HMS Queen Elizabeth

[wildcat45]

badgers_back said:

UK subs would tomahawk the Argentinian air force in situ.

I have a feeling Uncle Sam may not be happy about that. Not to mention a host of Latin American nations.

Not that I'd have a problem with it myself you understand.

[SlipStream77]

Slighty O/T, but were the RN ever tasked with QRA when they had suitable aircraft?

[MBBlat]

V8 Fettler said:

If the threat to the Ark (Buccs) sailing unescorted to within a 1000 nautical miles of the Falklands increases then withdraw. My view is that the risk would remain low at 1000 miles, the Argentinians had no credible means to reach her, any surface vessel is detected by the Ark long before the Ark's position is known, one diesel submarine under a possibly incompetent commander is unlikely to find the Ark in the South Atlantic.

How about the Russians, the Chinese etc. You don't design an aircraft carrier just for the low tech opponents.

V8 Fettler said:

Gunboat diplomacy is not a primary function of speed. Reduced transit time and the enhanced ability to avoid detection/interception are primary functions of speed.

Only for WW2 era cruisers. For a carrier they are tertiary requirements at best. I've yet to hear any mention of the two primary drivers for carrier speed, care to do some research.

V8 Fettler said:

The QE is supposed to have a 50 year design life, are you stating that there will be no period within the next 50 years where the QE will be required to operate without an escort? You have a very good crystal ball if you can state that.

Are you also stating that the speed of escorts will not also increase over the next 50 years?

Never said she wouldn't, just that isn't a design driver. And yes a high speed carrier would require the next generation of escorts to be high speed - further increasing defence procurement costs. So do you want to pay more tax, or have fewer ships, just to be able to play top trumps?

V8 Fettler said:

My understanding is that - to a certain extent - carriers operate away from the escort when launching/retrieving fixed wing aircraft.

Enterprise is close to 35 knots. Design the QE for 35 knots, performance may degrade after several years service but 30+ should still be attainable.

And Nimitz is 31 knots, later examples of the same class are slower, on trials. And you've got the design process wrong, you start with the minimum acceptable, fouled speed, to calculate your power, not the maximum speed you want to achieve straight out of dock on sea trials. Trials speeds are also rarely achieved in service, how often have you taken your car to the maximum speed given in the brochure?

[V8 Fettler]

MBBlat said:

V8 Fettler said:

If the threat to the Ark (Buccs) sailing unescorted to within a 1000 nautical miles of the Falklands increases then withdraw. My view is that the risk would remain low at 1000 miles, the Argentinians had no credible means to reach her, any surface vessel is detected by the Ark long before the Ark's position is known, one diesel submarine under a possibly incompetent commander is unlikely to find the Ark in the South Atlantic.

How about the Russians, the Chinese etc. You don't design an aircraft carrier just for the low tech opponents.

V8 Fettler said:

Gunboat diplomacy is not a primary function of speed. Reduced transit time and the enhanced ability to avoid detection/interception are primary functions of speed.

Only for WW2 era cruisers. For a carrier they are tertiary requirements at best. I've yet to hear any mention of the two primary drivers for carrier speed, care to do some research.

V8 Fettler said:

The QE is supposed to have a 50 year design life, are you stating that there will be no period within the next 50 years where the QE will be required to operate without an escort? You have a very good crystal ball if you can state that.

Are you also stating that the speed of escorts will not also increase over the next 50 years?

Never said she wouldn't, just that isn't a design driver. And yes a high speed carrier would require the next generation of escorts to be high speed - further increasing defence procurement costs. So do you want to pay more tax, or have fewer ships, just to be able to play top trumps?

V8 Fettler said:

My understanding is that - to a certain extent - carriers operate away from the escort when launching/retrieving fixed wing aircraft.

Enterprise is close to 35 knots. Design the QE for 35 knots, performance may degrade after several years service but 30+ should still be attainable.

And Nimitz is 31 knots, later examples of the same class are slower, on trials. And you've got the design process wrong, you start with the minimum acceptable, fouled speed, to calculate your power, not the maximum speed you want to achieve straight out of dock on sea trials. Trials speeds are also rarely achieved in service, how often have you taken your car to the maximum speed given in the brochure?

More post dissection why?

If designing for 50 years then all eventualities need to be considered, not just the present conflicts.

For the importance of carrier speed in avoiding detection/interception, see the Lexington Institute paper. The greater the transit speed the greater the potential reach. The maximum transit speed and maximum rated speed are related.

Failure to future-proof as part of the design process is a failure of the design process. I want my tax money to be spent wisely and effectively, this is not typically a function of MOD procurement. UK military expenditure as now a small part of GDP, my view is that it should be increased as a % of GDP whilst ensuring effective procurement.

Minimal acceptable speed? History shows that the RN are past masters at "sweating the assets", meaning that ships will continue to be used when the ship's performance has substantially fallen below the original design specification. The US generally takes a different approach with the service life extension programme.

Should not the speed achieved during trials be as specified by the design (or greater)? Many non-maritime designers fail to recognise that a machine's performance will tend to degrade over time, their reasoning being that maintenance is not their responsibility; I would be surprised if that applies to the designers of military vessels (?).

[V8 Fettler]

wildcat45 said:

V8 Fettler said:

The restricted range of the F35s only becomes irrelevant when the QE can operate in an environment of complete air and sea superiority. I don't think that can be regarded as a certainty over the 50 year design life of the carrier.

Again you mention compromise. The lack of fixed wing AEW in the Falklands conflict was a cost compromise, a compromise that created very real risks for the task force.

It was. But Crowsnest AEW is better than no AEW. It is far from being rubbish and not fit for the job.

[b]I can't argue with what you want. It's just not possible in the financially constrained real world.]/b]

We probably have differing views on the importance of UK military expenditure.

[MBBlat]

V8 Fettler - this graph may explain something

Whilst its from wikipedia & thus not QEC, the principles remain the same for almost all displacement hulls. Notice that for every 5 knots increase in speed the power required more than doubles. Thus your 35 knot carrier requires more than 4x the power of the 25 knot carrier, that power costs. Given a fixed budget, what do you want to give up to get your precious range circles? If you ignore cost, the additional power still has space & weight implications, so compromises are still required.

As for avoiding torpedoes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearfish_torpedo goes at 80knots, so your extra 10 knots of speed will make little difference.

[V8 Fettler]

Speed certainly does cost, but it's not as costly as having an ineffective carrier, particularly if that carrier is lost due to lack of speed. The conventionally powered USS Midway (launched during WW2) achieved 33 knots with about 210,000 shaft horse power, and yet the RN can't have similar performance 70 years later!

Higher carrier speed is not intended to outrun an 80 knot torpedo from short range, although it might make a difference at longer ranges. However - as per Lexington Institute paper - higher carrier speed reduces the risk of detection, hence reduces the risk of the torpedo being fired in the first place. Additionally, higher carrier speed may prevent a submarine achieving a firing solution even if the carrier is detected. All this can be described with circles.

[AntiLagGC8]

V8 Fettler said:

Speed certainly does cost, but it's not as costly as having an ineffective carrier, particularly if that carrier is lost due to lack of speed. The conventionally powered USS Midway (launched during WW2) achieved 33 knots with about 210,000 shaft horse power, and yet the RN can't have similar performance 70 years later!

Higher carrier speed is not intended to outrun an 80 knot torpedo from short range, although it might make a difference at longer ranges. However - as per Lexington Institute paper - higher carrier speed reduces the risk of detection, hence reduces the risk of the torpedo being fired in the first place. Additionally, higher carrier speed may prevent a submarine achieving a firing solution even if the carrier is detected. All this can be described with circles.

When was the Lexington paper written? Can you link to the paper and paragraph in question please?

[donutsina911]

AntiLagGC8 said:

When was the Lexington paper written? Can you link to the paper and paragraph in question please?

http://lexingtoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/aircraft-carrier-invulnerability.pdf

It's a 15 year old open source paper. V8Fettler is using page 13 to argue that speed is very important, despite the fact that much of it (particularly with regard to the tech capability of current threats) is embarrassingly out of date.

Back in the real world, anyone with half a dog watch of experience knows that carriers, just like any other surface asset, attempt to stay undetected by reducing sound signature and adjusting emissions accordingly. In particular, SMs track using sound - 35kts creates quite a bit of this and lower noise is vital, unless you want to play military top trumps. Operationally, top speed is largely irrelevant until launching jets - as an example, when on Ark Royal, we went (pedestrian) slow absolutely everywhere, except for short bursts to launch Sea Harriers.

The only real drawback of a lower top speed and one that V8Fettler omits, is that QE will have 5kts less wind over deck so the jets will have to use more fuel/have less range/payload. SM missiles and indeed modern torpedoes make speed/circles/distance irrelevant. Threats such as DF-26, that were a Chinese pipe dream when the Lexington paper was written, are now very real indeed.

For hard evidence of how the circle theory falls down, look no further than 1982 - despite a bloody great passage south and an infinite number of 'circles' that could have been drawn by the Argentinians, they still knew when our Task Force was in situ / where our Harriers were coming from and moved Veinticino de Mayo closer to the Falklands accordingly. I would suggest that with half a dozen P3s based in Trelew, three diesel electric submarines and some FF/DD assets, they remain capable (in theory) of keeping a pretty effective watch on the route south, regardless of us operating 25kt or 35kt carriers.

[Phud]

donutsina911 said:

Back in the real world, anyone with half a dog watch of experience knows that carriers, just like any other surface asset, attempt to stay undetected by reducing sound signature and adjusting emissions accordingly. In particular, SMs track using sound - 35kts creates quite a bit of this and lower noise is vital, unless you want to play military top trumps. Operationally, top speed is largely irrelevant until launching jets - as an example, when on Ark Royal, we went (pedestrian) slow absolutely everywhere, except for short bursts to launch Sea Harriers.

Sorry to paraphrase you, but bks, she charged around not sure where she was, trailing port shaft with middies and OUT's trying to nav, whilst we WAFU's went for the mail

[donutsina911]

Phud said:

Sorry to paraphrase you, but bks, she charged around not sure where she was, trailing port shaft with middies and OUT's trying to nav, whilst we WAFU's went for the mail

Haha. Probably as far away from danger as possible if my first time trying to do three point fixes as a midshipman is anything to go by..

[Phud]

three point fixes, any three points and sod the cocked hat.. Running bearing lines too. Oh oh DR and midday sun spot.

Now it's all GPS and auto plot.

Totally agree with you about noise and being tracked, some of the sub launched weapons are really not nice, no point making it easy.

[AntiLagGC8]

donutsina911 said:

AntiLagGC8 said:

When was the Lexington paper written? Can you link to the paper and paragraph in question please?

http://lexingtoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/aircraft-carrier-invulnerability.pdf

It's a 15 year old open source paper. V8Fettler is using page 13 to argue that speed is very important, despite the fact that much of it (particularly with regard to the tech capability of current threats) is embarrassingly out of date.

Back in the real world, anyone with half a dog watch of experience knows that carriers, just like any other surface asset, attempt to stay undetected by reducing sound signature and adjusting emissions accordingly. In particular, SMs track using sound - 35kts creates quite a bit of this and lower noise is vital, unless you want to play military top trumps. Operationally, top speed is largely irrelevant until launching jets - as an example, when on Ark Royal, we went (pedestrian) slow absolutely everywhere, except for short bursts to launch Sea Harriers.

The only real drawback of a lower top speed and one that V8Fettler omits, is that QE will have 5kts less wind over deck so the jets will have to use more fuel/have less range/payload. SM missiles and indeed modern torpedoes make speed/circles/distance irrelevant. Threats such as DF-26, that were a Chinese pipe dream when the Lexington paper was written, are now very real indeed.

For hard evidence of how the circle theory falls down, look no further than 1982 - despite a bloody great passage south and an infinite number of 'circles' that could have been drawn by the Argentinians, they still knew when our Task Force was in situ / where our Harriers were coming from and moved Veinticino de Mayo closer to the Falklands accordingly. I would suggest that with half a dozen P3s based in Trelew, three diesel electric submarines and some FF/DD assets, they remain capable (in theory) of keeping a pretty effective watch on the route south, regardless of us operating 25kt or 35kt carriers.

I'm not taking a position other than to say the information quoted appears shockingly out of date. I'd imagine the speed difference to be marginal at best since its not easy to hide a carrier plus its escorts with modern detection methods.

[FourWheelDrift]

Just to counter the fast carriers and submarine/torpedo thing. Being fast didn't stop the following aircraft carriers from being torpedoed during WWII.

IJN Shōkaku - 34.2 kn - Sunk by American submarine USS Cavalla on 19th June 1944
IJN Unryū - 34 kn - Sunk by USS Redfish, 19th December 1944
HMS Courageous - 32 kn - Sunk by U-29, 17th September 1939
HMS Ark Royal - 30 kn - Sunk by U-81 14th November 1941

And a French submarine sank the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt during simulated war games last year. - http://theaviationist.com/2015/03/05/us-aircraft-c...

and as it says in 2007 a Canadian diesel electric sub sank HMS Illustrious.


Speed means feck all.

[Phud]

A fast carrier is great, lots of noise and easy to track, easy to identify as a known target and when the torpedo can do 55kts + a firing solution can be achieved, the range is not an issue either.

Then with a firing solution, lets just use sub launched missile, or share target track over battle net and decide who gets to take this target out using weapon of choice.

Speed is only required to get wind over the deck for launch, and with a catapult guess what, even then the need is reduced.

All in all, speed of surface ships is only about getting close to an operating area, but if that transit has threats then you would never proceed at high speed, simples really

[AntiLagGC8]

Phud said:

A fast carrier is great, lots of noise and easy to track, easy to identify as a known target and when the torpedo can do 55kts + a firing solution can be achieved, the range is not an issue either.

Then with a firing solution, lets just use sub launched missile, or share target track over battle net and decide who gets to take this target out using weapon of choice.

Speed is only required to get wind over the deck for launch, and with a catapult guess what, even then the need is reduced.

All in all, speed of surface ships is only about getting close to an operating area, but if that transit has threats then you would never proceed at high speed, simples really

Agreed.

The Russian's have a torpedo that can do over 250 knots!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval

[oj113]

Personally I think you can look at it this way. Now or in the future strategically we're going to be up against either:

A lesser technologically advanced enemy, such as an ISIS style enemy, where the top speed of your Carrier is largely irrelevant as all you're going to be doing is hanging off a coastline steaming in circles launching and recovering aircraft 24/7 to lob bombs into whichever country you see as hosting this weeks threat

or

A similarly or seriously well armed enemy such as Russia. In Russia's case again top speed in order to avoid detection is largely irrelevant as in the Atlantic for example you're going to be against a multi-layered threat. TU-95 Bears that have the range and endurance to loiter until they find Carrier Battle Groups, which can then provide this information for airborne launched anti-shipping missiles and sub launched anti-shipping missiles. And all with enough numbers to negate any advantage that being able to steam 10kts faster would give you.

[V8 Fettler]

donutsina911 said:

AntiLagGC8 said:

When was the Lexington paper written? Can you link to the paper and paragraph in question please?

http://lexingtoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/aircraft-carrier-invulnerability.pdf

It's a 15 year old open source paper. V8Fettler is using page 13 to argue that speed is very important, despite the fact that much of it (particularly with regard to the tech capability of current threats) is embarrassingly out of date.

Back in the real world, anyone with half a dog watch of experience knows that carriers, just like any other surface asset, attempt to stay undetected by reducing sound signature and adjusting emissions accordingly. In particular, SMs track using sound - 35kts creates quite a bit of this and lower noise is vital, unless you want to play military top trumps. Operationally, top speed is largely irrelevant until launching jets - as an example, when on Ark Royal, we went (pedestrian) slow absolutely everywhere, except for short bursts to launch Sea Harriers.

The only real drawback of a lower top speed and one that V8Fettler omits, is that QE will have 5kts less wind over deck so the jets will have to use more fuel/have less range/payload. SM missiles and indeed modern torpedoes make speed/circles/distance irrelevant. Threats such as DF-26, that were a Chinese pipe dream when the Lexington paper was written, are now very real indeed.

For hard evidence of how the circle theory falls down, look no further than 1982 - despite a bloody great passage south and an infinite number of 'circles' that could have been drawn by the Argentinians, they still knew when our Task Force was in situ / where our Harriers were coming from and moved Veinticino de Mayo closer to the Falklands accordingly. I would suggest that with half a dozen P3s based in Trelew, three diesel electric submarines and some FF/DD assets, they remain capable (in theory) of keeping a pretty effective watch on the route south, regardless of us operating 25kt or 35kt carriers.

The basics of warfare don't typically change very quickly in peacetime, neither does the capability of the equipment, see age of USN carriers as an example. I also quoted the example of the age of the design of the Mark 8 torpedoes used by Conqueror. If you have a problem with the Lexington paper then why not take it up with the authors?

Hermes and Invincible were easier for the Argentinians to locate because the carriers had to operate substantially nearer to the Falklands and Argentina than Ark (Buccs) would have. Additionally, the operating range of the Phantoms on Ark (Buccs) would have reduced the ability of the Argentinians to locate the Task Force east of the Falklands.

What use is a missile or torpedo if the target cannot be located or if it's out of range?

[V8 Fettler]

FourWheelDrift said:

Just to counter the fast carriers and submarine/torpedo thing. Being fast didn't stop the following aircraft carriers from being torpedoed during WWII.

IJN Shokaku - 34.2 kn - Sunk by American submarine USS Cavalla on 19th June 1944
IJN Unryu - 34 kn - Sunk by USS Redfish, 19th December 1944
HMS Courageous - 32 kn - Sunk by U-29, 17th September 1939
HMS Ark Royal - 30 kn - Sunk by U-81 14th November 1941

And a French submarine sank the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt during simulated war games last year. - http://theaviationist.com/2015/03/05/us-aircraft-c...

and as it says in 2007 a Canadian diesel electric sub sank HMS Illustrious.


Speed means feck all.

HMS Courageous was travelling at about 18 knots when she was hit, as was Ark (Swordfish). It's highly unlikely that a U-boat could have achieved a firing solution on a ship travelling at 30+ knots, see unescorted high speed ocean crossings by RMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Queen Mary during WW2 as evidence.

[V8 Fettler]

Phud said:

A fast carrier is great, lots of noise and easy to track, easy to identify as a known target and when the torpedo can do 55kts + a firing solution can be achieved, the range is not an issue either.

Then with a firing solution, lets just use sub launched missile, or share target track over battle net and decide who gets to take this target out using weapon of choice.

Speed is only required to get wind over the deck for launch, and with a catapult guess what, even then the need is reduced.

All in all, speed of surface ships is only about getting close to an operating area, but if that transit has threats then you would never proceed at high speed, simples really

Firing solution being the key phrase. No firing solution = failure. The ability to detect the enemy at sea by using sound has been overplayed for at least 100 years.