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Future Carrier (Including Costs)

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Future Carrier (Including Costs)

Old 2nd Dec 2011, 12:03
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Always preferred this one myself...


On the serious side, the "support a/c" need funding, which right now, we ain't got. However, you can build up the components gradually over time. Much like the gun for Typhoon momentum eventually builds and you find a way. As opposed to giving up in the first place.
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Old 2nd Dec 2011, 14:03
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I don't know whether other aircraft have had the same level of structural problems, but the F-35 program is founded on a high level of concurrency, so the impact on the program's economics in the next few years will be substantial - at a point where spending is getting choked off.
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Old 3rd Dec 2011, 12:07
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Bill Sweetman blog on Ares on the cracking. Blog report doesn't real add anything new, but the tone and subsequent 9 pages of comments are a cracker! (no pun intended)

Cracks of Doom

In a related report, and perhaps because of expected cuts/cancellation/risks in the programme: GE and Rolls Terminate F136 and FET
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Old 3rd Dec 2011, 15:47
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Wink

Re that video: looks to me that those USN aircraft carrier people have too much free time.

And some of them need haircuts.
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Old 3rd Dec 2011, 17:23
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Elmo, good point. They do keep themselves pretty busy on RN carriers. Sorry, DID! But the long winter nights must leave a tille time for something.
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Old 3rd Dec 2011, 17:49
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Yes. If there's free time on RN carriers, there must be some on US ones. Let's face it, they can't even have a drink!!!!
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Old 3rd Dec 2011, 19:54
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Elmo - you'll find out when you all embark in the QE Class for 6 months at a time.
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Old 4th Dec 2011, 00:42
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Are you saying that a Navy sailerperson's life aboard ship nowadays is dull or difficult?

Those floating airfields have a large-ish contigent of female sailers. They're l-u-u-v boats. A of young women get pregnant while on a USN cruise.

The girls more or less get rewarded instead of punished for getting that way during a deployment.

Military readiness and effectiveness gets a second place to gender inclusiveness and the "right" to sexual self-expression.
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Old 9th Dec 2011, 07:13
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Dusk Approaches For the Big Deck Nuclear Carrier Age
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Old 9th Dec 2011, 09:04
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ORAC - Is this the link you were looking for?
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Old 9th Dec 2011, 09:28
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ORAC... clicking on your link gets me:
Euro summit rocked by row over veto plan
A rebellion by Finland, the Netherlands and Ireland is threatening to torpedo the Brussels summit plans – despite repeated warnings that today is the last chance to save the euro.


I don't think this was what you were linking to... I looked around their sub-headings but couldn't find anything that matched the title of your link.
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Old 10th Jan 2012, 08:20
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Ares: Rebuilding the UK’s Carrier Fleet

As we mentioned they would last week, American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his British counterpart, Philip Hammond, signed an agreement last Thursday outlining how the U.S. Navy will help the Royal Navy rebuild its defunct carrier strike capability over the next decade.

From sister site DoDBuzz
Secretaries Panetta and Hammond signed a Statement of Intent on Carrier Cooperation and Maritime Power Projection that will serve as the framework for increased cooperation and interoperability on the use of aircraft carriers, as well as provide the basis for the U.S. to assist the UK Royal Navy in developing its next generation of aircraft carriers. This cooperation is a cutting-edge example of close allies working together in a time of fiscal austerity to deliver a capability needed to maintain our global military edge.
The Royal Navy decommissioned its Harrier jump jets last year, leaving it without seaborne-fighter for the first time since before World War II. Now, Hammond himself expressed concern about what effect the Pentagon’s slowdown of its F-35 buys will have on the UK’s F-35C purchases before he signed the agreement. However, InsideDefense is reporting that the F-35 program office is gearing up to sell jets plenty to foreign JSF buyers despite the Pentagon’s slowed buys:
The F-35 joint program office is girding for a surge of international orders that would boost manufacturing rates for the seventh and eighth Joint Strike Fighter production runs by more than 40 percent above currently planned buys for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, according to Defense Department officials.
Ok, so maybe the Brits will get their jets in time to have at least limited carrier ops by 2020.

But wait, the UK is not only buying new F-35C Joint Strike Fighters to fly off its carriers, it’s fielding a brand new class of super carrier that uses electromagnetic catapults and arrestor wires. The Royal Navy hasn’t fielded one of these so called CATOBAR carrier since the 1970s, so it will be relearning how to operate this type of ship from the U.S. Ironic considering it was the British who invented the keystones of modern aircraft carrier design; an angled flight deck, the optical landing system and even the steam powered catapult that will be replaced by electromagnetic ones on the U.S. and British navies next aircraft carriers.
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Old 10th Jan 2012, 10:30
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This is a question and certainly not an opinion:

Is this America attempting to keep all its prospective overseas buyers onboard? Words like...... Ship\leaving\rodents\sinking.. may come to mind!

Have they guaranteed delivery dates that might have penalty clauses?

Thankfully our first carrier aka HMS White Elephant will not be capable of playing with these state of the art toys which means that we may have wiggle room that would cater for any delays in the time line for this aircraft.

I'm just having a quiet little chuckle..
We build a carrier that cannot launch or recover aircraft and the Americans have an aircraft with a hook that does not 'hook'


Apologies for my humour and I ACCEPT the F-35C is still a work in progress and these issues will be resolved.

On our local news this morning an expert on our Royal Navy was claiming that we now had just NINETEEN frigates\destroyers. I find that figure amazing or should that be disturbing! If this is the case then by the time these carriers enter service how many ships will there be? Will there be sufficient to carry out the requirements placed upon it by Her Majesty's Government.

Putting a carrier to sea without the support of a combined battle group or at the very least an escort is something I have never experienced but with such a limited number of warships can that commitment be fulfilled? Note these are still questions.

Will there be the sailors to man these ships when and if they are commissioned, I have read articles which suggest the crew of the first ship will work that one up and then when the second ship joins the fleet... they all step across! Lots of questions regarding that suggestion.

Apologies if this attempts to take the subject off topic but it might be relevant to cost but possibly not the financial cost. More to do with the sailors and there limited availability.
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Old 10th Jan 2012, 10:45
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Originally Posted by glojo
the F-35C is still a work in progress and these issues will be resolved.
Or will they, Glo? It may take a major redesign from what Engines is saying about this. [Edit: sorry, just realized you saw that one]

Your point about the battle group, manning and the number of ships (eh?) is well made.

Courtney

Last edited by Courtney Mil; 10th Jan 2012 at 10:48. Reason: Addition
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Old 10th Jan 2012, 11:25
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I guess you and I are both on the same page, how many times have we heard about delays that we are assured are minor issues that will be easily rectified.

The building of these carriers is still going ahead and what government wants to be seen putting these ships to sea without aircraft?

The Silent Service has been quiet for far too long, why no pictures of the First Sea Lord aboard one of the best carriers that sail the high seas. Where is the coverage of him standing by an F-18, being shot off the deck in that excellent tried and trusted aircraft? Apologies if I missed it but that may also highlight the lack of coverage. Putting it in the Navy News is not getting the story out to the public and is not stimulating folks to start asking all these questions.

Some commanders have a staff car with chauffeur others have an F-18 with driver.. Note the name of the back seater.... Rear Admiral Craig Faller, Commander of US Carrier Strike Group 3


Looks like we have several threads that are all intertwined
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Old 23rd Feb 2012, 10:46
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I didn't want to start a seperate thread as there would be cries of 'what has this got to do with aviation?' but, I see that the contracts for the Tankers that will support CVF have been signed......to a South Korean company!!

Ministry of Defence | Defence News | Equipment and Logistics | MOD to order four new RFA tankers

What a sad state we are in when the UK is not in a position to build its own Naval vessels.
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Old 23rd Feb 2012, 11:03
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A number of British companies took part in the competition, but none submitted a final bid for the build contract. In light of this, the best option for Defence, and value for money for taxpayers, is for the tankers to be constructed in South Korea by DSME.
Thoughts here are
The UK Shipbuilding industry has its order books full
The UK Shipbuilding industry isnt prepared to suffer HMG imposed delays ala CVF
The UK Shipbuilding industry couldn't come up with a low enough bid.

or the most plausable reason

HMG is sending a waring shot over BAE Systems bows
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Old 23rd Feb 2012, 11:43
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How soon they forget, this is old news.

Anyone remember Paul Drayson's "Maritime Industrial Strategy"? Part of that was to allow the build of "warlike ships" (ie RFA) in overseas yards for the entirely sensible reason that the extant British shipbuilding industry is run and owned by defence contractors and with the exception of Babcocks Appledore and BAE Govan have zero expertise in building non-warships efficiently. The last RFA built in the UK (the two Wave class) cost around £160M each back in 2000/2001. The going price for commercial product carriers of about the same size was around $US50M. Now admittedly, the RFA requirement has generally higher speed (by 4-5 knots) and much more accommodation space (80-odd vs 15), plus hangar and flightdeck than the equivalent commercial tanker, so you would expect a higher price, but 5 times the price? I don't think so.

As a result, the entirely sensible decision was taken to allow the use of foreign yards to build some or all of the ships. That is what foreign yards (particularly advanced ones like Korea) do. They churn out what is effectively a very large box of coated steel, with a more complex machinery and accommodation block at one end and some pipework over the weather deck very efficiently and hence cheaply, but at good quality. If you really want cheap, you go to China or Vietnam, but quality can suffer.

The scandal here is that it has taken around eight years or more and around £20M spent fannying about, before being able to place an order. Apparently MoD were unable to make a decision on the following options, which it took them years to define (!) :
  • Design & Build in UK very expensive / unaffordable
  • Commercial off the shelf, cheap and quickly available, but no designs meet requirement
  • Get competent company to design to requirement and then foreign builder to produce at affordable price

They actually got to a tender point on the last bullet in 2008/2009, where the MoD IPT was actually in Korea, when as part of the usual PR rounds, the funding was moved. At the time there was a worldwide shipbuilding glut, yards were literally giving build slots away to get work in, but no, we had a PR round to follow and so ended up receiving a stiff letter from the S Korean MoD protesting that their yards (HHI and DSME) were being d1cked around.

Incidentally, I'm told that one Korean yard was offering to deliver all four hulls in around 15 months and was turned down because MoD "couldn't accept them at that rate".

The going rate for a product carrier of that size is currently $US70M, (or £45M). The contract price for all four, excluding the add-ons like RAS gear and comms, plus the assistance of BAES in Korea to help define the design, is £452M. Only 2.5 times the going rate then.......There are Koreans crying with laughter as we debate this.

Last edited by Not_a_boffin; 23rd Feb 2012 at 14:37. Reason: Pheasant's good spot
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Old 23rd Feb 2012, 14:35
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Didn't Paul Grayson play rugby for England? And another one played cricket for England, didn't he?
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Old 25th Feb 2012, 05:06
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BAE told the government that the only way they could start work on any MARS ships would be to delay work on POW & the T-26s, as there is no "spare" capacity in their yards.

In order for these ships to have been built in the UK, there would have needed to have been a regular set of additional ship orders over the last 15-20 years that would have preserved more shipyards.
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