Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carrier sets sail tonight

The real issue is staffing, the Navy barely does anything anyway bar Trident and a few Nuclear subs.

There is precious little carrier experience like in the 50s, it's not really an issue if you have zero carriers though.

I remember reading a while ago that there are more Admirals in the british navy than ships..........................sad state of affairs if true.
 
Lets hope we don't have a cladding moment in relation to our defensive needs - same kind of attitudes really at play - complacency at the potential for anything other than the prevailing relatively benign conditions.

I believe we already have. I read a while ago that we no longer have any anti-ship missiles, the current stock will expire in 2018 and are not being renewed and our only ship to ship missiles are helicopter carried which are not due in service till 2020 or something.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/royal-navy-warships-lose-anti-ship-missiles/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...nti-ship-missiles-and-be-left-only-with-guns/

This is last year, so I don't know what the current situation if it's been updated.
 
The reality is our Navy with/when these carries at sea will stand comparisons with most navy's in the world, better than the vast majority in capability and probably 2nd only to the US in our ability to put leading edge tech off the coast of likely enemies. All military spending is compromise, even today in the US who have been chopping down their fleet too to save costs. The US stands alone, we simply can't compare with them. We need more subs, we need more Destroyers and Frigates but that is the same for virtually all navies. It's one hell of an expensive game but the point about sailors and skills is probably the biggest concern right now.
 
The reality is our Navy with/when these carries at sea will stand comparisons with most navy's in the world, better than the vast majority in capability and probably 2nd only to the US in our ability to put leading edge tech off the coast of likely enemies. All military spending is compromise, even today in the US who have been chopping down their fleet too to save costs. The US stands alone, we simply can't compare with them. We need more subs, we need more Destroyers and Frigates but that is the same for virtually all navies. It's one hell of an expensive game but the point about sailors and skills is probably the biggest concern right now.

There is always a need for "more" but there is also a position of adequate - the US largely doesn't have gaps in overlap with critical capabilities or replacements, etc.
 
Some photos of it passing under the forth bridges last night taken from my phone so apologies for the quality

Edit- having some issues with the images for some reason, was allowing my to post imgur stuff earlier, but not now...
 
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I'd lol if it sank for whatever reason. I wonder what it's escort is?

A carrier never sails alone. There will be at least a sub and a destroyer with it as soon as it leaves UK waters. They usually have quite a large exclusion zone around them as well, so nothing un-authorised will get anywhere near it.
 
No, but I believe the second carrier (Prince of Wales) will probably get mothballed, or sold.
Hopefully it will be upgraded to STOBAR/CATOBAR like the Queen Elizabeth should have been, that way we can have one decent carrier at least.


I remember reading a while ago that there are more Admirals in the british navy than ships..........................sad state of affairs if true.
Well, it's prob better than in WW2 when the biggest requirement for being put in charge of a battleship was how clean the ship you were previously executive officer of was ^^ (no that's not a joke).
 
Wouldn't it just be better to pack a ship full of missiles? I'm sure there's a missile for every type of target, air, ship, land etc? And you can even use missiles to defend yourself against incoming missiles, isn't that essentially what jets carry anyway?

Well if there was a sandbox/sim type game where you could design your own ship that's what I'd do :p.
 
Wouldn't it just be better to pack a ship full of missiles? I'm sure there's a missile for every type of target, air, ship, land etc? And you can even use missiles to defend yourself against incoming missiles, isn't that essentially what jets carry anyway?

Well if there was a sandbox/sim type game where you could design your own ship that's what I'd do :p.

That's basically a Type-45 Destroyer, but they don't make aircraft redundant
 
Everyone laughs at the French for having a single aircraft carrier that often seems incapable of leaving port let alone projecting power round the world, surely we are the modern naval leper as we prepare to deploy the two largest helicopter carriers in history? The carrier situation sums up our military policy in a nutshell ie it's a mess!
 
If we had aircraft but no carrier then that would be a problem.

We have a carrier and no aircraft, that is a problem.

Trying to deliver two projects of this scale which in the case of the F35 will have been thought of some 20 years ago is asking the impossible.

The carrier has years of sea trials yet and we will have overlap in capability by allowing the USA to fly aircraft off them.
 
I remember reading a while ago that there are more Admirals in the british navy than ships..........................sad state of affairs if true.
Was certainly true in 2008 although it does depend on what you class as ships etc the numbers are easily fudged for a headline like the spate of articles saying we only have 19 warships which is true if you only count frigates, destroyers and carriers.

More frightening is the number of Captains in the navy especially when you consider on most of the ships the most senior officer is actually a commander! The armed forces desperately needs route and branch reform modernisation and streamlining but the old boys network won't let it happen.
 
If we had aircraft but no carrier then that would be a problem.

We have a carrier and no aircraft, that is a problem.

Trying to deliver two projects of this scale which in the case of the F35 will have been thought of some 20 years ago is asking the impossible.

The carrier has years of sea trials yet and we will have overlap in capability by allowing the USA to fly aircraft off them.

The f35 project has been a total disaster no amount of dressing it up can hide that and unfortunately poor decisions on the project had a knock on effect with the carriers.
 
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