Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers - News and Discussion

[Opinion3]

Sharkbait, are you suggesting that moving the helicopters to the escort reduces the leanness of the carrier?

[marktigger]

Ignoring the potential initial or future lack of F35s. What are the benefits of having the helicopters on the QE class? Would these not be better located on the supporting ships? If so many more fighters could be handled and I suspect operations would be much smoother

In the QE carrier group, all the Merlins will be on the QE. The T45, T23/T26 escorts will have Wildcat embarked. The advantage to this approach is by having all the helicopters of one class (Merlin) embarked on one ship you significantly reduce the total number of maintenance personnel needed to support these Merlins.

I would argue all having all merlin across the CBG is the better option means all major servicing can be centralized on the carrier. Planners don't have to plan round different capabilities and the escorts have the spares etc to support a visiting Merlin with a tech problem. Also the Stores ship has to carry less diverse range of spare parts.

[marktigger]

Personally I think the MARS support ships should be fulfilling the maintenance role for the helicopters. They should be big enough and should have all the tooling and parts required. I supposed there is no reason an escort fleet helicopter couldn't cycle across the decks for maintenance. The MARS SSS and indeed the MARS FSS used in this way would 1) free up the carrier and 2) utilise the deckspace on the support ships that going to be used for what otherwise?

I would agree with the SSS having the capability to fully support merlin and do major repairs and servicing as well as the carrier giving spare capacity. have the hanger for 4-5 aircraft but only one embarked

[shark bait]

Sharkbait, are you suggesting that moving the helicopters to the escort reduces the leanness of the carrier?

Yes, it's creating extra unnecessary movement's, reducing the efficiency of the system.

[Opinion3]

Not if the carriers do not host the Merlins at all, maybe a SAR but the AEW and ASW variants are hosted and maintained on the other ships in the CBG. In particular the MARS ships

[shark bait]

Where is this coming from?

BTW happy new year all, looking forward to a trip up the forth in early 2017!

[SKB]

Happy New Year! QE will arrive in Pompey this year. That sounds good.

[bobp]

Hope to visit Portsmouth later in year, when QE is in town. And Happy New Year to all.

[dmereifield]

Me too, just as soon as we get confirmation of the date (please share if anyone gets word of it, in due course). Happy new year to all as well

[The Armchair Soldier]

Not only will QE arrive in Portsmouth this year, but POW will also hit the water for the first time and officially receive her name. Three great milestones to look forward to.

Happy New Year all!

[SDL]

It's going to be a great year for the carriers.

Saw someone on Reddit make a stupid comment about the carriers being nothing more than hospital ships on the Thames (Don't ask ), gave a response and now i'm wondering just how far up the Thames the QE can get. I know that they won't be able to get past the Barriers, but can they pass under the QEII Bridge at Dartford?

[Rambo]

I've read a post on another forum that she won't be sailing for sea trials until July due to the deck coating not being complete and generally not 100% ready. This is meant to be from somebody working on her but could also be rubbish so take with a pinch of salt.

[SDL]

54.1 metre maximum arch for the QEII Bridge.

46m for the Forth Rail Bridge.

Thanks

[Beagle24]

Rambo - in the MOD new year spin piece just published it references sea trials for QE in the 'Summer' not the Spring as expected. Sounds like something has indeed slipped.

[SKB]

DP World London Gateway, definately. its deep and wide enough for the world's largest container ships. Maybe Tilbury too at a squeeze. But I don't see any point going further upstream than Tibury because QE is too wide for the Thames Flood Barrier gates.

[whitelancer]

I don't know about the deck coating but I have heard their is still quite a lot of sorting out to do internally, with one system in particular being far from ready. I believe they were aiming for March but that date is being pushed back, to when I'm not sure anyone knows. The good news is that POW is progressing well, due to lessons learnt.

[PhillyJ]

Happy New Year all, looking forward to seeing HMS QE arriving in my home town of Pompey later on this year, just a short journey for me so very handy!

Noted the following article, some interesting points and some of it even related to the QE's, I don't post often so hopefully not been seen before.

2017 may well prove very interesting for my family, not only the arrival of QE but my 17 yr old Son has just got to get through his medical and fitness test and he will be off to HMS Raleigh in April to hopefully join the 'Senior Service'

http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/will-20 ... oyal-navy/

[ArmChairCivvy]

Congrats, Philly (and the Son, especially)!

The navy is headed the right way, but if there is one thing that I would worry about, it is this (from the article):

"HMS Torbay will decommission in 2017 and we will be down to just 6 boats until HMS Audacious is operational in late 2018.
The keel for the seventh and final Astute-class submarine – as yet unnamed – will be laid in 2017 as work continues apace on the fifth and sixth, HMS Anson and HMS Agamemnon in Barrow"

[PhillyJ]

Congrats, Philly (and the Son, especially)!

The navy is headed the right way, but if there is one thing that I would worry about, it is this (from the article):

"HMS Torbay will decommission in 2017 and we will be down to just 6 boats until HMS Audacious is operational in late 2018.
The keel for the seventh and final Astute-class submarine – as yet unnamed – will be laid in 2017 as work continues apace on the fifth and sixth, HMS Anson and HMS Agamemnon in Barrow"

Thanks!

Yes that was a bit worrying, especially what with the Russkis quite rightly sailing in International waters recently, albeit a bit closer to the UK than the Daily Mail would like! I assume we always have 1 patrolling the Falklands as well.

HMS Anson, now that was a Battleship I wish I'd had the chance to see.

[Ron5]

Good luck to your son Philly.

[The Armchair Soldier]

According to The Times, one of the carriers are under the threat of being mothballed to save money:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/ ... -8wwwjxcxt

[Rambo]

It might not be a bad idea mothballing POW for say 2-3 years. It could help the manpower shortage which could keep the 2 escorts currently laid up active. Also extend the life of HMS Ocean by another 5-6 years...

[cky7]

Armchair soldier,

Beat me to it! Was just about to post that one - depressing start to my day as I read that this morning

Having had time to digest the article, if the forces higher ups had any balls I'd go for mothballing the POW then trumpet it all over the place and humiliate the govt. in the same article in the paper the MOD press officer actually went with the usual bullshit spin of increasing defence budget, new ships, subs etc, leading defence power in Europe (very debatable). Considering what I've seen of Jones thus far though I'm afraid he'll carry on toeing the line

[downsizer]

I'm shocked

[dmereifield]

Hammond's autumn statement was based on growth forecasts (for both 2016 and 2017) that will soon be revised up so he should have the head room to open the purse strings in his first spring budget in March, whilst keeping to the prior borrowing forecasts. Now is the opportune time to increase spending to provide a modicum of economic stimulus by investing in UK industry and to leverage our importance in Nato and European security in the Brexit negotiations. Surely HMG therefore cannot politically afford to mothball PoW, not if they wish to develop a relationship with Trump and to demonstrate that Brexit does not mean we are withdrawing from the world.....and surely after the last 6 years, there's not much other fat to cut (???), so we must have an increase in spending, or further delays to planned programmes such as the solid support ships etc