HMS Queen Elizabeth
Discussion
ecsrobin said:
98elise said:
To project force anywhere in the world you need air cover. The only way to guarantee that is to have aircraft carriers and a global reach blue water navy. Very few countries in the world have that capability (USA, UK and France).
China, India, Italy, Russia (although broken) I’m sure there’s a few more. Edited to add...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-water_navy
Edited by 98elise on Sunday 3rd January 12:50
98elise said:
stevesingo said:
TTmonkey said:
I’m not sure it matters. What conflict are we likely to see where we put these carriers into the harms way of an opponent that has the capacity to launch a significant threat against them? It’s probably only Iran that would be of a mindset to attack such a target, and we wouldn’t be out there alone in any conflict.
Can anyone see a conflict where the U.K. stands alone against a player serious enough to attack the carriers with technology advanced enough to be a threat? We will always be under US EAW cover because we will always be part of a coalition.
The main idea is UK aircraft carriers demonstrate the ability to force project around the world as part of UK PLC's global influence strategy. To most nations that holds up well as you quite rightly pointed out, there are not many nations who cold pose a credible threat to such vessels. It all falls down when you consider the UK's geopolitical competitors know it would be an absolute miracle if the UK could force project any meaningful force on the surface of the sea and therefore just a folly if not done correctly.Can anyone see a conflict where the U.K. stands alone against a player serious enough to attack the carriers with technology advanced enough to be a threat? We will always be under US EAW cover because we will always be part of a coalition.
Force projecting maritime based air power is not about on ship and a handful of aircraft. If the Gov wanted the capability to do such a thing, they needed to look at what that really meant.
El stovey said:
I think these new carriers are awesome and hopefully come in useful somehow.
I can’t help but feel that weapons that could destroy them are now commonplace but then in a Third World War that’s probably the case for everything.
The use for these must be in situations where the bad guys aren’t that capable or that capability has been neutralised.
Still though having a carrier without decent AEW seems a bit dodgy.
as its probably been said a million times you can never really measure how "useful" they will be for the conflicts that won't happen.I can’t help but feel that weapons that could destroy them are now commonplace but then in a Third World War that’s probably the case for everything.
The use for these must be in situations where the bad guys aren’t that capable or that capability has been neutralised.
Still though having a carrier without decent AEW seems a bit dodgy.
Out of interest, what are the countries that we'd want to size up against where the lack of AEW would be a serious impediment?
Teddy Lop said:
as its probably been said a million times you can never really measure how "useful" they will be for the conflicts that won't happen.
Out of interest, what are the countries that we'd want to size up against where the lack of AEW would be a serious impediment?
Also to add to this with more modern vessels and technology can the carrier and its support provide just as much information as what the sea king used to provide? Is it a capability that doesn’t need replacing? Out of interest, what are the countries that we'd want to size up against where the lack of AEW would be a serious impediment?
ecsrobin said:
Also to add to this with more modern vessels and technology can the carrier and its support provide just as much information as what the sea king used to provide? Is it a capability that doesn’t need replacing?
Isn’t the idea that if you raise the radar and sensors higher up you see different things and see them further away? The AEW isn’t just for carriers but for the whole fleet and surface radar is still limited by the radar horizon.
MartG said:
LotusOmega375D said:
Couldn’t the RAF’s E-3 Sentries and upcoming E-7 Wedge Tails carry out this AEW task, should the need arise?
Only if there's an RAF airbase within rangeThe first generation AEW Sea King with the SearchWater radar was developed and introduced to service very quickly (11 weeks if you believe Wikipedia) in 1982 in response to an obvious critical capability gap exposed by the Falklands conflict.
Obviously the subsequent AEW Sea Kings and the eventual ASaC7 were far more capable - and presumably the Merlin based Crowsnest will be even more so.
Why is a basic Merlin based AEW platform not being delivered to give the fleet at least some AEW capability until Crowsnest is ready given that it was shown that it can be done cheaply and quickly 40 years ago? I imagine the answer being that the existence of a stop gap solution would place Crowsnest at risk of cancellation.
Obviously the subsequent AEW Sea Kings and the eventual ASaC7 were far more capable - and presumably the Merlin based Crowsnest will be even more so.
Why is a basic Merlin based AEW platform not being delivered to give the fleet at least some AEW capability until Crowsnest is ready given that it was shown that it can be done cheaply and quickly 40 years ago? I imagine the answer being that the existence of a stop gap solution would place Crowsnest at risk of cancellation.
Edited by Seight_Returns on Monday 4th January 10:16
ecsrobin said:
The E3 has a range of 5,000nm, can forward deploy and can air to air refuel so There can’t be many places out of reach of it.
But it doesn't have to just get there and go home again - it needs time on station to do its job to be worthwhile getting it there. It also needs to be protected during the 5000nm transit on a predictable routing there and back.These arguments were made in 1966 that the RAF could provide air cover for the fleet anywhere in the world (including apparently producing a map with Australia conveniently moved several hundred miles West!) but subsequent conflicts showed that it couldn't repplace organic naval AEW.
Teddy Lop said:
as its probably been said a million times you can never really measure how "useful" they will be for the conflicts that won't happen.
Out of interest, what are the countries that we'd want to size up against where the lack of AEW would be a serious impediment?
Having gone through this once, and suffered losses because of it, I find it hard to believe that people now want to argue "it'll be different next time". We really should learn from our mistakes. It's how you get better. Not by saying "ah yeah, but that won't happen next time".Out of interest, what are the countries that we'd want to size up against where the lack of AEW would be a serious impediment?
Seight_Returns said:
The first generation AEW Sea King with the SearchWater radar was developed and introduced to service very quickly (11 weeks if you believe Wikipedia) in 1982 in response to an obvious critical capability gap exposed by the Falklands conflict.
Obviously the subsequent AEW Sea Kings and the eventual ASaC7 were far more capable - and presumably the Merlin based Crowsnest will be even more so.
Why is a basic Merlin based AEW platform not being delivered to give the fleet at least some AEW capability until Crowsnest is ready given that it shown that it can be done cheaply and quickly 40 years ago? I imagine the answer being that the existence of a stop gap solution would place Crowsnest at risk of cancellation.
The engineering resources of the MoD are a shadow of what existed in 1982. There was a stopgap, it was the seaking being extended to 2018 to allow a delayed Crowsnest to reach IOC, but it was later than that and presumably no-one thought it was worth paying for an indefinite extension of service for a small number of an already extended and very tired aircraft.Obviously the subsequent AEW Sea Kings and the eventual ASaC7 were far more capable - and presumably the Merlin based Crowsnest will be even more so.
Why is a basic Merlin based AEW platform not being delivered to give the fleet at least some AEW capability until Crowsnest is ready given that it shown that it can be done cheaply and quickly 40 years ago? I imagine the answer being that the existence of a stop gap solution would place Crowsnest at risk of cancellation.
Edited by hidetheelephants on Monday 4th January 10:49
hidetheelephants said:
The engineering resources of the MoD are a shadow of what existed in 1984. There was a stopgap, it was the seaking being extended to 2018 to allow a delayed Crowsnest to reach IOC, but it was later than that and presumably no-one thought it was worth paying for an indefinite extension of service for a small number of an already extended and very tired aircraft.
Also the chances of QE deploying to a war without another nation I’d guess are pretty slim and would only really be if the Argentines decide to have another grab of the falklands. So you really on the American or French AEW?ecsrobin said:
So you really on the American or French AEW?
I remember sitting on my modest yacht, anchored 400 yards away from HMS Invincible during the Trafalgar 200 celebrations - listening in on VHF and cringing as Vince and the nearby Charles de Gaulle repeatedly failed to establish a secure UHF communication despite being less than a mile apart on a sunny day in the Solent - and had to co-ordinate the ceremonial gun salute over open channel VHF.I think I'd prefer the RN to have its own AEW that have to rely on the French !
hidetheelephants said:
Balloon tech; sling a Searchwater under a barrage balloon and fit a suitable winch on the back of a surplus rig supply boat, of which there are loads.
That’s what the Americans were doing with their tethered aerostat blimps, along the Florida keys and Mexican border looking for drug runners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Ra...
Some decommissioned now though. I think there’s lots of weather limitations and drones have replaced many of them.
Drones with AEW radar? There’s an idea.
https://www.bellflight.com/products/bell-v-247
I wonder if these carriers will end their career just carrying drones?
LotusOmega375D said:
Couldn’t an E-3 or E-7 operate out of the Falklands if things started getting frisky again?
A Cessna 152 could operate out of the Falklands in complete safety and achieve air supremacy as the argentine airforce are barely capable of putting an aircraft aloft, never mind carry out offensive operations or the AAR needed to reach the islands.Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff