Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers - News and Discussion

[SKB]

New photo of QE in Portsmouth Harbour, with HMS Excellent (Whale Island) in the foreground.


HMS Victory and QE

[CR4ZYHOR5E]

Flew over her on Saturday...looked the business.

[RichardIC]

Can't put it off anymore



Pic courtesy Mrs RichardIC

[SKB]

Found this impressive wide angle of QE's entrance into Portsmouth, shot from the Queen's Hotel in Southsea.

[cockneyjock1974]

Must admit they're cutting it a bit fine installing Artisan for the naming ceremony. I'd like to think it'll be on POW for then.

[sunstersun]

http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot ... ction.html

[RNFollower]

I took the harbour tour this morning. She sure is impressive. I took some photos on my phone but they are far from good.
Also in port are 5 T45!, 4 T23 and 2 Rivers. Two of the darings had there masts covered in scaffolding

[Timmymagic]

A rather odd CGI from the QE Class twitter feed. As some comments point out it has 3 Phalanx on the port side, some rather small BAe Mantis, weird islands and other bits of oddness.

They must be running out of CGI images...which now there is one at sea for real seems a little strange..

[Jensy]

Weirdly that mock-up looks like it was structually built for an angled deck:

- Offset netting at the back, unlike on QNLZ
- Rear runway overhang that seems to be off centre and angled
- Smooth front to the sponsoon behind and to the left of the ski-jump (QNLZ has a staggered bit of deck here).

Maybe it dated from the immediate aftermath of the switch back to STOVL?

Jensy

[swoop]

http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot ... ction.html

That image "UK CSG" (about half way down the page) is interesting, as it indicates two areas circled in red. North Atlantic and South China Sea.

A very interesting article.

[shark bait]

North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea are circles, 2 areas were we don't need a carrier, and where a carrier would be toast. I struggled to understand that slide when I saw it.

Then we have the Gulf and South China sea, 2 areas where I would fully expect Carrier Operations.

[Gabriele]

The North Atlantic was a carrier playground in the Cold War and still would be in any Russia scenario to help mount a screen to trap the russian fleet into the perimeter of the GIUK gap and threaten their northern flank. Ark Royal IV used to be part of the northern carrier group back in the days.

The Baltic is trickier, but going in during tense peacetime would send a powerful message nonetheless.

[ArmChairCivvy]

to trap the russian fleet into the perimeter

The Baltic is trickier

as the Russian fleet there is already trapped
- that is why they keep so few ships/ boats there
- the only way to create some freedom is to take Gotland (and then the NATO fleets would be impeded from moving much further than the German/ Polish coasts; Aland has a similar, but a less strategic location, as the coasts it is facing are so close anyway - in terms of area & access denial weapons of today)... so, not a carrier play ground, as stated

[shark bait]

Is trapping the Russian fleet still valid? Arctic routes are changing, they can just go the long way round now.

Plus isn't P8 the better tool for patrolling the gap?

[ArmChairCivvy]

they can just go the long way round now.

Rotterdam to Shanghai (Vladivostok ) 7700 nm; vs. via the Suez route 10200

[sunstersun]

http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/royal-n ... the-fight/

and

http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.com/

are some of the absolute best sites for information.

[Gabriele]

Is trapping the Russian fleet still valid? Arctic routes are changing, they can just go the long way round now.

Not only it is still valid, it would still be the very first concern since if the surface and sub-surface northern fleet elements enter the Atlantic, the UK is in huge trouble and the reinforcements from the US in great danger. The arctic route isn't much help: it is in the Atlantic that they need to be, and quickly. Taking the long way to end up right in face of Alaska isn't helpful at all from their point of view.
And since russian long-range aviation would support any attempt to break out, the carrier air wings would protect NATO's own surface assets as they hunt for the subs.

[ArmChairCivvy]

The arena looks big https://www.theblueberrytrails.com/imag ... 0Final.jpg
but when you take a more land-centric view, it is suddenly just a neighbourhood https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0b/3b/a2/0b3b ... istmas.jpg where Murmansk is a strategic base, with v little depth in its defence and Norway, having moved their military's HQ to Tromso is likely to yield very little
- in the old days you needed to control the coast all the way down to Trondheim/ Bergen to support naval ops, but now the ranges for both platforms and strike weapons themselves do not require that

[QEC Eye in the SKY]

some cracking shots by Chris Terrill as he was filming for the forthcoming series 'Royal Navy:Carrier Strike'

[downsizer]

When is this programme to be aired?

[ArmChairCivvy]

A cracking piccie, that first one (and a cool head, in the second one... or the harness kept out of the picture)

[CameronPerson]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-secu ... -carriers/

[seaspear]

One picture in the future that may be of interest would be the Queen Elizabeth class carriers going through the Suez canal as nuclear powered ships are not allowed ,this would save a lot of sailing time over a faster nuclear powered carrier

[Smokey]

nuclear powered ships are not allowed

U.S. Nimitz class CVN's and the UK's own SSN's have done so in the past.

[SKB]

Duqm has two dry docks, 410m x 80m (^ left) and 410m x 95m (^right)
Website: http://www.duqm.gov.om/duqm-sez/project ... d-dry-dock