Originally Posted by Low Average
Some analysis from Sean Bell.
A few might conclude we're now lumbered with 2 giant, moneysucking white elephants with the wrong aeroplane.
So many watched this massively expensive project unfold with a sense of horror and incredulity at the decision making. Now - here it is. I wonder who's accountable?
https://news.sky.com/story/sean-bell...s-why-13056847
Analysis or the author's opinion? Perhaps the people you think should be held accountable are the RN (and some RAF) leaders, and some of the better politicians (and civil servants) - and the analysts who determined things such as the optimum size, which version of the F-35 would not only optimise sortie generation but be compatible with limited naval personnel numbers the the idea of a Joint RN/RAF force - and so on.
I wonder if Sean Bell knows the strategic situation, current and future maritime threats, and naval technology and tactics better than the heads of the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and Marine Nationale, who
had a conference this week?
Sea has become a more contested environment, and navies need to think about naval combat “from seabed to space,” according to Vaujour. Maritime airspace is now contested, as shown in the Red Sea and the Black Sea, and that will probably be the case for every future crisis, he said.
The ability of carriers to function as intelligence nodes and using artificial intelligence to integrate battlefield sensor data from their entire strike group will be key to fending off new threats, the French admiral said.
“We must understand what’s going on before the enemy,” Vaujour said. “New technology will give us the opportunity to do that.”
While aircraft carriers face challenges, there’s still no better better way to deliver mobile expeditionary strike, force projection and force protection from the sea, said Adm. Sir Ben Key, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff of the Royal Navy. He pointed to China building carriers, despite having developed apparent carrier killer capability.
The contemporary battlespace has become more contested for everyone, and the challenge for carrier strike groups is to integrate all available data to create a “superiority bubble” around the carrier, according to Key.
“For years, we have assumed sea control, and so we could invest everything pretty much in local superiority and strike as the principal aim,” Key said. “Now what we’ve got to get back into is thinking more deeply on how we do sea control.”
Originally Posted by
Biggus
I seem to remember that one of the reasons for building 3 of the Invincible class was to ensure there was generally always one available for use.
And no, personally I'm not saying we should have built 3 of the new carriers instead of 2, I'm just making an observation.
A million years ago I was a young graduate listening to an Marine Engineer Officer talking about the move to conditioned based maintenance - instead of a refit every x years or months, base it on the actual condition and usage. You would hope that equipment designed after 2000 needs less maintenance than things designed in the 1960s or 1970s! There were also times in the 1990s when one of the
Invincible class was laid up while the other two were doing back to back deployments. Again - just an observation!
I am sure that originally we were meant to have five - but that got cut to three. Their limited size meant that the RN ASW task group that would deploy to the GIUK Gap and Norwegian Sea would have two - although the second would not be available at the same notice to move. The NATO war plans put then ahead of the main bulk of naval forces, but behind the CAPs provided provided by USN Tomcats pushed forward with AAR, and at time UK based RAF Phantoms.
This 2006 academic paper looks at carrier related confusion this side of the Atlantic:
Carrier Airpower in the Royal Navy during the Cold War - The International Strategic Context
RN carriers were committed to NATO in the 1950s and 1960s, but the politicians had decided they were of no value apart from their ASW role. As such the naval leadership built the case for new carriers around East of Suez roles, and neglected their ASW role. When the East of Suez role was largely ditched to concentrate on NATO, so were the new carriers. Despite American Admirals stressing that RN carriers were important to NATO, Dennis Healy insisted that ships at sea could be defended with surface to surface missiles or land based strike aircraft - but what about the air threat?
With Admiral Le Fanu as First Sea Lord work on the 'through deck cruisers' for ASW helicopters started, with thoughts of using a version of the new Harrier V/STOL aircraft to intercept Bears. Hence we ended up with CVS/Sea King/Sea Harrier, but the Sea Harrier FRS1 had limited capability due to being developed on the cheap, and the politicians dragged their heels over an AEW version of the Sea King until HMS Sheffield was lost due to a sea skimming Exocet fired by a low flying aircraft in the South Atlantic. Post Falklands we developed the AEW Sea King and upgraded the Sea Harrier.
The role of carriers in the Royal Navy had come full circle by December 1990, when the Deputy Under-Secretary of State (Policy) declared that the Invincible class provided the functions of traditional aircraft carriers on a smaller scale; in future "three aircraft carriers would provide platforms for long range air defence and command and control facilities for the ASW task groups" and "an aircraft carrier might also accompany the Amphibious Force" - page 24/25.
This 1976 film from the IWM Collections is also very interesting:
THE ROYAL NAVY AND THE SOVIET THREAT
This was made for the consumption of the British public, although sadly it appears just a few years defence later was being run by politicians who seem to have missed it. It covers the dependence of the UK and Europe on seaborne commerce, and the growing threat posed by the Soviet Navy and the Soviet Naval Air Force.
At approximately 11.00 the coverage of RN (and RM and RAF) capabilities starts. At 14.00 HMS Ark Royal (IV) gets a mention as making an important contribution to NATO - something forgotten about during the carrier related discussions in the early 1960s. At 15.00 her embarked squadron of ASW Sea Kings is mentioned in terms of providing an essential element in the anti submarine warfare defence of the force. None of this nonsense about (just) defending the carrier.
At 22.35 we get told about 'the most important surface ship of the future' - the 'anti submarine cruiser'. The point is made that a carrier provides easily the most cost effective means of deploying large anti submarine helicopters to sea in worthwhile numbers as well as command facilities for a task group. From 24.15 the presenter mentions that these ships will carry the Sea Harrier to supplement land based air cover for the fleet outside the range of shore bases and mentions dealing with shadowing aircraft used by the Soviets for targeting long range missiles.
The IWM Collections have lots more old films making they same points - pick your decade. The basics of Geography/Physics/Mathematics have been pretty constant.