UK Defence Forum

Well if we were going to get a few more T31's, lets hope they are more like the Leander rather than a river B3 (avenger?) not that I would mind having the avenger for local flag waving duties i.e. fleet ready escort, med etc, but if they would be global frigates I think a Leander is the minimum requ...

Perhaps sturgeon ha got her eye on the batch 2 rivers....

Thanks for sharing, great to see some Apache's onboard !!! ( they do look small on the flight deck but sometimes the QEC looks small without aircraft thanks to the great big windows until you see the size of the people scampering around !!! looking forward the seeing what the next few months bring :...

I'm sure I read on twitter that hms Queen Elizabeth was going to sail past the round tower about 1230 tomorrow for a few weeks for more helicopter trials including Apache but the tweets gone now...

Westlant19 will feature several US port visits, including one to the Washington DC area. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hms-queen-elizabeth-step-closer-to-operations-with-transatlantic-training Reads like she will have double figure amount of F35 onboard then ? 3 from 17 squadron? seem to remem...

AWSOME !!! thanks for sharing, looks so tiny on her flightdeck

So your route would be to stick with the fudge of using the QEs if an LHD can’t be got and just hope we have 2 available when needed. Until the RN get more dollar all I can see them doing is cutting to the bone capabilitys that are not seen as essential to warrant their money, maybe after the carri...

I would really like the RN go for a Mistral/bae concept LHD of no more than 20 000t to replace both Albion & bulwark, small enough so the politicians see that she can not operate the F35 or maybe a LPD with smallish hanger eg 1 x extended albion type? 2 x QEC + 1 x LPD ( or smallish LHD ) If we ...

Does the "depth fleet" mean these airframes are the ones in constant maintenance on a rotation basis? i.e. 2 x 12 squadrons, 1 x 6 OCU then the remainder in the "depth fleet" in constant maintanace? except 3 x in 17 squadron. so 30 operational ?

Do you mean a 3cell ExLS launcher with quad packed CAMM giving 12 rounds? as you say this would seem ideal as it hopefully? would be relatively inexpensive to fit at a later refit, hopefully the escorts would get 99.9 % of the incoming missiles and these 12 on the carrier would be (bar the CIWS) a l...

As time goes by I'm more in the build batch 3 rivers (ie extended for hanger) camp, build & crew them as cheap as possible to save costs including manpower in the shorter term, just use them for local duties,med,flag waving,fleet ready escort etc, After the initial first batch of T26, decrease t...

So good to see the F35 in service, Is it the whole squadron or just the 4 F35 we see in the vids? any indication of how long they will be Cyprus for before the westlant deployment in the autumn?

Would be good to see our F35 get the JSM soon, even if it is externally carried, would be a capability that we urgently need, when was the sea eagle scrapped.... maybe we could also get NSM interim to replace the harpoon aswell.

I think this graphic is good, I think the OCU (207) is also going to be based at marham with all the other joint force lightenings except for 3 in 17 squadron which will be based in the usa for testing etc, a couple of years old but so far has been pretty much spot on. https://www.savetheroyalnavy.o...

I suspect that for a hybrid solution to work say 11 boats with 4 x ICBM tubes only 4 or so would be loaded with Trident and on their deep patrol zones sitting in wait for the MAD signal to come through which we all hope never happens, while the rest would be doing the normal hunter killer recon etc ...

Cheers for the reply, was thinking less tubes maybe less hot bunking for the crew if they still do that? also thinking about it the redesign cost would probably cost more than deleting the 4 tubes !

Maybe a stupid question but would it be possible at this late stage on design to omit 4 tubes (so just have the 8 tube CMC) to save a bit of money & replace the space with better accomadation for the crew?

Not what I would want but if money is getting ever tighter maybe it is time to consider the bae Avenger design basically a river class with a hanger, just use them for med & fleet ready escort duties or a occasional visit to the Falklands, 4 would do then hopefully that would help with the lack ...

Well it would be great if the Typhoon won but i'm not holding my breath...new build stealthy hornets maybe....I've always liked the Gripen though !

Something from HMSQELZ twitter account..

.https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5PjAlhXoAAs0MU.jpg

I was just thinking if the next batch could be a light version it might entice the treasury to decrease the build time but I agree the minimum ASW version numbers should be kept or preferably increased. Even if they built the lighter version without some weapons but upgradable might help with a shor...

Does anybody have any idea when the next batch of T26 would be ordered ? didn't sturgeon recently say she wanted another ref in the next 2years? As suggested I agree if we get more T26 they should be a mix of normal & light, light +. maybe the next batch of 3 ? could be a light version and decre...

Borrowed a whole aircraft carrier at one point, Went both ways, then. Don't think we would get a Ford for a QE? At this point most of the US would happily give us a Ford + Planes if we gave them the Queen to replace the current Presidency ;) Wonder if they would stump up for the extra 3000+ crew as...

Yeh I think you are right, thanks, something about it being Quad packed ? will have to go back & try to find it, would be interesting to see how much in would cost for intergration compared to the ExLS system I think the ExLS launcher suggestion was in addition to the 48 Aster missiles though, w...

If there was a little bit more money I would definitely add some CAMM for the T45, badly needed to help protect the carriers ! not really that concerned with the T26 yet as compared to the T23 they will be a lot better armed & a lot can happen till they come on line in 8 years but I do agree wit...