Type 45 Daring class destroyer

Ali195 said:
Plan B is still a possibility if we bail out of the JSF program.

"Planned 150 British aircraft rise from the original £9 billion estimate to £15 billion. Britain has already paid out £2.5 billion in preliminary costs but next spring (2009) must start paying for actual aircraft. At that point it is committed to the entire project whatever the price"

"Once full production begins, Britain will be paying more than £1 billion a year for the aircraft, exacerbating the already dire state of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget"

BUT.....

If we go to plan B: Navalised Typhoon, as per other comments would require improvement in landing gear, possibly a steam pully system (same as American carriers) so it can take off & land. Would be very expensive indeed. I very much dout the UK will pull out of the JSF program because of the UK/US relations, political fallout, BAE workload & sunk cost we have already invested.
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Navalised Typhoon won't happen. A sensible option would be the Rafale, but it's French, so that won't happen either :D
 
Flukester said:
2 type 45 is plenty for a carrier i think, plus the carrier will be running awacs style cover while in ops ?

seems plenty to me...
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There are 2 major threats to carriers, submarine and air.

The US navy uses 6 destroyers to to 1 carrier. The RN, after a lot of study, said they NEEDED 4 type 45's per carrier on active service. The carriers themselves have very little defence against air attack, and none against submarine.

No one has any way of knowing what the area of active ops may be, so AWAC's cover may not be available.

Don't forget, the carriers will have 1000's of personel on board. Unless the Navy can PROPERLY defend them with the correct amount of destroyers, ALL the money spent will be a waste. Not to mention the loss of life when the first carrier goes to the bottom.
 
kitfit1 said:
There are 2 major threats to carriers, submarine and air.

The US navy uses 6 destroyers to to 1 carrier. The RN, after a lot of study, said they NEEDED 4 type 45's per carrier on active service. The carriers themselves have very little defence against air attack, and none against submarine.

No one has any way of knowing what the area of active ops may be, so AWAC's cover may not be available.

Don't forget, the carriers will have 1000's of personel on board. Unless the Navy can PROPERLY defend them with the correct amount of destroyers, ALL the money spent will be a waste. Not to mention the loss of life when the first carrier goes to the bottom.
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I guess they're not counting on having 2 carrier task groups active in different places at the same time? we should be fine if we have a single task group with 2 carriers, like in the falklands?
 
If we lose a single Queen Elizabeth class Carrier our Carrier Battle Group is useless, it seems a bit risky not having one in reserve like with the Invincible Class?

They're obviously gearing the fleet towards small scale engagements and fighting insurgents etc instead of massed battles, but then this Type 45 doesn't help in that role at all. Seems poorly though out to me but they know what they're doing.
 
Ali195 said:
We spend a very small % of our GPD on military programs (around 2.5%). Two new super carriers will cost around £3.9 billion (but lets say 5bill because they never deliver on time or budget). I.D cards = 20 billion. New NHS patient software is not even ready & will cost 6-7 billion with current problems.
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I'd far rather they binned the ID card foolishness, spent £10 billion on the military and put £10 billion in a safe (as possible) investment to offset increased maintainence costs with the income from it. If we're going to send soldiers into a war zone, I want them fully equipped with every advantage that can be bought for the money.
 
Angilion said:
I'd far rather they binned the ID card foolishness, spent £10 billion on the military and put £10 billion in a safe (as possible) investment to offset increased maintainence costs with the income from it. If we're going to send soldiers into a war zone, I want them fully equipped with every advantage that can be bought for the money.
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^ This is why you'll never be in government. You have a brain.

simulatorman said:
I wonder about what protection this baby has from submarines.
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Prayers. And other submarines :D
 
CBA to read the whole thread BUT:

Had a brief look at her today and she looks immmense. Going aboard in the morning to look around her which I am looking forward to.

For the record she is classed as a DDG as the OP describes but by size and displacement ratio she is actually cruiser class, it's just that our government didn't want to announce that because classing her as a "battle cruiser" would look bad for our military. Pfft!
 
hoticejamie said:
Wouldn't say its got much prescence on the water. Should look scary and dangerous, not hiding all the weapons away :p
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The whole point of lack of presence is lack of signature on radar imagery i.e. its capability cannot be detected on radar where as a usual CGN such as the Kirov is easily recognised by radar imagery.
 
kitfit1 said:
Don't forget, the carriers will have 1000's of personel on board. Unless the Navy can PROPERLY defend them with the correct amount of destroyers, ALL the money spent will be a waste. Not to mention the loss of life when the first carrier goes to the bottom.
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Realistically if you get into a shooting match with a serious opponent then any carrier is toast unless it keeps half an ocean away. The only reason they are still built is because people perceive the need for a floating airstrip and as yet no engagement has shown how vulnerable they are to attack.

Long range UAVs and associated refuelling will see off the grand old carriers, and much of the purpose built surface navy with it.

Is it any surprise the Navy aren't willing to accept that?
 
I think we're doing OK

Two super carriers with real strike capabilities, way beyond any other ships outside the USA. I know everything gets downsized by our government but even so, if we can field only 1 battle group in a theatre we will have like 5 times the strike power than both our existing 'through desk cruisers' combined :-)

Threats from subs is pretty minimal in todays climate... how many nations / rogue states can you imagine with a proper 'blue water' sub fleet ?, pretty much no-one. Also, with range of modern strike fighters / bombers the carrier group will be sat nowhere near the coast, in range of noisy diesel subs of some of these nations that quite frankly are a plain embarrassment.

I'd imagine each carrier group would also have a astute sub tagging along, and with it's advanced sonars etc I can't imagine a diesel boat getting anywhere near.

What does worry me a little, and what seems to be the way a lot of poorer wannabe nations are going, is sub 1000 ton 'corvettes' armed to the teeth with surface to surface missiles. I guess that though they have good surface capabilities, they would be spotted well before being in range and JSF aircraft from carriers would muller them. I would also guess that in ops, one of our super carriers would have a AWACS in the air constantly (it would probably carry several)

Long range UAVs ?, a long way in the future I reckon, these carriers are the base of ops for this last gen of fighters.. F35, F22, Typhoon etc etc... the last great manned fighters that will ever be made :( RIP

edit: and to people in this thread saying it's all a waste of money, the money that all these ships are costing is a drop in the ocean compared with current government bailouts, and the jobs they create probably pays for themselves.

sorry for rambling, love playing armchair general / admiral lol
 
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HA!, Browns been announcing the building of these carriers for year now ill be surprised if the steel get cut during his time in office, if it wasn’t for the fact that final assembly was getting done in his constituency he would have cancelled them a long time ago.
 
Converting the Euro fighter for carrier ops would cost millions and involve a complete redesign of the airframe as it wasn't designed for a steam cat launch and more critically it wasn't deigned for an arrested landing which would destroy the current airframe.

The carrier group won't just be made up of carriers and destroyers it will also contain Type 23 Frigates who's principle role is anti-submarine warfare and they are also anti-ship equipped. I think it's a shame that the type 45 isn't better specced but it is still a very good platform.

The numbers game is tricky as these are expensive toys but we haven't had two carriers at sea at the same time for any significant period in a very long time and I can't see that changing!

To those calling for more eurpean colaboration on weapon systems go away and do some reading about the continuous **** ups and over spends, Euro fighter was a joke, the merlin Helicopter even more so and the type 23 the biggest laughing stock of all.
 
F/A18's, F35C's, Typhoons or Dassault Rafale's would all have been better options though than the F35B. Considering they're building the carriers so they can install launch systems at a later date anyway it just seems completely stupid we're not going conventional from the start.
 
Murf said:
F/A18's, F35C's, Typhoons or Dassault Rafale's would all have been better options though than the F35B. Considering they're building the carriers so they can install launch systems at a later date anyway it just seems completely stupid we're not going conventional from the start.
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Typhoons arn't designed for carrier ops!!

*Is currently studying aeronautical engineering*

Even tho we've only just done the basics we have done structures and reserve factors etc

The loads from a 200mph to 0 or 0 to 200mph are more than the airframe I suspect can take.

Im going to go and look up EW and MTOW for the land and sea versions of deck launched aircraft, I suspect the sea one is heavier!!

Edit: F/A-18, the sea version is 2000kg heavier totally empty, but has 8000kg more MTOW. So nothing conclusive but still suspect quite abit of that weight increase at empty is due to structural improvements.
 
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