Ark Royal's final day

VoG said:
tbh because i'm old enough to remember the previous Ark ( even if only thru the excellant documentary series "sailor" on the beeb ) ive allways looked at our current invincible class aircraft carriers & cringed, rightly or wrongly, they've allways struck me as second best, i'm probably one of the few people not sorry to see the current Ark go.
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I have to agree with you there. The current Ark Royal is not in the same class as the one before. In fact when they were launched were'nt they called "Through Deck Cruisers" and not carriers? I remember when i was a kid and my old man used to take me to Plymouth Navy days i used to get really excited when we went on the Ark Royal, Bulwark and Hermes due to the sheer size of them. The Ark Royal used to have her Phantoms, Gannets and helos all lined up and it used to be so impressive. Those days are gone. I don't even think that the new ones will be that impressive. No angled flight decks if i remember the pictures correctly.

What's happening to her anyway? Is she being cut up or sold to India, Brazil or some other country?
 
pastymuncher said:
I have to agree with you there. The current Ark Royal is not in the same class as the one before. In fact when they were launched were'nt they called "Through Deck Cruisers" and not carriers? I remember when i was a kid and my old man used to take me to Plymouth Navy days i used to get really excited when we went on the Ark Royal, Bulwark and Hermes due to the sheer size of them. The Ark Royal used to have her Phantoms, Gannets and helos all lined up and it used to be so impressive. Those days are gone. I don't even think that the new ones will be that impressive. No angled flight decks if i remember the pictures correctly.

What's happening to her anyway? Is she being cut up or sold to India, Brazil or some other country?
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Think she was being sold to Bahrain or somewhere to be a floating hotel, or was that the invincible?
 
Invincible is being scrapped in Turkey iirc.

There is supposed to be the possibility that Ark might be used as a floating heli pad in the thames next to London City Airport.

Illustrious will stay in service until 2014 as a helicopter carrier.
 
Argentinas air force is 10x more shambolic than it was during the Falklands War, I wouldn't worry about them too much.

It's a shame they're going, but I also think their are more pressing needs to be financed at the moment.
 
Weve got a mini model of the new carrier at work and ill tell yuo this its going to be a hell of a ship!

I imagine that only one of the two new carriers will actually make it to service though, and i agree i would like to to be QE class but named ark royal!
 
Didnt the US say our lack of a super carrier was making joint fleets an issue as they basically would always have to supply the carrier.

AFAIK even though our carriers will be about 70% the size of their next gen super carriers they are considered large enough and hence you could see a UK carrier with virtually all the other ships being non UK.

As far as the falklands is concerned I am sure you would see joint strike forces rather than just the UK now unless we completely blanked all others.

I think its mush less likely to ever happen again anyway, the worlds a diff place now and Im not sure the argies are the threat they once were.

If the argies did take the falklands we should just nuke it then send them a message "go back in 200+ years when its safe" ;)
 
robskinner said:
Didnt the US say our lack of a super carrier was making joint fleets an issue as they basically would always have to supply the carrier.

AFAIK even though our carriers will be about 70% the size of their next gen super carriers they are considered large enough and hence you could see a UK carrier with virtually all the other ships being non UK.

As far as the falklands is concerned I am sure you would see joint strike forces rather than just the UK now unless we completely blanked all others.

I think its mush less likely to ever happen again anyway, the worlds a diff place now and Im not sure the argies are the threat they once were.

If the argies did take the falklands we should just nuke it then send them a message "go back in 200+ years when its safe" ;)
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I would have thought the Typhoon's that are now stationed at the falklands should hopefully mean they're safe.
 
Utterly crap carriers, not sad to see the Ark Royal go.

Can't see how the lack of carriers for the next 8-9 years is going to 'cost lives' either. Sticking our noses into other people's business and 'projecting power' is what costs lives.
 
Murf said:
Utterly crap carriers, not sad to see the Ark Royal go.

Can't see how the lack of carriers for the next 8-9 years is going to 'cost lives' either. Sticking our noses into other people's business and 'projecting power' is what costs lives.
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Have to say i agree with this.

The carriers haven't been used to defend britain since the falklands, they've been used to follow the Americans all round the globe fighting other people's wars.

And even then, the falklands war was of dubious interest to the british people as many argued it was more a Thatcher publicity stunt.
 
Murf said:
Utterly crap carriers, not sad to see the Ark Royal go.
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MrLOL said:
Have to say i agree with this.

The carriers haven't been used to defend britain since the falklands, they've been used to follow the Americans all round the globe fighting other people's wars.

And even then, the falklands war was of dubious interest to the british people as many argued it was more a Thatcher publicity stunt.
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Sorry to drag this thread back up.

But why are they crap? Just because they have not seen all that much action defending Britain, does not make them crap.

Does this also mean that the Daring class destroyers, and eventually the new carriers will also be crap if they do not see action defending Britain?

They are, or were, perfectly good carriers.
 
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EdGey said:
Sorry to drag this thread back up.

But why are they crap? Just because they have not seen all that much action defending Britain, does not make them crap.

Does this also mean that the Daring class destroyers, and eventually the new carriers will also be crap if they do not see action defending Britain?

They are, or were, perfectly good carriers.
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agreed they were epicly good... sad to see her go but we get new ones that are pure win (if we ever get the aircraft to go with them)
 
We don't need any military power at all.
We are a peaceful multi-cultural society.
Every scrounging git in the world wants to live with us at our expense, so how can we have enemies ?
We've still got fishery protection vessels anyway (i think).
 
Strife212 said:
Everyone slating the carriers as crap realises that we are one of very few (3)? countries that even has carriers?
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Are you sure its 3?? Because I can think of more than that off the top of my head (US, UK, France, Russia, Spain) and there are probably more countries that I cant think of.

Does make you wonder how so many countries cope if there are only 3 with aircraft carriers, as the other countries seem to do ok without them maybe they arent as needed as we might think.
 
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