The trouble with rumours is that the only thing you can say with certainty is that it was an album by Fleetwood Mac.

UK Royal Navy conducts study to plan amphibious capability integration in Queen Elizabeth carriers 30 Sep 2016 Dr Lee Willett
UK Royal Navy conducts study to plan amphibious capability integration in Queen Elizabeth carriers | IHS Jane's 360

are they going to put wheels on them? Or a hovercraft -type skirt....................

So we spend squillions on new aircraft carriers which sit well off shore out of harms way, we then spend squillions more giving them an amphibious capability (cutting a big hole in them to fit landing craft?) which means they have to get in close to deploy said capability! What next - add bigger guns and make them battleships as well, or SAMs to add AD frigate capability, or perhaps submarines?

Or it could be a ruse to justify the UK getting Ospreys, fast transport of the troops ashore from the carrier out in the blue sea, COD for the carrier and a tanking facility for the F35Bs.

The thought of how much it would cost to put a well deck in a QEC does not bear thinking about.

Can't - and won't - be done. Nor does it need to be. This is largely about Wokka spots and mess spaces for Royal.

Sorry msocs I should of course have added "apart from the Poles"

As boffin points out, the force would be delivered by helo, and as the article states: "...the intent is for the ship to be able to deliver ashore by air an assault force up to two companies strong..."


So we are not talking about landing craft. The problem seems to be that the word "amphibious" seem to conjure up to many a landing craft opening the bow ramp on the beach at Omaha beach...but things have evolved a bit in the last 70 years....


The Iwo Jima class "Amphibious Assault Ship" was really a helo carrier with no well deck, just like the more recent USS America. Glad to see they are going back to the well deck for later LHA's. This is more like the Commando concept on HERMES (or Ocean).

Even so, to deliver an assault force (even by Chinook or Merlin) will require this valuable asset to be much closer inshore than the original concept, so more air and sea defences would be required - although of course we have plenty of other ships to provide that as well (don't we?).

Suspect it's a way of "replacing" Ocean....................

No need to suspect - all announced as part of SDSR2015.

Thanks Nut - missed that in all the excitement at the time.............

The RN will just have to wing it, cuff it as best it can. that's the attitude of those in charge.. these ships are now just big grey spaces that have to be filled, or seen to be used, to avoid further embarrassment to all and sundry. I mean its not ideal is it? Where are they thinking of actually using them in this role? Because if its recent traditional i.e. top end of the NAG then that sea is shallow, fraught with peril for such a role.
Most amphib are not really like a big carrier....
This country and how it treats its AF is beyond a ******* joke.
If its a big carrier we wanted then make it and equip it and use it as such.
It will all end in many tears.

What are you going on about?

Why on earth would a CV go near the "top end of the NAG"?

I wonder if Hangarshuffle is talking about the use of a CVS in a LPH role -such as Ark Royal during Telic in early 2003?

Off the top of my head, Hermes carried Junglies as well as Sea Harriers, ASW Sea Kings and later Harrier GR3s during the Falklands War. American carriers have been used as platforms for helicopters and Special Forces on occasion in recent years.

Actually, until quite late in Corporate, HERMES was regarded as an amphibious asset, at least by COMAW, until she was hijacked for air defence. Mike Clapp makes it clear in his book that his original calculations for the Falklands landing were based on the assumption that he would have her relatively close in. Instead she was some 200m to the East and of little use to the amphibiosity.

Indeed, and even outside to the south.......



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuBLg5dUAAAtltS.jpg

http://d254andzyoxz3f.cloudfront.net/d445.jpg

Oh dear.

Unarmed commercial aluminium ferry built by Incat hit by anti-ship missile and suffers lots of damage.

Quelle surprise.....

amazed it's still floating TBH - when you think what an Exocet did to an aluminium warship in the FI......................

Exocet didn't do anything to an aluminium warship on Corporate.........

This thing wasn't anything approximating to a warship either.

It's afloat because missiles don't (usually) let water in. They do tend to ruin the interior trim though - particularly if the ship they hit is not designed as a warship......