Britain Frets Over Cost of Restoring Carriers to Royal Navy

The Wall Street Journal ^ | July 2, 2014 | ROBERT WALL

[sukhoi-30mki]

Queen to Christen First of Two New Aircraft Carriers, Second Headed for Mothballs

ROSYTH, Scotland— Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled on Friday to christen the first of two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, despite lingering questions over whether Britain can afford both vessels.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to start sailing with combat jets in 2020—a decade after Britain suspended its membership in the elite club of militaries with that capacity, one that already includes India and China.

For the Royal Navy's top brass, the carrier represents another milestone in the country's storied history as a naval power.

But amid severe budget constraints following Europe's deepest recession since World War II, the U.K. government has yet to buy jets for the Queen Elizabeth, and will mothball the planned sister ship to save money.

That squeeze means Britain's ability to use its carrier to project military power will be significantly limited.

"Operating a single carrier really only gives you regional power," said Peter Roberts, a senior research fellow for maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. That is largely because, without a backup, a carrier will be limited to six-month deployments.

"It is a second carrier availability that gives you that truly global characteristic of the navy," Mr. Roberts said.

The Queen Elizabeth and the sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, have a combined cost of £6.2 billion ($10.6 billion). The two, 65,000-ton vessels were conceived back in 1999, long before Europe's economic woes.

[GeronL]

India?

[Little Ray]

I’d keep my CV tied up, too, if there were UK SSNs hanging around my coast...

[GeronL]

I bet Japan could build one easily. South Korea might be able to with some work.

[tanknetter]

Battleships were really one trick ponies. They could throw artillery shells out to the limitations of their targeting systems. That could be against anothe battleship, or a land based target (shore bombardment). Dreadnaught was obsolete within two years because bigger and better guns, better armor and better optics (targeting systems) were being developed. But the fundamentals remained, you could see the other guy (meaning he could see you) and you could shell him (meaning he could shell you).

Carriers are a lot more flexible in both what they’re used for and how they’re used. Even with current tech they’re damned hard to detect, unless they want to be.

The truth is, in a shooting war with either ChiComs or Russia, we’re not going to charge in with carriers until we seriously attrit the other guy’s ability to locate, target and attack them through other means. A Bear bomber can’t even get into the air if it, and it’s airfield have been destroyed by B-2s or sub launched cruise missiles. As John Lehman said back the the early days of the Reagan Administration, we’re not going to send the carriers up the Volga River (or into the Taiwan Strait, for that matter) on the first day of the war.

[NorthMountain]

South Korean shipyards would have no trouble building a supercarrier. Whether the South Korean government could afford to build and then operate one (or a fleet of them) is a separate question ...

[GeronL]

That is true. It is going to take a long time for them to modernize their military with new tanks, fighters and ships.

The 11,000-ton destroyers of the Sejong The Great Class are top-notch. Carrying 128 missiles makes it one of the heaviest-armed ships on the planet along with the Kirov-class (Russia) and the Arleigh Burke Class (US).

3 have been completed at close to a billion bucks a pop.

[GeronL]

and of course we can all see the Japanese have one, more or less, with the IZUMO. It's a little smaller than the WASP and will be able to carrier F-35 (VTOL) naval variants. I think it shows they CAN build a bigger one.

[NorthMountain]

Wikipedia (ha ha) lists 20 aircraft carriers in service among the world's navies.

10 of them are in the US Navy. Only the Russians have ever built anything close to the capabilities of the USN "Nimitz" class. Russia has one of them in service, the other was sold partially completed to the Chicoms, who finished it and put it in service. USN, even in its current degraded state under the Communist Mohammedan Usurper, is more navy than the rest of the world combined.

[NorthMountain]

I think it shows they CAN build a bigger one.

Can and probably will. IZUMO is a classy little ship, but she's only 27000 tons. They have a long way to go.

[Alas Babylon!]

Don’t forget Japan!

[GeronL]

bump

Not too many countries need or can afford a big aircraft carrier. You would need to at least be a regional power for it to make any sense.

[Kenny Bunk]

Thanks for the update. Post-Falklands, the Argies are out of the carrier businness.

[tanknetter]

Thanks for the update. Post-Falklands, the Argies are out of the carrier businness.

You're welcome.

They've done some joint ops with Brazil on Sao Paulo with their S-2 Trackers and Super Etendards. And there was some talk a while back that if Brazil were to move ahead with building it's own carrier they'd order a sister ship. But the Argie economy is pretty much in shambles at this point and even small carriers eat up a lot of money. Just ask the Thais about their t-i-n-y Spanish-built Harrier-carrier/Royal Yacht ...

Brazil on the other hand, is moving to expand it's carrier capability. I think a new deck is off the table for now, but they're having a number of C-1 Traders pulled out of mothballs in the US desert southwest (at one of the private boneyards, I don't think that they were even at AMARG anymore) and rebuilt as aerial refuelers, COD and AEWC birds. There's also some suggestion that the Swedes are proposing a navalized Gripen for them to replace their A-4s.

[tanknetter]

I think it shows they CAN build a bigger one.

Yup, the Japanese are evolving. And signalling. The previous, smaller class of carrier-looking "Helicopter Carrying Destroyers" were named Ise and Hyuga, after two WWII battleships that were converted mid-war into hybrid aircraft carriers.

Izumo's name is interesting. Ostensibly it's named after a turn of the century IJN armored cruiser. But "Izumo (Maru)" was also the original name of a passenger liner that was converted into a carrier (renamed Hiyō) after Midway. That's no coincidence ...

[Vanders9]

Ah-hah! That’s what YOU think! :)

[Vanders9]

Thailand does too. Sort of.