Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carrier

[El Dildo]

 

it's a f*cking junkie riddled sh*te-hole.

 

so really it's no different than the rest of the UK

[sivispacem]

I meant the dockyard, rather than the town itself. Which does a great deal to demonstrate why none of the people who work at ACA actually live near it.

[K20]

went on a carrier once for a tour. huge powerful things they are. its a working organ when it all comes to life.

[Smith John]

 

 

it's a f*cking junkie riddled sh*te-hole.

 

so really it's no different than the rest of the UK

 

 

Well, you could consider urban Glasgow and urban Liverpool as friendly, drug-free safe havens, where the local inhabitants are for the most part prepared to welcome any Johnny Foreigner with warm, welcome, syringe-free arms. One would be pressed to say you might even be at liberty to take advantage of their kindness. Highly recommending to any tourist looking to visit the UK.

[.2D]

Them's fightin' words.

[LeVelocar]

What is the point again?

 

It's an overpriced ferry that carries jet fighters. Nobody does dogfights anymore. So its an overpriced ferry for paperweights. Wheeee.

[sivispacem]

The primary purpose of carrier-borne aircraft isn't air-to-air combat. It's anti-shipping, close air support, SEAD and interdiction. In fact, given that pretty much all aerial combat takes place using missiles at beyond-visual ranges these days and has done for the best part of 40 years now, I'd say that the statement "nobody does dogfights any more" is probably correct. But it's relevance in the context of specific discussion of aircraft carriers is nil.

Edited September 26, 2013 by sivispacem

[imperialman]

[Spaghetti Cat]

dogfight? in the jsf? hell you can't even see out the rear. it's a nice jet, just waiting on that fancy helmet.

 

also the number of jets in that pic above probably cost as much as that new carrier

 

again nice jet, just wayyyyy to expensive!

[sivispacem]

Personally I don't know why we didn't just buy the French Rafale for our carriers, that's just as capable a combat aircraft and costs about a fifth as much.

[lil weasel]

National Pride would have something to do with it.

[Rown]

Being that the U.S. has 20 carrier-type vessels I believe (10 Nimitz, 8 Wasp, 1 Tarawa, and soon to be 1 America-class) we probably don't have much room to criticize, but are large flight decks and large crews the key capability need to engage in "anti-shipping, close air support, SEAD and interdiction"?

 

The Arsenal ship was an idea proposed in the 90s that feels like it was sidelined to appease the admiralty more so than to achieve strategic objectives. The idea being that a floating platform with a thousand million dollar missiles and a limited crew is just as effective as a carrier flight deck in suppressing enemy ground forces (the increase in guided missile subs is addressing this but why not have it be more central?).

 

Interdiction/anti-shipping can be accomplished with smaller and faster ships, and drone warfare is likely to lead to a reduced need for pilots/large spaces for flight operations.

 

Shouldn't new carriers reflect these changes?

 

(Admittedly, I'm partly playing devil's advocate as the proposal sounds a hell of a lot more practical than the party advocating an additional 3 carriers besides the Queen Liz and Prince of Wales.)

 

Rown

p.s. f*cking comic sans.

[imperialman]

Personally I don't know why we didn't just buy the French Rafale for our carriers, that's just as capable a combat aircraft and costs about a fifth as much.

Lack of industrial benefits for the UK along side its lack of first day operations capability. It simply doesn't fit UK naval doctrine.

[sivispacem]

The Rafale doesn't lack first-day operation capability, though. Not since they started deploying Storm Shadow anyway. The operational range counteracts the fact that the aircraft lack full low-visibility capability. In fact I'd argue that the Rafale is better suited as a first-strike aircraft purely on the basis that it isn't crippled by a complete lack of stand-off weapon capability. The Storm Shadow doesn't fit in the F-35 bomb bay, and nor will the future MBDA Perseus, so in actuality an F-35 conducting SEAD or interdiction is going to be just as visible as a Rafale performing the same role given that it has to sacrifice the majority of its advantage (that is, low observability) in order to carry the same weapon. As for the question of industrial benefits, the only reason the UK are a partner in the F-35 project is because we decided on involving ourselves part-way through; there's absolutely no reason we couldn't have license-built Rafale in the UK. What's more, Thales, the primary electronics and avionics contractor for the Rafale, have a pretty big presence here in the UK. Buying the Rafale would have also meant that we could employ the MBDA Meteor BVRAAM too, which the way things are going at the moment looks unlikely to find its way onto anything other than the Typhoon due to budget restrictions, despite the fact that probably the only real use for a 60+NM high-maneuverability air intercept missile is long-range defence of carrier battle groups.