Future Carrier (Including Costs)
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CVFs Deck Length marker: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7369/9...b0df94ae_o.png
Another fetid crab toe rag comment indeed.
Meanwhile, here's a view of life aboard HMS Eagle around 50 years ago in the Sea Vixen / Scimitar/ Buccaneer S1 days:
One wonders whether life on HMS Queen Elizabeth will bear any similarity...
( If your browser doesn't show the clip, you'll find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_tJOprKOro )
One wonders whether life on HMS Queen Elizabeth will bear any similarity...
( If your browser doesn't show the clip, you'll find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_tJOprKOro )
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The opening sequence was... different, particularly considering the vintage. Was Noel Coward the producer?
And if you thought flying the Sea Vixen was dangerous, check out the position of the washcloth-mangle at 2:47....
And if you thought flying the Sea Vixen was dangerous, check out the position of the washcloth-mangle at 2:47....
Thread Starter
I think the future might be far more like the more recent past - see:
Travels with the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm
I cannot seem to post a YouTube video - so a link will have to do.
Travels with the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm
I cannot seem to post a YouTube video - so a link will have to do.
Thread Starter
I think it is fair to say we are going to hit the deck running, and the work continues towards that:
Culdrose turns into land based aircraft carrier for ten days
Merlin Mk2s, Sea King Mk 7s, Hawk Jets and King Air Avengers all lifted off from Culdrose to simulate the mass deployment of aircraft on to a carrier... and a short while later touched own on the 'flight deck' of 'HMS Seahawk', the beginning of round-the-clock operations which will see aircrew collectively clock up more than 600 hours' flying (when typically they'd only perhaps get in eight to ten hours individually).
"Culdrose is essential to the delivery of the nation's carrier strike capability - and for us to be able to deliver our part in this, we need to make sure that we have the right skill and mind-sets for aircraft carrier operations," explained Capt Dan Stembridge ADC, Culdrose's Commanding Officer.
"Kernow Flag is the perfect way to prove that we're 'carrier-ready': flying over 600 hours around the clock, in five different aircraft type, operating with ships, submarines and other aircraft in order to prove our carrier abilities.
"Culdrose will be operating just like we will do on board HMS Queen Elizabeth. The exercise will test the whole air station from engineering to the supply chain, right up to the front end of flying."
Culdrose turns into land based aircraft carrier for ten days
Merlin Mk2s, Sea King Mk 7s, Hawk Jets and King Air Avengers all lifted off from Culdrose to simulate the mass deployment of aircraft on to a carrier... and a short while later touched own on the 'flight deck' of 'HMS Seahawk', the beginning of round-the-clock operations which will see aircrew collectively clock up more than 600 hours' flying (when typically they'd only perhaps get in eight to ten hours individually).
"Culdrose is essential to the delivery of the nation's carrier strike capability - and for us to be able to deliver our part in this, we need to make sure that we have the right skill and mind-sets for aircraft carrier operations," explained Capt Dan Stembridge ADC, Culdrose's Commanding Officer.
"Kernow Flag is the perfect way to prove that we're 'carrier-ready': flying over 600 hours around the clock, in five different aircraft type, operating with ships, submarines and other aircraft in order to prove our carrier abilities.
"Culdrose will be operating just like we will do on board HMS Queen Elizabeth. The exercise will test the whole air station from engineering to the supply chain, right up to the front end of flying."
OAP
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Having spent quite some time aboard carriers, for me the interesting part of the video was the DDG passing the carrier close aboard with the high power search radar antenna rotating. Was it also transmitting? If so, there are a lot of irradiated sailors on QE.
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Thread Starter
Onceapilot
As Brat states, it is a family thing. 'We' refers both to the UK, and to the Royal Navy. As a member of the Naval Service - the Royal Navy in the widest sense including RM, QARNNS, RNR, RMR, and QARNNS(R) - (I am RNR), I think the entire Service has shown huge resilience in keeping the project going, and keeping both skills and doctrine alive, after the political cowardice and stupidity of SDSR 10.
Personally I am only involved on the sidelines as a supporter (although I did work with some components destined for F-35), however Reservists are involved and will be more so in the near future.
Talking of family: Her Majesty will soon name her namesake carrier
As Brat states, it is a family thing. 'We' refers both to the UK, and to the Royal Navy. As a member of the Naval Service - the Royal Navy in the widest sense including RM, QARNNS, RNR, RMR, and QARNNS(R) - (I am RNR), I think the entire Service has shown huge resilience in keeping the project going, and keeping both skills and doctrine alive, after the political cowardice and stupidity of SDSR 10.
Personally I am only involved on the sidelines as a supporter (although I did work with some components destined for F-35), however Reservists are involved and will be more so in the near future.
Talking of family: Her Majesty will soon name her namesake carrier
Last edited by WE Branch Fanatic; 20th Nov 2017 at 11:25.
OAP
Except that once again, the facts do not support your opinions.
Taking the last years for which the NAO major project breakdowns are available (sadly 2015), you'll find that the top in-year spend is Typhoon at £976M from a total of £5.1Bn that year (19%). A whopping £200M below that comes QEC @ £742M at 15% of the in year total. Then comes the A400M at £706M (14%) which even exceeds the amount spent on the Astutes at a meagre £682M (13%).
Interesting that even at the end of the production run, Typhoon is still by some distance the most expensive project in the EP. Note that 2015 is also well past peak spend of the QEC programme, so that spend ranking ain't going to change much.
Of all the projects in the EP that are past MG, those supporting Air total around £37Bn (£32Bn if you exclude that allocated to F35) compared with £25.7Bn that could be attributed to the Naval service. Alternatively, the in-year EP split is still £2.5Bn vs £2.1Bn in favour of Air and that's making some generous assumptions as to the "benefit" of complex weapons spend and F35.
Your opinion on the carriers isn't going to change, but its prejudice appears to be driven entirely by the size of the ships, rather than any consideration of fact. Do at least try to support your assertions with fact rather than blaming your own personal hobby horse.
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Yeah but we get a lot of Typhoons for the money -
My issue is that it's a diversion of money, and more important, men when the rest of the navy is screaming for more investment - or even just maintenance.................
My issue is that it's a diversion of money, and more important, men when the rest of the navy is screaming for more investment - or even just maintenance.................
So let's be clear.
Are the carriers absorbing significantly more manpower than the ships they're replacing? By design, no - they're broadly similar in complement to CVS, of which we were running two up until 2010. They do require substantially more bods than Ocean and one issue appears to be that someone has made an assumption / taken a savings measure on naval manpower when we chose Ocean over Illustrious to run on as LPH, without thinking it through. That is hardly an intrinsic effect of the ships though.
Then you get into which budget all this stuff comes out of. If - as many postulate - "it's all because of the carriers", then you'd somehow expect to see the service personnel budget shrink in proportion to the EP. Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be the case. Main Estimate budgets for service personnel (civ per is a separate budget) were £8.7Bn in the 13/14ME, £8.8Bn in the 14/15ME and are £9.5Bn in the 17/18ME. Set against a reduced number of people. Go figure.
Likewise equipment support. The figures for those three ME years are £6Bn, £6.4Bn and £6.4Bn respectively. You'd expect the latest ME to be higher, but is that attributable to the carriers? Unlikely - not least because they're not yet in service and therefore don't - yet - affect that budget.
The fact is that the carriers are barely affecting the budget - certainly compared to other platforms / services that absorb significantly more. What is actually happening is that the defence budget as a whole is not increasing in line with "defence inflation", which is leading to a resource squeeze across defence. This squeeze is being attributed to "the carriers" primarily because they're new, they're much bigger than what has gone before and therefore everyone assumes that they're consuming much more of the budget. Which doesn't actually appear to be the case - there would still be significant pain and grief across the board - the big drain on resource is not associated with large grey ships however much people would like it to be.
Are the carriers absorbing significantly more manpower than the ships they're replacing? By design, no - they're broadly similar in complement to CVS, of which we were running two up until 2010. They do require substantially more bods than Ocean and one issue appears to be that someone has made an assumption / taken a savings measure on naval manpower when we chose Ocean over Illustrious to run on as LPH, without thinking it through. That is hardly an intrinsic effect of the ships though.
Then you get into which budget all this stuff comes out of. If - as many postulate - "it's all because of the carriers", then you'd somehow expect to see the service personnel budget shrink in proportion to the EP. Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be the case. Main Estimate budgets for service personnel (civ per is a separate budget) were £8.7Bn in the 13/14ME, £8.8Bn in the 14/15ME and are £9.5Bn in the 17/18ME. Set against a reduced number of people. Go figure.
Likewise equipment support. The figures for those three ME years are £6Bn, £6.4Bn and £6.4Bn respectively. You'd expect the latest ME to be higher, but is that attributable to the carriers? Unlikely - not least because they're not yet in service and therefore don't - yet - affect that budget.
The fact is that the carriers are barely affecting the budget - certainly compared to other platforms / services that absorb significantly more. What is actually happening is that the defence budget as a whole is not increasing in line with "defence inflation", which is leading to a resource squeeze across defence. This squeeze is being attributed to "the carriers" primarily because they're new, they're much bigger than what has gone before and therefore everyone assumes that they're consuming much more of the budget. Which doesn't actually appear to be the case - there would still be significant pain and grief across the board - the big drain on resource is not associated with large grey ships however much people would like it to be.
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Yes - but they're not really replacements - they're extra - a crew of 670+ (over twice that of Ocean) plus all the extra support and training - at a time when we haven't enough manpower to man what we already have
The budget (lack of) is the elephant in the room of course
The budget (lack of) is the elephant in the room of course
I am with you HH, the carriers are an extra capability that we should not have. They are an extra that is robbing core capabilities of the RN and RAF. Unfortunately, just because ££,£££,£££,£££ has already been spent on the saga, it does not mean that further spending is going to continue. What cannot change is that the money already spent could have bolstered core capabilities and is now lost. Now we face the prospect of half-cocked carriers and pared-down core capabilities. 
OAP
OAP
They're not replacements for Ocean and never have been - that's the misconception I referred to. They're carriers providing useable capability beyond the two CVS we routinely ran concurrently up until 2010 - and have always planned to reconstitute that capability starting in 2018 - with similar complements.
That naval personnel numbers were cut too far in 2010 - a fact recognised although not fully compensated for in SDSR2015 - is not down to the carriers. It's a complicated issue (going back to the ill-fated Topmast) involving poor assumptions about skills, retention etc in specific trades which also applies elsewhere.
Hanging that on the carriers is a bit like saying the RAF engineering manning issues are down to Airseeker or Poseidon....
That naval personnel numbers were cut too far in 2010 - a fact recognised although not fully compensated for in SDSR2015 - is not down to the carriers. It's a complicated issue (going back to the ill-fated Topmast) involving poor assumptions about skills, retention etc in specific trades which also applies elsewhere.
Hanging that on the carriers is a bit like saying the RAF engineering manning issues are down to Airseeker or Poseidon....
This reminds me a bit of "the actors" in Blackadder III. Have you got an amusing skit you have to go through every time someone says the word "carrier"?
Well in simplistic terms I guess he means if X hadn't been spent on the carriers, then X could have been spent on more T45, Astute, T26 and T31?
I'm no fishead but we seem to be getting awfully short of hulls IMO.
I'm no fishead but we seem to be getting awfully short of hulls IMO.