MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
For a nation that once 'ruled the waves' - this is a bit of an eye opener
http://gcaptain.com/worlds-aircraft-carriers-visualized/
That diagram is out of date, the UK should only have Ocean on there
Its not the size of your fleet its what you can do with it 😉
If you imagine those plan views as elevations - then they look like big cool tanks, or that thing out of Star Wars that the Jawas (?) drive round the desert in, or something. China's one looks coolest but maybe Brazil's.
China's is an ex-Russian one. Which you'd think the Russians might want to keep, but hey ho.
That's not a visualisation.
That diagram is out of date, the UK should only have Ocean on there
The other one is HMS Illustrious which we still have till 2014.
China's is an ex-Russian one. Which you'd think the Russians might want to keep, but hey ho.
Unfinished Soviet carrier then Ukrainian. Not Russian.
Just wait until our new ones are finished though...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercarrier
For a nation that once 'ruled the waves' - this is a bit of an eye opener
We are talking about Spain right?
Not quite correct. The UK's two 'carriers' shown are Illustrious and Ocean. Both are active but neither are 'proper' aircraft carriers in that sense, both operate in the landing Platform Helicopter (LPH) role. Even if we did have true aircraft carrier(s) we don't have any fixed-wing aircraft capable of operating from them anyway.
[img] 
[/img]
This one is better than all of them 😉
Wasn't that much of an eye opener, pretty sure the UK carrier fleet (or lack of) has made it to the news once or twice.
No prizes for guessing the superpower with a need for power projection.
Maybe it's like sports cars with long bonnets, trying to compensate for something
What film was that flying aircraft carrier from? I know I've seen it, but can't for the life of me remember what it was.
The Avengers Assembly or whatever iirc
Looks like Russia just traced over the outline of the US one, then got the scale wrong.
Pah
[img] 
[/img]
captainscrumpy - MemberThe other one is HMS Illustrious which we still have till 2014.
My bad, had it in my head the Lusty was on "Extended Readiness"
Presumably aircraft carriers, and indeed most ships, aren't much use these days unless you just want to park them offshore of a third world country while you bomb it?
Toxicsoks' Senior's wartime ride -
[img] 
[/img]
If the scale is not done in London Buses or Football Pitches I do not recognise the statistics as truthful.
I've got a load of HMS Battler photographs I'm recolouring from B&W. It's a total album conversion.
I'll post some up later.
QEC is coming on well, the thing to remember is that there is loads of stuff being fitted inside the blocks before its all joined up. So although it looks like its just a big block, its a lot more advanced in build than the pictures suggest. The first eight members of the Ship's company joined earlier this month too.
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Latest-News/2012/October/02/121003-Queen-Elizabeth-Crew
HMS Albion is in extended readiness with Bulwark and Ocean carrying bootnecks around the world... I think Rusty Lusty is alongside having some flight deck refurb work.
Is illustrious the one they had near Greenwhich during the Olympics with the Lynxs flying from and landing crafts on the side?
edit: nope, just googled it. It was Ocean.
[quote=BristolPablo ]QEC is coming on well, the thing to remember is that there is loads of stuff being fitted inside the blocks before its all joined up. So although it looks like its just a big block, its a lot more advanced in build than the pictures suggest. The first eight members of the Ship's company joined earlier this month too.
Due to be handed over to the Ministry of Defence in [b]2016[/b],
After the referendum it'll make a fine flagship for the Scottish Navy.
Isn't Ocean an assault ship rather than an aircraft carrier?
I reckon a saltire paintjob on the hull and a lion rampant on the deck would look great.
Isn't Ocean an assault ship rather than an aircraft carrier?
No, Bulwark and Albion are the Assault Ships, aka LPDs (Landing Platform Dock)
Not quite, Ocean is an Amphibious Assault Ship. She's not an LPD (like Albion and Bulwark) but not technically a "carrier" as indicated by the "L" prefix instead of "R".
Depends on how you want to look at it though, as a lot of the US 'carriers' in the OP are Wasp class amphibious assault ships too
We could always ask the Indians if we can buy Hermes back off them...
Anyway. My Uncle Pete was a Chief Petty Officer on the Bulwark (RO8) in the 1960's. Went on to be Fleet Chief Petty Officer (AKA God)
So there.
druidh, pfft
[img] 
[/img]
Got told by my local STD clinic that I had been tested positive for Hermes.
I replied, dont you mean Herpes and they said, no, your the carrier....
IGMC
[img] http://www.keithmcneill.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cloudbase11b.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.keithmcneill.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cloudbase11b.jp g"/> [/img]
Most importantly - what if this had a conveyor belt on it's deck?
Edit - the Spectrum cloudbase -I can see the {img} tags... ho hum
Presumably aircraft carriers, and indeed most ships, aren't much use these days unless you just want to park them offshore of a third world country while you bomb it?
If you're happy to leave 90% of the objects that make your life work at risk from piracy, then you're right. The importance of protecting sea lanes is saddly still relevent but largely forgotten by the end user.
If you're happy to leave 90% of the objects that make your life work at risk from piracy, then you're right. The importance of protecting sea lanes is saddly still relevent but largely forgotten by the end user.
I thought piracy was mostly handled by 'freelancers' with machine guns, not navies with ****en great aircraft carriers.
not navies with ****en great aircraft carriers.
Well, we've not had ****en great aircraft carriers since ever, so I guess we must have used smaller ones for the purpose
thought piracy was mostly handled by 'freelancers' with machine guns, not navies with ****en great aircraft carriers.
A specific one-off attack on a specific ship can be handled by rent-a-gun but to have any meaningful long term effect action needs to be taken against the pirate camps through cooperation with the host Government or engagement in the littoral environment, hence a sustainable presence offshore (obviously improving the financial situation of those tempted to engage in piracy would be an ideal solution but not in the short term).
The only countries whose cargo ships have not been routinely targeted are the Indians and Chinese in the main, as their navies form them up into convoys and escort them through choke points (they also don't take the slightest amount of s##t from any pirates).
The Sea of Aden and surrounding areas is a big place and North African pirates are now active as far as 500 nm from the shore. Needless to say there is a fairly heavy military presence including UK, US and Russian navies.
stewartc -
Member
Got told by my local STD clinic that I had been tested positive for Hermes.
I replied, dont you mean Herpes and they said, no, your the carrier....
😀
Is it bad that I found that genuinely funny?
Apparently to have one aircraft carrier you need three.
One on station, one in refit, and one on the way from one to the other. So those nations with less than three don't really have any!
(I read that on the internet.)
If that's the case then only the States have an air-craft carrier
Its also one thing to have a very large ship capable of hosting aircraft and another to have the experience, knowledge and actual aviation assets to make use of it.
So even though Russia and China have joined the carrier club it will be a few years until these assets can really became an effective tool though the way things are going out here I can see China sailing it around a few contested areas very soon.
But then again its only the State who wanna throw their weight around
So even though Russia and China have joined the carrier club it will be a few years until these assets can really became an effective tool though the way things are going out here I can see China sailing it around a few contested areas very soon.
Russia have been "members of the carrier club" for years, it was launched in the mid 80s but wasnt operational for a further 10 years accoridng to wikipedia. needless to say due to Russian build quality in the 80s and a lack of money for upkeep, its now very tired.... it was around Scotland late last year sheltering from storms in the North Sea
Got told by my local STD clinic that I had been tested positive for Hermes.I replied, dont you mean Herpes and they said, no, your the carrier....
Sounds like a load of old Bulwarks to me
😆
I was staying on the sea front in Palma [Majorca] last summer when the USS Enterprise tied up, we later flew over it on our way back home
**** me! that is some size
Enterprise has eight reactors onboard - TJ would've had a fit if he'd seen her 😉
Apparently to have one aircraft carrier you need three.One on station, one in refit, and one on the way from one to the other. So those nations with less than three don't really have any!
(I read that on the internet.)
What I read in a magazine was that conventional wisdom is that you need 3 because one will be in refit, one can be deployed and one will be needed to train pilots in the tricky job of landing on something considerably smaller and more crowded than a traditional runway.
The UK however discovered that training pilots to operate STOVL aircraft from carriers is far easier than training them to operate traditional CTOL aircraft from them. So that was the original thinking behind why we had 3 Invincible class carriers but will only have 2 Queen Elizabeth class carriers. But then we switched from the F-35B (STOVL) to the F-35C (CTOL), and back again, and lost one of the carriers on the way - or will we be getting it again? So I'm not sure what the thinking is now, except for "oops, we're broke!"