[Closed] Our new aircraft carriers, limited to F35s? ...

That I very much doubt, subs get quieter each generation and the ability to scan the sea is very very limited.

I'll see if I can find the article but I was reading something by a submariner explaining how much of a smaller place the oceans are becoming.

How much more expensive does each generation of sub get, to get quieter? Is this a linear phenomena (the improvements in quietness) - do you not think that at some point improvements in robotics means that we'll be able to flood the seas with drones for less money than building billion pound sardine cans?

How much more expensive does each generation of sub get, to get quieter? Is this a linear phenomena (the improvements in quietness) - do you not think that at some point improvements in robotics means that we'll be able to flood the seas with drones for less money than building billion pound sardine cans?

A really good read on this subject is...

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There's a whole generation of subs known as [url= http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/akula-the-stealth-russian-nuclear-attack-submarine-the-us-22580 ]"The Walker class"[/url] after a Spy (US citizen) who told the Russians how easy it was for the UK/US to track their subs. The next Russian generation of Nuclear subs was 100x quieter than before and we went from recognising each Sub by name at x miles, to struggling to hear them at 500'!

These carriers will have drones as their primary weapon before their end of life.

Hence my question about the effect of a nuclear explosion. You can't operate a drone if you radio and radar don't work properly.

Boots on the ground win wars.

Hence my question about the effect of a nuclear explosion. You can't operate a drone if you radio and radar don't work properly.

autonomy & shielding.

I'll see if I can find the article but I was reading something by a submariner explaining how much of a smaller place the oceans are becoming.

depends on whose side you are on. and its not ours with the capability because:

Boots on the ground win wars.

has been prevalent since 9/11

You can't operate a drone if you radio and radar don't work properly.

I've watched enough Battlestar Galactica to be worried about the degree of networked military systems in modern western forces. I guess quantum encryption would in theory solve hacking issues, but every technology usually has an exploitable weakness somewhere along the chain.

mt - Member
Boots on the ground win wars

Putting the boots on the ground without having air superiority is a brave tactic

Autonomous drones? I've seen [i]War Games[/i], [i]Battlestar Galactica[/i] and [i]Terminator[/i].

200 litres an hour

Not many countries in the world have aircraft carriers and parking one a few hundred miles off the coast of a potentially hostile nation, bringing as much or more air power than most nations have full stop, sends a powerful signal and usually prevents any spat becoming hot.

In a sweeping 2013 paper on the carrier’s future, Navy Capt. Henry Hendrix estimated China could produce 1,227 DF-21D ballistic anti-ship missiles for the cost of a single U.S. carrier.
Although one missile might not sink a carrier, a single missile might cause sufficient damage to take it out of commission.
Further, the radar signature of a 100,000-ton ship is very large and the sensors used on the carrier’s current defense systems only increase that signature.
In such an attack, the fleet must be able to defend against a large number of incoming weapons approaching on evasive trajectories at greater than twice the speed of sound, while the attacker needs to only score a few hits. These new anti-ship missiles “put U.S. forces on the wrong side of physics,” the U.S. Naval War College’s Andrew Erickson warned.
Emerging anti-ship technology also places the aircraft carrier on the wrong side of basic arithmetic.
In its capacity as a force projection platform, the carrier operates by launching various types of attack and tactical fighter aircraft from its decks. The unrefueled radius of the Navy’s current F/A-18E Super Hornet falls within 390–450 nautical miles. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will have an unrefueled combat radius of 730 nautical miles.
The Department of Defense, however, estimates that the range of the DF-21D anti-ship missile to be 1,500–1,750 nautical miles and some speculate the range to be greater.

Taking a step back for a minute, I note that there have been comments about the new carriers being a project to keep Gordon Brown's constituents in work. It's worth remembering that from the very beginnings of the carrier project in the early 1990s, the Navy lobbied for better capability than that offered by the Illustrious class carriers in the wake of the Falklands conflict.

However, in classic British half-arsed style, we've created two white elephants.

We're rather missing the point by focussing on the F-35, because the QE like the current crop of Russian, Indian and Chinese carriers lacks the ability to launch dedicated AWACS platform aircraft, like the Grumman Hawkeye for example.

The Hawkeye can track targets over the horizon, allowing carrier crews more time to respond to potential threats. Post Falklands, the Royal Navy adapted Sea King helicopters to carry an obsolete radar in an inflatable bag in order to fulfil this requirement. This platform cannot reach the same altitude and speed of a Hawkeye, nor can it match the Hawkeye's endurance.

In order to launch an recover a Hawkeye type aircraft, the QE would require catapults and arrestor wires. In order to save approximately £20m from a £5bn project, cats and traps were dropped from the design.

The SDR review of 2010 reintroduced the cats and traps, at the expense of one of our new carriers. However, lobbying from BAe hiked the cost of fitting EMALS cats, because BAe were rightly concerned that the MoD would use the opportunity to procure F-18E or Rafale jets instead of the F-35C mooted in the SDR.

The F-35B is a compromised design, it lacks the payload capacity of the F-18E or Rafale, it also lacks the agility. It's also considerably more expensive. The F-35C also lacks agility and payload compared with the F-18E/Rafale, but it does without the complex STOVL fan.

As has already been mentioned, had we gone down the cat and trap route for the QE, we could interoperate with French and US Navy aircraft, a sensible choice in the light of the agreement we have with France to share our carriers should the need arise.

Hang on - not being able to have airborne early warning was pretty much the single biggest weakness of the whole Falklands conflict - HOW THE HELL DID WE NOT PUT THAT AT THE TOP OF THE REQUIREMENTS????

Rachel

The decision to make QEC 'all electric' was taken in 2002, there was a study into electromagnetic launch but rejected because of technical risk / costs. The notion that you could retro-fit steam catapults to a half-built ship in 2010 was pure fantasy. The technical problems will get fixed, whether there will be any operational air defence destroyers available is another question.

How difficult can it really be to fit a treadmill on the deck?

obbying from BAe hiked the cost of fitting EMALS cats, because BAe were rightly concerned that the MoD would use the opportunity to procure F-18E or Rafale jets instead of the F-35C

That is very interesting.

The F-35B is a compromised design, it lacks the payload capacity of the F-18E or Rafale, it also lacks the agility. It's also considerably more expensive. The F-35C also lacks agility and payload compared with the F-18E/Rafale, but it does without the complex STOVL fan.

You missed the part where you mention that F-18 and Rafale are ancient tech compared to the F-35.

The treadmill they can do, it's just the big fan to create the lift when the wheels are up to speed that's problematic

franksinatra - Member

obbying from BAe hiked the cost of fitting EMALS cats, because BAe were rightly concerned that the MoD would use the opportunity to procure F-18E or Rafale jets instead of the F-35C

That is very interesting.

I believe it's also incorrect. BAE had massive cancellation clauses that meant cancelling the second carrier would be almost as expensive as building it. Hence there was a lot of chat (which has died down now) about the second ship being mothballed from new

thestabiliser - Member

The treadmill they can do, it's just the big fan to create the lift when the wheels are up to speed that's problematic

If they just made the ship really fast they wouldn't have needed a ramp, catapults or a treadmill!

- do you not think that at some point improvements in robotics means that we'll be able to flood the seas with drones for less money than building billion pound sardine cans?

Nope not anytime soon, just the amount of power they would need to travel in the sea any significant distance is problematic. Plus you could probably stop them with something as simple a net.

You missed the part where you mention that F-18 and Rafale are ancient tech compared to the F-35.

Yes, the Rafale/F-18E are fourth gen fighters, the F-35 is fifth generation. But such comparisons are meaningless when you consider that the mooted F-35B carries less ordnance, with reduced range, with significantly compromised AWACS cover and is less agile. Much of the technology of the F-35 is immature and requires a great deal of investment before it's fully capable. In the current economic climate, it's unlikely that funds will be found to fix the longstanding issues of the F-35, so buying a legacy platform off the shelf would've been more sensible.

The best case scenario would have been a mix of F-35C and F-18E/G type aircraft with a dedicated AWACS platform. However, it's likely that the normal compliment of jets on the QE will be as few as fourteen F-35Bs.

Hang on - not being able to have airborne early warning was pretty much the single biggest weakness of the whole Falklands conflict - HOW THE HELL DID WE NOT PUT THAT AT THE TOP OF THE REQUIREMENTS????

It was, but before the project morphed into it's current form. I understand that the AWACS requirement will be filled by Merlin helicopters, which will be an improvement on the ancient Sea Kings, but not anywhere near as effectively as a Hawkeye would be.

PJM1974 - Member
Yes, the Rafale/F-18E are fourth gen fighters, the F-35 is fifth generation. But such comparisons are meaningless when you consider that the mooted F-35B carries less ordnance, with reduced range, with significantly compromised AWACS cover and is less agile. Much of the technology of the F-35 is immature and requires a great deal of investment before it's fully capable. In the current economic climate, it's unlikely that funds will be found to fix the longstanding issues of the F-35, so buying a legacy platform off the shelf would've been more sensible.

The comparisons are meaningless in the same way your agility one is - it's not designed to be as agile. The tech is still maturing, so shortly it'll be light years ahead of your 4th gen fighters. Economics will also say that you'll be wanting to swap out the (1970s) Hornet design long before the F-35

You cannot trade hulls jammed up against predictable landward targeting localization, for over the beach support.

That's what I was going to say.

I take the point that a stealthy aircraft carrying a range of sensors need not be agile. However, the F-35 has development problems with the latter, which we may not be able to fund fixes for. As for the former, the stealth technology is not completely guaranteed to prevent detection, together with the development of new radar technologies, we may find ourselves in an arms race which we cannot easily - or cheaply - win.

The whole reason why we the QE exists in it's current form is the tradeoff between cost vs performance vs politics (by that I mean the compromises reached with various project partners). I do not believe that the QE and F-35B represents the best compromise.

Also, the F-18G is a dedicated electronics warfare platform. Australia's Super Hornets can be used in this role or as a multi-role fighter/attack platform. Moreover, Boeing has developed conformal tanks and internal weapons stations which can be retrofitted to the Super Hornet in a manner similar to that seen on the F-15E Strike Eagle, but with improved stealth performance and a reduced cost compared with the F-35B/C.

Please forgive the ever so slightly jingoistic source, but it's analysed here:

[url= http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi8ruCBiJbYAhXLJsAKHWlqCloQFgguMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnationalinterest.org%2Fblog%2Fthe-buzz%2Famericas-lethal-f-35-vs-f-18-super-hornet-who-wins-15670&usg=AOvVaw2tD1lWXbGw-ZDS3zXmB7oB ]National Interest[/url]

Hang on - not being able to have airborne early warning was pretty much the single biggest weakness of the whole Falklands conflict - HOW THE HELL DID WE NOT PUT THAT AT THE TOP OF THE REQUIREMENTS????

Rachel

I imagine it's in a drone programme, the activities under taken lend themselves to this as your loiter isn't limited by the crew and you can put up more cheaper drones

I'd be more worried whether we could actually put one carrier battlegroup to sea never mind two. The logistics support is high and expensive.

It's all mute if Corbyn gets in, the expeditionary capability such as it is will be gone in less than a single term and benchmarked against Germany's to provide a fig leaf

What is the actual fighting lifespan of these vessels? Type 40 combat life is about 140 seconds I think I've seen recently...?
[url= https://medium.com/war-is-boring/all-the-things-the-british-military-cant-do-anymore-9560939f3d5 ]All the things the British can't do any more[/url]

F-35 is a white elephant. Limited ordinance, woefully behind schedule, still loads of defects to fix and against tailban etc massively OTT (better off with a Sky raider or A-10). Stealth is already compromised (AWAC's can see F-22,s well enough to vector jets against them). The Russians and Chinese won't be far behind and the S-400 anti air system is said to be able to see stealth aircraft.

Carriers are dead ducks without decent missile defence platforms around them which we don't have and the Russians are deploying a hypersonic missile (I believe our best interceptor struggles to hit Mach 3 targets) and I bet they can't wait to flog the export version to our enemies. Far cheaper to convert supertankers to "expendable" flat tops flying drones etc.

Exactly this ^ (both posts)

Our procurement systems are broken, to be fair the same is to some extent true in the US but we've cut back so much funding that we're not even in the position to arm our destroyers with missiles anymore.

A combination of design flaws, cost cutting in production and poor planning has resulted in the current mess. While it might not be too much of a problem if we integrated our armed forces to work in concert with our regional partners, we seem to be doing everything that we can to piss them off.

As I understand it...

[b]Q:[/b] I am a country and I want to have an aircraft carrier ready all of the time. How many carriers do I need to achieve this?

[b]A (traditional carrier):[/b] You need 3 carriers. At any given time one will be ready, one will be at dock being reparied and/or refitted and one will either be at dock or preparing crew and pilots for the very difficult jobs of handling catapult take-offs and arrestor landings.

[b]A (STOVL carrier):[/b] You need 2 carriers. At any given time one will be ready and the other will be at dock being repaired and/or refitted. It only takes a week or two to train a pilot already familiar with land-based STOVL operations to convert to flying STOVL aircraft from a carrier.

Again, as I understand it, this is why we had 3 Illustrious carriers (yes they had STOVL aircraft but at the time we didn't know that training pilots for STOVL carrier operations was relatively easy) but we're only getting 2 QE carriers. Fitting catapults and shifting from STOVL aircraft would result in a loss of readiness that I expect would be pretty embarrassing for the MoD and the government.

On the subject of AEW I'm surprised that nobody's tried to plug the V-22 Osprey as a potential STOVL AEW platform. Given that most non-US carriers don't use catapults I'd have thought someone would consider it.

big_n_daft - Member
It's all mute if Corbyn gets in, the expeditionary capability such as it is will be gone in less than a single term and benchmarked against Germany's to provide a fig leaf

I for one would welcome a full public debate on this, to be honest. The UK wants to think it's a military big hitter but routinely tries to be so on the cheap. Instead of waving Union Jacks and banging on about Trafalgar, Waterloo, the Battle of Britain and D-Day we should face up to the choice of either funding our armed forces as necessary to maintain an effective expeditionary capacity or accept we don't want to spend that sort of money, scale back the military and deal with whatever reduced international influence that causes.

I for one would welcome a full public debate on this, to be honest. The UK wants to think it's a military big hitter but routinely tries to be so on the cheap. Instead of waving Union Jacks and banging on about Trafalgar, Waterloo, the Battle of Britain and D-Day we should face up to the choice of either funding our armed forces as necessary to maintain an effective expeditionary capacity or accept we don't want to spend that sort of money, scale back the military and deal with whatever reduced international influence that causes.

Agreed.

We cannot possibly fund new carriers, 138 F-35 jets, maritime patrol aircraft, new frigates, new destroyers, new (or heavily upgraded) main battle tanks, new rifles, new attack subs, improved communication infrastructures and of course a like for like replacement of Trident and the Vanguard subs.

We can either compromise our entire military (remember, the entire personnel strength of the army, air force and navy combined has fallen to around 80,000), or we have to make stark choices as to what we keep and what we lose.

Our nuclear deterrent is basically there to ensure that we're a player on the world stage, but we seem to have an incoherent foreign policy, to the point that we're quickly becoming irrelevant.

new attack subs

If only we had some nice SSKs......... oh 🙁

Did the new carriers get anti-missile systems in the end?

(remember, the entire personnel strength of the army, air force and navy combined has fallen to around 80,000),

It's fallen, it's not quite that bad - the regular army is supposed to be 80,000 + approx 30,000 reserves. The RAF is around 33,000 and the RN a little less, plus reserves for both. Tiny compared to what they were when the Cold War ended.

retro83 - Member
Did the new carriers get anti-missile systems in the end?

I don't know, but they're always expected to be escorted by a Type 45 destroyer and that's pretty much its entire reason for existing.

On the F35, the reality is that it is the most modern and capable fighter bomber flying, so why would we want a different aircraft? It is next level and next generation stuff. People love to say it's not as good a dog fighter as some current stuff....but it's not a dogfighter, though will stand it's own ground against any other fighter out there - the F18 is not as good a dog fighter as an F15/F16/Eurofighter/F22 and the F35 is another level above the F18. The strength in the aircraft is it's systems and it's electronic warfare capability.

A friend of mine is flying these. He believes he'll be part of the last generation of fixed wing combat pilots; everything will be drone / AI from here on in.

Reality is what is this kit designed for? I'd say it's primarily for self defence, along with a limited offensive capability. Even with all this apparently dreadful kit, we'd still outgun most countries if required and we'll will never take on the Russians or Chinese in a direct war, so what they do or don't have is moot point.

Okay I do find some decisions slightly baffling like the whole maritime patrol plane fiasco, but there must have been some reasons no matter how flawed.

but there must have been some reasons no matter how flawed.

Hmm, after Brexit = we must leave the Common market, I don't think the case for reason can be made when government decisions are being examined.

He believes he'll be part of the last generation of fixed wing combat pilots; everything will be drone / AI from here on in.

Someone already mentioned the Gordon Brown influence, but there is a legitimate argument to fund these projects, even if the end result is suboptimal - it keeps the relevant technical and engineering skillsets within the UK.

Accepting that government procurement needs to improve, I still think its worth shelling out to keep developing our technology as a sort of insurance contract. It generates the opportunity to sell your skills and technology, and it also means you are less likely to be left up ****creek in 50 years time when everyone else has developed nano-drones and you've regressed to Bren guns.

Someone already mentioned the Gordon Brown influence, but there is a legitimate argument to fund these projects, even if the end result is suboptimal - it keeps the relevant technical and engineering skillsets within the UK.

Accepting that government procurement needs to improve, I still think its worth shelling out to keep developing our technology as a sort of insurance contract. It generates the opportunity to sell your skills and technology, and it also means you are less likely to be left up ****creek in 50 years time when everyone else has developed nano-drones and you've regressed to Bren guns.

Current doctrine is all over the place, you can't win an asymmetric war with big capital assets as that investment naturally draws the numbers down which means space can not be held. No matter how good your top trump air assets are you still need boots on the ground to hold it. The threat is not a mono doctrine of Russian motor rifle regiments storming through Europe any more.
That threat still exists but so do so many other ways of war fighting, but the key issue is the political will to fight, that's what will get tested the most as it's the soft underbelly of the NATO democracies. The political class shun the military for their children and their credibility to send troops into danger declines with each botched conflict.

For examples of those who will fight look at what Finland and the Baltic states are doing to prepare themselves. Really can't see our millennials going for that.

Really can't see our millennials going for that.

Well, in the danger of further thread drift it depends if they feel they have a choice or not. For those on Putins doorstep they might feel that the risk is valid, for those that feel sheilded by geography, NATO or just have no awareness that not all countries see things the same way, they won't.

For all the talk of millenials, the youngsters who served in Iraq and Afgan handled themselves well - which is more than can be said for the poltical class that has (mostly) never worn uniform which sent them there.

I suspect that we are pretty much already pouring treasure into fighting the Russians, just not in this realm. I would be even less surpised if a few negative comments on this thread came from a MTB'er who's usual trails are close to St Petersberg 😀

He believes he'll be part of the last generation of fixed wing combat pilots; everything will be drone / AI from here on in.

I'm sure it's an aspiration of some, but I'm not sure that it will be reality. Read Apache over Libya; rules of engagement meant that for good ground attack operations, they often still needed a person in the seat rather than a guy watching a tv screen back at home. However, fast jets aren't very good in that role, you need something slower like an A-10, Harrier, Apache etc.

Also the USAF are still flying U2's in Asia over drones, due to so pluses of having a pilot being able to make on the fly decisions, particularly when it comes to avoiding storms etc.

So yes drones will take over in a lot of areas, but I can't see planes with pilots disappearing for a good while yet. They are complementary rather than replacements.

Some great points expressed so far.

Warfare is constantly evolving, with the capital expense involved in putting an aircraft carrier at sea, plus the costs of procuring £100m apiece jets, it's no great surprise that potential adversaries are finding other ways to engage in conflict.

A Trident sub is of no use when we're engaged in an armed insurrection with low-tech, highly mobile and dispersed adversaries. In fact, spending billions on a nuclear deterrent ensures that there's less money to effectively fight a guerrilla war effectively.

An aircraft carrier is good for projecting power, but if you cannot supply the carriers with fuel, food and consumables and provide an effective screen against attack when it's in the South Atlantic for example, then it's worse than useless.

Likewise, a fleet of 138 F-35 jets aren't much good at preventing a canny state from subverting your political discourse via social media.

The trouble is that the three examples I've given have extended lead times for development and design. Our carriers were conceived in the wake of the Falklands, the F-35 was conceived in 1996 and our Trident subs appeared in 1992/3 having been in development for fifteen years.

Point of order - I believe that the Vanguard class subs are capable of launching cruise missiles through their torpedo tubes so technically could be of some use outside of nuclear warfare. 🙂

Point of order - I believe that the Vanguard class subs are capable of launching cruise missiles through their torpedo tubes so technically could be of some use outside of nuclear warfare.

I would be amazed if the Defnce Chiefs allowed the bombers to be used for any strike role other than what they were intended for. For one thing nothing shouts "cooeee, I'm over here" than launching a bunch of TLAM's.

If that kind of thinking breaks out in Whitehall we might as well not bother going through the expense of building the new Dreadnought class and just build another 7 Astute class subs - which day-to-day are far more useful.

Personally, I think the MOD should remove the nuclear bomber subs and their weaponry from the defence budget and fund them differently. They are political pieces - the kings on the chess board. If you actually have to use them, you have probably already lost.