Aircraft Carriers III

now noticed about photo ops with the French, in Twitter
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LOL at point #3 of
Should the UK have purchased the French Mistral class amphibious warship?
September 28, 2017
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With the planned decommissioning of the HMS Ocean in 2018, there is a serious need for the Royal Navy to have a dedicated amphibious warfare capable ship in order to deploy the Royal Marines and a large number of helicopters during a crisis or a conflict situation.

The Egyptians recently purchased two Mistral Warships which were destined originally destined from Russia. The question is: should the UK have purchase similar ships from France? On a strategic level, certainly I would argue yes in the short term, but from a longer term political perspective this would not have been the appropriate decision for a number of reasons including:

  1. British warships are built in UK shipyards. This has been a long time standing tradition. In an effort to secure jobs in the UK, orders for the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier along with her sister ship HMS Prince of Wales created 1,000’s of jobs and also a whole supply chain to go with it.
  2. It would run counter to the UK ‘shipbuilding strategy’ which plans on developing homemade warships with the aim of also being able to export these to other markets around the world.
  3. A purchase of French warships would serve as an ‘embarrassment’ for the British government, which would provide political constraints on such a purchase.
  4. The UK needs to develop its home grown defence industries, and there is a need to build warships in the UK to create economic demand and growth in its maritime shipbuilding industry.
However, there are strategic reasons as to why the UK needs to have a ‘Mistral’ like amphibious ship. HMS Ocean (the current flagship of the Royal Navy) is currently involved in disaster relief operations in the Caribbean. She has also in the past bolstered NATO’s mission during its military interventions in Libya, and also during the 2003 Iraq War as part of a Royal Navy task force deployed under ‘Operation Telic’ in a helicopter assault role.

During the 2012 London Olympics she provided counter-terrorism operations providing logistical support and a helicopter landing site. The decommissioning of the HMS Ocean will mean there is a military gap in capabilities, and a new class of ship is needed to take on this role.

While purchasing Mistral class amphibious ships may have in the short term been able to augment the UK’s ability in carrying out amphibious assault capabilities, it would not have been realistic given the tightening of the UK defence budget, the manpower shortage in the Royal Navy, and the ongoing difficulties in the Royal Navy being able to operate a number of functions.

In an ideal situation, the Ministry of Defence along with the backing of the Government would have commissioned a study for the replacement of the HMS Ocean which would include possible future ships, and incorporate it into the Royal Navy’s new ‘National Shipbuilding Strategy’.

As the French Mistral class has shown, there is a growing need for amphibious warfare ships. We published an article looking at the global market
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.

With the rise of China and its amphibious capabilities, to the current strategic and military crises in the Middle East, as well as nation’s in NATO and Eastern Europe having to deal with a resurgent Russia, there is greater demand for increasing maritime capabilities across the board.

So while I would agree that the purchase of Mistral class amphibious warfare ships in the short term would have been beneficial for the purposes of augmenting our defence capabilities, it would not have been economically prudent in the medium and longer term. Plus, the political constraints would have made such a purchase untenable. However, the lessons of the French exporting 2 Mistral class amphibious warfare vessels to Egypt demonstrates there is indeed an export market for these type of vessels.

In summary, I would argue there is still a need for the Royal Navy to commission a study into the relative utility of a new class of amphibious warship to be built in UK shipyards and be under the command of the Royal Navy, with the possibly of this new amphibious warship be exported to other allied countries and militaries.

Therefore, there needs to be a renewed focus on the development of a new cost effective class of helicopter amphibious carrier which would serve the functions and mission parameters of the current HMS Ocean, fit for the future warfare of the coming decades of the 21st century.
actually the whole article is strange, as it apparently ignores an amphibious capability of the QE class (as in Sep 10, 2016
... how they try to sell the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers:
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(comes from some meeting this August:
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you may note "Embarked Force" (in middle-top); I've read about the plan for two Companies (of Royal Marines, I suppose) plus helicopters' support in "amphibious configuration" ... are they serious?
LOL saying this despite
Sep 12, 2016
I don't like the idea of supercarrier–of–all–trades:
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Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
according to NavyTimes Trump again bashes EMALS technology
President Donald Trump has again dissed the Navy’s new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as EMALS.

This time, his comments came as he discussed wasteful military spending, the Washington Post reported Sept. 28.

“It’s like when you get a new car and you have to be a computer genius to fix your seat,” Trump reportedly said. “The seat’s moving all over the place, it’s unbelievable.”

It’s the second time he’s spoken out against the Navy’s new catapult technology, installed on the aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford.

Trump’s initial criticism of the system came in a May 8 interview with TIME, in which he recounted a conversation with an unnamed sailor about the development issues the Navy experienced with EMALS.

“You know the catapult is quite important,” said Trump in the Time interview. “So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, we’re going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said, ‘You don’t use steam anymore for catapult?’ ‘No sir.’ I said, ‘Ah, how is it working?’ ‘Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn’t have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air.’

“It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated. You have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said — and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be — ‘Sir, we’re staying with digital.’ I said no you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.”

Just days later, then-acting Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley denied that Trump had been officially briefed on the ship and its capabilities.

Trump has visited the Ford twice this year and never mentioned EMALS, instead, touting the ship as being “the newest, largest and most advanced aircraft carrier in the history of this world.”

On July 28, the Navy put the Ford to sea and tested both the EMALS and its counterpart system for assisting aircraft landings — the Advanced Arresting Gear.

The system performed as advertised, though officials admit it isn’t yet fully operational and won’t be until 2019, when a software upgrade will fix the remaining catapult issues that currently restrict some launches.

source:
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Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
Trump would "bashes" and 'fights" everybody everyday :p ... so no longer a news

oh come on terror, at least Trump is funding and standing behind our Police, and US Military, and trying to kill get rid of that "stinkin pile of Obamacare KRAP!" and to be honest you ought to relate to Trump, you're a bit of a "basher" yourself!

now lets get back to "Aircraft Carriers",,, EMAL's is experiencing some grow pains to be sure!
 
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