Future Carrier (Including Costs)
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You have that opinion. Are the "swathes" wrong? Well, if you are talking American Carrier groups with strength in depth, then yes, that is a considerable capability. However, against a similarly capable adversary, they are always vulnerable to total elimination without having any effect. Moreover, the UK carriers do not offer a similar capability to a US Carrier group and represent a gross distortion of VFM against capability in the UK armoury.
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Your opinion is of course well covered here and I have no expectation of having you change your view.
My reference would be the number conflicts since WW 2 were the littoral has been key. Not to say we should arm for the last conflict, but CEPP provides options abd flexibility. The ships are Swiss Army knives. F35B gives flexibility, at some trade off. If you don’t get the need to be flexible and the importance of air power at sea, I guess you will never see the value of the trade off. As someone who has spent time at sea, I 100% see that value.
Last edited by PeterGee; 25th Jan 2019 at 07:57.
Well PeterGee "someone who has spent time at sea". Care to say if RN? Strange, quite a few pro-carrier posters here seem to be somewhat coy. Oh yes, please do not feel free to define if I will or won't change my opinions! Likewise, spouting "If you don’t get the need to be flexible and the importance of air power at sea, I guess you will never see the value of the trade off." is an insult to me so, desist! 
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I still fail to see why the Ski Ramp deck....when the ships are large enough for standard Cat Launches.
All the Ski Ramp does is prevent standard carrier ops....that doesn't seem very smart at all.
All the Ski Ramp does is prevent standard carrier ops....that doesn't seem very smart at all.
How about not having to spend many millions designing, manufacturing and installing large, heavy and complex catapult and arresting gear? How about not needing the extra crew members (including their training, accommodation, food etc.) needed to operate, maintain and repair them? How about not needing to carry bulky spare parts for them? They are a known Achilles heel, because if any element of them becomes unserviceable for any reason, conventional fixed wing air ops are impossible until they’re repaired. And of course the presence/absence of cats/traps is entirely irrelevant to the equally important rotary wing ASW/support helicopter/commando roles.
How about not having to spend many millions designing, manufacturing and installing large, heavy and complex catapult and arresting gear? How about not needing the extra crew members (including their training, accommodation, food etc.) needed to operate, maintain and repair them? How about not needing to carry bulky spare parts for them? They are a known Achilles heel, because if any element of them becomes unserviceable for any reason, conventional fixed wing air ops are impossible until they’re repaired. And of course the presence/absence of cats/traps is entirely irrelevant to the equally important rotary wing ASW/support helicopter/commando roles.
Genius.
Spending Millions designing Cats.....dear boy they already exist in many forms.
Build them under license.....there....problem sorted. Same for the arresting gear.
Then you could operate F-35's, F-18's, COD's, Carrier AWACS Aircraft, UAV's.....aircraff from many NATO nations.
Lots more parking room for aircraft as well....then you could carry more than a half squadron.
But what price flexibility and capability.....when it really doesn't matter as your Carrier is not meant to be used anyway.
Build them under license.....there....problem sorted. Same for the arresting gear.
Then you could operate F-35's, F-18's, COD's, Carrier AWACS Aircraft, UAV's.....aircraff from many NATO nations.
Lots more parking room for aircraft as well....then you could carry more than a half squadron.
But what price flexibility and capability.....when it really doesn't matter as your Carrier is not meant to be used anyway.
Lots more parking room for aircraft as well....then you could carry more than a half squadron.
basically they were originally planned to have, in the Alpha iteration, with a conventional CATOBAR system. This was turned out to be a 73000 ++ ton hi-spec ship that was un-affordable
They then went to a "Flexible design" for Cats etc but by the time they 'd gone down to Bravo (55 ,000) and (via Charlie) back up to Delta (65,000) tonnes costs were up all over and the US had decided to go to the (unproven) EMALS system - which was required a lot more conversion work (and cost) than the original CATOBAR conversion. The RN also didn't fancy developing their own CATOBAR system from scratch (god forbid they'd buy one from France - what would BAe do for profits?) so really they defaulted to what they knew - STOVL. They were lucky there was version of the F-35 available otherwise it would probably have had to have been EMALS but only one ship.
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Spending Millions designing Cats.....dear boy they already exist in many forms.
Build them under license.....there....problem sorted. Same for the arresting gear.
Then you could operate F-35's, F-18's, COD's, Carrier AWACS Aircraft, UAV's.....aircraff from many NATO nations.
Lots more parking room for aircraft as well....then you could carry more than a half squadron.
But what price flexibility and capability.....when it really doesn't matter as your Carrier is not meant to be used anyway.
Build them under license.....there....problem sorted. Same for the arresting gear.
Then you could operate F-35's, F-18's, COD's, Carrier AWACS Aircraft, UAV's.....aircraff from many NATO nations.
Lots more parking room for aircraft as well....then you could carry more than a half squadron.
But what price flexibility and capability.....when it really doesn't matter as your Carrier is not meant to be used anyway.
:-) Trust me these are designed to carry much more than 1/2 squadron, and they really should never deploy with 6 F35s! They are designed for 36, with surge capability for more at a very high sortie rate. If only we could afford the aircraft and have the RAF allow the planes to deploy to sea.
The bottom up design is facinating. Start from the target sortie rate and design the ships around that. I thik the USN were hoping to learn from the experience, but lack of aircarft may dilute the learnings.
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W The RN also didn't fancy developing their own CATOBAR system from scratch (god forbid they'd buy one from France - what would BAe do for profits?) so really they defaulted to what they knew - STOVL. They were lucky there was version of the F-35 available otherwise it would probably have had to have been EMALS but only one ship.
The French do not have an EM Catapult. The choice, when Cats and traps was being considered, was complete development of the UK system, or buy EMALS. The cost of conversion of one carrier was almost £2 billion so was canned. I am also led to belive that within both the RN and RAF there was a preference for the B as it allows better sharing of resources. (People and equipment - Had we gone Cats, maintining carrier quals would have led to a smaller ship focussed capability.)
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Well PeterGee "someone who has spent time at sea". Care to say if RN? Strange, quite a few pro-carrier posters here seem to be somewhat coy. Oh yes, please do not feel free to define if I will or won't change my opinions! Likewise, spouting "If you don’t get the need to be flexible and the importance of air power at sea, I guess you will never see the value of the trade off." is an insult to me so, desist!
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I find your response fairly odd. I am not sure I am up for some kind of internet spat! If someone does not see the value of banannas and therefore does not buy banannas, I really not sure observing that should be considered an insult.
Seems simple to me. You do not seem to see the value of air power at sea, so woud prefer the UK to spend its limited defence £s on land based air power. I happen to feel that flexible air power that can be used from land or sea as the nation needs, is a much better use of our limited budget. The range and payload tradeoff to allow the aircraft to operate at sea is a good tradeoff. So we have different opinions, so what!
World naval Review 2019 has a very good description of the design evolution of the QE's
basically they were originally planned to have, in the Alpha iteration, with a conventional CATOBAR system. This was turned out to be a 73000 ++ ton hi-spec ship that was un-affordable
They then went to a "Flexible design" for Cats etc but by the time they 'd gone down to Bravo (55 ,000) and (via Charlie) back up to Delta (65,000) tonnes costs were up all over and the US had decided to go to the (unproven) EMALS system - which was required a lot more conversion work (and cost) than the original CATOBAR conversion. The RN also didn't fancy developing their own CATOBAR system from scratch (god forbid they'd buy one from France - what would BAe do for profits?) so really they defaulted to what they knew - STOVL. They were lucky there was version of the F-35 available otherwise it would probably have had to have been EMALS but only one ship.
basically they were originally planned to have, in the Alpha iteration, with a conventional CATOBAR system. This was turned out to be a 73000 ++ ton hi-spec ship that was un-affordable
They then went to a "Flexible design" for Cats etc but by the time they 'd gone down to Bravo (55 ,000) and (via Charlie) back up to Delta (65,000) tonnes costs were up all over and the US had decided to go to the (unproven) EMALS system - which was required a lot more conversion work (and cost) than the original CATOBAR conversion. The RN also didn't fancy developing their own CATOBAR system from scratch (god forbid they'd buy one from France - what would BAe do for profits?) so really they defaulted to what they knew - STOVL. They were lucky there was version of the F-35 available otherwise it would probably have had to have been EMALS but only one ship.
World naval Review - which seems pretty well sourced over the years - indicate versions A, B ,C & D were evolutionary. You seem to indicate they were all worked on in parallel
Can you confirm?
PS All Acronyms are made up in my experience -
Can you confirm?
PS All Acronyms are made up in my experience -
In the beginning was STOVL.
That was the U.K. ticket into JSF, which was going to be as cheap as chips, rule the skies and take over the one-superpower world.
Nobody said a word about cat-arrest until 2003 (before the F-35B packed on a couple of extra tons) when it was briefly considered as the ship design was being finalized (and when the French were involved with PA2) and then nothing was said until 2010.
That was the U.K. ticket into JSF, which was going to be as cheap as chips, rule the skies and take over the one-superpower world.
Nobody said a word about cat-arrest until 2003 (before the F-35B packed on a couple of extra tons) when it was briefly considered as the ship design was being finalized (and when the French were involved with PA2) and then nothing was said until 2010.
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Speaking of which*, see BAe land have sold out 55% to Rheinmetall, funny old world isn't it........
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A, B, C & D were largely sequential. The point being all had both STOVL and CTOL options, whereas the description you posted suggested that A was CTOL only and then B was STOVL only. The purpose of the various options was to explore requirement and/or displacement limits (aka perceived cost). They were to a degree the product of the "Coles reviews" where assertions about gold-plating driving size and cost were tested.
Assertions that STOVL was the only option are easily discounted, simply by examining the RINA papers presented in 1997/98 where it was clear that not only STOVL and CTOL had been considered, but also the comedy STOBAR option, with the equally hilarious NEF2000. Even in the requirements generation phases in 1992-96, CTOL was always considered, albeit with some rather interesting assumptions about always requiring organic tanking, primarily based on the premise that taking was related solely to operating mode, rather than a mix of mode and number of cabs in the air..
Assertions that STOVL was the only option are easily discounted, simply by examining the RINA papers presented in 1997/98 where it was clear that not only STOVL and CTOL had been considered, but also the comedy STOBAR option, with the equally hilarious NEF2000. Even in the requirements generation phases in 1992-96, CTOL was always considered, albeit with some rather interesting assumptions about always requiring organic tanking, primarily based on the premise that taking was related solely to operating mode, rather than a mix of mode and number of cabs in the air..
Entirely and absolutely true. Restricted to embarking a very limited range of FW ac operated, in the Western hemisphere by only two (I think) other nations and with an extremely limited radius of action. Its almost perfect, bring the ship inshore as close as possible to enable it to reach its target and expose it to land based ac.
Genius.
Genius.
I'm struggling to understand here. Notwithstanding the merits of higher sortie generation from being closer to the target and the vulnerability of a fixed land base to all manner of attack compared to an agile, well-defended carrier task group, are you claiming that fixed land bases, from which land-based a/c can attack the enemy, are beyond the range of enemy land-based a/c whereas carrier task groups aren't?
It's not the be all and end all. I think carriers are an essential, I just don't think the UK made the right choice in plumping for a STOVL only ship.
A, B, C & D were largely sequential. The point being all had both STOVL and CTOL options, whereas the description you posted suggested that A was CTOL only and then B was STOVL only. The purpose of the various options was to explore requirement and/or displacement limits (aka perceived cost). They were to a degree the product of the "Coles reviews" where assertions about gold-plating driving size and cost were tested.
Assertions that STOVL was the only option are easily discounted, simply by examining the RINA papers presented in 1997/98 where it was clear that not only STOVL and CTOL had been considered, but also the comedy STOBAR option, with the equally hilarious NEF2000. Even in the requirements generation phases in 1992-96, CTOL was always considered, albeit with some rather interesting assumptions about always requiring organic tanking, primarily based on the premise that taking was related solely to operating mode, rather than a mix of mode and number of cabs in the air..
Assertions that STOVL was the only option are easily discounted, simply by examining the RINA papers presented in 1997/98 where it was clear that not only STOVL and CTOL had been considered, but also the comedy STOBAR option, with the equally hilarious NEF2000. Even in the requirements generation phases in 1992-96, CTOL was always considered, albeit with some rather interesting assumptions about always requiring organic tanking, primarily based on the premise that taking was related solely to operating mode, rather than a mix of mode and number of cabs in the air..