Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers Amphibious/Royal Marine Capability

[1805]

The construction of a 3rd CVF, would cost little more than designing from scratch or buying in a foriegn design (which would be a political mistake for the RN).

HMS Duke of Edinburgh, would be an excellent name, ties in with Scotland and now a popular royal, likely to align with his sad departure.

Provide as much work as c12 Type 26, and hard to create manual/semi skilled and trades, in difficult employment locations.

Massively increase UK/RN prestige... that a LPH and Frigate just can't do.

If you have 3, 2 will be operational, that's 80 aircraft. Say 30 F35b (I can see us getting 60-80+, they will be relacing 3+ times that number of FA2/GR9 & Tornados)

Easy to fill the rest of the space with Merlins, Apache & Chinooks.

Is anyone really saying they would swap another CVF for 1 & 1/2 frigates; not that I think it would come to that, as I get the feeling that MOD finances are recovering. Once you start to make inroads into to staggering waste, you realise funding is not bad. We have been punching below our weight on efficiency for so long, people believe it is normal.

Plus it would not be a difficult busines case to get additional funding for the general employment creation and impact on the Scottish vote. The marginal capex cost is likely to be say £500m over 50 years...£10m a year!

How much would we lose from North Sea oil revenues, or how much would it cost to separate/relocate the MOD with a Yes vote?

If needed a few modes could be made to reduce cost, drop the speed to Ocean levels, more surge accommodation, and a few LCVPs. it could take out the Argus/Ocean role, with out effectng the fixed wing capability.

 

[kev 99]

I'd pick another Astute over a third CVF, without question, what's more I'm pretty convinced the RN would as well.

 

[RobWilliams]

Well it seems to be the way other nations are going, so a couple of LHD's with F-35B capabilities would make a lot of sense for the UK. If they are of a descent size the extra space on the flat top for airlift would make up for it, so do you go a LHD which still has the dock ? Or something along the lines of the America Class for the added airlift but without the dock ? Always a compromise either way, but don't profess to know enough of the UK's future requirements on what would suit

I have not read up on it lately, but are the UK and France still floating the possibility of a joint carrier ?

Cheers

Definitely retain the dock, it's an incredibly useful feature to have and not just for military reasons like I remember reading about a natural disaster (I can't remember which, terrible I know but that's not the point) and landing craft were used to transport medical supplies and other humanitarian stores directly onto the beach than using local congested and probably badly damaged ports.

Just looking at troop numbers from Wiki, theoretically an Albion class LPD could deploy ~600 Royal Marines in one wave from it's landing craft so to have those vessels very nicely ticking away transporting supplies and vehicles or whatever whilst Junglies and Chinooks drop in the heavier equipment like AA batteries and light guns seems like a very efficient way of deploying from the sea.

The UK likes docks so any sort of following vessel will have one. The ability to deploy Warriors or Challengers straight onto the beach - although not regularly used - should be very well valued IMO.

As to the F35B, like Stobie says i'd prefer it to be pretty limited except for ferrying airframes to a CVF or lilypadding. Rotary lift should be the main order of the day in my opinion.

In regards to a joint carrier, there might be some cross decking between MN helos (IIRC a RN helo is operational on a French frigate right now) but that'll be about it.

 

[RobWilliams]

I'd pick another Astute over a third CVF, without question, what's more I'm pretty convinced the RN would as well.

Definitely. In terms of unit cost then you could probably get what 2 more instead of a CVF?

But like I said, i'd like to see the escort fleet beefed up first, strike silos on T45, CEC, more T26 (maybe AAW variant to complement T45) then things like 2 x LHDs for 2 x LPDs in the future, Astutes etc

I could go on, there's so much I'd like to do with the RN if only I had the budget

 

[1805]

I'd pick another Astute over a third CVF, without question, what's more I'm pretty convinced the RN would as well.

Maybe if we were facing off to the old Soviet threat, but for what we need from our armed forces: intervention style activity against medium sized countries (most without a serious sub capability, and littoral focused light naval craft), support for raiding/SF insertion and profile/prestige, you can't beat a carrier. Plus you would really only get a little over 50% of an Astute for the money (half the life of a CVF and not far off the cost). It does not help with Scotland or much on the general employment front.

3 CVFs provide the flexibility to have one in the Med, one in the UK/refit/training/reserve and one "on tour" East of Suez

 

[boypathos]

Hello All...

my first post on this site but really wanted to off -load an idea...so be gentle with slight thread drfit...

In terms of the next generation of LPH/LHD et al...

I propose a 3-ship class times to replace both HMS Ocean and RFA Argus that would be based around the Mistral class. (I understand has a 69-bed hospital facility).

I would have the DFID budget pay for 70% of the first two ships (RFA Long Bow and RFA Strong Bow) as several of their taskings would be of a humanitarian and disaster relief nature. For example the Caribbean hurricane season (RFA Argus is out there now) and tours of east and west Africa, in co-ordination with UK NGOs, to perform the sort of free medical surgeries that bring goodwill diplomacy to these poorer nations.

As a earlier post mentioned the dock facilities are very useful in humanitarian situations. The large aviation facilities would prove very versatile.

As alluded to, manned by RFA, as well as Royal Naval reserves. When in the African ports providing the medical surgeries I would bring in Army Medical Reserves expertise and medical staff from charities. All part of a DFID brief and so out of their budget.

But both ships would be available to train with the Royal Navy during peace time and immediately available for any conflict.

The third ship of class (RFA Cross Bow) would be essentially a replacement for RFA Diligence and would provide the fleet with the necessary repair facilities, but with a great deal of additional value in its aviation capacity.

All three would have command and control facilities to perform the type of tasking that the Royal Danish Navy has, through its Absalon class, in counter piracy off the Horn of Africa.

The Royal Navy would get three very versatile, capable ships to draw on as part of a great deal...

your thoughts...

 

[StobieWan]

Definitely. In terms of unit cost then you could probably get what 2 more instead of a CVF?

But like I said, i'd like to see the escort fleet beefed up first, strike silos on T45, CEC, more T26 (maybe AAW variant to complement T45) then things like 2 x LHDs for 2 x LPDs in the future, Astutes etc

I could go on, there's so much I'd like to do with the RN if only I had the budget

I'd guess so - last unit price for an Astute would be a billion, a third CVD would conservatively be 2bn, then you'd have to buy the air wing. Through life costs would be way higher as well, crew of about 100 vs 700 for CVF. We can't afford a third CVF, not to buy or to run, there's no room in the ship building program for one as we need Type 26 on the slips and there's no money in the equipment plan for it either.

We're awaiting funding for CEC, ASaC, ABM capability, all stuff that is desperately required. I'd also like to see more than 48 F35B - ideally, 48 B and another fifty or sixty A. The list goes on. I can't even see why a third CVF would make any sense at all.

If you were able to find a few hundred million in the budget, then I'd suggest the most pragmatic thing to spend it on would be a short run of six or so BMT Venator or similar, to round out the routine "operations other than war" such as anti piracy, drug enforcement and so forth - we're sending T45's to go do this sort of work right now which has to be expensive.

 

[1805]

I'd guess so - last unit price for an Astute would be a billion, a third CVD would conservatively be 2bn, then you'd have to buy the air wing. Through life costs would be way higher as well, crew of about 100 vs 700 for CVF. We can't afford a third CVF, not to buy or to run, there's no room in the ship building program for one as we need Type 26 on the slips and there's no money in the equipment plan for it either.

Your numbers don't add up, even if you took your unit costs at face value, one has twice the service life.

There are no additional air group costs, we would just be making better use of the existing and planned assets.

Running costs maybe would be more, but marginal and as PH said "at about £70m a year pretty good value for money". The £70m being the running cost of an active ship, and not the difference of an active Astute the margin is likely to be small.

I agree on one thing 4 OPVs would help pressure on hulls and keep yards open. The RN could benefit from aligning it's proposition to the employment agenda.

There is the funding and the real potential of new money on the jobs/Scotland vote. That would not be the case with other areas.

 

[kev 99]

Maybe if we were facing off to the old Soviet threat, but for what we need from our armed forces: intervention style activity against medium sized countries (most without a serious sub capability, and littoral focused light naval craft), support for raiding/SF insertion and profile/prestige, you can't beat a carrier. Plus you would really only get a little over 50% of an Astute for the money (half the life of a CVF and not far off the cost). It does not help with Scotland or much on the general employment front.

3 CVFs provide the flexibility to have one in the Med, one in the UK/refit/training/reserve and one "on tour" East of Suez

A 3rd CVF is a pointless extravagance without a massive increase in the number of aircraft we're buying. There's no prestige in having a huge harbour queen that has no military use because there are no aircraft to operate from her.

RN can use an 8th Astute and would love to have it, they have no use or desire for a third CVF.

We've had this debate before I won't change your mind and you won't change mine.

 

[RobWilliams]

I'll never be completely at ease with the CVF until I see F35B's doing flight tests off her deck

But I do still believe we will need more of an aviation component in the RN in the future, hear me out.

With Ocean/Illustrious at the moment considering we're only using helos then that's a very handsome capability (rough ball park Wiki puts it at 22 helos for Illustrious + 18 for Ocean) so for an amphibious force that'd be pretty handy, but when the CVF comes in and we try to rebuild a fixed wing capability with what's been put about as 40 "slots" on a single ship which to me isn't enough.

We'll be trying to jam in a squadron of F35B and 4 MASC which leaves just 14 'slots' for a mixture of Apache, ASW Merlin, Junglie Merlin + Chinook for sustained operations on a single ship, sure we may be able to surge up to 50ish for a short period but where would the aircraft be coming/going from? Is it practical to keep shunting helos or F35B back and forth from a CVF from existing airbases? Genuine question, i'm not 100% how this would actually work for the RN of the future.

I dunno about everyone else but - in one way or another - our aviation capability will need to be increased and the most realistic option of this happening in my opinion is Albion/Bulwark being replaced by 2 LHDs, looking at rough figures (yeah, Wiki again) for something like JC1 is 16 - 24, almost definitely more than the rotary component on a CVF would/could embark in the future freeing up space on the CVF for 2 squadrons of F35B + 4 MASC and still have ~10 slots to play with

Highly expect that my naive optimism is fuelling this, but IMO that's a scenario that should happen in the future.

 

[1805]

A 3rd CVF is a pointless extravagance without a massive increase in the number of aircraft we're buying. There's no prestige in having a huge harbour queen that has no military use because there are no aircraft to operate from her.

RN can use an 8th Astute and would love to have it, they have no use or desire for a third CVF.

We've had this debate before I won't change your mind and you won't change mine.

I am genuinely surprised at you response, would you really opt for a 14% increase in SSN numbers over a 50% increase in aviation capability?

No one is talking about any increase in aircraft numbers, its about getting the best use out of the tri service assets we already have.

As a replacement for both Ocean and Argus its only a modest increase in combined tonnage.

The SSNs bring great capabilities; outstanding blue water ASW/anti ship platforms and useful if modest land attack. We can never guarantee we will not need these, so it is vital we have SSNs. However the sort of engagements we are involved in/likely to face, requires significant aviation: logistic and attack capabilty.

SSN will not help: enforce a "no fly zone", degrade an enemies land/air forces, provide humanitarian relief, undertake an evacutaion of UK nationals, undertake a strategc raid drive of a swam of light boats/FAC; and the nature of being a stealth weapon does not help much wth internal UK PR for the RN or foreign flag waving.

 

[StobieWan]

I'll never be completely at ease with the CVF until I see F35B's doing flight tests off her deck

Chin up - the A model just completed flights to it's full range of AOA (fifty degrees apparently) and we have confirmed supersonic cruise for about 100 miles at M1.2 so that spanks the @rse off a Harrier in my book


Aviation wise, Albion and Bulwark are both fairly young ships - and likely to be around for a few more years.

I get the impression that the crew from Ocean will be sorely needed to round out the QE's however so it's unlikely she'll be replaced - you're looking at 2 CVF and 2 LPD in service.

 

[RobWilliams]

It'll just be one of those things where I won't get my hopes up until I see it happen Although I do hear it's coming on a treat. Make no mistake i'm not one of those drama queens thinking "Bring back the Harrier! JSF is gunna be rubbish" people.

Yup, commissioned in the early 2000s I think or around abouts. In terms of my timeframe this won't be until the 2030s assuming a service life of ~30 years so don't think i'm looking to shunt them out of the way before time

Illustrious is going to go in 2014 so will the crew then be assigned to HMS Queen Elizabeth? I can't remember the exact figure but personnel are already being assigned to the CVF so when Illustrious is gone by then she'll be structurally completed and be kitted out. Looking at the crew component of Illustrious, the core crew of a CVF + Illustrious is very nearly identical (686 and 685 respectively) and to make up the ~900 FAA crew it'll need the whole of Illustrious' and Ocean's complement AND require the recruitment of a few hundred more besides.

Forgot about that bit but it wouldn't be impossible i'd imagine.

Just thought, Ocean isn't due to leave until ~2022 - considering flight trials are sheduled from 2018 wouldn't the FAA component of Ocean already be required but not available by then?

That's pretty much the outcome I expect will happen, but i'm still not 100% convinced that we can retain our current rotary capacity whilst at the same time trying to bring back fixed wing capacity at any sort of useful scale.

 

[kev 99]

I am genuinely surprised at you response, would you really opt for a 14% increase in SSN numbers over a 50% increase in aviation capability?

Like I have already said we have had this debate before if you're surprised by my response then blame your own memory!

No one is talking about any increase in aircraft numbers, its about getting the best use out of the tri service assets we already have.

And what does that mean?

As a replacement for both Ocean and Argus its only a modest increase in combined tonnage.

Apples and oranges? you're comparing a casualty receiving ship and an austire LPH with a strike carrier, you could replace both of those 2 ships and still get change out of the cost of a third CVF easily.

 

[StobieWan]

The way I recall it (which may be utterly wrong) is that QE gets launched, worked up, her crew stand down for the first refit to fix all the stuff that they broke, wanted changing or whatever and then PoW gets worked up so we wouldn't need full crews for both for a fair while.

 

[1805]

And what does that mean?



Apples and oranges? you're comparing a casualty receiving ship and an austire LPH with a strike carrier, you could replace both of those 2 ships and still get change out of the cost of a third CVF easily.

Existing "tri service assets" the Apaches/Chinooks/Merlins of the RAF/AAC/RN.

I didn't say it would be the same cost of Argus/Ocean replacements, but it would go towards it and the difference over 50 years would be marginal. I think the problem is you see the CVFs as strike carriers and not as tri service aviation platforms.

 

[RobWilliams]

Ok I get it, so probably when JSF is cleared for QE she'll go into maintenance whilst PoW get's cleared for JSF and then QE will reach full IOC ~2022ish? If the general 2 years after rule for PoW meaning F35B flight ops from 2020.

This is pretty much morphing into a CVF thread rather than amphibious capabilities :lol2

 

[kev 99]

Existing "tri service assets" the Apaches/Chinooks/Merlins of the RAF/AAC/RN.

Not what I asked you

I want to know what this phrase means:

No one is talking about any increase in aircraft numbers, its about getting the best use out of the tri service assets we already have.

I didn't say it would be the same cost of Argus/Ocean replacements, but it would go towards it and the difference over 50 years would be marginal. I think the problem is you see the CVFs as strike carriers and not as tri service aviation platforms.

No the problem is that I would rather the RN have something they can find a use for.

 

[StobieWan]

Apples and oranges? you're comparing a casualty receiving ship and an austire LPH with a strike carrier, you could replace both of those 2 ships and still get change out of the cost of a third CVF easily.

Quite a pile of change in fact - RFA Argus is an ex commercial container ship and probably cost buttons compared to a military design, Ocean was what, £200 mill back in the day ? Add 'em both together and I'd be surprised if it all came to £400 million now (the entire MARS program is £450million I believe?)

Through life gets worse, combined crew, 350 ish, just over half that of CVF.


I'd like to see a pair of LHD's put on order to replace Ocean, Bulwark and Albion - make them larger and more roomy than Albion to give them some flexibility etc - that'd give a reasonable capability for not too much cost and no increase in crewing demands (we're going to have issues crewing CVF if both are intended to be in service simultaneously so buying a third seems redundant)

 

[StobieWan]

Ok I get it, so probably when JSF is cleared for QE she'll go into maintenance whilst PoW get's cleared for JSF and then QE will reach full IOC ~2022ish? If the general 2 years after rule for PoW meaning F35B flight ops from 2020.

This is pretty much morphing into a CVF thread rather than amphibious capabilities :lol2

It could probably be quite easily merged with the existing RN thread to be honest - keeps it neater.