Cutting edge: HMS Queen Elizabeth under construction in Rosyth, Scotland
Posted on 03/22/2016 3:52:53 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Each day and night some 5,000 men and women pour into the docks at Rosyth to work on the two giant aircraft carriers that in the next three years will become the pride of the Navy’s fleet.
HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are the biggest warships ever built in this country, and will be the cutting edge of the Royal Navy’s capability, giving it the second biggest carrier force in the world. The carriers don’t come cheap — £6.3 billion for the ships alone — and don’t come without controversy, both political and military.
Construction work is now at its height. The 5,000-strong workforce is three times the size of the sea crews of the two ships. Each vessel needs a core company of only 690 — the equivalent US nuclear-driven carrier is barely a third bigger but needs nearly seven times the men and women to sail it.
In the early-morning gloom across the Firth of Forth, the shapes of the 70,000-tonne, 280-metre-long vessels — one is still on the slipway — are familiar. They have the classic lines of the “flat-top” large grey hulls with a table as deck. Almost everything else about the design is revolutionary.
The Queen Elizabeth’s hangar deck affords more room than the equivalent in the larger US carriers. Cables and tape festoon the work areas. “There’s 3.3 million metres of electric cable,” says Commander Steve Prest, 40, who is in charge of weapons engineering.
“We handle ammunition on roughly the same method as Amazon do their storage. It’s completely automatic in the deep magazines. It’s only checked by human hand above Deck 5.” This includes small-arms ammunition and rockets and bombs for aircraft and ship’s defences, and requires 35 handlers — the American ships need 400.
“This is the job I’ve wanted for 12 years,” says Commander Prest. “Carrier power is what the Navy’s about, along with Trident. If you are in the Navy and don’t want to work on the carriers, you’re in the wrong job.” With such huge space and so few crew, it’s easy to get lost: “When the company join they’ll have an app for their tablet or mobile to tell them where they are in the ship.”
In the galley, Chief Petty Officer Devon Knibbs, 41, points to six large and six small ovens from which his team will feed the crew in four canteens and dining spaces. Five bakers will turn out 600 loaves, 1,500 baguettes and 1,500 rolls each day.
On the bridge, there’s the same sense of economy and purpose. The desks are an array of plasma screens and digital displays. There is the odd old-fashioned chart, “just in case”, says Lieutenant Rachel Campbell, 27, today’s officer of the watch. “It’s an amazing prospect, a leap forward for the Navy,” she adds.
Lt Campbell, who has just returned from chasing pirates and terrorists off Africa with the Italian navy, points out the almost absurdly small wheel — roughly the size of the wheel on a Formula 1 car.
On the decks, a team is laying thermal metal spray, a new material from the US for resisting the furnace blast of an F-35 fighter on landing and take-off. Rather less expensive was the use of cake tin grease to slide the Prince of Wales more on its stocks in the dock. “We’ve learned a lot from building the first ship [Queen Elizabeth],” says David Shepherd, of building consortium the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. “The Prince of Wales is 20 per cent cheaper and has taken just over half the time.”
The carriers are arriving on time and on budget. Around this time next year the Queen Elizabeth will sail down the Forth — dipping her mast and aerials to get under three bridges — for sea trials. These will eventually bring the ship to London, although she is too large to get up the Thames beyond Tilbury.
There are tricky parts of the programme still ahead — the arrival of the new F-35s, for example. The two ships are expected to serve for 50 years. What troubled world they will navigate then, who can guess?
'These ships are vital to our security'
What are such huge ships for in the 21st century? Do we need them, and can we afford them? The £6.3 billion building cost is much cheaper than the American carrier force, to be sure, but with the aircraft and helicopters to go on the ships, plus the air defence systems, the sum is likely to triple.
David Cameron likes to say the ships are for “power projection”. Not that he has shown himself too keen on military activity. Libya, Afghanistan and Syria suggest Team Cameron is far keener on exit strategies before they have properly honed entry strategies.
It is planned that the carriers will launch new F-35 Lightning II fighters, on order from the US. These are expensive and not yet fully proven. The ships can also carry helicopters, including the Apache gunship and troop-carrying Chinook. This makes them ideal for responding quickly to major disasters, as USS George Washington proved during the 2013 Philippines hurricane.
However they are vulnerable, particularly to the new generation of anti-ship missiles paraded by China and Russia and being developed by regional powers such as Iran and Israel.
They will need protection in hostile waters. This will require one, possibly two, new Type 45 Daring-class destroyers, plus a patrol submarine and anti-submarine frigate. The Type 45s, which cost £1 billion each, are awaiting the correction of a major design fault before they can be used properly. The Ministry of Defence and Cabinet office are still bickering about the frigates.
There are no more corners to cut in the naval equipment programme, try though the Treasury may. The carriers are wanted by our principal allies the US and France to help manage collective security on the high seas.
Britain may not be a global power but continues to have global interests on which it depends for commerce and survival. Maritime power is vital to secure food and energy and help manage the turmoil of population movement. In the new algebra of 21st-century security, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales seem more of a necessity than a luxury.
Cutting edge: HMS Queen Elizabeth under construction in Rosyth, Scotland
"...the British government had intended to purchase the F-35C carrier version of this aircraft, and adopted plans for Prince of Wales
to be built to a Catapult Assisted Take Off Barrier Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) configuration. After the projected costs of the
CATOBAR system rose to around twice the original estimate, the government announced that it would revert to the original design on 10 May 2012...
[with] a Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) configuration...”
The Brits may well rue the day... 
they went on the cheap for their national dekense--
Just ..... meditate on that a while .....
No catapult launch just a ski ramp so it can only use the F-35 if they ever become operational.
Not necessarily: Boeing claimed the Super Hornet can take off from a ski-jump carrier several years ago, eyeing Indian requirements. Dassault claims the Rafale can do the same too. The Eurofighter folks have a couple of good CGIs of a naval Typhoon using a ski jump, but that’s about it.
http://rafalenews.blogspot.in/2012/06/rafale-stobar-compatible.html
Interesting I had not seen those reports. Could be rather severe operational restrictions though. Probably a very limited bomb/munitions load to save weight for the take off.
Thank you for your research and frequent postings of text and photos/diagrams of military assets from various countries!
I was on the FDR (CVA-42) built for about 3600, but we had around 5000 ship and squadron personnel, operating 24 hours every day. Smaller ship than these two the Brits are constructing, at only 55,000 tons.
Hard to believe that even with the new technologies they will be able to operate with such a small crew. They must plan on only operating each day from after breakfast until tea time.
Yes, but at least it means the F35 isn’t the only option. That is the biggest concern and risk with this.
Interesting point, I heard that British Industry has a bigger production share in Gripen than Typhonn
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