Future Carrier (Including Costs)

[Asturias56]

" Being fiber glass hulls the damage could be fixed fairly quickly."

yes - in the commercial world - but in the military world it will probably take years and cost $$$$$$$$$$$$$

[WE Branch Fanatic]

There are no solutions, there are only trade offs - Thomas Sowell

Originally Posted by Asturias56

"In a written UK parliamentary written response on 15 January, it was revealed that the UK Royal Navy had 11 Type 23 frigates ‘in service’ – of these, seven platforms were described as being ‘operational’."

it's Ok - there are some on here that don't think we need many frigates.....................

Everyone thinks we need frigates, but some of us are aware we do not only need frigates. If you want someone to blame, try Call Me Dave!

Originally Posted by Not_a_boffin

Never mind, there are some on here that actually understand what they do - and why those given to quoting Nelson demonstrate that they don't.......

Nelson of course lived before the days of submarines, aircraft, wireless communications, and things like radar, sonar, Electronic Warfare...

Originally Posted by Asturias56

and yet others post about tactical doctrines from the 1940's, the 50's, the 60's as totally relevant today................

The RN is starting to look like an embodiment of Augustine's Law on jet aircraft

You are the one arguing for lots of cheap frigates/destroyers - presumably to absorb the hits. My arguments are hopefully more based on Mathematics/Physics/Geography than emotion. The carrier and her aircraft can do things that surface warship and submarine based weapons do not, and that this is a matter of Physics. Fighter and AEW aircraft can detect and engage hostile aircraft and missiles far beyond the range of shipborne systems, the value of defence in depth can be demonstrated with simple probability calculations, and likewise other calculations demonstrate the value of having your fighters based near high value units and not a long way away - meaning that a smaller number of aircraft aboard the carrier can achieve the same coverage as a larger number based further away. As for ASW, the heavy reliance on ASW helicopters makes a large ship with a flat deck and a large hangar extremely useful, as demonstrated by experience. A larger ship is generally more stable than a smaller one, so a carrier can hopefully launch and recover helicopters when a frigate cannot due to heavy seas.

These are the reasons that carriers are key in the new era of contested seas, as they were during the Cold War - which is why I started a discussion specifically on the Sea Control aspects - in another place after seeing a 1977 US Congressional report about the US Sea Control mission.

I have heard it said (by an RAF AWACS type) that if the task group in 1982 had Airborne Early Warning, then we probably would have not lost any ships. I am not sure I totally believe this, but it would have stopped the Exocet attacks against HMS Sheffield and SS Atlantic Conveyer (which would have prevented the Bluff Cove tragedy) and meant that HMS Coventry was not sent North of the islands to provide early warning and control the Sea Harriers. Having more Sea Wolf armed frigates also would have helped, instead of relying on ones with cheap but obsolescent weapons (and radars).

It now appears that a Super Hornet from the USS Dwight D Eisenhower shot down an anti ship cruise missile fired at the USS Laboon on 15 January 2024 by the Houthis - this is hugely significant as it shows the carrierborne fighter can splash arrows as well as archers, regardless of the launch platform.

[Asturias56]

"calculations demonstrate the value of having your fighters based near high value units and not a long way away"

But the Carriers ARE long way away - they're nowhere near where the action is - which is why the RAF are having to tanker fighters from Cyprus. We didn't even divert a carrier which was in the N Atlantic to Guyana when it looked like a war might kick off.

and in terms of AEW are you saying that the RN has effective carrier based AEW right now?

[ORAC]

https://x.com/navylookout/status/174...HhlFHGKbTPQr_A

Announced in May 2022 but formalised this week as @MBDA awarded 3 contracts worth around £400M for Sea Viper Evolution (SV-E) to provide the Type 45 destroyers with anti-ballistic missile capability.

Existing missile stocks all being converted to Aster 30 and given new guidance software and electronics, plus upgrades to Sampson radar and Command & Control system.

As ever progress is slow and project won't complete until 2032.

​​​​​​​https://www.navylookout.com/royal-na...ce-capability/

[622]

Originally Posted by WE Branch Fanatic

Nelson of course lived before the days of submarines, aircraft, wireless communications, and things like radar, sonar, Electronic Warfare...

...I think Nelson lived very much in the time of wireless communication ....just not 'beyond visual range' wireless communcation

[ORAC]

They knew all about BVR, just had to use relays - and had a crypto system…. *

Then they had a hybrid system once the electric telegraph system was invented. **

Then, of course, there was the RN Pigeon Service…

* https://www.waterlooassociation.org....moveable-arms/

Balls and Flags, Shutters and Moveable Arms

** https://www.usni.org/magazines/proce...-coast-signals

Naval Coast Signals - 1889

[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

[artee]

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

Does anybody do "accountable"?

[Biggus]

Nobody has done "accountable" since the 1980s.

Everyone involved at a senior decision making level is now either dead, retired, knighted or on the board of BAE - and some of them will be more than one of those options.

[Asturias56]

some may be all 4.......................

[SLXOwft]

4 ... the number of aircraft carriers the UK actually needs to make it worthwhile IMHO. (plus the aircraft to operate from them and the personnel to man them). If you don't pay the full insurance premium there's a shortfall when you claim.

I was reminded of a scene from the West Wing:

DONNA
$500 screwdrivers is why you didn't vote for the President?

JACK
I work for the President. That's a lot.

DONNA
It's wasteful spending.

JACK
No, it's not.

DONNA
A $400 ashtray?

Jack picks up a wrench and smashes an ashtray that's on his desk. It breaks into three large chunks.

DONNA
What was that?

JACK
A $400 ashtray. It's off the U.S.S. Greenville, a nuclear attack submarine and a likely target for a torpedo. When you get hit with one, you've got enough problems without glass flying into the eyes of the navigator and the Officer of the Deck. This one's built to break into three dull pieces. We lead a slightly different life out there and it costs a little more money.

[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.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

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.

[57mm]

We have 4 boomers, as I recall, so that at least 1 is available and operational. Should we not do the same with aircraft carriers?

[Asturias56]

"The basics of Geography/Physics/Mathematics have been pretty constant."

so , regretfully, has been the lack of money to build everything that everyone wants

[Not_a_boffin]

Both carriers are currently available for ops. That one is not in the Red Sea or vicinity is because :

1. There is already a (US) carrier on station, which is more than enough to undertake the sort of ops currently envisaged.
2. The UK air strikes on Yemen are of largely political rather than military value.
3. The F35 force is still building up. You could deploy a CSG now, but you'd disrupt the painfully slow move to FOC. Given 1 and 2 above, is that disruption worth it at this time?

Going forward it may be that a UK CSG replaces the US one in due course. It entirely depends on what effect is required and for how long.

I wouldn't equate that Sky article with analysis. It's an opinion garnished with some - debatable - "facts". Not least the falsehood that the UK carriers have not yet engaged in combat operations. Pretty sure Fortis included a contribution to Shader.

ETA : I had not realised Sean Bell was ex-RAF. Given the number of factual inaccuracies in his "analysis" perhaps he ought to change his twatter handle to Bellend......

​​​​​​Light blue version of Sharkey?

[SLXOwft]

3. The F35 force is still building up. You could deploy a CSG now, but you'd disrupt the painfully slow move to FOC. Given 1 and 2 above, is that disruption worth it at this time?

Absolutely not.

I also thought AVM Bell should be aware of the fact that. 'The first RAF F-35B operational sorties were flown on Sunday 16 June (2019) in support of Operation Shader, the UK contribution to the Global Coalition’s counter Daesh mission in Iraq and Syria. The two aircraft conducted a patrol over Syria, and UK F-35s have flown a further 12 sorties since then.' https://www.gov.uk/government/news/h...ional-missions

[Low average]

Sorry, I had no idea our carriers had been engaged in combat operations. Not_a_boffin, when was this? Thanks.

Originally Posted by Not_a_boffin

I wouldn't equate that Sky article with analysis. It's an opinion garnished with some - debatable - "facts". Not least the falsehood that the UK carriers have not yet engaged in combat operations. Pretty sure Fortis included a contribution to Shader.
​

[Not_a_boffin]

Originally Posted by Low average

Sorry, I had no idea our carriers had been engaged in combat operations. Not_a_boffin, when was this? Thanks.

SEE above. Fortis. Shader?

[Low average]

Originally Posted by Not_a_boffin

SEE above. Fortis. Shader?

So did F35s fly off the Carrier and conduct strikes on Daesh? I can't seem to find anything clearly stating that?