a larger design with Sea Wolf as well as Sea Dart.
The second change to the escorts would be all of the Type 22’s built to the extended batch 3 design with the gun mounted up front.
Thirdly? no Nato frigate for the 90’s and no Horizon.
StevoJHyes, it is about time that Australia should consider to deploy ships like LCS-2 as potent off-shore patrol boats and supports Australian ship building industry.
The LCS’s are way too expensive for the level of capability they provide, though the very low number of crew required is a plus.
StevoJHTruth be told Steve there’s probably no need to go anywhere near such lengths. The rather simpler expedient of resurrecting Storm Shadow integration with GR9, at the rush, would give the carrier force a precision, hard target engagement capability with 4-500km standoff range.
In concert with SSN launched TLAM the RN taskgroup could be reducing fixed targets such as C3 nodes, airfield HAS’s, radar installations, port facilities, POL/ammo dumps etc from the kinds of stand off range that would give even a moderately advanced opponent extreme difficulty in localising and fixing the CVS group. That says nothing about the extra issue of coordinating a strike against it!.
The concept being to attrite opposing theatre-entry denial forces with stand-off LACM strikes until such a point as the CVS group could safely move closer inshore for more tactically focused missions.
Sure, i was just pointing out some options though. 😛
StevoJHIf worst comes to worst, you regenerate the dozen or so Sea harriers still in RN hands, and pick out any of the now privately owned and museum piece FA.2’s that can be returned to service in a reasonable amount of time.
You then put the props back on the Invincible and dig up a crew by calling up inactive reserves (people who left the RN within x number of years). You also dig up crews for your T42’s that are decommissioned and in extended readiness by the same method.
Not to mention that if you are not in need of an Amphibious landing force, you can also use HMS Ocean as an Auxiliary carrier. The RAF have more GR7/GR9’s then they have active in the current squadrons. You can always fill out these 9 plane squadron to a full 12 or 16 plane squadron by assigning pilots that have since moved onto other aircraft types or have recently left the RN or RAF.
I honestly don’t see the situation that would require the RN to have 4 operational Carriers with 60-80 Fixed Wing aircraft on board where the USN wouldn’t also be involved though.
Ark Royal and Illustrious with GR.9’s aboard would be sufficient for a repeat falklands given the current state of the Argentine Airforce and Navy, while the RN has the T42’s with upgraded Sea Dart and the frigates with upgraded Sea Wolf
The Argentine Airforce still has the same aircraft it did back then, with the same lack of BVR capability, and the Extent of their Navies Air Defenses are 4 ships carrying 24 Aspide missiles each. For the Argentine to have Any chance they would need the Aid of the Brazilian’s with their Anti-Air missiles and with the Carrier Sao Paulo.
StevoJHWhy isn’t it practical? They’ve got all the assets the Soviets did, minus the ridiculous number of SSNs. The Oscar II is there, the Kirovs are there, the Slavas are there. With a bunch of Akulas and Kilos/Ladas, plus a ton of missile boats.
Throw in some Backfires into the mix and you’ve got an unbeatable punch.
I’m going to pretend like you didn’t mention any more “Russia can’t target ships” non sense again since it’s just getting old to convince you of the obvious. :rolleyes.
Russia might be able to get enough ships together to overwhelm one, maybe two carrier groups operating together, however there would not be 2 Carrier groups, there would be five or six, and Russia would not be able to destroy that group even with its whole navy. Plus once the Russian ships fire their missiles they have to somehow survive long enough to reach port and rearm before they can head back to sea again.
Its a matter of numbers, in a war situation the USN would have 10+ surface ships and 3-4 subs with each carrier groups, and there would be 5 or 6 carrier groups operating as mutually supporting groups. So your group of Kirov’s, Slava’s and Oscar’s are going to be shooting these massive big anti-shipping missiles at 50+ Tico’s and Burkes, not to mention any T45’s or other European AA ships in company. These are all ships that were specifically designed and fitted with weapons systems to defeat that exact same threat.
StevoJHMy point exactly. I was just tyring to correct the impression some have that the British CV force was withdrawn from service because they were worn out and couldn’t last any longer. Eagle was withdrawn only eight years after completing a five year refit that at the time was stated to have extended her life by at least twenty years (ie to around 1984). Had a strike fighter been developed in the 1960s that could operate from decks as small as Centaur’s then the whole carrier replacement program is cast in a different light. Centaur, for example, had only spent ten years at sea when withdrawn from service. Victorious was practically a new ship when recommissioned in 1958, new Boilers, engines, wiring, piping etcand everything above the hangar deck level. Yet she also served barely nine years. She was by all accounts in far better material condition than Ark Royal. Hence my assertion that the Carrier force didn’t need a replacement program (CVA-01 class) as early as they did. If the Navy had kept the new CV programme on the back burner until the early 70s for example then they wouldn’t have been in direct competition with the RAF’s big budget programmes like TSR 2. Inter service rivallry could have been avoided to a large extent.
The other option would be that if the Navy had decided to stick with Subsonic aircraft, or at least on the smaller carriers, then could the Sea Vixen have been upgraded to fire Sparrow/Skyflash in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s?
StevoJHdecommission dates http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=107714
for sure, QE and POW are due to commission in 2014 and 2016, as Daring was due to commission in 2007?
GR9 are less effective than FA2 Sea Harriers. No AMRAAM, no Blue Vixen radar….so no BWR capability…
T42’s still have the Sea Dart launcher, but do they still have the missiles? Read they were not fitted with to save money…That’s why I said I hoped RN would not have to face such problems from 2009 to 2015….
I didn’t say the GR.9’s were equivilant to FA.2, said they were equivilant to FRS.1.
The T42B3’s still have full AA capability, it was only two of the B2’s that were stripped of Sea Dart.
Edit: Just read that article, its completely wrong, for one thing, Ark Royal is younger then Illustrious, so those Dates would be reversed. They might have got the information from Wikipedia which states that Illustrious will decommission in 2012 with Ark Royal following in 2015. However, due to the need to maintain two crews in readiness for the two QE carriers, i don’t see the first of the Carriers being decommissioned until such time as the crew can be transferred directly to HMS Queen Elizabeth, with Ark Royal following when Prince of Wales is ready for its crew.
There has also been talk of retaining Ark Royal longer, for use as an LPH, and replacing both it and HMS Ocean together by a new pair of LPH’s just after 2020.
StevoJHHope RN will not have to go to war, because :
Invincible decommissioned
Ark Royal decommission 2012
Illustrious decommission 2015
Queen Elisabeth commission 2015?
Prince of Wales commission 2017?No more BWR fighters. Only RAF GR7/9 harriers with short range missiles
No more Sea Dart on T42 DDG, but Daring T45 DDG will commission soon 😀A REAL PROBLEM.
Solution: thanks USA, emergency sale of AV8B Plus Harriers
X
1) Are those dates for Ark and Illustrious accurate? Fairly sure they are to decommission as QE and PoW are delivered for trials.
2) Dates for QE and PoW are still 2014 and 2016 IIRC.
3) GR.9’s are basicly equivilent of the Original Sea Harriers as they only had Sidewinder as well.
4) the Four batch 3 T42’s still have Sea Dart.
StevoJHI am sure Australia will add a few F-35B’s at some point………:D
Not planned as of now, but you never know. 😉
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