Future Carrier (Including Costs)

[glojo]

I am sure 'the forces' might have wanted STOVL but would any First Sea Lord want to put his fleet into an area where there is no shore based AEW support? I think the answer to that is obvious and are we saying the First Sea Lord opted for this type of carrier, especially as we have such a small surface fleet. The type 45 is an excellent ship, but I would respectfully suggest the detection of sea skimming missiles is not its forte? (question)

[Lowe Flieger]

UK Carrier Enabled Power Projection fits a familiar profile:

1. The government fund's to Premier Inn levels and the military is tasked with delivering Claridge's standard.

2. Somewhere between the thought and the deed, the cost of the equipment rises to Claridge's plus anyway.

3. Everyone then sweats their danglies off to paper over the cracks and make it work the best they can.

Was it ever any different? Or am I just being a typical cynical Brit?

LF

[eaglemmoomin]

Glojo possibly another STOVL aircraft/UAV. I don't see why not? You have the US Marines, Italy, Spain (just about), Thailand (not that they ever use them) and India that operate STOVL right now (though to be fair India are going STOBAR for their replacement carrier and god knows what for the two follow ons). The South Koreans, Japanese and Aussies all have/are building large amphib LHA/LHD flat decks. Turkey are also in the design stage of a large amphib LHA/LHD. Crucially three of those countries are part of the JSF consortia buys may occur in the same way that an A buy may happen for us when Typhoon starts to go out of service in the 2030s to meet our obligation to buy a 148 odd JSF.

The purchase numbers for the B and C are I believe currently roughly the same and initially the USMC were hoping to not buy any C at all and just operate their B's off of the CVN's. But the potential market for the B seems stronger to me, based on all of the naval willy waving going on. The F18/F16 have been going since what the mid 70's in various forms so since the F35 is the replacement for them I think the B's shelf life should be pretty decent.

[eaglemmoomin]

Glojo also if you haven't seen them do a search for

R.N. AIRCRAFTCARRIER STUDIESBY J.F.P. EDDISON, RCNC.

and

THE DESIGN OF HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HMS PRINCE OF WALES BY S. T. D. KNIGHT

THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ALLIANCE, UK

in google then have a read.

[glojo]

I think you might be a little harsh and whilst we might not have had the largest Navy, during the fast fixed wing jet era our Fleet Air Arm was probably the best in the World with carriers that had cutting edge technology that the USA copied.

We could certainly launch aircraft quicker than our NATO ally and our landing technology set the standard for carrier borne operations but yes we operated on a shoe string and worked those ships but as you say, was it ever any different.

I am NOT saying we should have carriers but I am saying if we have them then we should do the job properly and man them with our very best fast jet pilots and who cares what we call the service that mans those ships. The best ships with the best pilots operating the most suitable aircraft and note I am NOT suggesting the most expensive aircraft

Boffin is the expert and cost wise I cannot help but wonder how big a saving there would be if we had never bothered with the F35 but gone with the F18 stable and once this latest aircraft had proved itself, then and only then we could have considered our options. The carrier will always be upgradeable to take the latest offering but with STOVL we have reached the end of the road and this aircraft will allegedly be the last of its kind?? (will it)

[Not_a_boffin]

Can this ship ever operate without shore based air support?

Short answer is that of course it can. Slightly longer answer is that it will depend on the mission and how many cabs we eventually get.

Carrier capability does not necessarily equal replicating what the USN had in the eighties and nineties. They do not have the same capability now.

Carrier capability is defining the set of missions you want to do, projecting what that threat is likely to look like and building your airgroup around it.

Simple defensive AEW can be achieved with a helo solution, it just tends to mean that you may need to allocate more cabs to DCA by adopting CAP vice deck alert. Where you do lose out is in the ability to control major strikes (the reason why FOAEW changed to MASC) and that is almost entirely speed / FL dependent. Of course an E2 solution would be better than a r/w solution, but that does not make the r/w solution useless, nor indeed the ship vulnerable. It's not as if the old Gannet plus APS20 did strike control either.

Last time I looked, the RN have rarely fielded an organic AAR solution other than Scimitar to support the Bucc S1 and Buccs with buddy tanks on the old Ark, principally for recovery serials. Was the Ark any less of a carrier capability?

For ASW, I can't recall an organic f/w ASW capability once Sea King HAS1 hit the decks in large numbers. Merlin HM2 is at least as capable and can be embarked on the QEC. Would I like a deeper field organic MPA? Hell yes, but we appear not to have had one since circa 1966, so adding one now will be one hell of an ask. COD is a slightly different issue, but actually what does a C2 really bring to the party that an RFA can't?

I think people are forgetting that we have never had a USN CVW capability and are comparing QEC (as a large and expensive ship) against it. This leads to some unflattering comparisons which do not necessarily reveal the whole truth. Some things need re-iterating :

1. QEC is not expensive because of it's size. It is expensive because MoD can't cost independently and because some non-RN senior officers have spent the best part of a decade suggesting that the ship was too big and therefore ought to be delayed or cancelled. This allowed the pollies to dither and this costs money - real money.

2. The ship will be big enough to operate a meaningful number of FJ and helicopters, which will allow it to play credibly in most scenarios - unlike the constrained animal that was CVS.

3. The ships will last fifty or so years. In that time we can buy more jets if required and even modify the ships to operate whatever comes after F35.

I think what I'm trying to say is that QEC will be a significantly more capable beast than CVS and quite possibly CdeG. Would we like E2D, COD, all the bells and whistles? Oh yes, but we can't afford them. What we can afford will actually be relatively more capable than any carrier we've had before and I include Eagle & Ark in that.

That is far from Conference league. Comparison with a CVN is the wrong comparison. It needs to be measured against the requirement it was designed against (circa 2000), which is still largely valid.

[glojo]

Hi Eaglemmoomin

Glojo possibly another STOVL aircraft/UAV. I don't see why not? You have the US Marines, Italy, Spain (just about), Thailand (not that they ever use them) and India that operate STOVL right now (though to be fair India are going STOBAR for their replacement carrier and god knows what for the two follow ons). The South Koreans, Japanese and Aussies all have/are building large amphib LHA/LHD flat decks. Turkey are also in the design stage of a large amphib LHA/LHD. Crucially three of those countries are part of the JSF consortia buys may occur in the same way that an A buy may happen for us when Typhoon starts to go out of service in the 2030s to meet our obligation to buy a 148 odd JSF.

Good points but the US Marines are a military force unlike anything we can compare. Yes they have STOVL but they also have conventional fast jets and will usually if not ALWAYS operate with a US carrier battle group and if not then they will have USAF AWAC's plus tankers.

Are the Italians and Spain still intending to purchase the F-35?

I believe India is in a right mess with its ex Russian STOBAR carrier and the new build carrier is falling further and further behind schedule but when it does eventually become operational, it will operate multi-role fast jets that will be capable of buddy buddy refuelling, something we will not be capable of doing.

I am led to believe the Russians are converting their carrier to CATOBAR plus the Chinese will also be eventually going down that route.

The Japanese are now a defence force and perhaps might not deploy their force in the same way as our government does so the LHA option might be the most suitable ship but...

We are building huge carriers (huge for our country) and yet they will only ever deploy with a limited number of aircraft.

Question NOT a statement
Would it not have been better for us to have built the latest all singing, all dancing LHA type vessel with the latest F-35B's, attack helicopters, support helicopters and then have the military hardware along with the landing craft. Instead we have these 60,000 ton carriers with their ski jumps and only carrying a nominal number of aircraft.

Thank You N-A-B for the usual VERY constructive reply

[Not_a_boffin]

We are building huge carriers (huge for our country) and yet they will only ever deploy with a limited number of aircraft.

Assumptions change. Your assertion is based on an assumption.

Would it not have been better for us to have built the latest all singing, all dancing LHA type vessel with the latest F-35B's, attack helicopters, support helicopters and then have the military hardware along with the landing craft.

There was (and is) no requirement for that capability (we have LPD, LPH & LSDA). It also leaves "someone else" doing your AD.

There was and is a requirement to provide air defence, both over Fleet and overland in addition to providing Air to mud support.

[eaglemmoomin]

Italy definately are though they cut the number to 90 odd and (at the Italian airforces urging (I think) cut the number of F35B eg the one the Italian Navy want for their carriers). Spain, right now it's difficult to say either way as they've just mothballed a carrier leaving them with a single LHD the intention was to purchase F35B for them (but I don't know if F35B would have been compatible with the mothballed carrier anyway) but who knows, it depends on when their Harriers start dropping I guess.

Japan have two 'helicopter destroyers' already and added an additional two more 20,000 ton vessels so maybe maybe not, I just think it's interesting that the two existing ones are 8000 tons in displacement smaller.

I think the other thing to remember is that the UK has 7 AWACS aircraft and will have 12 A330 based tankers we have three or four MARS tankers on the way and then a solid stores variant of MARS to come as well along with Crowsnest (which at this rate will be late as ASAC goes out of service in 2016 and work has not started on the replacement (apart from studies and trials done by Thales/Westlands and Lockheed) combine that with T26 and T45 and the Astutes taken as a whole I think we will have a pretty useful force. Certainly in our own back yard anyway.

SDSR would have left us with a part time carrier force anyway with the ability to surge RAF jets onto the single carrier being a lot more remote with a carrier unavailable for large portions of the year and then aircraft 'owned' by another service with pilots requiring a greater level of training burden and time to be able to land and takeoff.

I actually think accepting some range and weight tradeoff that what we've ended up with isn't a worse capability at all in actual practical terms.

[glojo]

Hi Not a Boffin,
Sorry for causing any confusion but the suggestion for an all singing LHA would be as a replacement for our older vessels and they would carry the exact same complement of 35's as the QEC carrier.

The 'assumption' I am allegedly guilty of is not mine but that of our illustrious Minister for Defence who was speaking at the Chief of the Air Staff's Air Power Conference at the Royal United Services Institute. He states the carriers will deploy with an air wing of between 8 - 12 aircraft.

I would NEVER compare our carrier capability with that of the United States Navy but I am guilty of comparing these carriers with our old 1960's ships that did have air to air, air to ground, AWAC, COD, tanking capibilty and of course anti submarine helicopter capability. Yes I may have rose tinted glasses but during their era were they the World's most advanced carriers with cutting edge technology? The only nuclear carrier was the USS Enterprise and although she carried an air force on her decks, we could launch aircraft far quicker and get them back as safe as that larger ship. I TOTALLY accept we never deployed with anything like a battle group and quite clearly we never will be able to. (what we never had, we will never miss)

[eaglemmoomin]

But the F35 is a true swing role strike fighter so it can do both air to air and air to ground and correct me if I'm wrong but it's a dynamic shift that can be done on the fly as it were switching from one mode to the other.

Merlin HM2 has an ASW role and we will have an AEW capability at some point so the only things I see missing are AAR and COD. But we will have AAR from the voyyager force and if you absolutely had to do some form of COD whats wrong with Chinook combined with the MARS vessels or bunging somethink out the back of an A400M or something, I'm sure I remember reading something about that being done by the RN/RAF in the past.

It's numbers of kit available/in service date that I think personally is the problem not so much the capability.

[glojo]

Totally agree about the F35 and its capability but even the trusty old Sea Vixen could act as a tanking aircraft which is something the 35 is not capable of.

My point was that a 20,000+ ton carrier was capable of carrying all those aircraft type and obviously we cannot compare the 60's technology to the capablities of this amazing aircraft. I just feel it is a poor choice and will need shore based air support

Would Crowsnest offer better early detection of sea skimming aircraft compared to a fixed wing aircraft and I suppose I am thinking E2

How many times have we heard promises of an all singing military upgrade that is about to be introduced and when do we expect Crowsnest?

[Justanopinion]

The lack of buddy buddy refuelling for F35B is a slight red herring as precisely because it is VSTOL is the reason it has less requirement for this capability. The USN (as we used to on a conventional carrier) primarily use the tanker for recoveries to catch the bolters who may need a squirt of fuel. It can be used to slightly extend mission range but realistically for a division only in the order of a couple of thousand pounds each. Useful but never going to replace land based AAR ( USN Afghanistan current day and after 911).

Not being an engineer I also fail to see how complicated it is to generate this capability on the F35. The buddy systems I have used are not hugely complex and can be bolted on to any jet

[Not_a_boffin]

Sorry for causing any confusion but the suggestion for an all singing LHA would be as a replacement for our older vessels and they would carry the exact same complement of 35's as the QEC carrier.

QEC will be capable of operating 30+ f/w and a good number of helos. Probably more once she is in service and folk work out how to manage the deck. You won't get that on an LHA. More to the point, the requirement QEC fills is that for CVF (ie provide f/w AD, strike and r/w ASW).

The 'assumption' I am allegedly guilty of is not mine but that of our illustrious Minister for Defence who was speaking at the Chief of the Air Staff's Air Power Conference at the Royal United Services Institute. He states the carriers will deploy with an air wing of between 8 - 12 aircraft.

He is making an assumption, which is already different from that voiced only a few months previously that there would only be 6 F35 on QEC deployed for a couple of weeks a year and different again from those made during the noughties. The planning assumptions can and do change over time. Contrary to the belief of some, they are not tablets of stone.

The point is that you can buy additional a/c, you can deploy them differently, you can change the personnel mix - it is just a question of changing funding assumptions. What you can't do, is retroactively change the capacity of a major capital asset with a life of 50 years because you built it too small in the first place. What you also shouldn't do is allow one service to buy equipment that will prevent it being interoperable with the others, should the need arise.....

[glojo]

Wise words as usual and I totally accept that the LHA would not be capable of handling that amount of aircraft and it would be foolhardy to say otherwise.

Hopefully my posts are being read as me asking questions as opposed to my making statements.

[hulahoop7]

... and as I have said many times here, Ocean is also due for the chop and the junglies will need a home. QE will be more USS America rather than Ford.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Not_a_boffin

The point is that you can buy additional a/c, you can deploy them differently, you can change the personnel mix - it is just a question of changing funding assumptions. What you can't do, is retroactively change the capacity of a major capital asset with a life of 50 years because you built it too small in the first place. What you also shouldn't do is allow one service to buy equipment that will prevent it being interoperable with the others, should the need arise.....

All the more reason for having a larger ship, with more space on deck and in the hangar.

[WhiteOvies]

Excelent discussion, my one input would be regarding the COD requirement, and I do not automatically mean C-2.

Supporting aircraft at sea organically is difficult in this world of contractor support and just in time logisitics. You need to be able to front load critical spares into your RFA before the TG sails. What we discovered on Ark's last deployment was that the contract and aircraft fleet in the UK could not support having certain assets 'stuck' at sea in the RFA or in the hangar.

This has always been the case of course and you can't have a logisitics mentality of "at least one of everything, just in case". It does drive a requirement though to be able to transport spares from the shore to the sea, with a FW COD giving a speedier and longer range capability than a RW asset.

Putting 202 Flt Lynx onto the deck gave added COD flexibility and allowed the Merlins to concentrate on other things (like ASW when you haven't got a sub escort). The extra lift of the Merlin was useful on occassions and Chinook broadens that considerably.

So if you can spare a RW asset that can lift what you haven't got, can afford the time to wait and move closer inshore, there is no shortage of COD options for QEC. Of course V-22 has the best of both but I can't see the UK buying any of those any time soon.

[ORAC]

Which non-catapult/cable carrier capable UAV? Towards Scavenger

Drones to get Aircraft Carrier Test

The Royal Navy is to start trialling unmanned drones launched from aircraft carriers, Defence Minister Philip Dunne says. Drones are only used by the RAF in Afghanistan at present but Mr Dunne said they will be tested on aircraft carriers from next year. Initially the drones will be tested for surveillance use by the navy, such as searching for pirates off the coast of Somalia.

Mr Dunne said: "We are about to embark on a concept of use demonstration trial to see whether for surveillance purposes a maritime system could be deployed in the future. It is not presently anything past a demonstration phase. I think it is perhaps not a surprise that we are thinking of some trialling, some capability for future use.".............

Mr Dunne's comments raise the possibility that the new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers may have drones operating off their decks before any manned aircraft. This is because the first carrier is due to come into service in 2019 before the new joint strike fighters become available. There have been rumours the Government was thinking of introducing unmanned drones at sea. But it presents a number of difficulties such as landing the aircraft on a moving deck.

Mr Dunne said that drones would become more advanced, but added the Government had no intention of developing systems that did not require some form of human control. He said the Government had no intention of using drones for surveillance use outside of the military, such as keeping tabs on illegal fishing. The minister added: "There is a system that will be going through a concept demonstration next year. The uses of that will be for the Royal Navy to decide if they decide to procure a system in due course."......

[Not_a_boffin]

Supporting aircraft at sea organically is difficult in this world of contractor support and just in time logisitics. You need to be able to front load critical spares into your RFA before the TG sails. What we discovered on Ark's last deployment was that the contract and aircraft fleet in the UK could not support having certain assets 'stuck' at sea in the RFA or in the hangar.

Interesting. Was that a MIOS or SKIOS issue? Or Harrier? Suggests that someone hadn't framed the contract (or the spares provision under the contract) to account for squadrons at sea. Not that we'll ever be able to have "one of everything just in case" again - but does highlight the importance of knowing how you're going to operate and thinking it through if you're going down the CLS path.