I would suggest reading the Project Tech book on the P1216.
Strictly it met the criteria laid out. Including manoeuvrability in iterations that placed the choice at ministerial level. Hence the mockup and inspection by the then PM.
That choice was essentially between collaboration with the US or with European members of NATO or a National effort and attempts to sell abroad. There wasn't scope for doing all three or two options. Just enough to fund one.
Strategically the UK's major failure is in a LO strike platform to succeed the Tornado. JSF doesn't achieve this as per the RAND study that underlies the ROA figures 600nm is sufficient and the next radius figure desirable was 1,500nm.
The argument is not for running on Jaguar and Harrier, which were ran on and upgraded into the 2000's 20 years after the moment of decision.
On the carrier front the argument to drop the highly limited ASW CVs for a pair of larger CVs was put forward as early as 1992.
Iraq Gulf War I and Yugoslavia rammed home the inadequacy of a ASW CV with limited support for fast jets as the basis of maritime power projection.
It needs be stated the Harrier on the Invincibles was the culmination of studies into the minimum fast jet capability for Anti-Fleet Shadower, and Anti-Ship missile delivery. Originally some 5 aircraft was deemed sufficient. Ensuring one available at all times and two for a short term crisis.
I do wonder whether something between the 22-aircraft Invincible and 40-craft Queen Elizabeth classes would be more optimal, sporting at most a couple of dozen F-35 and half a dozen mutirole helicopters. C3 function as well, but strictly no assault capability, leave that to multiple smaller, low-profile, shallow-water craft. We might then have afforded three of them, with two operationally available at any one time. I think that in this relatively cold-war-free era the main threat comes from multiple small-scale conflicts overwhelming our fleet by numbers rather than our firepower.
I don't think CVF is a 40 aircraft carrier, it might be limited to that for a several reasons (space for flexible operations limits on airwings due to finance etc..), but the basic carrier is certainly capable of much more than 40.
Getting the necessary 5 days sustainment of intense operations that underpin CVF on a smaller CV is possible, but not on a ASW helicopter CV like the Invincibles. One should look at some of the early CVF studies to get a sense of the spectrum looked at and the size to capability issue.
Going to chuck some more doubt onto the fire re: Gulf War I.
During the Gulf War with six Lynx with Sea Skua managed to;
24 January 1991: a Lynx sank two minesweepers and a third was scuttled
29 January: four Lynx engaged a convoy of seventeen landing craft plus escorting FAC and minesweepers; they bagged two ships and the rest were dispersed and later dealt with by Sea Kings and USN carrier aircraft
30 January: four Lynx engaged a convoy of three Polnocny LSTs, three ex-Kuwaiti TNC-45 FAC and one T-43 minesweeper; sunk three FAC, damaged the T-43 and one Polnocny which was finished off by a Jaguar
February: Lynxes destroyed a Zhuk class patrol boat and damaged another, sunk a salvage vessel and another Polnocny class landing ship
That tally is quite impressive for half a dozen helicopters. Effective airpower doesn't have to be flashy fast jets. In theory a Wildcat with four Sea Venom and 10-14 Martlet could inflict quite serious damage in the littoral environment.
I wonder how much the Gulf and Yugoslavia cases were co-opted by the Admirals to justify a bigger carrier which they wanted anyway but they provided a convenient peg to hang the argument on. Both were essentially land campaigns with friendly airbases more or less next door to the warzone and against opposition that did not have an effective naval force for self-defence.
QE and PoW are probably slightly large for the airgroup we can afford to put on them, but I think bigger is better in the longer-term and any Invincible replacement was likely to be a 'proper' flattop, let's not forget Invincible was the result of the long-running Escort Cruiser saga of the 1960s. Sea Harrier was a lucky break for the RN.
I really need to reupload those images from 'Warship '97 International Symposium: Air Power at Sea' on the thread zen linked!
Going to chuck some more doubt onto the fire re: Gulf War I.
During the Gulf War with six Lynx with Sea Skua managed to;
24 January 1991: a Lynx sank two minesweepers and a third was scuttled
29 January: four Lynx engaged a convoy of seventeen landing craft plus escorting FAC and minesweepers; they bagged two ships and the rest were dispersed and later dealt with by Sea Kings and USN carrier aircraft
30 January: four Lynx engaged a convoy of three Polnocny LSTs, three ex-Kuwaiti TNC-45 FAC and one T-43 minesweeper; sunk three FAC, damaged the T-43 and one Polnocny which was finished off by a Jaguar
February: Lynxes destroyed a Zhuk class patrol boat and damaged another, sunk a salvage vessel and another Polnocny class landing ship
That tally is quite impressive for half a dozen helicopters. Effective airpower doesn't have to be flashy fast jets. In theory a Wildcat with four Sea Venom and 10-14 Martlet could inflict quite serious damage in the littoral environment.
I wonder how much the Gulf and Yugoslavia cases were co-opted by the Admirals to justify a bigger carrier which they wanted anyway but they provided a convenient peg to hang the argument on. Both were essentially land campaigns with friendly airbases more or less next door to the warzone and against opposition that did not have an effective naval force for self-defence.
QE and PoW are probably slightly large for the airgroup we can afford to put on them, but I think bigger is better in the longer-term and any Invincible replacement was likely to be a 'proper' flattop, let's not forget Invincible was the result of the long-running Escort Cruiser saga of the 1960s. Sea Harrier was a lucky break for the RN.
I really need to reupload those images from 'Warship '97 International Symposium: Air Power at Sea' on the thread zen linked!
How contested was the airspace for Lynx to operate? I'd suggest fairly safe, as Iraqi airpower was swept from the sky pretty quickly.
Helicopter's do a lot of damage to the enemy, once they can fly in relative safety.
Would we have put up such against the fleets of fast jets Iraq could have put into the air without fast jets clearing them out the skies?
How many Lynx would survive for how many hours before we lost the lot?
How contested was the airspace for Lynx to operate? I'd suggest fairly safe, as Iraqi airpower was swept from the sky pretty quickly.
Helicopter's do a lot of damage to the enemy, once they can fly in relative safety.
Would we have put up such against the fleets of fast jets Iraq could have put into the air without fast jets clearing them out the skies?
How many Lynx would survive for how many hours before we lost the lot?
I would not argue against that, in addition littoral operations have higher threat levels.
The USN brought seven carriers to the Gulf, Ark Royal was in the Med. There is a very interesting discussion here: https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/c...no-2-first-gulf-war-25th-anniversary-special/
In particular p.106 to p.108 of the PDF. The government had already made the decision there was no need to send a carrier to the Gulf; the USN was already committing far more powerful carrier forces and there was an abundance of ground-based airpower. Even Clemenceau was only used as a helicopter carrier and even then kept well out of harms way. The Lynx were deployed on the destroyers and were among the few naval assets actually put into the northern Gulf (p.60) where the threat level was highest.
Of course the Lynx/Sea Skua combination was developed to destroy FACs and it excelled at its designed task. Sea Skua lacked punch against bigger warships but it gave the RN a tactical flexibility. Sea Harrier FRS.1 could carry up to two Sea Eagles, but normally only one.
How contested was the airspace for Lynx to operate? I'd suggest fairly safe, as Iraqi airpower was swept from the sky pretty quickly.
Helicopter's do a lot of damage to the enemy, once they can fly in relative safety.
Would we have put up such against the fleets of fast jets Iraq could have put into the air without fast jets clearing them out the skies?
How many Lynx would survive for how many hours before we lost the lot?
I would not argue against that, in addition littoral operations have higher threat levels.
The USN brought seven carriers to the Gulf, Ark Royal was in the Med. There is a very interesting discussion here: https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/c...no-2-first-gulf-war-25th-anniversary-special/
In particular p.106 to p.108 of the PDF. The government had already made the decision there was no need to send a carrier to the Gulf; the USN was already committing far more powerful carrier forces and there was an abundance of ground-based airpower. Even Clemenceau was only used as a helicopter carrier and even then kept well out of harms way. The Lynx were deployed on the destroyers and were among the few naval assets actually put into the northern Gulf (p.60) where the threat level was highest.
Of course the Lynx/Sea Skua combination was developed to destroy FACs and it excelled at its designed task. Sea Skua lacked punch against bigger warships but it gave the RN a tactical flexibility. Sea Harrier FRS.1 could carry up to two Sea Eagles, but normally only one.
Yes the Gulf War was not an ideal war for carrier airpower, were it supplimented landbased airpower and operated in tight constraints of available sea space. Arguably the entire carrier forces deployed were not necessary and in reality served to get what was available there in reasonable time. Lowering the need for infrastructure investment and UsS presence in Saudi Arabia.
Yugoslavia had more relevance for the UK, as Italy had become reticent about deploying airpower, Austria was neutral and the other Balkan states less than ideal in infrastructure.
Was Clemenceau an effective strike carrier even for the nuclear strike role? I've seen mention that stowage for the AN 52 bomb was not added until 1978 and of course ASMP did not arrive until the early 1990s. The Invincibles were designed for stowage of the WE.177 from the start (admittedly for the WE.177A depth-bomb but the Harrier could use them as bombs too).
In terms of self-defence, Clemenceau had to rely on 100mm gun mounts until the late 1980s when Crotale was added. The Invincibles had Sea Dart to help contribute to fleet defence, and could of had Sea Wolf LW had the 1990s Peace Dividend not intervened, perhaps more usefully they got Phalanx and Goalkeeper CIWS which the French carriers never received.
Much has already been said about comparing the airgroups, but neither Navy had an effective AEW platform on either carrier, but at least the Sea King AEW offered some useful capability.
Mirage F1M with M53 and A-7s very nearly happened in 1974.
This would be the absolute max a Clemenceau could do with its limited catapults. A powerful strike capability but the catapults might have worn out faster with those big birds... Clemenceau might be dead by 1989 not 1997.
Did late Essex were given A-7 s ?
Alternatives:
- Crusaders and Skyhawks
- multirole Mirage F1M.
To get an idea of a naval exocet F1 see the Iraqis...no carriers but the old Atar 9 in desertic environment.
Hawker P.1216 going to America post Falklands, via DARPA ASTOVL then pushing aside prehistory of what become JSF...
it would worth a separated thread.
I know it has been discussed up thread with mixed feelings.
A fascinating side aspect is that it open an highway to the Rafale. No RR EJ200 no SNECMA whining.
Rafale and P.1216 side by side would be awesome.
Spanish and Italian buys of AV-8B were rather late OTL: maybe a SHAR loan waiting for P.1216 to replace their AV8A ?
Italy compared SHAR with AV8B in 1988 not before.
Spain buy was in 1983 but Asturias did not entered service until 1989 !
There might be a window of opportunity for these two if SHAR is used as a "bait" for P.1216.
No-one has risen to CNH's mischief at #65 - why did pols. chop CVS/SHAR? Nor to its imputed follow-up: why did the same pols buy CVF/F-35B?
(Timing in UK Electoral cycles: CVS/SHAR funded 5/73 by Conservative/not canx. by 4/74 Labour Govt.; deployed by 1979 Conservatives, well-fought in 1982 Falklands, 1992-95 Bosnia;
deployed by 1997 Labour Govt. for Bosnia/Sierra Leone; deleted 12/2010 by Conservative Govt. of 5/10. CVF/F-35B launch-funded 11/99 by Labour, confirmed by 5/10 Conservatives). Why? If local employment was a factor in Chancellor/PM G.Brown spending for Rosyth, Conservatives would have chopped. No-one foresaw a NATO-phobic isolationist in DC.
Yes, the P.1216 was designed to meet the AST.410 requirement for an RAF/FAA Jaguar/Harrier replacement, with the F4 also vaguely on the same page - maybe for the Mk II. EFA grew out of the UK-funded BAe EAP demonstrator, in turn underpinned by the ACA studies which involved European collaborative work and broadly paralleled the P.1216 studies. Ca. 1983 the UK faced a political choice between Europe or the USA as its collaborative partner. Europe won out and AST.410 was dropped. "Could the UK have done a better job of maintaining Carrier based airpower?" Yes, it could have kept with AST.410 and dropped EAP/Eurofighter a decade before Spain did and Germany tried to (As I recall. Spain later came back in). Now, we are buying the US/UK successor to P.1216 to replace our Typhoons, which kinda supports the suggestion that would have been the better decision back in '83.
Also in 1985 OTL Spain nearly joined the Rafale ship but finally stuck with EFA.
Or reel the time back to 1979 and marry the Mirage 4000 with ACA to "accelerate" an "European Rafale without GB" decision and avoid the ACX EFA split.
Then falklands happens: AST410 and P.1216 get married before DARPA ASTOVL join the party.
With Uncle Sam onboard now, P.1216 is launched forward like a missile
- with the complementary "ACA / 4000 Rafale / whatever" by its side.
Spain and Italy have a feet in both programs. Germany not really interested by P.1216.
Note that a Mirage 4000 based "eurofighter" can save ten years, was flying by 79 in place of 86.
I can tell you that the French navy may get out of Rafale and...Crusaders pretty fast IF P.1216 is available in 1991. Perfect bird for them really.
OTL they wanted F-18s but the Foch could barely handle them and Dassault twisted everybody arm for Rafale M.
Imagine: Foch and Clemenceau ruined catapults are not needed for the Hawker !! While Clemenceau was doomed Foch may be retired by 2004 and not to Brazil of course.
Strategically the UK's major failure is in a LO strike platform to succeed the Tornado. JSF doesn't achieve this as per the RAND study that underlies the ROA figures 600nm is sufficient and the next radius figure desirable was 1,500nm.
Strategically the UK's major failure is in a LO strike platform to succeed the Tornado. JSF doesn't achieve this as per the RAND study that underlies the ROA figures 600nm is sufficient and the next radius figure desirable was 1,500nm.
Not off hand but this is a long time ago and connected with the JSF effort, maybe even going back to JAST... it justifies the JSF requirement for 600nm ROA if I recall.
But this is now decades ago!
Pass me the Zimmerframe and call nurse for the tablets!
Going to chuck some more doubt onto the fire re: Gulf War I.
During the Gulf War with six Lynx with Sea Skua managed to;
24 January 1991: a Lynx sank two minesweepers and a third was scuttled
29 January: four Lynx engaged a convoy of seventeen landing craft plus escorting FAC and minesweepers; they bagged two ships and the rest were dispersed and later dealt with by Sea Kings and USN carrier aircraft
30 January: four Lynx engaged a convoy of three Polnocny LSTs, three ex-Kuwaiti TNC-45 FAC and one T-43 minesweeper; sunk three FAC, damaged the T-43 and one Polnocny which was finished off by a Jaguar
February: Lynxes destroyed a Zhuk class patrol boat and damaged another, sunk a salvage vessel and another Polnocny class landing ship
That tally is quite impressive for half a dozen helicopters. Effective airpower doesn't have to be flashy fast jets. In theory a Wildcat with four Sea Venom and 10-14 Martlet could inflict quite serious damage in the littoral environment.
I wonder how much the Gulf and Yugoslavia cases were co-opted by the Admirals to justify a bigger carrier which they wanted anyway but they provided a convenient peg to hang the argument on. Both were essentially land campaigns with friendly airbases more or less next door to the warzone and against opposition that did not have an effective naval force for self-defence.
QE and PoW are probably slightly large for the airgroup we can afford to put on them, but I think bigger is better in the longer-term and any Invincible replacement was likely to be a 'proper' flattop, let's not forget Invincible was the result of the long-running Escort Cruiser saga of the 1960s. Sea Harrier was a lucky break for the RN.
I really need to reupload those images from 'Warship '97 International Symposium: Air Power at Sea' on the thread zen linked!
How contested was the airspace for Lynx to operate? I'd suggest fairly safe, as Iraqi airpower was swept from the sky pretty quickly.
Helicopter's do a lot of damage to the enemy, once they can fly in relative safety.
Would we have put up such against the fleets of fast jets Iraq could have put into the air without fast jets clearing them out the skies?
How many Lynx would survive for how many hours before we lost the lot?
First objective was their aircraft and air defence, thus allowing every man and his dog to zoom around bombing stuff. A lot of early tornado missions were airfield or runway destruction tasks.
Strategically the UK's major failure is in a LO strike platform to succeed the Tornado. JSF doesn't achieve this as per the RAND study that underlies the ROA figures 600nm is sufficient and the next radius figure desirable was 1,500nm.
Different cycles, typhoon, then jsf came along, raf would have been nuts to pass jsf as it wanted a stealth tornado, which no-one else was looking for. And from an industrial side, also a no brainer, well done politicians, you got one right.
Jsf can be tanked, pretty sure Israel will be doing some long trips, ,maybe we buy some uav tankers. Tempest if it arrives will be closer to stealth tornado. Not holding my breath.
When discussing speculative anglo-french carriers there actually was a tantalizing piece of hardware common to Clemenceaus and Audacious, for twenty years - 1958 to 1978.
Somewhat astoninshingly their catapults were the same ! The BS.5 of course.
The difference was in length: 50 m for the French and 60 m for the Audacious.
In turn this made an important difference in MTOW launches: max 45000 pounds vs 60 000 pounds.
As far as naval aircraft go, the limit was
- A-7 vs Buccaneer
- Crusader vs Phantom.
Hermes aparently could handle Buccs so Foch may have, too, the trick being BLC of course. BLC is a damn clever cheat France knew very well, too: we had to BLC our Crusaders.
Breguet also perfected it on Br. 941, a CASA 295 size cargo with such an eye watering STOL capability of 400 ft only, it could have landed on Foch just like C-130 landed on Forrestal, hook is for losers baby !
Phantoms aboard Foch not possible since not only Hermes couldn't but Phantomization pushed the Audacious themselves to their limits - and they had the longer BS.5.
Crucially this mean that when PA.54 Clemenceau was being designed in 1953 some french went to GB and requested BS.5 catapults and technology. The 50 m long variant. Fine.
The real shame is that, looking at Eagle and Ark 60 m BS.5, the french did not wondered
"would be nice to get the full length variant... but Clemenceau is a little to short to handle it. Hmmm what if we asked the british for help in improving our design ?"
Also note that the CdG is no longer than Foch yet managed to handle US 75 m catapults.
And of course PA.58 Verdun had the full length bs.5 afaik.
So with my technical hat on,....I'd say the Clems are a bit short for the 50m catapults they have and probably began design process with the older 104ft stroke units.
I say this because the forward catapult with an aircraft doesn't keep it clear of the Recovery zone and Overshoot.
Likely they went 50m because they could squeeze it in at the cost of continuous operations (near simultaneous launch and recovery) to cyclic operations ( mass launches and later mass recoveries).
I believe that the similarity in hull dimensions of the Clems and CdG is down to using the same drydock facilities.
What about PA 75? There was a conventional PH 75 with RR Olympus, have heard about a conventional PA 75 proposal with COSAG propulsion but not sure if it was real or not. Could a conventional PA 75 have been a goer for a joint RN FNS carrier project, F1M M53 followed by Rafale?
Excellent idea. France had the old Arromanches and loved it. It was used as a multipurpose carrier along Foch and Clem until 1974 but had to be retired.
The french navy then imagined PH 75 as a brand new Arromanches, an extremely versatile platform not unlike present LPH LPD LHA etc minus amphib ops, only a force of helicopters. Commando carrier, helicopter carrier for ASW, hospital ship, disaster relief ship... so many roles.
PH 75 was to be conventionally powered then it went nuclear for complete autonomy. That was a mistake because past first oil shock France could not paid it.
Later it was brought back as PA75 Richelieu then... CdG.
Closest british ships from it ? Invincibles and HMS Ocean. Also Asturias and Garibaldi. If only...
GB takes 4.
France takes 2 to replace Arromanches and Jeanne d'Arc.
Spain takes 1 - Asturias.
Italy takes 1 - Garibaldi.
India, Australia, Thailand takes 1 each so 3.
Nine ships.
Neine, d'oh ! ELEVEN ships, silly me.
Imagine how NATO and USN are happy: 8 ASW carrier task forces for Europe !!
Packing around a hundred Harriers, quite a strike force. USMC pretty happy too the more Harriers the merrier.
Then France scraps the Super Etendard and takes Sea Harrier instead. It can land on the two PH75... and don't use Clem and Foch catapults that are growing old and used... and now France has a 4 carriers strike force.
The Foch and Clemenceau now find a new role: air cover of the Invincible - Ocean - Asturias - Garibaldi - PH75 combined Harrier strike force.
With so many platforms and Harriers, if they learn to work together the Europeans can project a really impressive strike force of fast attack jets. The supersonic Crusaders learn how to join forces with the SHARs for air cover of the attack BWH force from Italy, Spain that can be augmented by RAF Harriers as in the Falklands. Later P.1216 will join the fray.
France, RN, RAF, Spain, Italy decides to create the Joint European Harrier and Osprey Force (JEHOF) to coordinate training and resources and cross decking across 10 decks - including Foch and Clemenceau.
This seems like a Colossus/Majestic successor, and should fit quite a number of UK drydocks.
Obviously the RN version would have Sea Wolf and a general UK radar fit.
IF....if a GT powered version was produced that is, as I don't see the UK funding a surface ship with nuclear power.
Hangar dimensions were 84m x 21m x 6.5m of...275.5ft by 68.9ft by 21.3ft
So enough width for 3 folded P.1216 abreast with good spaces around and enough length for 4 unfolded or 5 folded nose P1216.
So 15 maximum, swap out three slots for helicopters and you get 12 in the hanger.
Double that for a total of 24 fast jets and 6 helicopters.
Possibly enough hanger space for more helicopters at a squeeze.
However could it support that number of aircraft? For how long? At what intensity of flying operations?
Comparison say with early CVF study for 15 JSF with 10 helicopters is a CV of 850ft or so long and over 160ft wide at the flight deck
While the 20 JSF CV is 900ft long and the 26 JSF CV is 1000ft long.
Was Clemenceau an effective strike carrier even for the nuclear strike role? I've seen mention that stowage for the AN 52 bomb was not added until 1978 and of course ASMP did not arrive until the early 1990s. The Invincibles were designed for stowage of the WE.177 from the start (admittedly for the WE.177A depth-bomb but the Harrier could use them as bombs too).
In terms of self-defence, Clemenceau had to rely on 100mm gun mounts until the late 1980s when Crotale was added. The Invincibles had Sea Dart to help contribute to fleet defence, and could of had Sea Wolf LW had the 1990s Peace Dividend not intervened, perhaps more usefully they got Phalanx and Goalkeeper CIWS which the French carriers never received.
Much has already been said about comparing the airgroups, but neither Navy had an effective AEW platform on either carrier, but at least the Sea King AEW offered some useful capability.
Mirage F1M with M53 and A-7s very nearly happened in 1974.
This would be the absolute max a Clemenceau could do with its limited catapults. A powerful strike capability but the catapults might have worn out faster with those big birds... Clemenceau might be dead by 1989 not 1997.
Did late Essex were given A-7 s ?
Alternatives:
- Crusaders and Skyhawks
- multirole Mirage F1M.
To get an idea of a naval exocet F1 see the Iraqis...no carriers but the old Atar 9 in desertic environment.
I was just watching youtube film of Oriskany's 1970 Westpac cruise. Her airgroup, so far as I could see, consisted of Crusaders, Corsairs, Skywarriors, Tracers and Seasprites.
Thanks. I was wondering if the last attack Essex had stuck with Skyhawks until the very end. It shows how the recent A-7 could find its way among old jets on old carriers. Interesting. At this point the A-7 must have been one of the few modern types having all 3 carrier sizes under its belt - it could do Essex, Midway, and supercarriers altogether.
YES, yes, yes, and definitively, yes. Uk75, you should register at AH.com this matter has been discussed at leat 25 times since 2005. Including by myself.
From all this, my gut feeling, from the land of the frogs, Clemenceau, Foch, and Charles de Gaulle carriers, is the following.
Bet everything on the Centaur fleet. Keep them homogenous as a fleet, never turn them into helicopters or ASW carriers by removing the catapults. And never sell Hermes to India.
How long did it last, HMS Hermes, in Indian Navy service ? 2016, you said 2016 ??!!!
No, really, put all that scarce post-war RN budget on the Centaur fleet. They are nearly as good as the Foch and Clemenceau, which lasted from 1960 to 2000. And they are much more than two hulls, rather 4 or even 6 ( from memory, can't check Wiki presently).
If you need something bigger than Centaur, bet on HMS Eagle. Dang, retire that cranky Ark Royal and use it for spares !!
With HMS Eagle plus all the Centaurs available, the RN can sail (lame pun entirely assumed) through the entire Cold War and even slightly beyond. Then, waiting for the Q.E, retire HMS Eagle after the end of Cold War and gradually deflate the Centaur fleet until the Q.E enter service.
And please, past 1960 scrap everything that is not a) a Centaur or b) HMS Eagle. Forget all the others - either they are too small for jets, or too slow, or cranky old lemons.
Radical and brutal, but that's the way the French Navy survived through the Foch and Clemeceau years, until C.D.G was ready. Arromanches was used to the bones until 1974 and then retired.
I do not fully concur. The centaurs were simply to small. Hermes was projected to operate 31-34 aircraft and the rest of the brood 26-28. Victorious was 36-40 depending on aircraft. I totally concur on Ark Royal/Eagle!
If I had my way, while still being semi reasonable.. I would alter the order the AFD's were brought in for modernizing post war; instead of going Illustrious then Indomitable and Victorious I would bring in Illustrious, Victorious and THEN Indomitable. That would group the ships most like each other together and take some strain off of design and yard staff.
Illustrious had a minimal mod that fixed some broken stuff and altered her cosmetics, as I recall they used the "training carrier" mod on her, Vickie would get the "flag" carrier version of the plan, neither got steam cats and both would be gone by 1960.
However the BIG modernization in the Indomitable and her near cousins the Implacable's can get you VERY close to the same specs as the '53 medium carrier study: You are going to be tearing them all down to the lower hangar and rebuilding up as well as bulging them like Vickie IRL, and reboilering with modern high temp/pressure boilers was part of the original plan.. so might as well cut them in half at this point and slot in a new section of hull to bring them all to the same waterline length.
My idea would be to make them all 775 feet at the WL by putting a 45' to 65' extension of the hull forward of the mid point, this gives you easy access to the boilers, and maximizes the usable volume and buoyancy. Between that increase in buoyancy and bulging you should be able to have side lifts (hangar floor should be 24-25 feet above waterline), the area formerly used by the centerline lifts could be used as sub hangar.. all in you should be able to get a hangar of between 3400 and 3700 square meters depending on if you widen the main hangar. So lets call it 3400 to be safe. Yeah you will have to thin armor and use a lot of aluminum but it could work.
Cancel Hermes to free up funds and you can do Indomitable, Implacable and a more complete Eagle(NEW boilers and/or a full AC rewire), for less than construction of Hermes and rebuild of Vickie in roughly the same time frame. I have seen some figures that put the actual construction cost of Hermes at close to 36 million pounds and the reconstruction of Vickie at about 20-24, since they essentially did the job twice that would put the cost at about 10-12 mil if it had gone to plan the first time. EDIT: In looking over the figures given for the cost of Victorious' rebuild just before they discovered her boilers were shot, they were within 100k of the estimate at the start of the project and they only discovered the boiler problem as they were finishing the installation of the flight deck and starting construction of the new island.
As to why you would want to rebuild the old carriers? Keep in mind that the estimation for the construction of the medium carrier study was 18 million pounds and the UK did not stop food rationing until July of 1954; every pound saved goes to filling a British belly at a time when people were rationed to one egg per week! The estimation to modernize Implacable was 10,460,000 and for that you would get a single 17.5' hangar, a full gallery deck across it, and brand new high pressure boilers.. with an axial deck. Adding 2 million to do a proper cut and stretch and fully angled deck is good value for money, as compared to 18 million.
Post 1961 I would start pulling Scimitar and replacing it with USN surplus F-11 Tigers, should be able to pick those up for dirt cheap if not free, can replace the J65 with the 200 series Avons in the scimitar and maybe even surplus APQ-50 radar units from surplus F4D sky rays(could use AI23 as well if you want). This hedges your bets on the S1 Bucc and gives you a viable nuclear strike capacity until the S2 gets to sufficient numbers. I know the FAA wants two engines and two seats but they would have been happy with the SR-177 with one engine and one seat doing intercepts so they can get over it.
With a relatively minor tweak you should be able to operate the Tiger from Centaur and Ark Royal should be able to handle her, so you can put her in reserve use Centaur as a fill in ASW asset and qualification carrier and either of them in case the balloon goes up. The other three can operate into the 80's and with cats closer in power to the C-11 than the BS4/5 they are all viable phantom platforms with air groups of about 40. I figure they might look a bit like this.
In reading on the design and construction of the Audacious class there was a wonderful little nugget of data: They found that they had made the beams on the Illustrious class a bit beefier than they needed; you could shave 6 inches (15 cm), out of the depth without compromising structural integrity. This implies that you could cut 6 inches out of the beams of Illustrious and Victorious and give yourself a clear hangar height of 16' 6". The only combat aircraft you can not fit in the hangar at that height during the era would be the scimitar, you would need to fit a folding vertical stabilizer on the Gannet to fit but that would be fairly easy to do.
If the RN was willing to accept limitations on embarked aircraft they could have done a Centaur style refit to Illustrious and Victorious in about the same amount of time/cost it took to do on Centaur and run both of them until the mid to late '60s which was about their projected life post WW2.
Victorious's rebuild goes off the rails with the insistence of operating 40,000 pound aircraft, that would require 8 foot deep beams not the 7 foot she had, and although 7 feet was more than she needed and 6.5 feet ones were sufficient for Ark Royal to operate 30k pound aircraft.. they weren't capable of 40k. So now you pushed into a full gallery deck and all the rooms and facilities in it take up more time to build.. enough time for the Admiralty to approve a full angled deck and not the much easier and faster to build since it really requires no HUGE amount of engineering interim 5.5.
No going for 40k pound aircraft and a 5.5 degree angle.. and BH-5 cats instead of steam.. and she is done in 2 years, 3 tops. No steam cats and there is no worry about her not being able to maintain high speed and use them bringing about the reboilering.
The question would how effective the French carriers really were at various offensive and defensive roles, with the possible exception of the anti-ship role once Super Etendards with Exocets were fielded.
Otherwise more a status symbol with limited real world capability (not really any better than British Harrier carriers, and with some real disadvantages).
And for the period it existed the F-4s and Buccaneers air wing was of a different league in capacity when compared to that made up of F-8s and Etendards.
Then again, the new F-35 carrier/s should have been a lot smaller and cheaper, enough to build another one and still have cash to spare. The F-35 would have then used a lot more proven UK tech, licensed to Uncle Sam, giving us a better price, and it would also be a more practical design being now a second-generation S-STOVL fighter.
The only way to make those CVFs smaller and cheaper would have been to accept that they couldn't be attack carriers, but sub hunter/escort carriers. And then you barely need F-35s. In fact, F-35s are way too stupid big for that job, all you need for escort carriers are 8x SHAR or similar. Something to fly CAP. You don't need the ability to carry a pair of 1000lb bombs like the F-35B.
Given the American adoption of AV-8A, participation in and continued operation of Harrier II/AV-8B, and design lead for JSF, I think that they are almost a dead cert for participating in P.1216 pull-through/operation. That would have brought its price down, though at the cost of some delay over patching-in US requirements, and USAF/Navy/Marines requirements would not have merged into JSF for another generation (unless conceivably it also found a landplane niche, as the original UK Harrier had done).
Letting the US Marines fund the P1216 (or my preferred P1214) like they did for Harrier would have likely improved both F-35 and VSTOL fighters in general.
The F-35 would have been able to have a centerline bomb bay and wouldn't have bothered with any VTOL nonsense since the Marines had just bought a pile of new planes in the mid-late 1980s, assuming the original planned late-1990s IOC of F-35s.
Then it'd be the replacement for the F-35 that ties a supersonic STOVL aircraft into the USAF and USN requirements for the midweight strike fighter.
I do wonder whether something between the 22-aircraft Invincible and 40-craft Queen Elizabeth classes would be more optimal, sporting at most a couple of dozen F-35 and half a dozen mutirole helicopters. C3 function as well, but strictly no assault capability, leave that to multiple smaller, low-profile, shallow-water craft. We might then have afforded three of them, with two operationally available at any one time. I think that in this relatively cold-war-free era the main threat comes from multiple small-scale conflicts overwhelming our fleet by numbers rather than our firepower.
Nope. Only one available for a major deployment at a time, the second is doing workups to get ready for a long (~6month) deployment. You can surge the second one in an emergency, but that will completely mess up your scheduled overhauls for years afterwards.
When discussing speculative anglo-french carriers there actually was a tantalizing piece of hardware common to Clemenceaus and Audacious, for twenty years - 1958 to 1978.
Somewhat astoninshingly their catapults were the same ! The BS.5 of course.
The difference was in length: 50 m for the French and 60 m for the Audacious.
In turn this made an important difference in MTOW launches: max 45000 pounds vs 60 000 pounds.
As far as naval aircraft go, the limit was
- A-7 vs Buccaneer
- Crusader vs Phantom.
Hermes aparently could handle Buccs so Foch may have, too, the trick being BLC of course. BLC is a damn clever cheat France knew very well, too: we had to BLC our Crusaders.
Breguet also perfected it on Br. 941, a CASA 295 size cargo with such an eye watering STOL capability of 400 ft only, it could have landed on Foch just like C-130 landed on Forrestal, hook is for losers baby !
Phantoms aboard Foch not possible since not only Hermes couldn't but Phantomization pushed the Audacious themselves to their limits - and they had the longer BS.5.
Crucially this mean that when PA.54 Clemenceau was being designed in 1953 some french went to GB and requested BS.5 catapults and technology. The 50 m long variant. Fine.
The real shame is that, looking at Eagle and Ark 60 m BS.5, the french did not wondered
"would be nice to get the full length variant... but Clemenceau is a little to short to handle it. Hmmm what if we asked the british for help in improving our design ?"
Also note that the CdG is no longer than Foch yet managed to handle US 75 m catapults.
And of course PA.58 Verdun had the full length bs.5 afaik.
I just found this thread... so I'll make my comments even though they are 4 years late.
Re-check your timeline.
The 50m BS-5 catapults in Clemenceau were the first ones installed in any ship (laid down Nov. 1955, launched Dec. 1957, commissioned Nov. 1961), with the second set going into Foch (laid down Nov. 1957, launched July 1959, commissioned July 1963)!
The very first RN BS-5 50m catapult and the first BS-5A 60m catapult were installed in HMS Eagle during her Oct. 1959 - May 1964 modernization (replacing her original BH-5I hydraulic catapults)!
HMS Ark Royal got a pair of 45m BS-4A catapults in a refit in 1960 (replacing her original BH-5I catapults), then got the BS-5 50m & BS-5A 60m pair in her Mar. 1967-Feb. 1970 modernization.
Therefore, there were NO BS-5 catapults of any type aboard Eagle or Ark Royal for the French to "look at and wonder" about.
They most likely asked the UK for "your most modern catapult capable of XXXXXlb at YYY knots end speed", and the answer was the basic BS-5.
A question about Eagle and Ark Royal. If they would have received the proper maintenance/refits/modifications, how long they could have realistically served? I asked this elsewhere and someone said the 1990s. Is this realistic, and would the Phantoms and Buccaneers have life to serve until the 1990s? The older Midways did serve until the 1990s, so perhaps that's not too far fetched?
I just found this thread... so I'll make my comments even though they are 4 years late.
Re-check your timeline.
The 50m BS-5 catapults in Clemenceau were the first ones installed in any ship (laid down Nov. 1955, launched Dec. 1957, commissioned Nov. 1961), with the second set going into Foch (laid down Nov. 1957, launched July 1959, commissioned July 1963)!
The very first RN BS-5 50m catapult and the first BS-5A 60m catapult were installed in HMS Eagle during her Oct. 1959 - May 1964 modernization (replacing her original BH-5I hydraulic catapults)!
HMS Ark Royal got a pair of 45m BS-4A catapults in a refit in 1960 (replacing her original BH-5I catapults), then got the BS-5 50m & BS-5A 60m pair in her Mar. 1967-Feb. 1970 modernization.
Therefore, there were NO BS-5 catapults of any type aboard Eagle or Ark Royal for the French to "look at and wonder" about.
They most likely asked the UK for "your most modern catapult capable of XXXXXlb at YYY knots end speed", and the answer was the basic BS-5.
So inject change in realisation of boiler condition 1948 to 1951 and Victorious rebuild is the quicker cheaper option.....?
Not without changes to future aircraft though!
And still leaves desired CDS/984 combination with a derth of platforms bar the Hermes and Audaciouses.
So 1952 CV to Medium Fleet Carrier efforts still go as per history, BUT lack of 'modern' Carrier is in fact MORE pressing on new carrier build.
And cheaper Victorious rebuild leaves finances and staff open for more long lead items on 1952 CV and this would carry over to Medium Fleet effort.
Vicky IOC might be 1956-57 or earlier. So Medium Fleet laid down around that time as by '54 the 1952 effort has hit the affordability problem and by '56 sketch designs are being presented at Bath.
Means Ark goes for replacement by Medium Fleet into Dock and poor condition results in disposal 1963/64 or by Wilson's Labour 1965. Eagle might loose 60's rework to second Medium Fleet off the slips and Vicky still goes '67-69 to third carrier, rather than a new carrier design for OR.346 aircraft....
Although MF-CV-03 might be reworked to include BS.6 catapults and DA.1 or 2 arrestor system.
And potentially the aircraft side is possible as in the very early 50's navalised Swift and swept wing Sea Hawk offer that, especially if DH116 Super Vampire FAW is forced.
Equally Westlands Striker-Fighter offering as alternative to Scimitar. Depending on version either delivers FAW with AAMs capability or cheap and cheerful 'interim' solution to N/A.39 (Buccaneer).
And yes the later F.177 winner keeps these ships valid for longer.
F4K may still happen as per history. But OR.346 could only be achieved by more extreme designs....And both would be limited to modernised Audaciouses, Hermes and the new Medium Fleet Carriers.
However AW.406 could throw a spanner in that AH.
A question about Eagle and Ark Royal. If they would have received the proper maintenance/refits/modifications, how long they could have realistically served? I asked this elsewhere and someone said the 1990s. Is this realistic, and would the Phantoms and Buccaneers have life to serve until the 1990s? The older Midways did serve until the 1990s, so perhaps that's not too far fetched?
The Midways may have been older, but they were built better (among other things the RN's wartime builds used steel of much lower quality than prewar or postwar builds) and didn't spend years sitting on the stocks half-finished (Ark Royal in particular was not preserved well on the slipways). Ark Royal probably can't be pushed much past her OTL decommissioning. Eagle probably could have been pushed into the 1980s, at least, but I can't see her lasting into the 1990s.
The Phantoms and Buccaneers have the technical capacity to last into the early 90s - many air forces still fly Phantoms and the Bucc lasted until 1991 in RAF service - but airframe life is going to be an issue. Carrier ops are a lot rougher on the airframes than land-based ops.
A question about Eagle and Ark Royal. If they would have received the proper maintenance/refits/modifications, how long they could have realistically served? I asked this elsewhere and someone said the 1990s. Is this realistic, and would the Phantoms and Buccaneers have life to serve until the 1990s? The older Midways did serve until the 1990s, so perhaps that's not too far fetched?
Eagle's 59-64 modernization was an end-to-end "fix everything" job... she was virtually new as regards her systems (including propulsion) when she left the yard - all that she needed for Phantomization was as Phantom-specific support and repair equipment, water-cooled jet blast deflectors for her catapults, and slightly stronger arresting gear engines (for the Phantom FG.1 trials in March & June 1968 #3 wire had already been so replaced, and steel plates cooled by fire hoses had been laid on the flight deck over the existing non-cooled JBDs).
Eagle's modernization had cost £500 million [edit]£31 million[/edit], and the required work to operate Phantoms was estimated [edit]in 1968[/edit] to be ~£5 million and 6 months in the yard. While this almost certainly would have gone up somewhat in both cost and time, it really wasn't much in either respect.
Ark Royal's 1967-70 modernization cost £400 million [edit]£30 million "and was confined to changes needed to operate the RN's version of the Phantom" (including flight deck changes and enlargement). "Significantly, there was little more than an overhaul of her steam turbines and boilers; meaning that mechanically she was very dated"[/edit], and was much less complete. In particular, her propulsion plant had not been fully overhauled, and gave repeated problems for the entirety of her 8 year post-modernization service.
With the 8 years between the start [edit]end[/edit] dates inflation had had some effect, so the cost in 1959 [edit]1964[/edit]£ was probably more like £350 million [edit]23.22 million[/edit].
So it is pretty clear that Eagle was in better shape than Ark Royal, and likely was good to the mid-1980s (some 20 years after her modernization), while Ark Royal took a lot of effort by the crew and shore facilities to even finish out her historic 8 years post-modernization.
Had another 2 years and a couple hundred million [edit]a dozen million[/edit]£ more been spent in the modernization, Ark Royal likely would have been good until 1985-90.
[edit] the original numbers were likely "inflation-adjusted for 20xx-something".[/edit]
Eagle's 59-64 modernization was an end-to-end "fix everything" job... she was virtually new as regards her systems (including propulsion) when she left the yard - all that she needed for Phantomization was as Phantom-specific support and repair equipment, water-cooled jet blast deflectors for her catapults, and slightly stronger arresting gear engines (for the Phantom FG.1 trials in March & June 1968 #3 wire had already been so replaced, and steel plates cooled by fire hoses had been laid on the flight deck over the existing non-cooled JBDs).
Eagle's modernization had cost £500 million, and the required work to operate Phantoms was estimated to be ~£5 million and 6 months in the yard. While this almost certainly would have gone up somewhat in both cost and time, it really wasn't much in either respect.
Ark Royal's 1967-70 modernization cost £400 million, and was much less complete. In particular, her propulsion plant had not been fully overhauled, and gave repeated problems for the entirety of her 8 year post-modernization service.
With the 8 years between the start dates inflation had had some effect, so the cost in 1959 £ was probably more like £350 million.
So it is pretty clear that Eagle was in better shape than Ark Royal, and likely was good to the mid-1980s (some 20 years after her modernization), while Ark Royal took a lot of effort by the crew and shore facilities to even finish out her historic 8 years post-modernization.
Had another 2 years and a couple hundred million £ more been spent in the modernization, Ark Royal likely would have been good until 1985-90.
EAGLE's refit, plus the work needed to Phantomise the ship, was expected to see it until 1984. ARK ROYAL was only supposed to last until 1977-1979 (I can't remember if it was planned to be paid off before or after HERMES), which matches the OTL timescale, and the ship was in very poor condition by then.
How much did an Invincible cost? Looking at the price quoted for Australia, it seems for the price of one Invincible it would have been enough to say give Ark Royal the rest of the needed refit in the seventies so it could serve into the 1980s at least. And Eagle's small cost for full Phantom capability could have been covered as well. Both offering far, far greater capability compared to the puny Invincibles.
Found this article below, rather scathing at the QE class (as am i, they are hermaphrodite elephants of huge cost, i keep saying no sane person would put VTOL planes on a 75,000 ton ship).
For the last year newspapers, magazines and websites – including this one - have been filled with impressive photographs of the Royal Navy's two new carriers - HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales – commonly referred to as the Queen Elizabeth Class.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
In it there is mention of the UK having looked at american CVs (or LHAs?) before deciding on building the QEs. Which american ships were they looking at, and was it to buy or lease etc?
How much did an Invincible cost? Looking at the price quoted for Australia, it seems for the price of one Invincible it would have been enough to say give Ark Royal the rest of the needed refit in the seventies so it could serve into the 1980s at least. And Eagle's small cost for full Phantom capability could have been covered as well. Both offering far, far greater capability compared to the puny Invincibles.
Found this article below, rather scathing at the QE class (as am i, they are hermaphrodite elephants of huge cost, i keep saying no sane person would put VTOL planes on a 75,000 ton ship).
For the last year newspapers, magazines and websites – including this one - have been filled with impressive photographs of the Royal Navy's two new carriers - HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales – commonly referred to as the Queen Elizabeth Class.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
In it there is mention of the UK having looked at american CVs (or LHAs?) before deciding on building the QEs. Which american ships were they looking at, and was it to buy or lease etc?
Does the UK normally call the US LHAs and LPHs "amphibious assault ships" or "aircraft carriers"?
In all seriousness, I cannot see the UK looking at anything but some of the LHAs to use as the base for their carriers. Maybe a couple of recently built America-class? 45ktons though.
If I had a clean piece of paper the RN in 1982 would have had three improved Eagle type carriers operating F4, Buccaneer, a new AEW/COD platform (Anglo French?) Seakings while a VG strike/attacker similar to UKVG (or AFVG) would be about to enter service.
How do I get there politically?
In the aftermath of Suez where Eagle provided much airpower (with Bulwark and Albion) the RN decides to order an unarmed( no guns) version of Eagle to replace Ark, Eagle, Vic and Hermes by 1970.
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