@ paul g RE “one in the pipeline at 19,000t both cheap and able to keep up with CVF (30+kt) plus bigger version can dual role as refueller or carry 4000 troops”
- 19 k is deception (empty weight); it is 23 kt
- compared to previous (smaller) design, everything getting in the way of fixed wing operations has been cleared; no wonder the Japanese are so upset about not being allowed JSF…Typhoon people being out there on a sales trip is for demonstration effect (to make the USA change its mind; they sell it to Israel who will better the original design anyway, so what’s the problem?)

The latest 5th Generation Ro-Ro do have access to the weather deck.

http://www.wilhelmsenasa.com/aboutus/ourbusiness/thefleet/Pages/Tonsberg.aspx

Rob peter to pay paul, apologies to the RAF but your going to have to suck it up and loose Tornado’s in order for CVF’s to have cats and traps and the Fleet Air Arm to fly Rafales (or F18′s) and E2D’s OR the CVF is a white elephant.

Multiple FDR -Air threads on this blog have discussed future RAF force structure, and I am all for a single type fast jet air force based on Typhoon, maybe 300 of them, and I am completely and totally anti-F35. So all that being said, we should indeed have 2 x Ocean replacement LHA to support CVF and then our amphib fleet and the RM’s provide our niche contribution to NATO / world coalitions and we have a strategic raison d’etre for the rest of the surface fleet ! Et voila…..

With a look back to the start of the comment thread, Ocean has been a very useful engine and, if it’s at all possible, should definitely shunt sideways to the RFA and relieve Argus of her main helicopter responsibilities (there’s still quite a role to be had as a hospital ship, and for Argus’ other layers of flexibility.)

I would in a heartbeat sacrifice the current specifications and timescale of Type 26 for a pair of BPE/Canberras. By themselves the CVFs may look too much like a vanity project, or assets that will mostly spell American carriers tagging along behind the U.S.’s imperial overstretch. Two CVFs plus two of those vessels would anchor a world-class surface fleet (concentrate the Darings and Type 23s in escort groups around them and fill the bread-and-butter jobs with the C3 ideas talked over in such detail elsewhere.) They would then act, as Jedibeeftrix suggested on his blog, either as a truly independent national ability to project power or as the structural spine for a multi-national European or Commonwealth mission. Strike a construction detail not unlike the Australians’ (could Barrow pick up the British share of the work since the Albions were their handiwork, or have the jobs/skills shifted elsewhere?) It builds good relations with the Spanish especially since ASCOD may be out of the FRES scout race (which make be shut down in any case by the SDR, who knows yet) and because Britain needs to get out of the A400M (the rest of British airlift needs to be provided elsewise but that’s a topic for a different thread. It should’ve been either C-130J or Airbus for theater air, not both, and the latter’s failed on cost and timetables.) Interoperable with the Armada (strange days indeed :) and the RAN and perhaps other friendly customers. Everything that would fly off them until the last Harriers fall apart is already in service. They’re a step-change up from Ocean. And they can fly a small CAP on board, or cross-deck from the CVF flagship towards the forward edge of a bigger armada in some kind of “Falklands redux” deployment (doesn’t have to be there, just meet the general mission specs.)

What about a deployment schedule like this: three rotations in the carrier-projection role, two turns by CVF-based groups, one by a group based on an LHD plus an Albion LPD since (I’m guessing? Jed or other experienced hands?) one could load a typical EMF comfortably aboard the two of them. (Something like QE, PoW, LHD 1, then QE, PoW, LHD2, so alternating.) You have four units broadly speaking so one can come out for refit without a deadly loss of capability, and you can keep an LHD group in reserve at all times for Sierra Leone-like contingencies. To dream the impossible dream ….

But its 300 soldiers and crew for 8 planes, a quarter of the Carriers airgroup.

If the main cost is flying soldiers, fuel, spares ect out and home, could we not sail them?

Thank god I am not an ex ‘Crab’ too….. !

I am obviously a carrier supporter but if we could go back in time and make some changes in other words something smaller and more flexible such as the Spanish Juan Carlos as long as we got more hulls. However if we had done so look at the situation we would be in as the F-35B may or may not work out and thankfully the CVF gives us a credible and more capable alternative. The CVF’s will most likely be delivered as cancelling them while possibly a good idea to some would be politically damaging. To say suicidal is a bit strong as nobody really cares that much about the armed forces and the MP’s from those areas are labour and unless hell freezes over will remain labour seats. I also agree in part with the point Gabriele made that the carriers are one of the few cornerstones of a future British Defence policy. I would say current defence policy but we don’t have one and the future looks rather sketchy as well even the carriers are sketchy will they or will they not have aircraft.

Oh! and Welcome Gabriele.
**Waves** :-)

Way, way more expensive ! Do an FOI request or ten and see if you can figure out the full costs of building up Stanley airbase, the costs in jet fuel and maintenance hours of all the Tristar, VC10 and Hercules flights over the last twenty five years, the cost food and wages of keeping the infantry there (as opposed to using them somewhere else).

Really there were two choices post FI war – garrison the islands or build 3 or more ‘proper’ (40,000 tonne plus) carriers with decent numbers of Sea Harriers and AEW choppers (of course cat and trap aircraft types would have been even better). On through life costs over twenty five plus years carriers would have won hands down on cost. Of course the RAF having ‘bigged up’ its role in the war, then decided to take a controlling interest in the post war period, and no British government since WWII has grasped the idea of “spend now to save later”.

So carriers versus garrison the other side of the globe – diss carriers all you like, but don’t use costs as an excuse :-)

Just a few little points.
Although a full carrier would have prevented the Falklands War, so would company of armour, mechanised infantry and infantry backed up by a flight of Jaguars, stationed on the island.
And thats much cheaper.

Trident is to my mind none negotiable.
In the event of a Hot War, we planned to nuke every warsaw state except russia, they planned to nuke every NATO state except the UK, (France was spared too), the only common link is their own nuclear weapons.
Also, the 4 boats are cheaper to buy and operate than one of the carriers, never mind both.

Although not a big fan of carriers, I’m not against them in the context of an enlarged Navy, I simply feel we would be better off with guided missile submarines and ships (think Ocean sized ships with nothing but long range (2000km) cruise missiles, 500-1500 in a task force).
Why dogfight planes when you can bombard airfields out of action for longer than the campaign.

Under current plans, our Carriers will be cost cutted into irrelevence, and drag the rest of the Navy with them.

Trident is a Doomsday system. If the need to use is arises… you know what that means. We can do by teaming up with the US for the nuclear deterrence. Or with France. After all, the Trident missiles are american anyway, and UK lacks a system of airplanes capable to ensure communications with the dived SSBN, so they would arguably be deaf in the moment of the need and nearly incapable to react, since the order of launch simply would not come to the sub.
I’d rather keep it than scrap it… but if cuts can’t be avoided, i’d rather give up Trident than the carriers.

As to Ocean, yes. Her fault is that she has no well deck. And no sister ship.
Seen the current budget crisis, hopes to add a second LPH are illusions, sadly. Much as it would be needed. It could be obtained by keeping in service the younger of the Invincibles as a full-time LPH when the CVFs are in service, but it would still be too costy for governments that see defence like smoke in the eyes.

As to Argus replacement… a fifth Bay ship would be awesome. Removing the cranes and the container-area, the deck is more than wide enough.
The well deck should remain, and inside the ship should be built a large hospital.
In just one hull, there would be Argus’s replacement, a much needed hospital ship capable to support amphibious operations and a perfect ship for any kind of disaster-relief operation anywhere in the world.
Besides, the Bay class had been planned of 5 ships from the start, to be sincere.

LPH and LPD are going to be fused into LHDs when Albion and BUlwark leave service.
The plan is to build two 30.000 tons LHDs. (3 would be much better, of course, but the navy, knowing how things go, is reasoning on just 2 already).

Without carriers for planes, for protection and support, you don’t need Marines either. Where are they going to land without air support?
Remember the Falkland. The army officers said “without air support, it is impossible.”
They would be Malvinas now, had the argentinians waited a couple of months, to see Invincible and Hermes handed off to foreign nations. The contracts had already been signed, but luckily the ships were still in the UK.
Want to experience that again? It would be the greatest humiliation in UK’s history.

Unless you are willing to use Trident on Argentina, of course. Because their simple existence does not deter them at all.
Nuclear deterrence failed in 1982. It will easily fail again, because the others know that you don’t nuke Buenos Aires in answer to an agression on the Falklands.
THAT is money wasted.
Same will be if we’ll need to intervene against Iran, or whatever other nation. Probably there would be USA carriers in the area in such a case…

But what if one day they weren’t there…? What if we are alone again? I’d think thrice about it.

http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2009/12/fdr-supporting-articles/

The consensus among our commentors is that we just could not play nicely enough with the French on a political level to make a go of it !

I realise I’ve been saying Juan Carlos a lot, but I’ve also been looking at the diagram of Canberra, I’m not hugely set on a current design, its just those two carry more troops.

If the Cavour class can be modified to carry 800-1200 RM’s with the option of a little helicopterable armed (as opposed to armoured) vehicles, half a dozen F35B’s, some transport Helicopters, preferable enough for the fleet to empty itself in an afternoon, or overnight and some attack helicopters, I’m happy

Dont we use Merlins as big ASW platforms?
Lynxs are fine in that role, but Merlins are bigger, could we do without them?

Although I might have classed it as a ‘hair brain scheme’ at the time the more I think about the CH53X the more it makes sense from a long term investment and through life cost perspective. One common airframe for all SH taskings

However why spend the cash to redesign the Juan Carlos to NOT have a well deck, when the Cavour does not have one in the first place ?

On helo’s – unless the UK spends money on being the first Chinook operator to have folding blades capability, your never going to have more than a couple of them at sea whatever the platform. Even parked on the deck of the CV(F) it would take up a lot of space.

My guess for Oceans carrying capacity came from the picture above, in which it looks like there is space for two rows of six. I’d guess, “will fit on the deck” and “can be operated” are quite different things.
If you ruin my plan and say only 4 could be on deck at one time, could 4 not load, take off, 4 that are flying nearby land, load, take off, to be followed by another 4?
Or, could you launch 4 from each ship, which would land a full compliment of 800 marines, without seats during the flight.

If its just an issue of fitting Helicopters into the Ship, surely we could modify whatever light carrier design we settle on to carry the requisite number.
Its hardly an expert opinion, but if you sealed the Well deck and used it for stores/crew quarters, that would leave the top two decks as a large hanger for 8 F35′s or 16 Chinooks.

Just ideas, feel free to correct them

And there-in lies part of the problem, which we have discussed a great deal on this site, the lack of helicopters. However neither the Ocean nor Juan Carlos can carry 15 Chinooks ! Ocean carries 12 Sea King MK4 (Junglies) which can lift as two waves of 6 from her deck. If we replace them with AW101 and have all your Marines sat in seats for the assault, thats 6 x 24 = 144 sets of boots on the ground per wave, roughly a Company. Of course with less Lynx or Apaches onboard you could cram a couple more troop carriers ! However if its ‘critical mass’ of infantry for an assault your after, you need USMC not RN / RM, because we will never have enough decks, docks or helos. So, more limited use cases / scenarios for our capabilities I think.