re: Catobars, well, that would have got the carrier the F35C, rather than the steamer of an engineering marvel that is the F35B, plus (I guess) capability to launch and land most anything the US have, which seeing as our ships are designed to slot in with a US carrier, might be “handy”.

re: the F35 being last gen, I didn’t qualify with “fighter”. Its really rather quite expensive to make a whole new airframe from scratch and I doubt the western industry are unlikely to stomach it (china/pakistan might, but safety and thoroughness and testing demands are a bit lighter). And the “fighter” profile, as pointed out, is a bit outdated with the BVR engagements that are the current norm. Rules of engagement and humans to do target sighting, er, hmm, ok, that’s probably another moral discussion…

Rockape63 – Apart from anywhere landlocked. Like AFG for example.

Thing is with that much firepower, we can do what the hell we want in the pursuit of saving our citizens from certain death. The route in over Pakistan looks the least confrontational.

Do we have any planes to put on it yet?

just these old antiques

Least confrontational for sure, but ‘firepower’ is a subjective matter. Compare the strength of QE with a full wing of -B variants with a full wing of -C from a CATOBAR type carrier and you are still going to get shat on by the land-based F-16s from Pakistan.

IN reality, their effectiveness in scaring off a nation state relies on said nation state not having the ability to respond in strength.

OTOH the C does get your boat parked a bit further away than the B.

Moot points, as ever…

Some very excellent points, well made.

I’m not an expert on the F-35 and although I’ve read damming reports about it’s dogfighting ability with the early block F-16 models, it’s obvious that the F-35 is still early in development and the pilot will have greater situational awareness.

The QE carrier was designed “for but not with” (a great spin term for hedging bets) CATOBAR, it has been suggested that it may be retrofit later, but this seems unlikely. Indeed, the SDR of 2010 mooted swapping our order to F-35Cs and fitting EMALS cats, however BAe scuppered that plan (allegedly) when they got wind that the MoD was interested in F-18/Rafale jets instead of the risky F-35C so the cost for EMALS suddenly escalated to the point that the MoD caved in and went STOVL.

I’m not an expert on the F-35 and although I’ve read damming reports about it’s dogfighting ability with the early block F-16 models, it’s obvious that the F-35 is still early in development and the pilot will have greater situational awareness.

Wasn’t that on the basis of ‘the F16 is better in a dogfight’ versus ‘Yes, but only if the F16 can get within dogfighting range’

It reminds me of the explanation for the Soviets thinking on unarmed combat – that in order to resort to hand to hand combat, a soviet soldier would have to have got trapped, on his own, behind enemy lines, without a radio, lost his rifle, ammunition, bayonet, helmet, spade and be utterly befeft of any other potential weapon such as a rock or branch… and meet an opposing soldier suffering the exact same fate at the exact same time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-40415959/hms-queen-elizabeth-sets-sail-from-rosyth-for-sea-trials

Says here not fully operational until 2026?

IN reality, their effectiveness in scaring off a nation state relies on said nation state not having the ability to respond in strength.

Indeed!

Says here not fully operational until 2026?

Depends on exactly what “fully” means. She is due to have an “operational military capability” by 2020

Quite – see above for discussion of the relevance of “dogfighting” ability – I note that the link given as an example of a recent kill certainly wasn’t dogfighting in the sense portrayed in Top Gun and the relative dogfighting abilities of the aircraft concerned was pretty much irrelevant (kill was with a medium range missile).

The performance needed to dogfight may not be needed for that specific purpose but it also comes in handy to use for defeating incoming missiles and also to give your own missiles that additional energy and range.

The biggest problem with the QE is the fact that it will mainly be manned by lardy arsed Pompey fat knackers and it will be too big to get into any decent ports for the obligatory piss up, theres no point in joining the navy if you are going to spend your off watch sat on the quarterdeck watching the sun set over Fort lauderdale at spring break cos you missed the liberty boat.

Its too **** big, it will be a shit draft and morale will be like rocking horse shit.
Who gives a shit what planes are on it 😉

Finally some informed comment!

😆

From a matelow? Probably the least informed person here, don’t want them getting ideas above their station 😉

You can’t really dodge incoming missiles (you can evade them, but that’s not the same thing at all), and to give your own missiles extra energy the only thing which matters is speed.

Why? Where is the need to be able to launch 5 planes an hour (or whatever it is)? Catobars are all about getting lots of planes, whole squadrons, into the air quickly. Future wars are not dogfighting they are electronic wars. Dogfights will become more and more rare going forward and will be irradiated by beyond visual range missiles anyway. CATOBAR are a whole order of magnitude more expensive and quite unreliable. Yes you can empl9y aircraft with greater capabilities, but they are capabilities that will become more and more redundant as time goes on – the concept of ‘dogfight your way to the target, destroy the target, dogfight your way back again’ is yesterday’s theatres of war. The aircraft is simply a platform, the important bits are what it’s carrying and the electronics on board

1) A proper air war doesn’t include lots of dogfighting, it’s all about how many planes and thus missiles you can lob down range at the other side.

2) The idea that stealth is going to allow a couple of planes to penetrate an integrated air defence and deliver a few bombs on key targets is already obsolete (although RCS is still an important part of an aircrafts performance), hence why the US Navy is pushing for a a very shooty/bangy/overt aircraft in its F/A-XX Program.

3) The Carrier has to reinvent itself in terms of capability, in the face of ever improving cruise and ballistic missiles – that means increasing it’s offensive range and thus ability to act as a first strike weapons platform – not act as a support platform when you’ve already degraded a countries air defence.

You can’t really dodge incoming missiles

You can, depending on the range the missile was launched at. Kill probability decreases with range.

The QE ships and their F-35B complement would be rather useful for fighting alongside the US Marines during an island hopping campaign in the archipelagos of the South Pacific – I’m pretty sure that is purely accidental though.

Worth watching this with a mind on why aircraft carriers may or may not be relevant in the future:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hMR86-6J7Y[/video]

Tom_W1987 – Member

The QE ships and their F-35B complement would be rather useful for fighting alongside the US Marines during an island hopping campaign in the archipelagos of the South Pacific

So as long as we get it fully tested and operational by 1942 it’s going to be a great asset

The QE ships and their F-35B complement would be rather useful for fighting alongside the US Marines during an island hopping campaign in the archipelagos of the South Pacific – I’m pretty sure that is purely accidental though.

There’s also a reason why the US has had discussions with India about the sale of advanced catapult technology for use in Indian carriers, which are presently configured as STOBAR. I daresay that Indian carriers wouldn’t be operating beyond the very limits of their range, nor would they have to sail from halfway around the globe to respond to a crisis.

PJM1974 – Member
The QE carrier was designed “for but not with” (a great spin term for hedging bets) CATOBAR, it has been suggested that it may be retrofit later, but this seems unlikely. Indeed, the SDR of 2010 mooted swapping our order to F-35Cs and fitting EMALS cats, however BAe scuppered that plan (allegedly) when they got wind that the MoD was interested in F-18/Rafale jets instead of the risky F-35C so the cost for EMALS suddenly escalated to the point that the MoD caved in and went STOVL.

I remember reading an article in an aviation article when the SSDR proposed switching the QE class vessels from STOVL to CATOBAR. It stated that the minimum number of CATOBAR carriers required for one to be deployable at all times is 3. One that is ready, one that is in refit and one that is dedicated to training pilots, as CATOBAR launches and recoveries are very difficult and pilots need a lot of training to remain qualified for them.

The equivalent for STOVL carriers is only two carriers, one that is ready and one in refit. Training a land-based STOVL pilot to fly from a carrier is a comparatively trivial task. The QE ships were ordered on the basis of operating STOVL aircraft, so the government only went for 2 of them. Switching to CATOBAR was considered by the article to be rife with problems beyond even BAE Systems stitching up the MoD on the cost of doing so.

Of course other carrier operators presumably don’t have the expectation that a carrier will always be available, but that seemed to be something that the government or the MoD was definitely after.

Most alarmed at cheekyboys comments, I and my daughter thought it would be an ideal gin palace come social club for her to float around the world on also she wanted to be in the accompanying 10 part fly on wall documentary that is bound to follow.