No more Royal Navy

[Jeneral2885]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/19/david-cameron-delay-trident-replacement

No more HMS Ark Royal, only one "no aircraft" Aircraft Carrier, Trident to stilll be there.....

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. It's a slightly bizarre mess

I think the Tory/Lib Dem excuse that Labour ordered 2 expensive carriers we can't afford does hold some water ( :) ), but whether this is a decent solution I'm not sure.

So what seems to be proposed is:

Ark Royal decommissioned now
2016-2019: Queen Elizabeth helicopter carrier
2019-: Prince of Wales aircraft carrier using Joint Strike Aircraft, using a catapult system, which makes them 'more compatible' with the US and French carriers

I presume the compatibility aspect is because, with only one carrier, they're worried about times when the ship is being refitted,and want to be able to send a few British aircraft off someone else's carriers 'to show willing'.

The gap of 5 years without a major carrier at all does raise the question of whether we actually need one. The whole thing smacks of "we've got contracts that are expensive to pull out of, and it'd mean losing jobs in British shipyards, so we'll carry on" - which may be a tenable position, but clashes with the 'bonfire of public spending, and never mind the job losses or risk of further recession' that the coalition is adopting elsewhere. Defence gets treated differently by the Tories, as always.

For Trident, they are claiming they can save a bit of money by delaying the final decision, and stringing out the maintenance on the existing subs. Which sounds good, to me, though I suspect that the Tories will want to replace it after the next election. I wonder if Ed Miliband will bite the bullet (heh, I'm enjoying my cliched but appropriate metaphors today) and say we'll give up Trident if Labour get back in?

On edit: both BBC and Guardian stories say the Ark Royal is being decommissioned, but don't mention Illustrious, which is still being used, and presumably will be up until 2016. So it seems we will have one carrier with aircraft (Harriers) until 2016. Or are they going to string that out until 2019 to have some fixed wing aircraft left in the fleet?

[Jeneral2885]

2. No aircraft carrier carrier

Means it is a floating target ship. I don't believe in the French/US planes can land on that ship kind of logic. The US has earmakred its future carriers and future Navy plans and the Frnech are more military saavy than the UK to begin with--French made carriers and France has its own French made Nukes. And if the Uk is going to have this no aircraft platform, what use are the no anti-ship Type 45 for?

And the article further indicates than one carrier may be scrapped after its built or sold off. Wonderful.

Argentina has a clear alleyway to re-invade thhe Falklands now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. On further reading, it seems Harriers can take off from Illustrious, but do not do so at present

They can:

With a Tailored Air Group embarked she has a full complement of over 1000 people, and can operate with a range of both rotary and fixed wing aircraft from the Harrier GR9 to troop-carrying Chinooks.

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/operations-and-support/surface-fleet/aircraft-carriers/hms-illustrious/

but they don't, and won't in the future:

The Royal Navy will lose HMS Ark Royal almost immediately and the HMS Queen Elizabeth will be used for helicopters only until it is put into "extended readiness", effectively mothballed, after around three years in service. The government is then likely to sell the carrier.

The Harrier jump jets from HMS Ark Royal will be decommissioned immediately and HMS Illustrious will be used as a helicopter carrier until 2014 when it is retired.

HMS Prince of Wales will launch in 2019, carrying conventional Joint Strike Fighters rather than the Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing variant that had initially been planned. The conventional JSF may not be available until 2020. The move to 'cat and trap' is reportedly intended to make the carrier more interoperable with the French and US navies.


http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=14469

Her sister ship, HMS Illustrious, already operates as a helicopter-only vessel.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/10/19/ark-royal-and-harriers-face-immediate-axe-91466-27500517/

Which seems to point to an admission that they don't think the Royal Navy really needs to operate fixed wing aircraft - they could have chosen to keep Ark Royal running for a few years more, but didn't. So why bother having aircraft carriers in the future?

Can you launch unmanned drones from carriers? Or from smaller ships?

[Jeneral2885]

4. Sell a new carrier?!!!

Why not outsourced the building to the potential buyer now?

Gosh, this really makes Argentina happy--they can invade. The Royal Navy by then can't mobilise.

A helicopter carrier is what the current carriers are used for; the harier has stopped sea borne operations since the Balkan war. So why not keep HMS Ark Royal? Which ship willl be the flagship now?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. No, they're using Harriers on Ark Royal now

eg http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/Harriers-arrive-on-HMS-Ark.6359626.jp

[Jeneral2885]

12. No

Harriers have hardly flown off any of the Illustrious Class ships since the Balkans Conflict.

On retiring the Harrier--will they Americans retire their AV-6B

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. So that news report is just made up, is it?

:shrug:

[Jeneral2885]

14. Most of the tim

the Harriers areusedon the ground in Afghanistan. Ever since the Balkans, the Sea Harriers were removed from service and Harriers were placed under joint RAF-RN control. Most RAF. First Afghan war--no harriers came from the carriers--carriers only used for helicopters. Gulf War 2--same thing. Since the early 2000s, the Harrier is exclusively a ground project. Only rarely has it been used on ships; mostly NATO excercises.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

9. The Falklands are well-defended

Plenty of miltary aircraft and soldiers are stationed there unlike the Spring of 1982. Mounting a carrier taskforce is not necessary for protecting the Falklands.

It's doubtful that Argentina would solve the dispute militarily now, and its prior attempt was only done so under extraordinary circumstances.

[Jeneral2885]

16. No

But should the invasion be successful, the current military manspower will not beable to mobilise a smiliar response

[Anarcho-Socialist]

20. The point is that an invasion is unlikely to be successful

As well as Argentina unlikely even to endeavour to engage Britain militarily.

[T_i_B]

6. You know what gets me about this?

An 8% defence cut gets all the attention but a 50+% cut in social housing barely a whimper. We have a big problem with lack of council housing and increasingly unafforable housing that the government is making much, much worse.

That affects people much more then a sodding aircraft carrier.

[Jeneral2885]

7. I know

there's cuts everywhere.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Very true

Their 'solution' appears to be telling councils and housing associations to charge 80% to 90% of market rates. Thus removing the main point of social housing - that it's affordable to those on low incomes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11570923

The one excuse about the news coverage of this is that it hasn't been officially announced yet - it comes out tomorrow, presumably as part of the main spending announcement.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

10. Cameron said those "with the broadest shoulders" should carry more of the burden

Given the howls and yelps of pain from higher rate payers of losing some child benefit, you'd think it would be these people.

But it isn't. It's the most vulnerable as always. Those "with the broadest shoulders" seem to be the working poor, the elderly, the disabled, the ill, the majority of working people. It is these people that are experiencing disproportionate attacks on their working conditions, their benefits, their housing, their social care.

[LeftishBrit]

11. Agreed

Could it be that council tenants rarely vote Tory anyway, so the government aren't worried about losing their votes? Or am I just really cynical?

Also there are obviously people in the government who have a true hatred and contempt for council tenants. And for poorer people in general.

Also, any political issue for which Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps are chiefly responsible is likely to be handled disastrously! Why don't they just make Lady Porter Housing Minister?!

[fedsron2us]

15. The demise of Nimrod means the UK has essentially no airborne anti submarine warfare capability

As a consequence the new Aircraft Carrier will probably get sunk by an enemy U-Boat before it gets out of the English channel (just check the World War 2 statistics of capital ship sinkings to find out how vulnerable Aircraft Carriers are to this type of attack). The United Kingdom has about 773,676km2 or 298,718sq miles of ocean and its UK coastline is around 12,429 km or 7723 miles yet is will have virtually no maritime surveillance aircraft (by comparison Germany which has a much shorter coast will have 8). It is a crazy decision which shows this government is as clueless on defence as anything else. The Strategic Defence Review may a well have been a blank sheet of paper as there is precious little strategic about it. The entire exercise has been run by the Treasury.

[Jeneral2885]

17. Well that's what you get

when amedical doctor is in charge

[oldironside]

18. An enemy U-Boat?

Is the Deutsche Marine planning something I don't know about?

[fedsron2us]

19. Apologies. I have watched Das Boot too many times