A weapon system or a cruise ship?
Please correct me if I’m wrong but an aircraft carrier by itself is of very little military value; in fact the two QE ships have only a very limited defence armament and no protective armour (both items ditched to cut costs) so have in themselves no deterrent or other military value. What converts these two potential white elephants into potent weapon systems of the first order is the range and capability of their air wing. So most of the time a carrier is at sea without an effective air wing it is a pretty useless and ineffective military asset.For these ships to have any use other than to provide free cruises in the sun to their very large, expensive and highly trained crews they need a virtually full time air wing, anything else is just playing at carrier strike and the whole project should be binned before UK Defence plc looks any more foolish.
Two final points:
If part-time “tailored air groups” are the future, how come no other navy/air force is queuing up to adopt the concept?
The attitude of the RAF was encapsulated for me when 800NAS were refused permission to put “Royal Navy” on the side of their Harriers.
Please note, these comments relate to the QE and PoW being acquired to be full blown strike carriers; if they are to be the world’s largest and most expensive commando or helicopter carriers then that’s fine!!!
Last edited by 163627; 25th Apr 2012 at 23:22.
Reason: spelling error