French Carrier Disaster Gets Very Strange

StrategyPage ^ | December 4, 2003 | 'Dirty Little Secrets’

[quidnunc]

December 4, 2003: France is considering quietly retiring their new nuclear powered aircraft carrier and joining with Britain to buy a new carrier of British design. Actually, the French had planned to built a second nuclear powered carrier, but they are having so many problems with the first one that they are quite reluctant about building another one. Britain is building two 50,000 ton conventionally powered carriers, at a cost of $2.5 billion each. France would order a third of this class, and bring down the cost of all three a bit. The new French nuclear carrier "Charles de Gaulle" has suffered from a seemingly endless string of problems. The 40,000 ton ship has cost over four billion dollars so far and is slower than the diesel powered carrier it replaced. Flaws in the "de Gaulle" have led it to using the propellers from it predecessor, the "Foch," because the ones built for "de Gaulle" never worked right. Worse, the nuclear reactor installation was done poorly, exposing the engine crew to five times the allowable annual dose of radiation. There were also problems with the design of the deck, making it impossible to operate the E-2 radar aircraft that are essential to defending the ship and controlling offensive operations. Many other key components of the ship did not work correctly, and the carrier has been under constant repair and modification. The "de Gaulle" took eleven years to build (1988-99) and was not ready for service until late 2000. It's been downhill ever since. So the plan is to buy into the new British carrier building program and keep the "de Gaulle" in port and out of trouble as much as possible. The British have a lot more experience building carriers, and if  there are any problems with the British designed ship, one can blame the British.

-snip-

[Doc On The Bay]

The Massive Extent of the "Failures" in design & execution on this Doomed Carrier indicate either Sabotage or a level of incompetence that even French Engineers are unlikely to be accused of.

Someone Scuttled this Ship.

HOW SAD.

Considering the current Technological State-of-Affairs in France, They could "Use a Boost!"

NO WAY the "Failures" in the Engineering of this Carrier are an "Accident."--the French are MUCH BETTER ENGINEERS than THAT!

Doc

[Stultis]

The Britts saved the man, de Gaulle

Much as I admire the man, I'll never fully forgive Churchill for that. Nor do I understand how Churchill put up with de Gaulle's constant pissing, moaning, carping and whining (not to mention his indivious scheming). Winston must have been tempted to have the bastard shot.

[Criminal Number 18F]

This doesn't make any sense. First, "The Strategy Page" is a hangout for a lot of wannabees, led by Jim Dunnigan, who learned all he knows of war curled up with a book or playing a board game... so usually their "strategy" is a bit suspect. Sometimes more than a bit, as now.

The British carrier can't replace the French ship... the French ship is bigger and can operate conventional (albeit carrier-equipped) aircraft. It has been well over 20 years since the British could field anything but STOVL carriers. The French don't have any STOVL aircraft in service (well, apart from helicopters). There is absolutely no hope of operating E-2s off of anything the British are building or planning to build.

A STOVL carrier fleet can project power if you have first-rate selection and training of personnel -- as the UK showed in the South Atlantic War. But it can't project power the way a conventional attack carrier can, especially a nuclear-powered one. If the details described in the report are true, then the French have a ship that has many deficiencies, but its concept is what they are looking for. But the details are not exactly true. For instance, the propellers have been replaced with older ones, while a new one is being made to replace one that failed in testing (this is why you have testing. The propellers have to be replaced in pairs for symmetry). For another, they did indeed find too little safety margin for the E-2 early warning plane -- so they increased the size of the landing area. Problem solved.

If they were to set C de G aside, a better choice for them than a British helicopter-and-Harrier-ship would be any of the several US carriers in mothballs, but the thing is, the 40,000 ton Charles de Gaulle meets the needs of the French Navy just fine.

I grant that the French have been much less steadfast allies than the British, but there are Frenchmen putting their lives on the line in Afghanistan, and the French at least have maintained a powerful navy, which the British have not done.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Quick Shot]

Good engineers when opportunity knocks, will work nonstop to accomplish their goal. To say put their signature on it.

Here you have a country that makes it illegal to work more than 35 hours a week. They have departments just to monitor this. The fines are large. The pride of the worker is lost. It will not come back until the system collapses.

There are many good engineers, but the system is gone to allow them to show their potential, most notably in large systems such as this.

[js1138]

This has been going on at least since the Panama Canal.

[GATOR NAVY]

A rhetorical question I guess. You brought up their successful nuclear power program, and they've also run nuclear subs for many years (which I presume have a much higher tolerance when it comes to radioactivity levels). Why should this project cause them difficulties?

[Godfollow]

So apropos... (or however you spell the dang French word.)

[Blue Scourge]

I thought the Brits where designing or building a new full size Carrier...sure I heard or read that somewhere...off to google I go...

[Blue Scourge]

http://www.mod.uk/dpa/future_carrier.html

Sorry I can't remember how to post a link..just have to copy paste. Not as large as ours, but quite a jump from what they are using now.

[HardStarboard]

I think that the French had to lengthen the flight deck twice in order to accomodate their newest naval fighters... and it was still marginally too short.

If this is French expertice on display, makes one wonder about climbing on an Airbus doesn't it.

[HardStarboard]

Nah, its not all Foch'ed up...its the Foch'ing propellers man.

[RIGHT IN LAS VEGAS]

What do you mean that the French don't have an aircraft carrier?

Haven't you heard of sea gulls?

[Rokke]

That is an awesome post. The way the pictures gradually appeared on my slow connection made it even more funny.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Why the heck can't they make a reactor work in a marine environment ?

Problem seems to be, they didn't want to spend for a new reactor, so they thought they could drive their boat with 2 x sub reactors.

That's kind of like saying, "Let's power this cement truck with two Honda Civic motors." It has proved to be insufficient.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[orlop9]

But the Galley is top-notch.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Thanks for the post. Funny thing is after I posted the other day, I went and looked to see what the brits were doing next.

That carrier design is 50,000 tons (i.e. bigger than the French ship) and it is designed to be delivered as a STOVL only boat but convertible to catapults and arrested landing for conventional naval aircraft.

But deliveries are 10 years off. So it isn't going to solve the French Navy's problem.

In related news, one of the old carriers just got repo'd by France on the high sease when they found out the knackers they sold it to lied about what they were doing with it (they were supposed to strip it in Europe, safely... they were taking it to Pakistan where dollar-a-day Hadjis would tear it apart with hand tools.

I would definitely like to see both France and Britain operating conventional carriers. They are civilised nations and we need more such controlling the sea lanes. Right now, the only carriers I know about are ours, a Russian one undergoing refit for China, France's (in this thread), and older vessels operated by Brazil and Argentina. But I'm a ground guy with a minor in air. It's too boring to keep track of the empty 75% of the globe... that's what the Navy's for.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Pro-Bush]

The French Chauchat used in WW1 was a disaster as well. Notice the clip, it was open to mud and debris, this was the worst machine gun ever made.

[Travis McGee]

Didn't China buy a couple of semi-seaworthy ex-Soviet flat tops for studying and copying, and possibly refurbishing?

[Criminal Number 18F]

The net being the net, a current list of carriers is within reach:

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers

Looking at this list, the Charles de Gaulle is probably the 2nd most potent carrier in the world (after all of ours) -- when it's working. Some of the stuff I posted above is not right... Argentina retired the 25th of May, as their carrier was called. Brazil has the old Foch and Clemenceau is the ship that the French just repo'd in the Med.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Cvengr]

What's the German word for gloating at others' misfortune?

'France' (in a German accent).