UK to get 2 new Aircraft Carriers

news.bbc.co.uk...

Defence Secretary John Hutton has said that the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers are likely to enter service a year or two later than planned.

In a statement to MPs, he added there would be no delay in construction - but work would continue at a slower pace, sustaining jobs for longer

BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the government did not view cancelling major defence projects as an option, but considered delays as a way of controlling the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) spiralling budget.

reply to post by Harlequin

Yup, seen that Harlequin, I that was old news and the BBC just refreshes its news pages every so often. If you look closely, there is no DTG on the original article.

If you are telling me that the former Europe Minister, Denis McShane got it wrong at about 12:10/15 today, this only proves (once again) that this government is not fit for office.

I have provided a link for those interested in the close encounter with Andrew Neil:

news.bbc.co.uk...

Think these glamour ships should be cancelled with no further expenditure being spent on either. Much better to divert funds from these behemoths into another 2 or 3 Invincible sized carriers, with extra funds being made available to increase the number of Type 45's, subs & patrol vessels.

I can't foresee any major use for these ships, no matter how brightly they glisten, aside from a repeat of the Falklands War. The main responsibility of the Royal Navy is to protect our trade routes, not to fight land wars thousands of miles from home. The Navy cannot discharge their responsibility with a fleet this unbalanced.

Something has to give, unfortunately.

Originally posted by Niall197 Something has to give, unfortunately.

I couldn't agree more Niall, and that 'something' should and must ber the proposed upgrade of Trident.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why we need these massive missile boats or the missiles they will carry.

As far as I'm concerned, if we must have these boats, then we need just two. One in dry dock undergoing overhaul and the other out on patrol 'somewhere' in the world's seas or oceans.

If a shooting war did happen, I'm sure the boat in for overhail would still be able to put to sea at 'emergency crew levels' to fulfill its mission.

Another thing that springs to mind, is why we need such massively expensive nuclear missiles while LRCM's with nuclear warheads could still do the trick.

Or am I simply being naive?

reply to post by fritz


One British SSBN in the dry dock, another on patrol and gets sunk by a surprise attack, I daresay thats 100% seabase nuke weapons out of action for the Brits.

DB, I expect better from you. OKay I agree. Perhaps 2 boats IS a little bit short sighted of me. (At least I acknowledge MY mistakes, unlike a lot of other people)

Right! We need 3 boats. One of patrol, one on the shelf in case the one on patrol gets clobbered by DB's imaginary foes and another in dry dock.

I reckon we may just get by with 3 tubes per boat and say 5 MIRVs on each missile. Thats 45 warheads that could seriously wreck anybody's day.

I say enough is enough! Scrap bloody Trident! Let Obama find work for his own people while we built our not so big carriers and provide jobs for own own workers instead of creating wealth for other countries!

reply to post by shrunkensimon


And we can all sit down in peace and brotherhood and sing Cumbaya

Originally posted by fritz
It would appear dear friends, that the Prime Minister of this once proud sea-faring nation, is not only borrowing £75B to keep our financies afloat, but has - through the back door, scuppered our two new carriers.

When pressed on BBC2's 'Daily Politics' programme today, the government minister refused to confirm that once the financial crisis is over, the two carriers would be built.

I guess friends, that the two carriers were just a dream in the Royal Navy's pipe and goes to show that

Gordon Browne had no intention of ever building the ships in the first place!

your banker friends stole all the money.

BANKER ARE TERRORISTS.

bankers have damaged us by 30 trillion dollars.terrorists could only manage $3 billion.

arrest these bankers and send the scum to guantanomo bay.

[edit on 16-2-2009 by esecallum]

sorry to bump this thread but I saw a pretty recent article about budget concerns towards the two carriers. www.telegraph.co.uk...

I was wondering though with the United States retiring the USS Enterprise being due for decommissioning in 2013 could our American Friends not "Donate" a Nuclear carrier to us. Sure it is almost 52 years old but it still surpasses our carriers. Hell they could even give it a full refit to show how much they support their ally's. I'm sure that would make more english people like america.

reply to post by Luke.S[/url]

Then you fell out of bed................................... and woke up!

The Yanks would never give their erstwhile ally something for nothing.

Even during the much vaunted 'Lend/Lease' during the Second World War, before the Yanks won single handedly, they made Winston drop his pants and bend over.

After 60 odd years, nothing has changed!

reply to post by Luke.S




Ahem..

Sorry, nearly fell off my chair laughing there! When have the Yanks ever given us anything for free? we had to give them ALL our secrets in WWII in exchange for them helping us fight "evil", which then put them in a nice position post war, technology wise.

As for the carriers, I shouldn't worry. It would cost more to cancel them than it would to build them at this point. Construction is already well underway and the contracts have cancellation clauses which would hit the Government wityh massive penalties, not to mention the job losses and other economic fall out.

yeah but knowing our crappy government they will cancel them

and what I don't get is why they have only kept the carriers for 25 years. Surely the life span is much greater. For example HMS Invincible was retired in 2006 and is currently mothballed. Surely that carrier has a much longer life span.

[edit on 25-3-2010 by Luke.S]

reply to post by Luke.S


25 years is just the proposed lifespan. I'm sure they'll serve longer. The Nimitz Class of carriers is getting on for 50 years old now and is still going strong.

As for Invincible, it's only mothballed. It can be re-activated in short order, same with dozens of ships floating around Portsmouth harbour. We could double the size of the Navy in a matter of weeks if needed. It was just put into that state as a cost saver, we didn't need 3 light carriers.

Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by Luke.S

 

25 years is just the proposed lifespan. I'm sure they'll serve longer. The Nimitz Class of carriers is getting on for 50 years old now and is still going strong.

As for Invincible, it's only mothballed. It can be re-activated in short order, same with dozens of ships floating around Portsmouth harbour. We could double the size of the Navy in a matter of weeks if needed. It was just put into that state as a cost saver, we didn't need 3 light carriers.

apparently the Invincible has been completely stripped and is nothing more than a floating shell. It would take upwards of 18 months to bring her back into service and huge amounts of parts would have to be sourced. She doesn't even have her engines anymore.

reply to post by Luke.S


According to Jane's, yes, but that is the only source I can find that says so. The RN maintains it is available for swift deployment up until this year, however.

It wouldn't surprise me if she has been cannabalised though, but I'd be very surprised if she had been stripped to the extent that Jane's claims, especially the engines. The Royal Navy doesn't usually scrap engines, unless obsolete. They are sent back to Rolls-Royce for refurbishment and re-used.

Don't forget though, that HMS Hermes was in mothball before the Falklands and was refit en route and even during the conflict. You'd be surprised what can be done with a certain amount of effort and imagination. It only takes 24 hours to replace an engine on this class.