I will leave that up to you. :)

OAP

What capabilities are being damaged? Spell it out for us.

Also if people post things to do with the capabilities provided by carrier aircraft, you immediately dismiss it as irrelevant. If anyone points out we have been doing carrier-like role in recent years, including as part of NATO and supporting coalition operations in the Middle East, you dismiss it as irrelevant. If anyone points out a carrier would have been useful in the last few years, you dismiss as irrelevant. If anyone refers to Geopolitical events, you dismiss it as irrelevant.

You ask me to stop telling you about things you know about - are you saying you know a carrier is essential to fighting wars at sea or from it?

What would you say to this post over on ARRSE?

Well, one reason we're not even more short on ships is because of the carriers: there was a proposal in the 2010 SDSR that not only should the RN lose the four Type 22 Batch 3 frigates that were scrapped early to save cash, but that the five "general purpose" Type 23s should also be sold or scrapped. The need to maintain escort numbers at the bare minimum (well, actually the bare minimum reduced by the Treasury saying 'the Navy will just have to work a bit harder' and the PM saying "I'm bored with all this, just cut here, here and here") to form a workable Carrier Task Group, was what deflected that: without the carriers, we could easily be down to fourteen DD/FF today.

Think we'd be doing better or worse, as a result?

Anyway: Whilst not a carrier, HMS Ocean could be fairly described as carrier like. A few months ago she was diverted from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean at short notice, then she returned to the Mediterranean for the NATO SNMG2 flagship role.

More recently, she has been the other side of the Mediterranean, taking part in a NATO exercise.

Two Jungly Merlin HC3 and two Wildcat AH1 from 847 NAS does not seem a particularly large airgroup, given she can carry far more than that.

Hi again Fanatic.
You might notice that the reply you quote was actually not addressed to you?
Beyond that, I do not intend to restate my position ad nauseum, despite your willingness to do that. My previous posts have covered the subject.:ok:
BTW, something new, the Budget didn't look very promising. :oh:

OAP

It's OK, the Navy have so much spare manpower they can afford to send them to London for a month to train up to do the changing of the guard!

Area of Operations
 

Where, in the Northern hemisphere, does the QE class anticipate providing the strategic projection of power? Even with the range of the F-35B (as opposed to F35A or C), it is hard to identify a credible future theatre where Host Nation Support would not permit power projection without the need for a Carrier Strike Group, particularly considering stand-off and A2AD issues.
Add to this the problems associated with supporting the F35B reverse supply chain at range, it is difficult to understand its capability beyond 'soft power'....

The latest edition of World Naval Review is out and there is big article on the RN

Makes sobering reading- seems to have been a period in early 2017 when we had maybe only one or maybe no SSN at sea, the new T45 engines mods will be expensive and difficult to fit, the last Astute order seems to have disapeared, removing Ocean will seriously affect over teh beach capabilities, and manpower........


They have concerns about the delay in standing up a proper naval F35 squadron and very much doubt the Govt will ever allow the Carriers to beput in harm's way in any serious sense

In the event of soft power failing, it can provide vastly increased sortie rates and mission flexibility owing to closer proximity to the target for a start. Still horses for courses but it's a complementary capability that provides loads of options, especially in terms of mobility and quick redeployment or withdrawal.

"Or withdrawal"

I never realised we were thinking of repeating Norway 1940

That's really my point. How close to the targets is the QE going to get? The ROA of a fully loaded F35B , particularly in LO fit, would necessitate QE sitting well within range of anti shipping missiles. Add to that the list of currently unfounded enablers identified in the recent NAO report, and the capability appears somewhat impotent.
If the carrier will limited to projecting soft power, so be it, but if we want it to do more than that, then let's resource and equip it to do so.
I'm certain any adversary that the QE could be used against, is more than able to make a capability assessment of the threat it presents....

OOh ya bitch! That one stung.

Or at least, it would have stung the warmongering First Sea Lord whose administrative incompetence cost so many British lives in the cockup that he administered there.

He benefited from his own incompetence by capturing the Premiership as a result of his own failures in that abortion of a campaign.

Sorry Caz - i can see why Boris likes WC - both seem to escape with glory from cock-ups that felled lesser men

@Cazalet33
Not sure what you've got against Adm of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, but there's nothing in my history book the that tells me he "captured the premiership".

The other guy certainly cocked a few things up militarily, but hey, in war "stuff happens" and on balance I think the overwhelming majority of historians would agree that it was right that WC got a lot of credit for his part in winning the war.

Not sure WSC "won" the war - but he did keep things alive long enough to bring in the Yanks and the Russians who, I think, have a greater claim to winning it.............

@HH
Agree - and edited to add "his part in" winning the war

I wrongly said First Sea Lord.

I should have said First Lord of the Admiralty.

It was in that post that he cocked up the war planning for the disastrous Norway campaign. It had also been in that post that he initiated the disastrous Dardanelles campaign which was another omnishambles.

To his credit, on the other hand, it was as First Lord of the Admiralty that he promoted the development of what we now call tanks on the naval budget. They were regarded as a naval thing because they were called landships. The word tank was a ruse to confuse German Intelligence with the cover story that the development work was on mobile water tanks for use in the North African desert.

It's rather like owning a Rolls Royce Phantom and a Moped. If the Roller breaks down you can't rescue me-lord and me-lady with the Moped :sad:

Are the RN going to get 2-4 Ospreys for COD? If not replenishment of large items will mean a port call..............................

Of course at $ 73 mm each plus training etc.........................

Why? What's wrong with Chinooks?

The conventionally-powered carrier HMS Invincible didn't have V-22 Ospreys yet she still holds the record of 166 consecutive days at sea without a port call between April and September 1982.

This even eclipses the US Navy's record of 159 consecutive days at sea set by the nuclear-powered USS Theodore Roosevelt in 1991.

That's the raison d'etre of the Type 45 AD (Air Defence) destroyers and any accompanying allied AD escorts, not to mention the F-35B in AD role.

The enemy also has the C4ISTAR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Information/Intelligence, Surveillance, Targeting Acquisition and Reconnaissance) problem of getting close enough to the carrier to locate and and identify it, not to mention providing accurate targeting information to any ASMs.

FS Charles de Gaulle with her Rafales and USS Kearsarge with her much shorter range AV-8Bs managed well enough off Libya during ELLAMY. Their aircraft were able to fly multiple sorties each day owing to their closer proximity to the target area.

Plus - Type 23 or Type 26 frigates will provide extended point defence. Also air to air refuelling will extend the range of F-35B.

Here is an interesting link that was found by an RAF contact on another site. It debunks many of the lazy myths surrounding the carriers:

The myths surrounding the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers