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Has to be read to be believed

How 13 Whitehall mandarins crippled Britain’s aircraft carriers – and how to fix them

Incredible report from Lewis Page. The paper’s libel lawyers will have been all over this. We must assume that he can back it up therefore…..

65 thoughts on “Has to be read to be believed”

  1. I had literally just read, when I came on here. I have long considered the QE class a botch job. One of those typical UK procurements that tries to be everything and ends up being nothing. I was always under the impression that catapults were going to be electromagnetic rather than steam. I know some here disagree, but I also believe that it should have been equipped with a reactor rathen big diesels.

    He is wrong, I think, about Typhoons and their dependence on US servicing. I am also not sure that the F18 is the panacea he claims. Also Page has a bit of a reputation for… hyperbole.

    At least the engines don’tbreak down when the water is a bit warm.

  2. Lewis exaggerates as normal, but I suspect the specifics of this is correct. Catapult launch and arrested landing is a far better solution than vertical and short landing and takeoff. As always, the specifications are the key: the important part of an aircraft carrier is the aircraft: you choose that first and work from there

  3. Proper journalism from the Telegraph. They can still do it on the rare occasions when they make the effort which makes the superficiality and dumbing-down evident in 98% of their output even more depressing.

  4. The Other Bloke in Italy

    If the piece is even half correct, Julia’s suggestion might seem excessively kind.

  5. It’s amazing how many politicians are removed for “inappropriate behaviour” rather than bad policy. It’s like competence is unimportant!

  6. Fire those 13 mandarins from the catapults’ by any chance?

    “My object all sublime
    I shall achieve in time —
    To let the punishment fit the crime —
    The punishment fit the crime;
    And make each prisoner pent
    Unwillingly represent
    A source of innocent merriment!
    Of innocent merriment!”.

  7. The catapults would have had to be electromagnetic as they chose gas turbine propulsion, which means there is no steam for steam catapults.

  8. Aren’t aircraft carriers and super fighters mostly just military porn at this point? There’s no way we and the Americans are going to get involved if China takes Taiwan. No-one will commit the number of dead that would be required even to make China think twice about it.

  9. There’s a brief section in “What Does Jeremy Think”, the book about the former Head of the Civil Service, on this.

    IIRC the cost of retrofitting the catapult was about the same as scrapping the carrier and starting again. What was striking to me was how unencumbered with concern the civil service was that they had stumbled into yet another procurement disaster.

    Dominic Cummings is correct about MOD procurement, and that Haywood was a fixer but not a thinker.

  10. NoelC : “The catapults would have had to be electromagnetic as they chose gas turbine propulsion, which means there is no steam for steam catapults.”

    And with all that electricity doing the rounds the Brits can’t mount a boiler system to generate the steam necessary? Y’know… the nation rather proud of the fact that they pioneered the steam engine in its many uses?

    Funny that.. I distinctly remember being launched by steam catapult liberated from an old british carrier in a loop-coaster in Alton Towers a decade or two back… ( boy.. what a rush… 🙂 )
    If an amusement park can figure things out, and the Military Engineers can’t, you do have to wonder about competency in the latter…

  11. “The catapults would have had to be electromagnetic as they chose gas turbine propulsion, which means there is no steam for steam catapults”

    If the MOD boffins had to pay the fuel bills themselves (instead of letting the taxpayer cover their failings) they would equip those turbines with exhaust heat recovery boilers (like CHP systems in the power stations which keep our lights on). This would 1) improve the overall efficiency, meaning a longer range before needing to refuel, and 2) they could continue to use tried & tested steam catapults…

  12. How can this be? Britain has the fourth largest defence budget in the world. We comfortably outspend both France and Russia.

    We spend about the same as Russia, but get a lot less pow-per-pound. The Russian army is significantly stronger and better equipped than the tiny British Army (not as well trained tho, and definitely not as well led at NCO and junior officer levels). The Russian air force is also much larger and more capable than the shrunken RAF.

    We have a better surface fleet, but it’s small and compromised by legacy decisions like the lack of cats and traps on our carriers, the relative lack of anti-air on our carriers, and the lack of hulls to replace any frigates or destroyers lost in another war. Another Falklands experience would be the end of the current Royal Navy as a global expeditionary force, and that was against a third rate Latin American meme power. Russia has a much bigger submarine fleet than we do.

    Russia has a truly independent nuclear triad, hypersonic missiles, its own space programme, and the capacity to design and build its own warplanes, tanks and armoured vehicles. We have tranny pride initiatives and a Conservative government determined to get women into the Paras and the SAS. So bright ideas like this one:

    Two weeks ago, at a Nato summit, Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, pledged a strong commitment by the UK to defend Eastern Europe against Putin’s Russia.
    “I think we’ll dedicate one of the carrier groups to it,” Wallace commented.

    Are an invitation to death and failure, unless we actually want RN servicepersons to be human tripwires for WW3. But what do we win in that scenario? It’s a strange game where the only winning move is not to play.

    The Royal Navy’s Big Gay Cruise to China last year was even more embarrassing. China is a literal superpower, their coastline is ringed with sophisticated anti-ship defences that would swat any hostile foreign carrier group in minutes. 1997 was a lifetime ago, if the Chinese decided to war on us now in their own waters there’s nothing we could do except cope, seethe and die. We literally sent billions of pounds worth of military hardware into harm’s reach to mildly annoy Chairman Xi. A pipsqueak daring the local heavyweight champ to land a punch.

    “Global Britain” is a wheeze, is it not? Maybe we should concentrate on achievable, non-global goals for a change, such as being able to produce enough electricity that British people can realistically afford, and not having a town’s worth of illiterate foreign rapists descend on our coast every day, or not allowing tax-suckling scumbags in education or the arts sector to promote racial hatred against white Brits.

    Crazy, I know, but it might just work and doesn’t require us to fund any more champagne and coke parties for BAE executives.

  13. Steve

    “against a third rate Latin American meme power. ”

    Argentina wasn’t at the time. It had a lot of modern equipment bought on tick from around the world. We discussed in an earlier thread how remarkable the Skyhawk was.

    The rest I agree with you. But We must stop the Chinese from taking Taiwan. Otherwise there is literally no stopping them if they flex heir muscles elsewhere. Not sure how to do it without blowing up the world, though.

  14. Sadly, and not uncommon from Page, it’s not a good or accurate article.

    The fundamental problem is that the US Navy makes CATOBAR carrier operations (catapult take off, arrested recovery) look easy. Unfortunately, they do so by investing enormous sums in it.

    Some big broad handfuls, using dollars because I’m swiping numbers from the USN’s data; it’ll drop short because it’s mostly just looking at flying hours, no other costs. The following is almost certainly wrong, but it’s wrong as an underestimate…

    Firstly, you’ve got the flying hours for deck training; take a fully qualified fast jet pilot who can land on concrete, put them in something like a T-45 Goshawk, and teach them to land on a moving carrier. That’s about two or three hundred flying hours (40 weeks, 125 hops) for the USN; $1,500,000 immediately just in T-45 flying hours, plus you actually need the T-45s to fly (about $30 million per airframe at last rough check; the USN gets about 60 hours per aircraft per month out of them, considered excellent, but that ends up needing half an airframe per trainee in the pipeline). Consider that the USN’s washout rate hovers at around 50%; if you want to sustain 48 trained pilots on an eight-year service commitment, you’ll need to train about fifteen a year, so eight T-45s up front ($240 million) and $22.5 million per year steady state. (Just in airframes and flying hours, no salaries or other costs)

    At that point you’ve built a force of 48 pilots who can land a T-45 on a carrier: transition training to F-35 will need more hours in that type, and then the skills need to be maintained; the USN estimates their pilots, aboard a carrier in home waters during workup, are flying 30-32 hours a month to build and sustain their skills (about 50% more than their land-based contemporaries; all the usual requirements, plus staying current on carrier operations). Handwave away conversion courses (land-based F-35B pilots will need to transition too) but it still gets very expensive.

    Ten hours, per pilot, per month, for an air wing of twelve Lightnings in normal jogging to stay carrier-competent; that’s pushing fifty million dollars a year just to keep the embarked pilots current. If you want to surge to a larger air wing, you’ll need warning time and some serious workup (and the capacity to conduct it, which will otherwise be sitting around idle annoying the Treasury) because a lot of your force are out of practice and will need to refresh; the USN reckon on having to requalify after each shore tour.

    See where the costs start coming from? We’re not looking at instructors and simulators, nor are we considering the cost of having an aircraft carrier steaming around in the SCXAs chasing the wind, plane guard helo aloft, while a succession of nuggets do touch-and-goes or arrested landings on her deck, and there’s the risk of accidental losses; the US Navy and USMC’s aviators suffer 20-odd Class A mishaps (loss of life or more than a million dollars’ worth of damage) per year, with about ten aircraft lost and about ten dead, each year. Even assuming we’re operating two carriers to their eleven, that’s two aircrafts and pilots a year gone; even if it’s a (relatively) cheap T-45 that’s an extra sixty million dollars year and a very expensive pilot to replace.

    So to qualify forty-eight for a surge, and keep twelve pilots up and skilled, we’re looking at $250 million up front and a bit over seventy million a year in running costs, even assuming no accidents. Over a thirty year life, that’s at least two billion dollars in extra costs, in order to save about $800 million on the airframes because the -C is a bit cheaper than the -B. (Lose two training aircraft a year in carrier-landing accidents, which is in line with USN experience, and the cost goes up by another two billion)

    See why the numbers simply don’t add up for CATOBAR, and why it actually becomes a very inflexible asset when all the realities of trying to surge the embarked airwing to 30-odd F-35Cs hits the rocks of “just give us a year and a shedload of cash to get all our pilots back in date for night landings…”?

    Worse, a CATOBAR air wing is tied to the carrier – the pilots have to stay current because being able to reliably trap back aboard at night, is a very perishable skill. The USN have enough carriers that they can move pilots between them (individually or by squadron) to keep “in-date pilots” and “decks doing a lot of flying” matched up: with only two carriers, it becomes very hard to manage currency for anyone not on the operational deck. (How do the pilots from Prince of Wales’ air wing stay current when she’s docked for an overhaul period and QNLZ is deployed elsewhere?)

    By contrast, STOVL operations are much cheaper to run: “stop, then land” is far easier. Back in 1982, RAF Harrier pilots learned “how to land on a carrier” in a few days on the trip South; just not possible with CATOBAR. Hence, the air wing becomes far more flexible: instead of the F-35C force being chained to the carriers, we can tailor the air group up or down as required (from almost all pointy-nose fast jets for air superiority and strike, to mostly helicopters for troop transport with a Royal Marines commando on camp beds in one end of the hangar as a giant LPH)

    That’s “why STOVL” – arrested landing is really, really expensive and inflexible, needing months of intensive, expensive training to go from “qualified to fly from land bases” to “able to reliably trap aboard a carrier at night in bad weather”.

    But do we lose a lot of capability by not having catapults? Some, but less than you’d think. The Sea Harrier at its best was able to carry two 1,000lb bombs about 150 miles, or four air-to-air missiles about 250 miles. The F-35B in “stealth mode” can carry two 1,000lb bombs and four air-to-air missiles 450 miles; or, it can give up stealthiness and carry a few tons of fuel and bombs on external pylons, to push payload and/or range out about as far as a Tornado used to be able to achieve.

    The idea that the F-35 is “not a good aircraft” has fallen over on its actual performance; despite some loudly-declared teething problems (nothing as bad as the exploding engines of early F-15s, or the issues that earned the F-16 the nickname ‘Lawn Dart’) it’s proving itself an extremely capable aircraft that’s a serious advance over predecessors, with remarkable situational awareness (superb sensors, shared information over MADL, while being difficult for an adversary to detect – to see without being seen, is most of the way to winning).

    The Hornet is nowhere near “in the same class” as Typhoon, let alone Lightning: it’s a solid aircraft that’s given excellent service… since 1980. It’s already over forty years old and it’s running out of ways to remain current, as the world evolves around it. Back in the 1990s the Eurofighter (as was) was assessed as about three times more effective than the Hornet (as you’d hope for twenty years of progress) and the Hornet hasn’t changed or improved -=much since.

    Similarly, helicopters are actually pretty effective at AEW compared to a fixed-wing aircraft constrained by catapult launch; during Iraq, our Sea King ASaC.7 helicopters were seeing smaller, more distant contacts than US Navy E-2C Hawkeyes (including tracking smugglers’ quad bikes in al-Muthanna province, which the Hawkeyes couldn’t see at all)

    I could go on but it’s just too annoying: this is all old, recycled bollocks from Page, reciting stuff that’s “popular but wrong”.

    One point I can attest to directly, though, was that far from it being “easy” to go from STOVL to CATOBAR, the decision was proposed and accepted in a few minutes without any analysis or support because Cameron was “bored”; the senior scrutineer (whose job it is to check whether there’s evidence supporting expensive decisions) saw nothing on the subject. When some initial numbers were run – like mine above but better evidenced and more detailed – it turned out that going CATOBAR with an air wing of Hornets would cost a large fortune while greatly reducing operational capability.

    And… breathe.

  15. The Other Bloke in Italy

    Jason, thank you for that. Perhaps I can safely feel a little less liverish.

    One of the things I like about this place is the spread of expertise here.

    Again,thanks. You put in a lot of work.

  16. Ottokring,

    “But We must stop the Chinese from taking Taiwan.”

    Why haven’t they taken it already if they want it? Who is going to stop them other than the Taiwanese?

  17. Otto – I was being more than a touch cheeky about our Argie pals, but the gulf in capabilities between Buenos Aires in 1982 and Moscow in 2022 is yuge. We’re squaring up to a much deadlier opponent, with far fewer navy assets than we had 40 years ago in a war we could easily have lost.

    Idk what we can do to defend Formosa, or what practical difference it makes to us. Taiwan habitually talks a good game on defence, but doesn’t seem terribly invested in effective action. They’re pretty fatalistic about their future, not sure it’s profitable to care more about the independence of Taipei than the locals are. But then geography is not on their side.

    Chinese expansion seems unstoppable, there’s a lot of the little buggers and they’re the world’s manufacturing hub. But China also has serious economic and demographic problems of their own baked into the cake, so I’m not particularly worried about our new Han overlords and their epicanthic inscrutability.

    I am worried about our own WEF-crazed white and Hindu overlords, who openly admire the Chinese system and are working to implement something even worse here – at least China isn’t trying to deliberately lower its own living standards or make Chinese people a despised minority in China. These are the people who facilitated China’s rising strength in the first place, gleefully sent them our intellectual property and invited them to take our money. If it wasn’t for Net Zero and similar self-harming schemes, Sino-irredentism would be a big, beautiful opportunity for Britain rather than a threat. Why shouldn’t we make our own computer chips? Let China become an international pariah if it wants to.

    Jason – good insights as usual.

    But do we lose a lot of capability by not having catapults? Some, but less than you’d think. The Sea Harrier at its best was able to carry two 1,000lb bombs about 150 miles, or four air-to-air missiles about 250 miles. The F-35B in “stealth mode” can carry two 1,000lb bombs and four air-to-air missiles 450 miles; or, it can give up stealthiness and carry a few tons of fuel and bombs on external pylons, to push payload and/or range out about as far as a Tornado used to be able to achieve.

    The difficulty of fruit comparison is choosing which apples to contrast, no? Tonne for tonne, the RN is more deadly than it was 40 years ago. But so is the potential enemy, and we have a lot fewer tonnes. “Better than the Harrier carriers” wouldn’t be much comfort if our floating gay discos quickly end up as the world’s most expensive gay artificial reefs, which they will do if we directly fight Russia or China.

    Feels like we’re still LARPing as a global military power, and the mismatch between British rhetoric and what Britain can actually do to boss around the fuzzy wuzzies (short of atomic war, which would be unfortunate) is now comical.

  18. Anyone using the phrase “fitted for but not with” in Whitehall should be immediately shot against the nearest courtyard wall.

  19. “The Russian army is significantly stronger and better equipped …”

    This is an army which has turned out not to have discovered fork-lift trucks yet. In fact, it hasn’t even discovered pallets yet.

    Lots of “pow-per-pound” to get you excited, except it all has to be dumped in one place close to the front.

  20. BoM4

    I think that the modern Chinese attitude is akin to the Japanese in the 1930s.

    They are due their “place in the sun” and they are building up to challenge the other Pacific hegemon.

    Once the US Navy is majority transsexual, then they will strike. Being in close proximity all 6000 sailors in the USS Gerald Ford will be having their oeriods at the same time, when the invasion starts.

  21. Why would China have to invade the US? All they have to do is watch them spend themselves into bankruptcy and then buy up the pieces….

  22. Jason pretty well nails it.

    The QE class carriers are superb value for money, they turned out to be an excellent design that can achieve very high sortie rates with minimum personnel.

    As with everything in life its about the trade offs, and the QE class carriers with the F35B aircraft gives us the maximum bang for our buck.

    And don’t even get me started on the carriers should have been nuclear powered

  23. Wasn’t Lewis Page explaining all this back on El Reg while you were still there, Tim?

    I see two problems with the latest analysis.

    1. We’d be crazy to buy military equipment off the French. The next dispute over fishing, or anything else, would be no fish, no plane parts.

    2. When the carriers were being built the electro-magnetic catapults needed for non-steam carriers were still in development. The last I heard about them they were so harsh on take-off they were significantly reducing the lifespan of the aircraft.

  24. Paul – sure, and they’ll probably turn up drunk and molest the local wildlife. Russian endeavours are always slightly ramshackle and comical. It would be endearing if they weren’t also thugs.

    Otoh they’d still kill any British force sent against them, because there’s a lot more Russians and they won’t run out of shells, missiles and armour quickly. Unlike our boys and girls and not-sures.

    We are not a serious military power or even a serious country anymore. Serious countries don’t think about making Penny Mordaunt – or any of the other grotesque muppets – their head of government. Gary thinks the FGD’s represent value for money, but what value? We’re no more secure now than we were before the Queen Elizabeth class was built. We spend a fortune on “defence” and it’s about as effective as the money we spend on “Border Force”, or all the money we spaffed in Afghanistan, or the 2 years of ruinously expensive Covid bullshit.

    Drool, Britannia.

  25. Things not clear from the Page piece – what motivation did those “13 mandarins” have to sabotage our bright naval future?* Why is Page wittering about it now? Is there a behind the scenes battle raging in the MOD over this?**

    As usual Jason Lynch supplies the level-headed view. I’d add that the mission for our carriers is central to their specification; for better or worse they are primarily designed to operate in conjunction with US forces rather than Britannia ruling the waves alone. The F-35B is the best solution for that mission. The US Marines are showing the way that smaller ships and VTOL stealth-fast-attack are brilliant force multipliers. The Japanese built their helicopter assault ships in mind to become F-35B carriers and are now going for it. The Italians are well on the way to carrier based F-35B, and the Spanish and even Portuguese are headed that way.

    The main problem with our carrier force is that there are only two of them rather than three; with three we’d be able to have a carrier group available at all times. With two there will be times when we have nothing. The second biggest problem is that they don’t have enough to carry. Having made the decision to go with F-35B they should commit to it. Stop fucking around and buy enough for the job. We’re rapidly reaching the point where Norway and the Netherlands could get their F-35s together and blow the RAF out of the sky.

    * Years ago I remember a story that if we’d put cats’n’traps on our carriers it would be very easy for the politicians to sell ’em off cheap to the French, who have stuck with that system. Maybe the 13 are national heroes.

    ** Actually, the process of putting cat’n’traps on the carriers is at a fairly advanced planning stage. These would be for drones and would operate in conjunction with F-35B. Maybe this precludes any chance of the ships reverting to traditional operation and so there’s a final fight going on. Also, inter-service rivalry over F-35 should not be ruled out. The current RAF – RN Fleet Air Arm set-up is very odd.

  26. Steve, I’m not sure of the precise wording but I think being a despairing, whiny bastard is an actual sin.

  27. HMS Davy Jones and HMS Locker. Any naval vessel that is not a submarine is just a target. The idea of allowing these white elephants anywhere near the Chinese coast in a war is mad.

    Or, if you prefer, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales.

  28. Jason

    Sure, it’s expensive to keep carrier qualified landing pilots capable.

    Maybe we could stop spunking billions per year on foreign aid and look to spend it on the military/ border force instead?

  29. Some bloke on't t'internet

    On the subject of “could we sustain …”, as one or two above point out – we are part of NATO. We aren’t supposed to be able to go up against Russia (or some other enemy du jour) on our own – we would be expecting to do so as part of a larger international force.
    It’s also worth remembering that a big part of our commitment to NATO is CASD (Continuous At Sea Deterrent – a.k.a. Trident). As I’m sure most are aware, this is an eye wateringly expensive undertaking which detracts from our ability to field a massive army, massive air force, massive navy, etc., etc. As part of the “one for all, all for one” commitment with our other NATO partners, we provide that, others provide larger armies we would work with, and so on.

    As for the article, I’m not a subscriber, so I can only go on Lewis’s reputation (I recall his articles in ElReg) and the comments both here and against the Telegraph article. It’s obvious that the article was a load of bol…err I mean rubbish. But lots of people will read it and assume it’s true – and so the reputation of the civil service and MoD is further damaged.

  30. I think that the problem that I have with the QEs is that it is not clear what they are for.

    Are they for air defence of a fleet ?
    Are they to strike another fleet ?
    Are they to attack land targets ?

    As nice and shiny as these boats are, replete with whizzy aeroplanes, I am not convinced that they can perform any of these roles let alone all of them

    If they were up against the old Ark Royal or Eagle with their Phantoms and Bucks, how would the QEs and F35s compare ?

  31. I was once a MoD civil servant. I was so horrified that I decamped to university. That was nearly 40 years ago. I don’t think that is possible to damage their reputation further.

  32. Ottokring,

    The answer is “all of the above” – during the design phase, nobody knew the NATO Stock Number for a working crystal ball, and the carriers were being designed in the early 2000s to serve well past 2050.

    That’s one of the reasons for the F-35B – it makes the air wing much more flexible (back to being able to pack lots of extra airframes aboard, or being a very big LPH).

    One case could be forty-odd F-35Bs doing air defence and strike, at which they’re pretty lethal: in terms of capability they’d eat the old Ark and her air wing (F-4s, Buccs and Gannet AEW) for breakfast and still have room for three Shredded Wheat, while still delivering a lot more throw-weight for strike (the F-35B can carry a lot of ordnance if it’s not trying to be sneaky)

    The QECVs are like good multitools: never ideal for any one job, but able to be competent at a very wide range of tasks for an uncertain future (remember when they were being laid down, everyone was mocking the idea of a resurgent Russia as nonsense from nostalgic Cold Warriors?)

  33. I don’t get the TW thing.
    They’re going to get invaded by China sometime in the next 5 year if Xi gets re-elected this year.
    So give them 2nd amendment rights.
    I can’t think of a single territory where around half the population including women was armed that has ever been invaded successfully, unless they wanted to be.

  34. Invaded? Why would China invade unless they wanted some storming-the-beach videos? Just mine all the ports and wait.

  35. Just mine all the ports and wait.

    This assumes Taiwan would permit the mining of its ports and the maintenance of the mine fields. They have paid some attention to anti-shipping and anti-aircraft capabilities.

  36. One aspect of air operations at sea that seems never to get a mention is the re-supply problem. An opponent with its wits about it could disable a carrier air group with going anywhere near it.

    Back in the 1960s as an RAF navigator I spent 4 years on loan to the Fleet Arm and that included time at sea on board HMS Eagle. I was struck by the amount of time spent RASing (replenishment at sea) – fuel, food and weapons basically. If the carrier is nuclear powered, that cuts down on the fuel needed though escorting vessels will still need FFO or diesel. Aircraft are thirsty beasts so run out of JP whatever and they are grounded. It is surprising just how much food a crew will get through in the course of a day, so get down to starvation rations and efficiency drops like a stone. In a shooting war quite plainly a ship needs a regular top-up of its weapons.

    So how is this all managed? By a regular procession of fleet auxilaries (in the RN case) traipsing between the air group and the nearest ports (not necessarily ultra-friendly) where they replenish stocks of fuel and food. Weapons are a different case and supply lines generally much long for obvious reasons.

    What then does an intelligent opponent do? In my view, interdiction of the re-supply train is the most cost effective. The re-supply vessels are ill-protected – if at all – so very vulnerable. Back in the 1960s keeping track of them was less easy but with modern satellite tracking it should be a doddle to interdict them.

  37. Taiwan has had 70 years to prepare.
    If they don’t have nukes to deter the PRC by now, they deserve everything they’ll get.
    It;s not exactly an unforseen outcome.

  38. I’d always understood that the US alliance system was supposed to discourage other countries from making their own nukes. Non-proliferation and all that.

    But I’d agree TTC. Taiwan does need nukes. As does South Korea, Japan, Ukraine, Australia etc to mention a few others.

  39. asiaseen,

    My understanding is that carrier groups (whether USN or RN) operate with the re-supply ships as part of the group (and thus protected as well as – or as badly as – all the other ships in the group), and thus the logistics tail is not particularly vulnerable.

    It’s also worth noting more generally that for the last 75 years, we have avoided World War 3, so while all the discussion of whether the Russians or the Chinese could do this, that or the other is relevant, the likelihood is that these carriers will be involved in lower-intensity conflicts, providing deterrence against e.g. Argentina trying to annex the Falklands, disaster relief (providing helicopters to fly in emergency aid/fly out sick/injured after earthquakes, hurricanes, etc), etc. In other words, all the stuff that the RN has been doing (short of high intensity warfare) for the last 75 years.

  40. “This assumes Taiwan would permit the mining of its ports and the maintenance of the mine fields.”

    Lay the minefields using submarines and sink any Taiwanese minesweepers using missiles. Infinitely more attractive option than madness involving bomber raids and infantry storming beaches. I’m assuming that even Xi would be rational enough to want to conquer Taiwan in a valuable condition rather a Taiwan in ruins.

  41. My understanding is that carrier groups (whether USN or RN) operate with the re-supply ships as part of the group (and thus protected as well as – or as badly as – all the other ships in the group), and thus the logistics tail is not particularly vulnerable.

    Actually think about that for about three seconds and you’ll realise it’s bollocks. The resupply ships have to move between the carrier group and the supply ports. When doing so they are not under the protection of the group (or the port).

    This has been an issue since the days of steamships. Powered vessels need refuelling and if there are no safe ports available it has to be by other ships.

  42. PJF

    Yeah I saw it in The Battle of the River Plate, the SS Altmark had a prearranged timetable and sat in positin until the Graf Spee came along to meet her. Then Bernard Lee snaffles all the raisins.

    In 1939 there were still plenty of neutral ports and the Altmark was a civilian ship.

  43. Lay the minefields using submarines and sink any Taiwanese minesweepers using missiles.

    The Chinese are capable of submarine mine laying (but not unopposed), however sinking the minesweepers is a different metal sea container metaphor.

    I’m assuming that even Xi would be rational enough to want to conquer Taiwan in a valuable condition rather a Taiwan in ruins.

    I expect Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine relatively intact, but failing that utterly flattened is clearly good enough. Getting Taiwan is an entirely political need, one almost exclusive to the internals of the CCP. And it’s becoming more urgent for Xi, so I doubt he cares if the place is Tiananmenned.

  44. PJF – when you see Penny Mordaunt, you see the true ugliness of human nature. Despair is an everpresent temptation when you gaze into the void of vacuous dumbcuntery.

  45. PJF – not really. Depends whether the carrier battle group is on the move and periodically putting into friendly ports, or maintaining a largely fixed position ‘on station’. In the latter case, then yes, I would expect that the logistic ships probably do come out to find the battle group, but if the carrier can hang about in one particular area, the enemy clearly has limited capacity to hurt it, and how does it then project power to get at the logistics tail behind it?
    Otherwise, the battle group is sailing from port to port, with diversions to go and carry out specific operational tasks. Each port layover is brief (and may even be little more than a sail past as the logistics ships and maybe the frigates drop out of the group and are replaced by recently refitted/resupplied ships coming out of the port)

  46. . . . you see the true ugliness of human nature . . .

    The ugliness that is part of human nature, expressed more in politician types who have always had a high proportion of ghastly people.

    Try the Laura Farms youtube channel for a despair antidote.

  47. PJF – I agree with you, a nice looking farm lass with a big smile is always a good idea.

    Otoh, hanging on in quiet* desperation is the English way.

    *Or, y’know, being a big moany bastard like I am

  48. @EvilDrSmith
    PJF – not really

    Yes really unless the supply ships have an outstanding capacity for storage. Whether a carrier group is in transit or maintaining station the supply vessels have to leave the group to replenish in port. Then they are vulnerable. Been there, seen it in action.
    And with the size of modern aircraft carriers compared to the 1960s when I did my sea time, the re-supply problem is even greater.

  49. @Jason Lynch
    Aren’t you presuming there that naval aviation is going to stay with pilot directed landings? There’s nothing intrinsicly hard in developing automated. If they wanted to. I could imagine the US avoiding doing so, though. That’s a very big budget you’ve itemised. The US Navy wouldn’t give that up lightly

  50. . . . a nice looking farm lass with a big smile is always a good idea.

    Laura is down-to-earth splendid (and has made her choice), but there’s loads of totty on youtube. It’s the world of mundane and glorious normality the nice looking farm girl with a big smile inhabits that makes me revisit.

    Unless you’re a secret Tory you don’t get a say on which twat will next nominally run that clown show, so don’t even pay attention until they make a choice and there is a new PM creature.

  51. @ bloke in spain

    The USN already has a carrier qualified cats’n’traps large drone. They’ll be happy to receive the budget necessary to develop an air wing that doesn’t require onboard humans.

  52. @Jason Lynch, July 17, 2022 at 11:42 am

    Agree with some points. However, having Cat and Trap doesn’t mean S/VTOVL can not be used. It means S/VTOVL plus all other naval aircraft can be used and we can use other carriers and they can use ours

    Versatility is vital

    We were offered the EMAL System for free to allow us to help development with Ford Class

    BAE and RR didn’t want EMALS as they made money from F-35B

    There’s a lot more in Page’s article that is correct than questionable

    QE class from start was Gordon Brown pork barrel compromised – must be small enough to fit under Forth bridges at low tide. Must be small enough for new Rosyth dry dock & lagoon

    QE class: looks good but useless. Rather like Penny “Walter Mitty” Mordaunt

  53. PCar,

    The two CVF were originally meant to be about 40,000 tons, or “twice as big as Invincibles”.

    Very quickly, wiser heads inflated them to “biggest ships we can possibly build and operate” as the maths became clear (twice the size, means about 10-20% more build cost but 300-400% more capability in air wing size, sortie rate and time between replenishments)

    During the Brown Pause where they were deferred and delayed, there were then at least two cycles of Ministerial interjection that “if they’re half the size won’t they be half the cost but just as good?” that had to be beaten down with evidence a politician could comprehend.

    CATOBAR isn’t something you just switch on or off – big overheads even in training deck crew, and if they’re not current no US air boss is letting his planes try to trap (and it’s only the US who has enough CATOBAR aircraft that you need to take a sock off to count).

    It wasn’t left out from pique, it was left out because done cheap, it rusts in peace unused, and to keep it operational is significant, ongoing extra money that the RN didn’t have and couldn’t ask for – the RN and RAF budgets were being absolutely pillaged to pay for “contingency operations” in Iraq and Afghanistan, with lots of short-term shortfalls and some big bills kicked downstream. (Hence, no less than three rounds of losing frigates and support ships to free up funding for TELIC/HERRICK)

    And yes, we’d have liked to get Ford/Nimitz sized if we could – but then that’s too big to build, and too big to bring alongside, with existing UK infrastructure. As it was, it took a lot of dredging to open the channel in Portsmouth enough, and the Victory Jetty needed major rebuilding so both carriers could tie up there.

  54. SomeBlokeFromCambridge

    I recall Page telling of this back in the day when he and Tim were at El Reg. Interesting to read about who was behind the conspiracy and how they dun it.

    I notice a few commentards retailing a “usual Lewis Page nonsense” line of poo-pooing, but I ask myself “what do other countries with carriers do?” and answer “err – use catapults”. Maybe the Dear Leaders of Blighty know better than Johnny Foreigner?

  55. SomeBlokeFromCambridge,

    Looking at current ships operating fixed-wing aircraft (leaving aside oddballs like the Thai ‘carrier’ that’s only flown helicopters since they retired their Harriers), we get:-

    – US Navy – eleven carriers, effectively bottomless budget, cats’n’traps with airwings of 55-60 per deck. Plus, the ‘gator navy’ of the USMC with their LPAs and LPDs able to embark F-35Bs if needed.

    – UK: two carriers, short commons, STOVL with 40-55 max air wing.

    – France: one carrier, not brilliantly funded. Cats’n’traps but with a small airwing (12-16 aircraft at most – I think their absolute record in the last couple of decades has been 20)

    – Russia: one carrier, broken for years, when it worked at all it was a “worst of both worlds” mix of short take-off and arrested landing (STOBAR). Never seen flying more than four aircraft at once – because they only had that many qualified pilots? – and lost at least two of them in landing accidents on its last attempt at a deployment in 2016.

    – China: two STOBAR carriers for training, with a third cats’n’traps deck working up on sea trials: they’ve been working on a long-term plan to get CATOBAR aviation working, taking over ten years from getting the Liaoning commissioned to have a core competency of qualified pilots that’s worth flexing to a CATOBAR carrier.

    – India: one carrier operational (a much-rebuilt 1970s Soviet ship originally intended to use the VTOL Yak-38 Forger) using STOBAR, one more due to commission this year. Doesn’t deploy or fly much (same problems as the Russians – ancient ship, rotten machinery, and very high accident rates on landing). Declared ambitions for a cats’n’traps replacement for the Vikramaditya, but talk’s cheap and currently unfunded…

    – Italy: two STOVL carriers, a bit on the small side but the newer, bigger Cavour is moving towards embarking F-35Bs.

    – Japan – two “large helicopter ships” being converted to STOVL operations with F-35B.

    – South Korea: just passed funding for two STOVL carriers operating F-35Bs.

    – Spain: one STOVL carrier currently flying Harriers.

    Worth checking what Johnny Foreigner actually does before poo-pooing it. Only two navies currently using catapults, one well and one… not so well, with China hoping they can make it work in time.

    What do those foreigners know, and why do most nations on a budget who have access to the F-35B pick that and STOVL operation, rather than cats’n’traps or STOBAR, for a small (1-3 ships) carrier force?

    Indeed, why did none of the above (Britain, Italy, Japan, South Korea) pick the CATOBAR F-35C for their naval aviation?

  56. Indeed, why did none of the above (Britain, Italy, Japan, South Korea) pick the CATOBAR F-35C for their naval aviation?

    WEF? Chemtrails?

    Interesting that even the US Navy has cut its F-35C numbers. It’ll now be one squadron of 14 per ship instead of two squadrons of 10.

    France’s one carrier was recently out of service for years for refit. They kept their aircrews CATOBAR current by flying with USN squadrons. As the Charles de Gaulle was nearing return to service, French Rafales, E-2Cs and 350 crew embarked on USS Nimitz to get them all up to speed again.

  57. @Jason

    I did not suggest we built Nimitz/Ford class

    If EMALS was fitted, RN doesn’t need to be constantly trained if we have only S/VTOL aircraft, only make sure it’s maintained and US would likely pay. If it’s needed by US/NATO US would provide the crew to allow US etc aircraft to use QEs

    Adaptability and Versatility is essential and UK Gov’t said no

    more capability in air wing size, sortie rate and time between replenishments

    Then instead of one high we stick two low islands on deck to ensure it fits under Forth bridges

    Then there’s the not nuclear issue

  58. Pcar,

    It’s not just maintaining the equipment: it’s having the deck crew dual-trained to be able to switch from STOVL recoveries to arrested landings. Very different skillsets, and if the deck crew aren’t trained the US aren’t landing, and if they can’t land they won’t pay for an asset they can’t use. (And if we aren’t flying aircraft that use arrested landings, how do the deck crew stay current?)

    Also, trying to put “the maintenance, update and training costs of this equipment are assumed to be zero across the fifty-year-life of the carrier because we hope Uncle Sam will pick up the tab for half a century but haven’t asked them yet” into your costings, will get you thrown out of D Scrutiny head-first (and they’re on the fourth floor of Main Building so that’ll hurt)

    Cats’n’traps aren’t needed by US/NATO so there’s no funding coming from that direction.

    For a single deployed carrier they actually don’t even help much, but that’s a complex issue involving diversion margins – the US can use all the longer range of CATOBAR because for a big op there’s generally at least two carriers, so if one deck fouls the other can recover. A single carrier, with a foul deck, needs the aircraft marshalled to have enough fuel to get to somewhere they can land, and the whole point of a carrier is you’re using it where you don’t have friendly airbases. (STOVL is much more forgiving of where it can set down, even if – like an emergency land-an-F35B-on-the-back-of-a-destroyer – you need a crane to retrieve it)

    Nuclear was looked at, several times, and nobody could make it work in any affordable manner or find strong advantages: it needs a new reactor design (can’t just slap in a few submarine PWR2s, the demand curves are too different and you need lots of them to get enough power), it pushes crew costs through the roof, and we’re already always short of nuclear engineers so now you want to add more demand? It ends up more than doubling the build and disposal cost of the ships, and you still have to replenish food every few days (and ordnance too, on operations) so you’re still tied to a logistics train. Even the US keep looking at going conventional.

    If you want an adaptable air wing you can’t go cats’n’traps for one or two carriers: that ends up a vanity project of little value. CATOBAR carrier aviation is a serious “go big or go home” undertaking: do it with at least half-a-dozen carriers or don’t bother.

  59. Another problem with nuclear – you’re much more limited to how many ports you can enter.
    .

    If you want an adaptable air wing you can’t go cats’n’traps for one or two carriers: that ends up a vanity project of little value.

    See also: France.

  60. @Jason

    Your first sentence:
    it’s having the deck crew dual-trained to be able to switch from STOVL recoveries to arrested landings

    I already addressed that: We don’t need RN trained, it’s buried in deck and can be mostly ignored until needed. “If it’s needed by US/NATO US would provide the crew”. A few RN and USN swapped for basic on the job traning is no big deal. We don’t need a new RN Uni of Cat & Trap

    we hope Uncle Sam will pick up the tab for half a century

    If they don’t and we’re still S/VTOL we can decide what to do

    Adaptability, Versatility and Free Thinking, not closed mind was what made RN the most powerful navy in world. We need to return to that and ditch the “we can’t attitude”

  61. PCar,

    If you “ignore it until it’s needed” it won’t work when you do: this is complex equipment that needs to be properly looked after. (You’re tuning the resistance of the wires to the weight and speed of each landing aircraft – and you need to know that the equipment is still in calibration). Just fitting it and leaving it for a few years, means it won’t be working when you rush to use it.

    Unless you go for an exact duplicate of the USN installation (and keep it twinned with theirs, and work out whether to stick with the Nimitz or Ford fit…) then you’re not simply flying a USN crew aboard (in a C-2 COD? which can’t land because you’ve got nobody to operate the arrestor gear?) to start using it.

    Don’t lazily assume that this is easy: it’s not, that’s why even the USN lose a couple of aircraft per carrier per year in landing accidents. As often happens, what looks like “just add catapults and arresting wires” turns out to be a simple statement that’s much more complex, expensive and limiting in execution.

    When your budget is limited, saying “blindly copy the US” isn’t being “adaptable”, it’s wasting scarce cash for no useful return. Spending “money, lots” to buy and fit kit in order to ignore it for months or years on end, then spending “more money” to discover that the arrestor wire tension didn’t match what was set and we just ripped the hook out of a F-35C as it landed, isn’t “versatile”.

    Thinking outside the box is useful provided you understand what’s inside the box, and why there’s even a box there: and if you open your mind too far, your brain falls out.

    If you want two CATOBAR carriers for the RN, go back fifteen years and add about three billion pounds to the project (and accept that, instead of having them operational and flying off aircraft from 2018, you’ve just delayed that to the mid-2020s)

    It’s important to note that – evidently unknown to Page – the QECVs were designed with a great deal of (hugely appreciated) input from NAVSEA at Lakehurst, and their experience of the costs, benefits, risks and requirements for CATOBAR operation were a major input into what was then CVF deciding to go for STOVL, and not to fit cats’n’traps from the outset “just in case”. Should we have airily declared that their fifty years of experience were irrelevant, and that we – twenty years after retiring our last CATOBAR carrier – knew better than them because we had a “better attitude”?

    Getting 75% of the throw-weight of a Nimitz-class carrier for 25% of the purchase and running costs, is pretty adaptable, versatile and free-thinking in my book.

  62. Getting 75% of the throw-weight of a Nimitz-class carrier for 25% of the purchase and running costs, is pretty adaptable, versatile and free-thinking in my book.

    Indeed. We just need to get the F-35Bs aboard in the proper numbers to make the whole project meaningful.

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