Aircraft carriers are of strategic importance to British soft power for a number of reasons. As the largest and most powerful ships in the Royal Navy, aircraft carriers are a symbol of the UK’s military strength and global reach.
They are also a key tool for projecting British influence and power around the world, and for supporting the UK’s diplomatic and political objectives. As such, aircraft carriers are a vital component of the UK’s soft power, and their continued effectiveness and relevance are critical to the country’s ability to shape and influence global events.
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One of the key reasons for the strategic importance of aircraft carriers to British soft power is their ability to project military force. They are equipped with a powerful air wing, consisting of fighter jets and helicopters, which can support ground forces, conduct air strikes, and perform a range of other tasks.
As a result, aircraft carriers are a key tool for projecting British military power and influence and for ensuring that the UK is able to respond quickly and effectively to global crises and conflicts.
Another factor in the strategic importance of aircraft carriers to British soft power is their ability to support diplomatic and political objectives. As well as being a powerful military asset, aircraft carriers are a highly visible symbol of British strength and influence.
When deployed, they serve as a reminder of the UK’s global reach and its willingness to defend its interests and allies.
They are also a valuable tool for supporting diplomatic and political objectives, such as providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and for conducting joint military exercises with other nations.
As powerful symbols of military strength and global reach, and as valuable tools for projecting force and supporting diplomatic and political objectives, aircraft carriers are a vital component of the UK’s ability to shape and influence global events.
It would be nice if they had the ability to actually strike stuff though. No Storm Shadow, no anti-ship missile, no anti-radiation missile, no Brimstone, no Meteor. None of that is coming within the next five years. Meteor isn’t until 2027 and Spear 3 doesn’t even exist yet. As far as I’m aware it can’t even carry ASRAAM internally, which defeats the point of having a non-emitting missile paired with a stealth fighter.
Not trying to diss the carriers, they are top notch. The lack of capability that is generated from the qualities of the carriers and the F-35B though is frustrating.
If things were to get spicy with Russia in the next five years, what would the Strike Carriers be able to contribute?
While true it’s a massive step up from the previous option of harriers or nothing.
Which of the issues you rightly raise are the fault of the UK and which LM’s ?
Could we just stop this silliness about Lockheed Martin… It was the UK’s decision to not fully fund the aircraft that they had ordered. The UK is out of money. Lockheed Martin is delivering aircraft all over hell all over the world. Look in the mirror. And yes they are not the magical advanced software ones. But still better than anything else that anyone has according to the UK.
And we are getting 15% of those sales as the Tier 1 partner.
I doubt that’s even true about the B. It’s certainly not true about the A or C.
In what way is it not true that the uk builds 15 percent of every F35?
From F35 website
Economic Impact
Suppliers: 100+ Tier 1 with numerous additional sub-tier suppliers filtering throughout the UK economy
Jobs Supported: 20,000+
Value: 15% of the value of the 3,000+ jets planned will be built in the UK
https://www.f35.com/f35/global-enterprise/united-kingdom.html
Maybe you are right and I’m just being cynical.
However, check out George’s take in 2019
How British is the F-35?
Absolutes from a few years earlier seem to have changed via “approximately” in 2017 to the even more weasel words “up to” and “10-15%”
I dug a bit and found that in 2020 others were questioning the value too, and Lockheed Martin UK commissioned through KPMG a study on the economic impact to the UK. Although I’ve found some headline references that support big numbers, I can’t find the study itself.
I think I have to accept the value (as a proportion of LM spend) as I can’t find support against it, and I’ll just have to keep my natural sceptism in check.
Yes it is, remember just how many components the UK makes for every western fighter jet. The ejector seat is British, as is the laser designator, much of the electronic warfare suite and the inflight refueling system in addition to the work that BAE does on the rear fuselage and RR on the lift fan.
That’s a lot of very high end components.
It’s also worth mentioning because it quite often gets over looked but BAE was actually a joint developer of the aircraft and much of the work that went into the skin came from work done on BAE Replica. Along with the four branches of the US military the MOD was part of the committee that got to vote on which JSF aircraft to select and they wanted F35. The UK paid more for development than all the tier 2 partners combined. The MOD vote was the main reason both Boeing and Lockheed selected a joint UK a development partner.
The UK has a total share of 15% but BAE also has a 15% total share due to the work it’s US subsidiaries carry out. It has around a 27% share on Typhoon.
At the time Rolls Royce was a joint development partner with Boeing for the F32 but was also part of the F35 consortia being recognised at the time by Lockheed Martin as the only company that could develop the lift fan which seemed like a crazy idea at the time.
Much of the basis for the aircraft sensor fusion and EW came from work done of Typhoon including Praetorian and Striker helmet.
The F35 is almost as British as the Typhoon the only difference is LM publicity and general ignorance from online commentators.
I would of loved to see flying prototypes of the BAE/McDonnell Douglas entry for the JSF project.
People often forget how much the uk contribute to aircraft
Yes again a nice headline figure but on previous experience I would suspect there is a lot of questionable areas defined as benefits to the UK. We all know how the little guy tends to come out of these sort of agreements and the UK is always battling with hostile elements there as much as it does very supportive elements. Always a fight that the public announcements never tend to highlight.
Oh well that’s that then. Meet u all at the cliff top at 3.30pm. Apocalypse is coming. Hopefully I come back as a cockroach or a pubic lice as they seem to survive all situations.
I think we need a committee to discuss this matter as more recently we have been told that there are substantial declines in the insect population while the human population continues to increase so are cockroaches simply bucking the trend?
Better hurry up only got 30 mins of this life left. I need an answer. Cockroach or Pubic lice.
Well yes nice grandstanding. but still doesn’t really answer the real questions though. Some of that lack of support for weaponry needs to be explained more lucidly I think and it defined as to whether it’s down to UK funding (or lack thereof) or down to US/LM failure or unwillingness without considerable financial ‘bribery’ (or their own inherent program delays/ preferences) to provide that support. I suspect it isn’t simply a black and white answer even if money is or could have been thrown at it by the UK Govt to speed it up.
Ur wasting your time bringing sensible speak to a post by our friend. It’s the failing uk’s fault that the F35 block 4 is delayed.
F-35 block 4 is delayed for everyone. Not just those in the “special” catagory. No one is happy. Particularily the ones that use it in larger numbers.
Ah diddums.
I find it interesting that you find Lockheed Martin’s claim that they are not the source of delay credible. Unlike some who despise corporations, for valid reasons, I have nothing against them. That does not mean, however, that they are honest and everything they say pure of spin.
Just as the MOD likes to say obstructive and obscure buzzwords (the obsession with “lethality” comes to mind) Lockheed Martin has shareholders and board members to answer to. Admitting that they are falling behind causes shares to fall and directors to be unhappy. These are facts. They will place blame on the MOD and Pentagon.
Both are partly to blame; Lockheed lied about the speed it could get it done with and, most likely, the resources it would need in order to secure the contract and the these two probably tried to further cut some costs and slightly reduce funding. As a result, you have a significant funding gap that, in order to avoid humiliation, must be solved internally.
Oh dear your sad once more.
If things ‘get spicy with Russia in the next five years’…
I think they’re getting served more than enough red hot spices from the Ukranians to even contemplate such a thing. If the Ukraine War lasts another 5 years I doubt if Russia will have any significant military capability left other than its nukes.
Still concerns me that despite their loses they can still put so much gear into the field poor overall as much of it is. How long could the European powers do this? No good wiping stuff out at a 5 to 1 ratio if we still run out of kit and ammunition before the opposition. Is Russia really milking so much of its kit supposedly meant for a defence against NATO to use and lose in Ukraine? A lot I think is being redeployed tbh which ironically only goes to prove that Putin knows NATO is no real threat to him and used the argument to influence the gullible and appeal to internal support. But even so he’ll do they have a lot of equipment to eat through and with the US increasingly an unpredictable crutch it’s at least good to see there is some efforts to get serious in Europe though will it last beyond whatever likely compromise ends this war?
Only hope that the general belief that those Russian loses combined with European re-armament is indeed enough to keep us all safe from future Russian Imperialist intent in the years to come. We all know how complacency creeps back in.
Russia is largely depending upon vast stocks left over from the days of the USSR, once they’re gone, they’re gone. That Russia was retasking anti-ship and air-defence SAMs as land-attack missiles were the first indication they knew they have issues with missile stocks. Now they’re even removing the nuclear warheads from some of their missiles and firing them as decoys to overwhelm Ukrainian air-defences.
It’s unlikely that Russia will run out of shells and rounds, these are sufficiently low-tech for them to manufacture under sanctions. But they are in danger of running out of their most complex weapons; ranging from missiles to men. (Remember this scale of combat wasn’t anticipated or planned for by Russia, they planned to take Kyiv and decapitate Ukraine in 3 days.)
Putin knows he cannot withstand a full on confrontation against NATO, but he also knows NATO wants to avoid all out war. While NATO can declare and then ignore overstepped redlines, it cannot fail to respond to any action that could result in Article V being invoked. So he knows he can do anything that does not endanger the invocation of Article V.
Putin also knows defeat and expulsion from Ukraine is an existential threat to his regime and his life, so he has nothing personally to lose by committing all of Russia’s remaining resources to the fight.
But the big question is does the West have sufficient resources to maintain Ukraine’s momentum?
For example, the M777 howitzer; which the Ukrainians prefer over German and French systems, requires a new barrel every 2,500 rounds – though experience is showing lower figures. The M777 isn’t currently being manufactured by BAE.
The M270 MLRS hadn’t been manufactured for 20 years – thankfully HIMARS is still in production.
With the political will, money, and time, NATO can restart or rebuild production lines to continue producing weapons and munitions for the war. That’s not an option however for Russia for anything hi-tech.
I sympathise with your frustration. However,I don’t think Russia is against whom the carriers are supposed to project near-term influence. Meteor on F-35 will come before Kuznetsov deploys outside of Europe, and within the region there are better options, including Cyprus. I know QE has deployed to the North and might do so again. Even so.
Many are saying the north is the new big danger zone not only Russia but from China too which is proving itself as a near arctic Country with interests there. Russia has most of its naval assets there and its the access to the important Atlantic theatre in any conflict. It’s also why Russia and China are becoming so active in the Japanese Norther territories which Russia ( ironically considering its claims elsewhere) illegally occupy and represents substantial control over access to the arctic from the Pacific. The carriers would be expected to be active in the North to Arctic close to the Barents even, should conflict break out and NATO is already much more active there this year due to Russian activities in the region.
Alot of the weapons you mention are stand off weapons though and the entire basis for F35 is LO and to get in close. Paveway IV is possibly our most capable land attack weapon at the moment and ready now.
AMRAAM on an F35 is probably more deadly than Meteor on a Typhoon.
Then in 5 years we move to SPEAR and Meteor making the UK’s F35B Blokc IV arguably the most deadly machines on the planet for land attack and air to air.
Granted anti ship missiles is an issue but then UK has never had much of a doctrine for fast jet launched anti ship weapons. If we really needed is the JSOW is available immediately for carriage on the wing of F35B and JSM wing mounted will soon be available for F35B.
It’s probably worth us pushing along with Japan, Italy and the USMC for an internal carriage version of the JSM as well.
Having high end anti ship missile capability launching from US LHD and allied aircraft carriers is a real game changer in the South China Sea.
Fair summing up, that anti ship black hole is the major concern.
I think that the lack of a stand off land attack missile is an issue too. The short range of Spear combined with no drop tanks on the F35 or air to air refuelling platforms on the carrier, requires the ship to operate comparatively close in to a hostile shore. That puts it at greater risk from shore based SSM’s, aircraft and diesel submarines operating in the littoral.
In the past, the UK had Sea Eagle on Sea Harrier, Buccs & Tornado. The RAF also had Harpoon on Nimrod.
The issue is not the F-35’s being detected, even though that is a massive issue if they’re reliant Paveway IV for striking ships and land targets. The issue is that the carriers have to move closer to enable the F-35’s to have the legs to get over their targets and the carriers are extremely vulnerable to Russian AShM’s.
There is no talk of our F-35’s getting JSM or JSOW. Russia is a threat in the next five years when we won’t have Spear 3, as would be any non-peer adversary who they decided to arm with modern AShM’s in the same way we’ve armed Ukraine against them.
Would be nice if the UK had a small stock of 1000lb JDAMS for when F-35B needs a heavier weapon. Also a few JSMs under the wings & a dozen 25mm gun pods. Don’t forget the long promised drop tanks.
The advances in hypersonic missiles makes me question if such large ships will be much use for long… swarms of smaller drones will be much harder to deal with… A single Mach 8 Chinese w8 drone may be too much for a large vessel to deal with in conflict.
The Falklands could have gone very differently without aircraft carriers.
Absolutely. The most vital capability that we need from our carriers is to provide air defence for a task group. To date, this can only be delivered by manned fixed wing aircraft. Other functions that the carriers can or could perform_ humanitarian aid, strike missions, helicopter support for amphibious operations _ can be carried out by other less expensive vessels.
Although the F35b seemed a logical and low risk successor to the joint force Harrier idea, it has in reality become a big problem. In effect,21 years after it won the JSF competition, the aircraft is still in development. What was promoted as an affordable replacement for several aircraft types has proved vastly more expensive both to buy but particularly to support. Neither the ALIS system nor its replacement works properly; weapons integration is slow and expensive and there is little sign of things getting better.
The USN can cope with these problems by continuing to rely on F18s. We can’t. All that we have to show for £7b on the ships and @£9b to buy and support just 48 aircraft is a token capability with weapons no better than the Sea Harriers could carry.
There is no easy solution to the problem but devoting large amounts of additional funding to achieve something closer to the original ambition should not be the answer. That needs to be recognized as unachievable.
It is not just the RN that is affected. With the promise of a joint force of 138 F35s, the RAF has lost all its Harrier and Tornado strike aircraft.resulting in a combat aircraft fleet half the size of 10 years ago. And for what?
I feel that the carrier/F35 programme has inflicted real damage on other defence capabilities. It shouldn’t be allowed to continue to do so. So either mothball one carrier or repurpose it for an amphibious role. Advise LM there will be no more orders until the aircraft can operate the planned UK weapons on delivery and order some more Typhoons to build back our combat air power.
Type 45s major on delivering AD for the fleet.
Key role of a carrier is ‘to deliver carrier strike’ against multiple targets including land-based assets The fact that our carriers can deliver those other roles/functions (plus C2) you mention make them very flexible and good VfM.
I am not expert enough to comment on your contention that F-35B has the major drawbacks you describe, but I am sure they have far greater capability than the Harriers they replaced. If we end up with ‘just’ 48 F-35s on two modern carriers, then that is a sizable capability and one which far outshines the 28 Harriers aboard two carriers (one of which was small and the other a 40-year old design).
Mothballing one carrier may not save as much money as you imagine and it would severely reduce operational availability of a platform. I personally think we should have ordered three QE-class carriers and replaced the LPH, HMS Ocean – but the money was never going to be there for that.
Type 45 deliver point air defence for the fleet. It is the F35 along with Crows Nest that gives the fleet the ability to intercept aircraft at long range. To rely on type 45 for air defence and have f35 solely for strike is asking for trouble.
Fair point. I was just saying that F35 does more than AD for the deployed fleet, but in a clumsy way!
The carriers F35s is the first line of air-defence to the CSG.
However the Type 45 delivers area air-defence for the CSG, it’s an air-defence destroyer. It’s designed to protection itself and other ships it is escorting.
Anything that gets past the above then faces point air defences on individual ships, such as Phalanx.
At some points in their service the Harriers were more capable than the F35 on certain missions. For example, they could carry drop tanks and a stand off ASM (Sea Eagle) allowing them to strike targets further away from the carrier
Thanks Steve for the comment. This sort of thing sometimes happens ie a successor equipment not universally having more capability than its predecessor. Very odd when that happens. I think all carrier aircraft should have the capability of mounting a stand off ASM.
Good and valid comment
Tried to edit previous comment but for some reason facility doesn’t seem to work today.
What I also wanted to say was that the UK had decades of experience building and operating VSTOL aircraft in the form of the Harrier. No other nation came anywhere near. If we had valued this lead and gone forward developing it into 2nd and 3rd generation successors, these aircraft would have filled the flat tops of Navies the world over, now and for years to come. The tragedy is we lacked the self confidence and marketing skills needed, not to mention the political will to make this a reality.
(Promise not to mention TSR* ever again)
geoff I would add there was only light gov support for the original harrier, hawker siddeley went on developing the project with rolls royce. only after the falklands was there any real respect for the aircraft maybe a decade after it had been cautiously introduced.
Spot on Simon. I am sure you know also that Hawker had built 4 or 5 airframes for the supersonic Harrier and were gearing up for full production before it was scrapped. Wilsons Government only kept the subsonic Harrier almost as a low cost curiosity.
Would be interesting to know the full results of RR testing on the hot jet blasts for the supersonic Harrier. Could technology of the time handled that problem on land or at sea?
Hi Spy. Apparently the P1154 was beset by a number of challenging problems from the start and was probably hastened into production to make cancellation less likely, the reasoning being that if there were a number of airframes in construction on the factory floor the government was less likely to halt the project! Some go so far as to say the problems were such that the aircraft would never get off the ground. I am no expert but i am sure the ingenuity and creativity that existed in the UK aircraft industry at the time(Duncan Sandys forays notwithstanding) would have seen a world beater emerging eventually. As to the hot jet blast issues, materials and systems have advanced dramatically since then but even today the heat issue especially in VTOL continues to be problematic
No. It failed in the 60’s and RR had a go again in the 80’s and it failed then too.
No they didn’t. They didn’t build anything beyond a mock up. Supersonic flight on a Pegasus powered aircraft depends entirely upon plenum chamber burning and RR could never get that to work!
Enobob-I could swear I saw a photo around about the time of cancellation of 4 or five airframes in build. They would have been prototypes but the point is that it was a project well underway when ditched. I also don’t believe that RR would have failed to find a solution to the challenges of manufacturing engines for the aircraft.
Regards
From Wikipedia-” At the time of cancellation at least three prototypes had reached various stages of construction.”
Indeed it was never really wanted by the military though the Navy wanted it because it was that or nothing. The number of times it was nearly scrapped or cancelled was legendary and I suspect it was only US Marine enthusiasm that kept it alive. As for replacing it just would not have been feasible even if the supersonic Harrier looked pretty impressive on paper. Fact is no number of it on flat tops around the World would have made it profitable or practical as by the laws of physics it will always be inferior to non VSTOL design. It’s why even the US decided designing a specific VSTOL design was a no go even with its far great sales potential it wasn’t a logical move. I wonder if the F35 will be the last attempt to make a VSTOL Fighter bomber tbh as it so compromised the A/C versions. I suspect some form of drone will take over from it for the Marines especially as close in contested assault in a littoral environment is now being questioned in the US. Ukraine has hardly threatened those doubts.
Hi Spy. The core fact though is that an advanced supersonic Harrier could have emerged if it was given the support needed. The transonic versions did make it to the Navies of Spain, Italy, UK, USA, and Thailand and if manufactured in reasonable volumes there was no reason it could not have been profitable. Also one should properly cost the positives of VSTOL into the downside in terms of range, payload etc.. Vstol gives great versatility and in Naval Service a huge cost saving in not requiring Cats and Traps
👏👏👏
but the build program – the Aircraft Carrier Alliance – was the seed corn of the National Shipbuilding Strategy and regenerated UK warship building 🙂
Coll, you are master of the under-statement! Op Corporate would not have been possible without carriers – the Task Force would not even have been constituted, let alone sailed 8,000 miles.
Just a wee addition to GM’s valued note. Bear in mind that Harriers in all guises, were not even certified for day/night /weapons operations before sailing off to the Falklands Battle. Fleet Air Arm, and Technicians, ships companies worked their fingers to the bone to achieve this outstanding feat. Our American cousins even did a ‘meerkat’. *******rant over. 😳👌
Speaking of Falklands…I worked at a USN shipyard at the time and right at the end of the Falklands war one of our boats tied up and it’s sail number had been blacked out, Hummm, the rumor was our boat had been down south helping you guys, probably on station just in case, Nobody really knew. It was just speculation. Have any of you heard or smelled any involvement by the US.
This brings me to the Graf Spee. My dad was a seaman on a US cruiser at the begining of WWII., when you guys chased the Graf Spee. He said the US was not allowed to engage. So the US cruiser stayed out of range but the Germans were only aware of a large ship off in the distance. In my book, good stuff and glad we help each other:)
Well there was a rumour that the US had offered an old Essex class carrier, if the RN lost either Hermes or Invincible. More likely the RN would have sent Bulwark, if that had happened.
I think there was nothing in the speculation that a US boat (submarine?) was helping us out. We had 28 attack submarines at the time in our inventory and sent 6 of them down south (we did not need another one!).
Certainly there was US help – aircraft fuel from the US base on Britain’s Ascension island, Sidewinder resupply, possibly some satellite imagery, and the offer of a USMC aviation/assault ship if one of our carriers got sunk. Not to say we relied on the Americans or ‘couldn’t have done it without them’ – but that help was very handy. We should not forget Al Haig’s tireless shuttle diplomacy but we were in no mood to negotiate with foreign invaders. I have not however forgotten Jeane Kirkpatrick who seemed to be fully on the side of the Argentinian invaders – awful woman.
Hopefully they always adequate numbers of well armed AAW and ASW escorts available for them to operate fully. And a real increase in their baseline self defensive abilities in addition to the Phalanx’s would be reassuring. For comparison the new French PA-NG carrier, has Asters, anti-torpedo systems as well as their 4 x 40mm. It can’t be that difficult can it?!
The French haven’t even started building that carrier yet. You can’t compare an operational carrier against one that MIGHT be operational 16 years in the future.
Even if it’s aspirational their intention with PA-NG is shown on their current and smaller French CdG carrier which has extensive defences. The QE Carriers are pretty light-on in comparison.
The primary weapons of any carrier are its aircraft. CdG has the Rafale whereas QE has F35Bs.
Seems to be RN thinking that the CSG should provide area air defence to the carrier. After the 1970 refit the old HMS Ark Royal had no defensive weapons at all and in the 90’s the Invincible class were stripped of their Sea Darts. (In the Falklands all the Sea Dart kills were fired by escorts, all of Invincible’s missed.)
Hi Sean, I get the CSG thing but all major assets especially carriers should have a decent defensive belt of self-armaments. Ships can be lost, break down, not be available, what then? I think it’s restrictive thinking. Can’t see other countries CSGs operating like that. Can’t keep referring back to past either. Technology has moved on, there’s more missiles, more torpedos, more EW in today’s environment. A lack of defensive armaments at sea or land can be vet costly IMHO. Look at Ukraine.
*vet.. very
The uk ships have a great ECM kit that’s often forgotten a bout. I remember an army chef telling me a story of a solider asking him about where the weapons are in the kitchen. His reply was u don’t need to worry about that because if I need a weapon everyone else on the base must be dead already.
The main thing was to get the carriers into service as cost was a concern. As refits happen if changes are needed they will be added.
A bigger concern of mine is getting more missiles onto each ship. The destroyers are going in the right direction with layered defence of expensive asters and cheaper sea ceptor
The US does not have them, point defence only and the UK got rid of them after it’s experience in the Falklands being the only navy post WW2 to actually fight a naval battle with aircraft carriers post WW2.
China and Russia have missiles all over their carriers, France is the western exception. I’m not saying who is right or wrong but the two experienced navy’s don’t have them.
US Carriers has ESSM, RAM and Phalanx. ESSM is not a point defence. Sea Ceptor in a RAM style launcher would be a great addition to the QEC
The Phantom and Buccaneer era Ark Royal was only armed with saluting cannon! No AD at all.
Sorry Sean but as you well know all current UK capabilities must be measured against fanciful French and Russian PowerPoint presentations, models and CGI graphics. The UK is the only country that takes time to build up world class capabilities, other countries just go from model to Uber capability with a few strokes from keyboard warriors 😀
How silly of me to forget that the RN has to be capable of nonexistent defeating fantasy fleets 🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️😆
An aircraft carrier’s power is ALL due to the aircraft and their weapons load. everything else is to support that load.
Don’t disagree with the article but will someone tell the politicians. I don’t think a party leader has stood up and said what’s in this article for about a decade. If they did it was well under the radar.
Good Afternoon. While we are on the subject of aircraft carriers, are there any updates about the POW?
Expected back in service in the Feb/Mar time frame
Yes, they do project power to a certain extent and it’s amazing that we can still build something like this in the UK. We have them and we have to make the best use of them. But, with hindsight, they suck up enormous resources and look like a national vanity project. (The French are about to make the same mistake.) We should have gone with landing helicopter carriers that can also handle the F-35B, albeit with smaller numbers of aircraft (which we can actually afford), like the Japanese, South Koreans, and Italians.
But we spent two decades doing studies and they all said that an LHD style solution was inefficient and ineffective. The studies and thirty years of experience operating small Carrie’s are what brought us to CVF and 65,000 tonnes. Steel being cheap and air being free.
The carriers are all about grandstanding Britain’s place in the world. If the purpose of the military is to fight and win, then the carriers and their F35B are not yet configured to do so.
This is a dangerous world with a major European land war in progress and we should properly arm our naval assets. NSM must only be the beginning. The carriers need Sea Ceptor and our F35B need greater offensive capability.
Of course the F-35Bs need to be properly armed: Meteor/JNAAM, Spear, Spear-EW and Future Cruise should be integrated.
“If the purpose of the military is to fight and win…”
Except, the military has more than one purpose. The miltary doesn’t just fight wars. Its job includes creating stable conditions where war never starts, not least through deterrence. This has never been more true than in these days of grey-zone warfare, persistent engagement and where soft power must be continually leveraged.
You can call that grandstanding, but it’s a primary military objective.
So true. The Military only goes go to war when others fail in their role of diplomacy which only works when strongly backed up with a Military that can do the job of impacting unacceptable damage to the other side. No one really likes going to war.
The biggest failure of the British military in history is WW1 and WW2. The military was unable to deter Germany and Japan and despite winning the cost was enormous.
Perhaps it’s biggest victory was in the Cold War where for once we did not have to fight another European nation and the threat ultimately past without firing a shot as the Soviet Union disintegrated.
To be fair, the French and their Empire, the USA and the USSR all also failed to deter Nazi Germany from both initiating WW2 and then switching up to Total War.
…and warfighting costs far more in ‘blood and treasure’ than deterrence.
True, warfighting is a last resort, after deterrence has failed, and deterrence may have failed because not enough effort was put into it to make it credible and effective.
Actually the principal purpose of the armed forces is not to fight and win but to deter. It’s when deterrence fail that we have to fight but that’s ultimately a failure even if we win. Having 65,000 tonnes of ship full of marines and covered in 5th Gen fighters is a pretty big deterrent.
100% 👍🏻
My view is Ukraine war has proved the reverse, at least in a near peer war. The US navy has been indicating for years that they are concerned that a carrier could not be used until the enemy had been significantly weakened, due to its vunabilities to land launched missiles and other area denial assets (eg ukraine use of drone subs), and this has caused the Russian navy to currently be running scared of Ukraine.
Whilst you would hope the RN and it’s air and anti sub defences would be way better than the Russians. I suspect the fear of the what if would cause them to keep them back and therefore have limited use.
The issue is they are a massive target and you have to have a huge amount of your naval resources tied up defending them. Outside an extreme edge case, finding a land route for the jets would always be preferred.
Ok land based air bases have shown to be at risk also (something the RAF need to give some serious thoughts to around how to secure them in the case of war, the ones in the UK have almost no defences you can pretty much just walk onto them, if you don’t mind the risk of being seen and arrested, thinking special forces attacks and the like), but the impact is far less extreme if one is hit.
The thing is, wars often kick off with no warning and then you have to fight with what you have got. Remember the Falklands? One day Nott was trying to flog off Invincible – the next he had resigned, we were in a war with the Argentine and she was on her way to the South Atlantic
Having spent a lot of taxpayer’s money on the carriers and F35B, they are a far better deterrent up-armed and dangerous
Falklands was an incredible niche case and one that we should have seen coming. I can’t think of another example where we would be operating alone at extreme range. We can’t gear just for falklands 2, and if we are it would be better to spend the money on land based anti ship and anti air assets to stop any attack.
Hi Steve,
You are right to say that the Falklands was a niche war, but niche wars happen from time to time – fact most of them are ‘niche’ to some extent.
The fact is the Falklands War proved to things that have been common to other wars since. 1) They can happen suddenly and with little warning, the 1991 Gulf War caught many off guard; 2) You can find yourselves having to respond to crisis at considerable distances from your home bases, Afghanistan a case in point.
Obviously, these wars were very different to the Falklands but they had features in common.
When procuring military capability you never just buy it with one mission or war in mind. You always consider a range of possible scenarios including operating at range with or without allied support or participation.
Given we are a global trading nation we have global interests and relationships, the growing relationship with is Japan another case in point. If we ever wanted to support Japan in a time of crisis big carriers would definately be the best solution as big tends to help greatly if you want range. The QEC have a quoted range of 12,000 miles whilst the Invincible Class had a range of 7,000 miles. Big isn’t just about the number of missiles or aircraft, nor is military capability, obviously.
While we would all like to see the carriers properly equipped we are in a position of having to regenerate fixed wing naval aviation after it was stupidly gapped for tens years, which means we have no existing capability that could be retained while the new capability was stood up – something the Italians are able to do with both Harriers and F35B flying from their carrier (I believe, only is currently F35B capable at the moment).
The RN as one capability that quite a few much bigger navies may wish they were capable of, namely, global deployments from OPV’s to CSG. Small though the RN is (too small I’m sure we’d agree) this global deployability gives the UK considerable soft, and if needed, hard power projection. The RN has been doing this global stuff very successfully for over 300 years and has shown remarkable resilience recently and CSG is a central part of that capability.
The RN is way too small, but when the carrier programme was started I don’t think anyone realistically saw the fleet shrinking to the current size. PErhaps we would do it differently if we started now, but we are where we are, lets just hope the next round of cuts are not as stupid as the previous lot..!
Cheers CR
We don’t just have the carriers for fighting alone but as part of a coalition, be it NATO, UN or US-led.
Plus assuming the t45s actually work, then you wouldn’t actually need jets for another attack. The t45s could provide air defence for the landing force and Apache provide the offensive side launched from the landing vessels.
As we see in Ukraine and other conflicts trying to intercept every missile is a hard job and uses a lot of missiles.
Yeah but the same thing applies to defending a carrier. The key difference is impact of loss, both in capability and as we saw with the Russian vessel in respect of morale /public support.
Over the last 75 years could you name a single war we”ve fought that we planned for or expected to fight ?
Pretty much all of them, I can’t name one that wasn’t expected. Although knowing about the risk and doing anything about it because of polictics is another topic.
🙄
The T45s work, no assuming necessary.
HMS Dauntless has apparently had a successfull PIP – she has undergone extensive trials around the UK throughout the summer, laying the foundations for her five sister ships. Dauntless went into Pompey 15 Dock in October for additional maintenance and upgrades to her weapon systems which are expected to take about 3 more months. She should be back in the fleet the middle of 2023 (ish)
Daring was towed (!!) to Cammell Laird’s Merseyside shipyard in September 2021 and will be the second vessel to undergo PIP. She is currently in dry dock at Birkenhead. Dragon is having the work done in Portsmouth, concurrent with her major refit.
The considerabe additional power available to the T45’s once their PIPs are completed should ensure that they will perform as designed.
Was more thinking the weapons than the ships. We have seen in so many wars that advanced weapon systems fail to deliver, due to lack of realistic testing and secrecy when things go wrong. Russia is seeing this currently but it’s a long history of it impacting most nations on the cutting edge.
Nott didn’t resign, it was Carrington as Foreign Sec who resigned.
It’s been that way since aircraft carriers were invented. Sailing a carrier close to a peer threats coast is like trying to take out land fortifications with your battleships. It’s just not something you ever do for fear of losing your ships. The USN has been cockily conducting gun boat diplomacy with carriers since 1991 around the coast of third world countries including China but it would never have dreamt of doing the same against the Soviets. Indeed it’s me of the main reason we got rid of our carriers was the recognition that in a shorting war with the soviets they would not last long and the key front was the battle of the Atlantic to secure re-forger convoys and the battle of Germany to hold the line in central Europe.
However that’s not to say that carriers are not useful because 99% of the time your not fighting WW3.
Agreed, carriers can be useful but most wars there are friendly nations near by which you can fly from. You would need a war where no friendly nations on any border and there was sea access for a carrier group, plus one where the US wasn’t involved, since their carriers are way way more effective.
To me the carriers are the cherry on top of a military capability, but first you need to ensure the other assets are fully equipped.
That’s true though as it’s now 9 S American countries that to a greater or lesser degree are considered hostile to the US alone I do wonder 20+ years down the line how many Countries around the World would want to offer such facilities if only so as to not upset the China and it’s useful attack dog as at the very least they will be economically dependent on them. You only have to look at what Russia is doing now to the likes of Japan (who are not fundamentally perturbed obviously) but also far less capable and self sufficient countries for agreeing to sanctions, why also so many keep out of it and/or turn a blind eye. Imagine the same scenario in any future conflict with China. Carriers will be more vital not less.
Never really considered this but in modern times at least would the US seriously considered putting their carriers anywhere near a coast certainly against peer contemporaries or those that could threaten them, surely the whole point of them is to provide air cover in large areas of water to support your own assets and strategic areas that you want to keep others away from by threatening striking their own assets? The Americas and predecessors are/were the prime flat tops operating closer to coasts even if that is being questioned now. Sailing your carriers off a coast in an environment you know you are not going to be attacked (because you aren’t at war and don’t enter territorial waters) to flex muscles and to look good is a rather different aim.
Surely the rationale for an aircraft carrier is that they are used where no usable land based airfields exist,
Not many wars when that could be the case though. If you had such a war you would have lots of other problems, for example challanges of logictics when everything has to be brought by sea etc. I dont think even the us has the logistics for it and they have a huge ghost fleet of support ships.
Steve, our country has conducted expeditionary operations for hundreds of years and we are rather good at it. We have always managed to get everything to the Theatre of Operations (by sea or air) in time and with few serious problems.
Have we really?
The only time we have had to conduct operations by sea was Falklands and that was a complete mess. The front line soldiers were running out of ammo, they got lucky that the defenders gave up when they did as they couldnt last another day with the supplies they had. Also we didn’t have enough vessels to put up an adequate anti sub net resulting in the Argentina sub getting through and only luck (poor equipment on the other side) resulting in it not being a compete disaster.
Our problem is we don’t have depth, when we lose a major asset we have nothing to replace it with, and that happened in the Falklands.
Also happened in irag/afgan etc, where early doors our troops were having to deploy without adequate body armour, machine guns or radios, resulting in a number of deaths.
Not saying we are bad at it, as we are probably one of the best in the world at it but doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of doing it against a near peer opponent.
Steve, I stand by my statement that we have always conducted expeditionary operations. You seem to have missed an awful lot of expeditionary ops since the Falklands Conflict, admittedly very few were at large scale, and some were air campaigns only without ground trooops ‘going ashore’:
Op Barras, 2000, Sierra Leone
Op Phillis, 2004, Ivory Coast
Op Ellamy, 2011, Libya
Op Joint Endeavour, 1995+, Bosnia
Op Joint Guardian, 1999+, Kosovo
Op Essential Forces, 2001, Macedonia
Op Granby, 1990/91, Persian Gulf/Kuwait
Various Ops in Iraq 91-2003: then Op Telic, Iraq 2003-2011
Op Herrick, to 2014, Afghanistan
Op Shader, 2014+ Syria
You are one of very few who say that Op Corporate was a complete mess. This was an incredible operation that many (including revered US senior officers, and clearly all Argentinian officers!) thought was impossible for us to mount. We had no time to prepare and had little pertinent experience to draw on. Of course there were imperfections for such a huge and complex operation. The only ammunition I heard about that we were running short of was 105mm in the last few days. Amazing we did not actually run out of anything for an operation 8000 miles from home and mounted so quickly. I take my hat off to all involved especially the log planners and enablers.
Not enough vessels? Half the Navy turned out. I don’t know about the Argentine sub that got through (more info please) but no war plan is 100% perfect. In general our navy won the naval battle decisively and quickly. What irreplaceable major asset did we lose in the Falklands Conflict?
Not saying we can’t do it, just saying we don’t have the logistic chain to do it at large scale without a land bridge. And even then our logistics struggle. If you don’t believe that you really need to do some reading of those conflicts and what went wrong.
Steve, I am pretty well read on the topic.
Of course we cannot rely on a land bridge as we are an island, (unless you are talking about ops in eastern Europe and we use the Channel Tunnel).
BTW, I was REME for 34 years and served alongside RLC so I know a bit about logisitics.
The Treasury don’t resource our armed forces to 100% of what they need, so logistics to support a large scale expeditionary force will never be perfect. However we have always deployed the force of the size that the politicians agreed to within time to conduct RSOI, to train in theatre and get to tactical positions, in a timeline that matches key allies and is ahead of enemy engagement and disruption. Unless you can quote any examples otherwise?
We have a fair mix of airlift and sealift assets compared to most other nations – and surely more than the French who struggled in Mali. Arguably we have the second best (quality and quantity and experience) airlift/sealift capability in NATO. It will never be enough – and I side with those protesting about the loss of C-130s and wanting more Atlas, although C-130s are somewhat more for tactical lift than strategic lift. So, we augment military airlift and sealift with commercially hired assets regardless of expense, a good example being STUFT on Op Corporate (Falklands).
Maintaining a large force deployed overseas on an exped op is difficult and expensive and we have discussed the shortage of 105mm shells in the Falklands conflict, a remarkable op some 8000 miles from home, and something we had never undertaken before. Things got tight, but not impossible – it was an incredible logistic achievement.
I served on ops in Cyprus and Afghanistan and we did not have any material shortages of supplies, albeit the former was not a shooting war. I served in the Falklands (quasi-operational) in 1999/2000 and the airbridge worked well bringing in fresh troops and a huge volume of supplies although that was not a shooting war.
We have massive experience of conducting expeditionary operations – except for Op Banner ( a domestic op) it is pretty much all we ever do. We have a fair amount of airlift and sealift but it is never quite enough ( we do not have superpower budgets) so we charter to make up the shortfall.
It is worth debating whether we have sufficient ammunition including smart munitions for a protracted conflict.
Are you suggesting we drop or pare back our global intervention capability?
Don’t get my wrong the Falklands was a logistics miracle but a miracle it was. No sensible armed forces would put all it’s helicopters on one boat if they had a choice. Multiple battles it came down to not enough ammo to make the next day, because ships were packed wrong and lack of helicopters. In spite of that we managed the impossible. However our logistic chain has been slashed since and during the Falklands both sides were operating at extreme range. It’s such a niche scenario.
Outside that, everyone other way we have build up logistics in a third country and the travelled to the war zone by land. Even then it has gone wrong multiple times, just look at all the reports on the early deaths in say afgan/Iraq, all centred on lack of basic gear.
Hi Steve, I fully agree that it was a mistake to put all the Chinooks on one chartered ship – luckily one had been off-loaded the day before Atlantic Conveyor was hit. Very unlucky that ship was hit – it is said the Argies were going for a carrier and the radar echo looked carrier-size. Good and bad luck happen in war – and mistakes are made.
Ships were not packed optimally in UK due to speed of getting the Task Force to sea – but I understand much re-packing was done at Gib/Ascension.
Agree that Falklands conflict was niche, and that all other exped ops have been and will be different – and hopefully with a nearby Host Nation with secure land locations to which we can ship men and materiel into and onwards to tactical locations.
Agree that some kit was deficient for Afghan/Iraq – your example of shortage of body armour is correct and it led to deaths. Had not heard of shortage of MGs – that surprised me. The UOR system is good and I am familiar with that but miracles are not possible even with UOR procurement.
Many doubt that we have enough artillery ammo and smart munitions for a peer or near-peer fight, even one lasting just a few months.
All this proves that our forces are under-funded and that the PM and the Treasury just aren’t interested in resolving said issues.
Not sure it was a mistake, just lack of options. We got lucky to get the harriers off before was bombed also.
Lots of examples of our logistic guys performing miracles with what they had available but doesn’t get away from the fact we lacked the logistics to do it properly.
I just see two big expensive easy to hit targets. Aircraft carriers are power projection, but exactly who are we projecting power at and why? To be trite, doesn’t appear to be deterring a load of small boats crossing the channel. I would much rather spend all that money on submarines and lots of small fast ship with tiny radar footprints and extreme firepower. Ideally integrated with drones.
Probably the most important point from the Ukraine war is just how important drones are going to be. I think RN could accused of fighting the last war.
I would say that to find these easy targets in thousands of square miles of ocean is far from easy! How are you going to fit extreme firepower on small fast ships?What last war is the RN looking to fight again?
Boats crossing the channel. Absolutely! And those pesky carriers aren’t reducing the price of fish either. We obviously should have built more trawlers. It’s also not altering the number of people killed on the roads. Why, oh why, didn’t we spend the money on road safety features? Having got Daily Mail “trite” out of the way…
You only see big, expensive easy-to hit targets. Just like that nice Mr. Putin said. Your remedy is submarines and well-armed corvettes (I assume that’s what mean when you say small). Also just like Russia. Although even Russia is trying to rebuild Kuznetsov. Why they are rebuilding a big, expensive, easy-to-hit target, the nice Mr Putin doesn’t say.
If the RN is preparing for the last war, you are preparing to respend last century’s money to remedy it. Right now, you could only cancel all carrier operations and maybe sell the carriers, although only Russia would both want and afford one, and there are those dratted sanctions. Shame. You might have got enough money to buld a few well-armed corvettes, although nothing approaching the money required to increase submarine production.
And those boats would still cross the channel (to be trite).
You could deter those crossings by having one of those heavily armed small ships shooting up anything rubber in the channel that floats though🙄
Are carriers easy to hit? The Argentinians didn’t manage it. Carriers are very well protected by layered defences.
Who are we projecting power at? The West in general (of which we are a part) is projecting power against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. Why? Deterrence – that’s why.
A 55,000 ton aircraft carrier is not designed to deter illegal migrants in rubber dinghies – Martyn, I agree with you there – I don’t consider those migrants pose a military threat to our country. Those migrants are primarily dealt with by Border Force. Our country has always had a global outlook, not a narrow national or regional one – hence ‘Global Britain’ and we need assets to measure up. I think we need a total of 3 carriers and 1 LPH as a minimum, but that’s another story.
I agree that we are woefully short of submarines – we had 28 attack subs in the early 80s – we have 6 in service now – given that one protects the CASD boat and one (at least) will be undergoing maintenance, then we have today just 4 to use across the ‘Seven Seas’.
You are drawing naval lessons from the Ukraine war – are they relevant to us?
I think a carrier is a perfekt tool in peacetime and in local conflicts with a minor enemy. Anyway, in a big war a carrier cannot be protected, it is just too big. A single big hit destroys it all. (there are e.g. many cases when simple electric driven submarines came very close to carriers without beeing detected. Also the new high speed weapons are hard to come by). I think much smaller swimming units with powerful drones on board would be much more effectiv and less vulnerable.
Martin, surely you know about the layered defences protecting a carrier?
Also, how would you provide air power distant from land air bases if you did without carriers?
Dear Graham! Thank You very much for Your reply! No, I dont know about the layered defences, but I imagined that certainly a very dense net of highly sophisticated countermeasures are availabe for the protection of a carrier. But- I come from aviation- there was no system that always worked (in aviation there are also many sort of “layered” defences, but sometimes incidents/accidents still occured). If I would have to attack a carrier I would do that with as many as possible ways at the same time. It only needs one big hit..
Well, I could imagine other ways to get air power to distant areas. Anyway, if these ways are feasable I can not judge.
Hi Martin, I am not a great expert as I am ex-army but I’ll give it a go.
A carrier’s outer layer of defence against air attack is provided by a Combat Air Patrol of its own aircraft, perhaps a pair, operating at a distance.
Maritime Patrol Aircraft may be assigned to cover a Carrier Strike or Task Group who will be looking at distance for enemy submarines or surface ships and have appropriate sensors and weapons.
One or more attack submarines may be assigned to provide defence at distance against enemy submarines and surface ships.
A carrier’s escorts provide another layer Type 45 (or similar) destroyers providing air defence at medium range – Type 23 ASW frigates providing further defence against enemy submarines.
The inner layer of close-in defence – Some carriers have missiles but the Queen Elizabeth class has a range of gun systems for Close In defence – 3 x automatically fired, radar controlled Phalanx CIWS, 4 x 30mm DS30M Mk2 (Bushmaster) cannons (yet to be fitted), 6 x 7.62mm 6-barrel miniguns – and may carry a number of 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Guns.
No defensive measures are ever perfect – but the above represents considerable effort to protect a carrier.
Many times air power could be based at a friendly (and local to the Theatre of Operations) Host Nation’s land air bases – but not always – the Falklands Conflict was a classic example where only aircraft carriers could provide deployed air assets.
Dear Graham! Thank You very much for Your substantial explanation of the layered defence of a carrier! Really very interesting! You certainly are much more an expert than me… Well, I started my first comment because I had a little bit the feeling that big carriers today are somewhat like big battleships were in WW2 (WW1 did not see such big battleships) I remember mostly big losses of these big battleships during WW2 (Bismarck, etc.). Their time was over. The big victories came from the carriers. And the same thing happens now: We get carriers, but much bigger than in WW2, just because they worked very good some 70 years ago. Good idea? I dont think so. Just imagine when You loose one of them- how many aircraft and top personal is lost!
I agree with You that one has to get airpower to the point where You need it.
Only shortly I read that there maybe already is a trend away from very big units to smaller ones that take e.g. the VTOL F-35 only.
I even would suggest very small ships holding maybe only 2 F-35 and having on all other accompaning ships the possibility to land and store the F-35 in case they loose their mothership. So You have good flexibility.
Is there any possibility to defend ships against the new, real high speed incoming weapons?
I agree with You that the Falkland war was not possible without carriers, but the Argentinian army was quite an inferior enemy too. As far as I know they did not even have e.g. one single functioning submarine during this conflict.
Thanks Martin, I had heard that the Americans were looking at a small carrier concept, but to augment their supercarriers and not to replace them. To them, small means about 20 aircraft!
I don’t know enough about defending ships against new very high speed missiles.
The Argentinians in 1982 had I think three submarines committed to the conflict. This article is interesting, but possibly is biased:https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-one-argentine-submarine-kept-royal-navy-bay-during-falklands-war-145087
I feel this article is very much preaching to the choir by talking mostly about what many nonbelievers would call gunboat diplomacy.
It also does nothing to address the carriers’ vulnerability supposed by some critics.
Many people mistakenly see airbases as unsinkable carriers rather than seeing carriers as hideable airbases.
Every single military weapon system (including the dismounted soldier) has vulnerabilities. These are always addressed. Carriers have numerous layers of protection – they will be around for a very long time.
Correct, I’m just saying the article should state this more clearly
I see the Americans have just given P&W a $115m contract for the F135 engine enhancement effort.