Posted on 10/25/2009 10:47:15 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Navy surrenders one new aircraft carrier in budget battle
Michael Smith
The Royal Navy has agreed to sacrifice one of its two new aircraft carriers to save about £8.2 billion from the defence budget.
The admirals, who have battled for a decade to secure the two new 65,000-ton carriers, have been forced to back down because of the soaring cost of the American-produced Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft due to fly off them.
The move is a blow to the navy’s prestige and has come on the heels of Gordon Brown’s announcement last month that he was axing one of the navy’s four Trident nuclear deterrent submarines.
It is too late for the navy to renege on contracts to build the two carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, due to go into service in 2016, and the Prince of Wales, due to follow in 2018. Although the second carrier will be built, it will be used as an amphibious commando ship, with only helicopters on board instead of JSF aircraft.
The move will leave the navy without a carrier when the Queen Elizabeth goes into refit, leaving open the possibility that it might have to borrow one from the French navy. In a meeting with Brown last year, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, had suggested that refits of French and British aircraft carriers should be co-ordinated.
The decision to have only one new aircraft carrier will cut the number of JSFs to be flown by RAF squadrons from 138 to about 50, saving £7.6 billion. At current prices, the aircraft will cost close to £90m each, but this could rise to more than £100m.
Using the Prince of Wales as a commando ship will save a further £600m, the amount
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
...wow, this is REALLY pathetic for the Navy that once ruled the world’s oceans.
That tremor you feel is Horatio Nelson spinning in his grave.
Those British government dentists gotta be paid...
Yes it is, but we lost one carrier, or at least had it postponed, in our budget battles, too. We'll not have enough to keep one in each Ocean. Given the 1 up 2 back nature of Capital ship deploymens. (1 on the line, 1 coming off deployment and/or working up for the next deployment, and 1 in the shop, on average). In this case, the Occupant in Chief was one of those wielding the axe, with aide from his "posse" in Congress.
...but it’s not one of two! We have what, 10 Nimitz class carriers alone?
65,000 tons is a bit bloody big for a mere helicopter carrier!
I’m not too disheartened though. The fact that the second one will still be built means that in theory at least, it can be retrofitted as a full carrier if and when sanity returns to defence spending policy in Britain. My worst fear was that both would be cancelled and we’d have no carriers at all for the first time since before World War One....
What we need now is for some more escort ships, and I’d be happy for those to be American designed and British built to save money. The new destroyers we have cost more than twice that of an Arleigh-Burke for less than half the missile capacity.
As long as they are built here it shouldn’t be a problem. We maintain our essential industrial defence base, whilst getting the best equipment and value for money....
True. But, they were also the most populous western country at the time. Now, they're just marginally bigger (measuring population) than Texas and California combined.
OTOH, America floats a Navy that represents just over 1/10th of a percent of our population. Both France and the UK field float navies that represent just of 1/2 of that percentage - roughly .064%. And, the rest of the European Union countries that are coastal do much, much more poorly than that. In effect, America shoulders a much greater burden - financially and demographically - for world security than any of our European allies.
Yes, we do, plus Enterprise, which is the one we are losing. She was originally set to be decommissioned about the same time as "Ford" came on line. Well Ford has been slipped twice, and the decommissioning of Enterprise has been accelerated. She'll be decommissioned in FY 2013, rather than the original 2015. We are getting the Ford around 2015. But they are also lengthening the build cycle for future carriers, which will reduce the total fleet to 10 after 2040.
Navy surrenders one new aircraft carrier in budget battle....while China just keeps building its Navy.
Will China own the carriers we have if we can’t pay back our GROWING debt?
She needs to split that one eyebrow.
From what I understand our whole Country is collateral.
“True. But, they were also the most populous western country at the time. Now, they’re just marginally bigger (measuring population) than Texas and California combined.”
France and Germany always had a larger population than the UK. A Large Royal Navy was justified by the size of the Empire and the fact that as an island nation, it was more affordable because we didn’t need a large Army.
Now, we don’t have a far flung Empire to justify a massive Navy, but we need one big enough to deploy another taskforce to say, the Falklands if required whilst still having some slack left in reserve to defend the our own home waters and other interests if required.
By my reckoning, to fulfill that obligation we need at least three and preferably four full-sized carriers. Two for any task force, one in reserve and one in refit, along with at least six Invincible-style carriers in support.
As things are going to be in future, we would only have one proper carrier to deploy on a taskforce, which means all it takes is one, lucky crippling shot and its game over. Defence procurement policy in the UK is ridiculous because it makes no allowance of the need for slack capacity in the event of battle loss or the need for other ships to be kept in reserve should another crisis flare up at the same time...
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“We have what, 10 Nimitz class carriers alone?”
If we have seven more years of Zero, this number will decline, if not immediately, but for lack of replacement construction.
I hope you're right. We've seen the Navy lay-up ships in a quick 'n dirty fashion before. They could take a CVBG out of service to pay for healthcare, or some such giveaway. And if they don't do a proper mothball job... I don't want to think about it.
Not the US Navy. Brits.
India should jump in there & see if they can purchase PoW. If there are any changes that need to be made to deck geometry, elevators, etc. now would be the time to move. You know where the bidding is going to start — completion costs.
Dear God!
I can’t un-see what I just see’d.
Now I gotta wash & rinse my entire prefrontal cortex.
Ick.
The decision to have only one new aircraft carrier will cut the number of JSFs to be flown by RAF squadrons from 138 to about 50That's barely enough for the air wing of a single carrier, which means there won't be any JSF left for the RAF to operate from the amphib
The justification for the STOVL ship, backed by the Falklands War experience and Joint Force Harrier operation was that a STOVL ship could be given a capacity surge by reinforcement by normally landbased STOVL fighters.
And the latest word is that the UK is going to go for the F-35C CV version.
Without the landbased STOVL aircraft available there is no real justification for operating STOVL on any ship larger than 30,000 tons.
There is the problem that a CVF is about 10m too long for the Indian Navy's Chochin drydock.
That’s where the real $$ cut is—NOT buying 88 F-35 aircraft. Building but not equipping HMS Prince is a strawman as far as budget savings go.
TC
Don’t you think the wise men running the UK will ask for a smaller carrier now that it’s supposed to be outfitted for the amphibib role-in that case, it’s F-35 capability will be modest.
Cochin Shipyard plans to build a new larger dry dock in the coming years. There’s also a new privately owned shipyard in Gujarat which will planned to have the largest dry-docks in the country. Of course, all this is still in the works-though these should be in service by the time a CVF-2 gets finished.
Oooops!
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