British carrier sails with American and Japanese assault ships

Don’t think anyone thinks a government will approve another QE Class. But maybe 4 20k Ton LHD’s to replace Albion & Bulwark and provide sea control East of Suez ?

I see Africa as the next priority; Boko Haram in the Sahel, Daesh in Kenya, piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, Islamic State in Somalia. I see QE or POW being frequently deployed of East Africa to provide strike and air support for friendlies and UK ‘Ranger’ battalions forward deployed. And LSS ships too where their helo reach is sufficient.
Macron is weakening in his commitment to Mali. We are already helping with Chinook support. We need to send troops to strengthen the effort and stiffen his resolve. We can’t afford for a country like Nigeria to fall to Islamic state. One OPV in Gib is not enough.

Once the Chicoms get a foothold in the Atlantic? We are fecked. Many African and South American countries would welcome Chinese money.

China has already done a deal to lease a fishing harbour in Sierra Leone.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/china-deal-to-build-a-fishing-harbor-in-sierra-leone-meets-resistance.html

While thy are certainly a threat, they are already seeing backlash in some parts of Africa.

Typically corrupt governments there have done what they typically do and lined their pockets before even considering what their countries need. Hence railway lines no one really needs, etc.

So China are soon going to have to decide if they commit militarily more or not. And for the most part I don’t think they have the guts or will.

I must say the Kenyan Railways Mombassa to Nairobi line is excellent. Built with Chinese money and labour its fat better than the old line ever was and I have travelled on both.

That said there is a backlash against the Chinese influence in the country and also issues with the repayment of the incurred debt for the line… Which was the whole idea of doing the line improvement.

Once hooked into crippling debt the CCP can bend most countries to their will. That is the whole point of their aid.

Exactly the same can be said for the motorway from Kampala to the Airport, built by the Chinese, with Chinese money, far better than any of the other roads in Uganda, but again, issues with repayment, and backlash against Chinese exploitation of Ugandan resources.

We have one of the two Albion’s mothballed, when they go the replacement I suspect will be a single ship, highly unlikely to be 4. East of Suez is all about PR stunt and very little about having s viable military forcd there.

Overwhelming the costs of ships is design. We already have the designs and fabrication processes for QE. It make a hell of a lot of sense to build another 4 at £1bn a pop.

Would it be that cheap? and the operating/crew costs etc, if you use Mistral size vessel it has crew of under 200 as opposed to 600+ for QE. You could have 3 hulls for less than half the prive and 4 crews and swap them around like the MCM crews

200crew…no chance.
An LPD has a crew of 300 ish without the Royals and LCU crews added in and that is considered to be lean crewed for a ship of its size.
Even a lean crewed T23 has 180 on board give or take!

I maybe wrong but everything i found for Mistral says under 200 crew for the ship , then you have aircrews etc Mistral Class – Amphibious Assault Ships – Naval Technology (naval-technology.com)where as QE sasy 650+ plus avaition upto 1600

The issue is what is required for a full aviation contingent.

If you have helo’s you need all the helo trades.

If you have F35B’s you need all the F35B trades.

If you have UAV’s you will need all the UAV trades.

Then you need a deck crew, armourers/weapons and a FLYCO and pilots/operators.

All on top of whatever crew is needed for the hull, warfare, situational awareness and weapons systems.

However you slice and dice it one you have multiple flying objects coming off one ship things get very complex very quickly. And the problem is that they only get marginally more complex on a big deck than on a smaller deck and in some cases the larger desk is less complex as you have more physical space for deconfliction.

That is why pocket carriers make little sense other than being cheaper to build.

Oh, and they have significantly less surge capacity, upgradability or battle damage resistance never mind the sheer aware of seeing a really big lump arriving off a coastline.

Good luck with that, Rosyth and Govan are building Type 31/26, Portsmouth closed, Appeldore and H&W practically unavailable, you’d have to redesign a distributed build into a CL single yard build… not going to happen.

So your saying that UK ship builders don’t need more work and could not scale up to provide more capacity. That does not make a lot of sense. Anyway, if they cannot make more QE class ships how are they going to make more LHD’s?

I’m saying that replicating the QE’s for the same price tag as they where originally built at is currently impossible as several of the yards that built major sections of the carriers, including the one where the sections were assembled, are currently at capacity, and others are closed.

You could expand them, but that would cost £££ and create another example of “boom bust” economies that the current shipbuilding strategy is trying to avoid.

Of the available yards: Cammel Laird and Appledore lack construction facilities to build a ship, the size of QE, and H&W Belfast lacks the workforce which would have to be built from scratch. Which comes back to having to invest a lot of money.

As for “How are they going to make more LHD’s”? Do I really need to explain that the yard requirements to build a 20,000t LHD and a 75,000t Aircraft carrier are rather different?

Good point 👍

Peter Cook and Durley Moore on our last Cats and traps HMS Ark Royal 1976 I don’t recall the whaler recovering the said Piano

VSTOL Steinway?

With Pedal assisted stabilisers sounds Grand Could work will have to engage with Defence committee for possible funding their reply would insist on man-made Keys though

The problem is Western Society has given in to cheap goods made in China, the mass manufacturing base in the west is nearly dead as has proved with Co-Vid when China stops making the west is stuff for everday goods. The flip side is the western people have the power to influence China probably more than goverments aka (STOP BUYING made in China) whether that be making sure you buy from other countries and pay bit more or re-use/repair goods. I expect a concerted purchase change by people stopping the purchases would have china feeling it within few months.

Thats my thinking too, as long as the west don’t back China into a corner, they will just continue to flex but out of ecomonic necessity will continue to behave. Unlike the USSR, the Chinese people have got used to western goods and services, the Chinese government would have serious issues if it did anything to stop them having them goods.

Err yes they could stop them. It depends on how much you want to stop them and how far are you willing to go.

Western subs against China’s subs and surface fleet would be a Western win. Look at the video recently released of the USN Sinkex conducted against an OHP frigate. The torpedo at the end is why Subs with torpedoes are ship killers not ASMs.

After the surface fleet and sub threat has gone then the sea lanes would be open to any surface units to take action anywhere on the Chinese coast or islands.

It is much more likely that you would have something Ocean(esque) that would launch UAV’s and Helo’s and not F35B’s.

I don’t see it being built down to commercial standards but up to Class standards at about the level of the FSS.

Hopefully it would be fast enough to move with QEC’s and have a flood-able deck as well…..

Personally I see it as very likely RN get five of something like that in place of the Bays and Albions. OK it is a big cut from the original 1 x Ocean (built) 1 x Ocean (cancelled) + 2 x Albion + 4 x Bay (one sold). But there is a lot of sense in building multiple units of the same thing – as we all know the costs drop off with unit numbers rather than 2 of this and 3 of that.

Given the general mood music I would say a cut in surface hull numbers is very unlikely ATM.

Interesting viewpoint Andy P, but sadly, the situation is serious and the US knows it has to stand up to the plate and demonstrate a tough stance over Chinese and Russian oceanic ambitions. As I said, the growing tensions will draw many countries into a compact of naval cooperation, with the US and UK taking a leading role, supported by Japan, Australia, and New Zealand to name a few.

I think your position is realistic one. People are getting carried away with fantasy fleets when the budgetary position is a precarious one. You have to ask how long the current modest uplift in spending will last and if globally deployed LHDs (with or without F35Bs) is a sensible use of the money. Enough irons, and expensive ones at that, in the fire already.

IMHO a substantive RN commitment to the Far East is probably not on the cards. More likely the chest-beating over ‘Global Britain’ will moderate over time. Then we will settle for a low-key, low-cost and no doubt pretty effective for what it is presence with the occasional major deployment and beef-up as required. In short, your c*ck analogy seems about right to me.

I mean the UK is having a permanent deployment in that part of the world, say what you want about Tamar and Spey but they’re permanently based in the far east, the first time since the 1960’s the RN has done that.

So when you combine the two, that’s a pretty clear indication of intent.

Yep. With Type 31’s to follow.

I agree Dern, having the small presence out there is no bad thing, can even be of assistance with disasters and good PR when operating with local forces. We should be getting a lot of good use out of the Rivers over the next 20 years or so.