Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers - News and Discussion

[dmereifield]

^^abc123
But I guess it wasn't such an issue, politically, when not meeting commitments on projects with the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish, especially when they were changing their minds and cutting numbers too?

[abc123]

^^abc123
But I guess it wasn't such an issue, politically, when not meeting commitments on projects with the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish, especially when they were changing their minds and cutting numbers too?

I'm not sure what you want to say? That not meeting commitments towards European allies is good? Or bad? Or that if they do that, UK can also do that? Or?

[dmereifield]

^^abc123
But I guess it wasn't such an issue, politically, when not meeting commitments on projects with the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish, especially when they were changing their minds and cutting numbers too?

I'm not sure what you want to say? That not meeting commitments towards European allies is good? Or bad? Or that if they do that, UK can also do that? Or?

I'll explain what I was trying to convey in the UK general defence discussion thread shortly

[shark bait]

OK, so if say US had built 2 Ford-class carriers ( with capacity for at least 48 or even 60 fighters ) and then put just 12 or 20 on carriers, you would say that's not "half-assed"?

That's entirely different, the Americans are not building a carrier capability from scratch.

The Royal Navy are starting from almost nothing, and building up such a high intensity capability will naturally take a while. It's not possible to just switch on and switch off such huge operations, it takes time to create best practices and build skill levels.

It's not a half assed approach. It's a pragmatic build up of a huge complex capability.

For a case study, look at how the Chinese, with their vast resources, has got on during 6 years of carrier operations

[Spinflight]

The first priority isn't to pack the carrier to the gills, its to get a sufficient rump of pilots qualified and experienced in carrier ops.

You don't need huge numbers of aircraft on the carrier to do this, frankly the modern approach would be to correlate actual landings in weight states and Wx with simulator projections of such.

You can then train land based pillocks from scratch with merely formal qualification on a real live carrier.

There's nothing half arsed about it, it makes complete sense. At some point it also makes sense to pack said carrier to the gills and figure out deck movement patterns, maintenance schedules and intense operational tempo. Absolutely no point until you've trained the pilots up in the basics though, which is going to be landing on empty decks initially.

[ArmChairCivvy]

At some point it also makes sense to pack said carrier to the gills and figure out deck movement patterns, maintenance schedules and intense operational tempo.

You dont figure these were some of the key design parameters (with the aid of OR analysis) helping to give the ships their physical size and shape?

[abc123]

OK, so if say US had built 2 Ford-class carriers ( with capacity for at least 48 or even 60 fighters ) and then put just 12 or 20 on carriers, you would say that's not "half-assed"?

That's entirely different, the Americans are not building a carrier capability from scratch.

The Royal Navy are starting from almost nothing, and building up such a high intensity capability will naturally take a while. It's not possible to just switch on and switch off such huge operations, it takes time to create best practices and build skill levels.

It's not a half assed approach. It's a pragmatic build up of a huge complex capability.

For a case study, look at how the Chinese, with their vast resources, has got on during 6 years of carrier operations

IMHO comparing Royal Navy that operates aircraft carriers since before 1920s ( and has built a lot of them ) and has accumulated a bunch of operational experience and institutional wisdom with the PLA Navy- isn't fair.

[Spinflight]

Some institutional memory yes, little practical experience given the capability holiday other than pilots training abroad.

Having the USMC along will be a significant plus but it's still going to be an expensive and time consuming job to regain the capability. Me thinks the Navy will need an injection of cash to accomplish it.

[Jake1992]

Iv got a question to ask if anyone can help, Iv been looking at the differences between the QEs and the Nimitz class carriers just out of sheer curiosity to see how they stake up.
Now is understand why the Nimitz is longer and wider to accommodate its larger air wing, but what has shocked me is how much taller they are being a whole 20m taller.

Is there any specific reason for the QEs to be so much shorter, does it give any real disadvantage ?

[arfah]

Iv got a question to ask if anyone can help, Iv been looking at the differences between the QEs and the Nimitz class carriers just out of sheer curiosity to see how they stake up.
Now is understand why the Nimitz is longer and wider to accommodate its larger air wing, but what has shocked me is how much taller they are being a whole 20m taller.

Is there any specific reason for the QEs to be so much shorter, does it give any real disadvantage ?

It's got to get under the Forth bridge. -<>-<>-<>-

[shark bait]

-<>-<>-<>-

[Enigmatically]

People often over-estimate how much bigger the flight deck of Nimitz is. Take the beam - Nimitz rocks in at 76.8m vs QEC at 70m.

Almost 10% seems a fair bit. But when you look at the plan view of a Nimitz you realise that most of that extra max beam is just the big where the angled flight deck sticks out. Similarly a lot of the length difference is just the nose section handling the bow catapults.

If you haven't seen it, its worth getting plan views, shrinking/expanding them to the same scale and overlaying them.

Though the internet being the internet, chances are someone already has done it and posted it somewhere.

Must admit I've never compared the height though. What is the height (above sea level) of a Nimitz?

[ArmChairCivvy]

What is the height (above sea level) of a Nimitz?

A v important feature in targeting/ guidance algorithms... and not a secret

[Enigmatically]

Not saying it is not important, but i can't immediately see it listed, presumably someone here can point at total height and height of flight deck?

[Jake1992]

From what I found the total hight of the QE is 54m and the total hight of the Nimitz is around 75m give or take

[Spinflight]

[shark bait]

Nimitz has a huge mast, are you counting that? QE has a much smaller one that raises and lowers to make it under the bridge

Knocked this up from the slide below.

Guess the length QE looses is made up for by the ski ramp.


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sr5shY7C0X0/U ... R2Y1GN.jpg

also a bonus RN compared.

[Ron5]

Wouldn't it make more sense to compare to the bad guy's carriers?

[Engaging Strategy]

Wouldn't it make more sense to compare to the bad guy's carriers?

Not really, seeing as none are anywhere near a Nimitz in terms of theoretical maximum and actual realised capability. Frankly neither Kuznetsov nor Liaoning is a Patch on Charles De Gaulle in practice.

For all intents and purposes Russia has a heap of junk, China has a tech demonstrator to build up to greater things later and India (although definitely not "the bad guys") have their own odd thing going.

[Old RN]

What is interesting is to compare the amount of undisturbed parking area on each design. By undisturbed I mean the are not affected by lifts, launch area and angled deck. I think that the QE has more space than a Nimitz, which would mean less a/c movements for a given tempo of activity.

Looking at the deck layout you can say that QE is "a big a**ed boat"!

[inch]

thanks for the scale drawing shark bait. at least someone with skill took the time to make the effort just a quick one fella ,the c de q carrier scale looks small somehow ,think 262ish mts length - qe 280 ish length ,even compared to the invincible which is about 210 ish I quess ,it looks ok width wise but seems too short being only 20mtrs difference .especially at the back end ,I know you have put them front first matching but just seems small .mind you I could be wrong and often am lol and wouldn't have the skill to do a overlaid scale drawing myself tbh so fair play to you

[seaspear]

Perhaps there might be an answer in how many decks of the compared ircraft carriers will provide some clue

[ArmChairCivvy]

Thanks guys,

Spin's picture is very informative as it shows how much space is wasted (and the need for extra catapults) by the recovery method (compared to QE vertical, when not bringing back a heavy load)

SB, a pity that you missed out on the T26. Or all the different versions of it, over time: would make for a piccie on its own!

[donald_of_tokyo]

Sorry. On the old discussion of CVF hangar. See page 235 of this thread.

cvf_hangar_1.png

1: I checked the figure. It looks like the hanger size shown in this figure is 165x28.5 m2, different from what is quoted in wiki, as 155x33.5 m2. The size of F35B looks "right sized" in the figure.

2: Anyway, when CVF is to carry 24 F35B and 13 Merlins (9 ASW + 4 AEW Merlin) at least some of them shall be strapped on the deck. Simple calculation shows, if 13 Merlin is in the hangar (as shown in green boxes), only 15 F35B can be in the hangar at the same time. But, since the flight deck of CVF is quite large, I think carrying them on the deck is not a problem. From the flight deck figure, carrying another 9 F35B on deck looks OK.

3: Large flight deck is the key point of "strike carrier". LHD needs space/weight for internal space, and this causes difficulty in making the flight deck wider/larger. See Spanish LHD, American LHD. All has very narrow flight deck. In other words, using LHD for strike will face severe aircraft handing problem = less sorties rates.

[Aethulwulf]

Thanks for solving that one. I suspect that the wiki figure of 33.5m for the width of the hanger is for where the hanger is at its widest where it abuts the two lifts.