Britain may sell one of its 2 QE class carrier to India

[Zaitsev]

One of Britain’s new £2bn aircraft carriers could be sold off under cost-cutting plans being considered by the Ministry of Defence. India has lodged a firm expression of interest, the Observer has learned.
The sale of one of the two 65,000-tonne vessels would leave the Royal Navy with a single carrier and could force Britain to borrow from the French fleet, which itself has only one carrier and is reluctant to build more. Last summer the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, proposed to Gordon Brown that the two navies co-ordinate maintenance and refitting so that one was at sea at all times.
According to senior defence sources, Whitehall officials are examining the feasibility of a sale as part of the strategic defence review that will start early next year and is expected to result in savage cuts.
The carrier programme has already been delayed by two years to push back spending commitments, which itself will end up costing the taxpayer more in the long run. BAE Systems began work in July on HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is due to come into service in 2016. Preparatory work on the Prince of Wales, due for launch in 2018, has also started. The two carriers will replace the ageing Invincible class and are three times the size.
There were fears that the government could scrap one altogether. But it is understood that the financial penalties would be prohibitive. About 10,000 jobs in Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Fife and Glasgow depend on the orders.

MoD may sell aircraft carrier to India to limit cuts IDRW.ORG


Guys how bad is it in Britain now that they might want to sell one of their new carriers...first the nuke sub and now this!!#@
Anyways i dont think the government would buy it though it might just be a fluke show.....they shouldnt but it its too costly(considering how much they have already shelled out on the goshkov

 

[Zaitsev]

need your views on this

 

[swerve]

need your views on this

Just a journalist speculating, possibly on the basis of an MoD contingency plan. Remember, mostMoD contingency plans are theorising about things that aren't expected to happen, & are done just so that if the unexpected (e.g. the govt. saying "We're going to sell a carrier") does happen, there's some kind of plan in place for it.

Apart from anything else, India already has two carriers (one rebuilt, one new) building, & a third approved. A fourth would probably be hard to crew. Also, policy is to build in India.

No, I don't think there's anything to it.

 

[kev 99]

Absolutely no truth to this story whatsoever, it's either lazy journalism or something leaked proposal from the MOD, there's also a leak about cuts from the RAF today, I don't think it is a coincidence.

 

[Padfoot]

"First the nuke sub and now this"

What's that all about?

Anyways, I always lol when I see people post stuff they read in the media(especially english media). You can see how Hitler got elected . :lol3

 

[StevoJH]

Swerve,

Didn't your defense minister/secretary just say that the RN was getting both carriers? All of about a week or two ago?

And shouldn't this be in the RN thread?

 

[kev 99]

Steve he said both carriers would operate the F35 or something very similar.

 

[webmaster]

This is all based on a theory... I've pretty much seen every single news release that came out of MoD/RN and there is no mention of India getting any carriers. If I missed something, please share it with the crowd.

 

[swerve]

Steve he said both carriers would operate the F35 or something very similar.

Yep. He flatly denied reports that one carrier would be downgraded to an LPH. He said that both carriers would be built, & both would be operated by the RN as carriers with F-35B.

 

[Zaitsev]

"First the nuke sub and now this"

What's that all about?

What I wanted to say was that Britain had just reduced the number of trident carrying subs..and now the carriers...


Anyway as i said earlier it might be only a speculation but i don't like the idea of this....it would be a logistical nightmare to buid a carrier fleet for this if we are even in the remotest chance to buy it.....also equipping it with its aircrafts and weapons system would push it up to around $5 bn in all....couple with it more frigates and kolkata class destroyers for its carriergroup and the cost goes upto $12bn ..also it would all but kill of the Vikrant carrier project.....something which i dont want to happen.
Lets not be a bit overambitious with this

 

[Sea Toby]

We all know who the credible MOD source is, the janitor who mops the floors. Our media takes us readers as fools....
I never pay any attention to media gossip anymore, I read only official news releases.... Anything else is speculation....one hundred percent pure fiction.....

 

[kev 99]

What I wanted to say was that Britain had just reduced the number of trident carrying subs..and now the carriers...

It has done no such thing. There are still 4 Vangaurd class subs in use, it has been speculated that in the future the follow on class of SSBNs would be reduced to 3 subs carrying 12 missiles each but at the moment this is just speculation.;

 

[harryriedl]

This is getting dull can some one ban jernos reporting on some mil matter (procurement) as they clearly have shown that they don't have a clue.
The worst thing is that its going to be reported in the all the other papers as truth when clearly its guess work


Oh it should be in the RN thread

 

[Systems Adict]

One of Britain’s new £2bn aircraft carriers could be sold off under cost-cutting plans being considered by the Ministry of Defence. India has lodged a firm expression of interest, the Observer has learned.
The sale of one of the two 65,000-tonne vessels would leave the Royal Navy with a single carrier and could force Britain to borrow from the French fleet, which itself has only one carrier and is reluctant to build more. Last summer the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, proposed to Gordon Brown that the two navies co-ordinate maintenance and refitting so that one was at sea at all times.
According to senior defence sources, Whitehall officials are examining the feasibility of a sale as part of the strategic defence review that will start early next year and is expected to result in savage cuts.
The carrier programme has already been delayed by two years to push back spending commitments, which itself will end up costing the taxpayer more in the long run. BAE Systems began work in July on HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is due to come into service in 2016. Preparatory work on the Prince of Wales, due for launch in 2018, has also started. The two carriers will replace the aging Invincible class and are three times the size.
There were fears that the government could scrap one altogether. But it is understood that the financial penalties would be prohibitive. About 10,000 jobs in Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Fife and Glasgow depend on the orders.

MoD may sell aircraft carrier to India to limit cuts IDRW.ORG


Guys how bad is it in Britain now that they might want to sell one of their new carriers...first the nuke sub and now this!!#@
Anyways i don't think the government would buy it though it might just be a fluke show.....they shouldn't but it its too costly(considering how much they have already shelled out on the goshkov

Here we go again....


This is 'story' is COMPLETE BALDERDASH !!! :spam


The media is being foolish, churning up yet more feeble speculation to...

#A - Embarrass the UK Labour Govt.

#B - To have a poke at the Aircraft Carrier Alliance (especially BAE Systems).

#C - To attempt to sell more newspapers...


The paper that reported this 'faux-story' has been doing this for the last year / 18 months, constantly badgering A & B in the press, to make them look bad, in the hope that C will follow.

Personally, I think they are of the belief that once the next UK general election happens (in 2010), that the political party they are supporting (The Conservatives), will gain power & will be grateful !


Will any Fleet Street hacks actually get off their backsides & do a bit of SERIOUS journalism on this story ? nfloorl:

Doubtful !!


SA


PS Love Sea Toby's comments in post #11. You never know how close to the truth that could be !!

 

[tphuang]

a lot of this maybe nonsense, but there is no question RN is in for an even bigger scale down then people have imagined thus far. UK is running an unsustainable budget deficit and needs to get bailed out by IMF. Without going to the specifics, things aren't going to get much better for UK in the future. Meaning, the British won't have the money and need to serious cut down on its spending. And if selling strategic weapons to India is going to give it some much needed export revenue, then it might have to do this sometimes in the future.

 

[windscorpion]

Britain doesn't need to be bailed out by the IMF, not yet anyway. Best not to counter military news nonsense with economics news nonsense.

 

[brian00]

Britain doesn't need to be bailed out by the IMF, not yet anyway. Best not to counter military news nonsense with economics news nonsense.

I live in london and i hope you are right,

but dont forget that england was bailed out by the IMF in 1977, there is a precident

 

[harryriedl]

a lot of this maybe nonsense, but there is no question RN is in for an even bigger scale down then people have imagined thus far. UK is running an unsustainable budget deficit and needs to get bailed out by IMF. Without going to the specifics, things aren't going to get much better for UK in the future. Meaning, the British won't have the money and need to serious cut down on its spending. And if selling strategic weapons to India is going to give it some much needed export revenue, then it might have to do this sometimes in the future.

economic news is look up as well. quite a bit of confidence starting to come from the private sector and selling something that you spent already 4 billion on doesn't make sense even to the idiots of government.
Plus defense is very political at the moment the arguments the PM has had with the Sun was proof of that plus Generals and admirals who speak to papers slagging of the government (something unheard of in the UK). Plus the RN been fighting for this program for nearly 2 decades they aren't going to let it go. the cuts seem not to be too defense oriented the common targets like Quangos and non jobs are the targets cuts plus lots of reform of benefits and other aspects of the public sector seem the aims of the conservative government.

 

[swerve]

I live in london and i hope you are right,

but dont forget that england was bailed out by the IMF in 1977, there is a precident

The USA entered a disastrous slump in 1929. That didn't mean another one was likely in 1962. Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Not a precedent for another invasion in 1972. Times change. Precedents are only relevant if the conditions are similar, & our conditions are not similar to 1976. We don't have 25% inflation, as we had in the year before that loan: it was less than 1% last year. We don't have difficulty scraping up the foreign exchange to pay for imports.

 

[aaaditya]

Just a journalist speculating, possibly on the basis of an MoD contingency plan. Remember, mostMoD contingency plans are theorising about things that aren't expected to happen, & are done just so that if the unexpected (e.g. the govt. saying "We're going to sell a carrier") does happen, there's some kind of plan in place for it.

Apart from anything else, India already has two carriers (one rebuilt, one new) building, & a third approved. A fourth would probably be hard to crew. Also, policy is to build in India.

No, I don't think there's anything to it.

indian navy has a requirement of three carriers,besides the gorshkov and the ads the govt of india has cleared in principle the construction of one more carrier of the ads class,i cant be sure about the qe class but iam sure an offer on the invincible class would definitely interest the indian navy,by the any idea what is the current status of the invincible.