Out of service date confirmed for aircraft carriers

Every conflict since the end of the cold War has been part of a coalition. The two Gulf wars being very good examples of that and Afghanistan. Which is why we exercise with our allies so much and practice interoperability.

Where were our allies during the Falklands?

I agree we would be unlikely to fight alone but that doesn’t mean they will give up escorts to protect our assets, as self interest will overrule. All nations are stretched and if they lost support ships because they had used their escorts to protect another nations assets it would look bad prolifically back home. Most wars aren’t won/lost based on military strategy, they are based on politics and what politicians will allow the military to do and not do.

Just looks at the current news coming out of the US, generals telling about how the final days of afgan loss happened due to politicians ignoring their advice.

The reality was the Falklands was not a major war. It was a very challenging and brilliant campaign..but it was not a major war. Infact we never even formally declared war on Argentinian….

although not precise the definition of a major was is a war between two major powers. A declared war between the UK and Russia would be a major war.

A war with Russia in europe would be major,, but a war against Argentina next to its back yard with Royal Navy being stretched to its limits and at the end of a massively extended supply chain was a major war. Wasn’t much else the UK could realistically bring to the fight.

it was a remarkable feat..any meaningful level of power projection at that distance was a huge thing…but in the end that is not what defines a major war.

The historic definitions of 10k deaths as being the definition of major is past its sell by date. The extent and scale of resources utilised and deployed should be contributing elements. Indeed, the very concepts of human death volumes are now nearing being redundant with the present, and increasingly in the future, conflicts taking place with UAV and Robotic technologies and or with some of the most contested battle spaces being in cyber domains. Societies and nations may be brought to their knees with minimal human death.

I was always waiting for Australia or Canada to send ships to the Falklands. We need COMTO= Commonwealth Treaty Organisation. Why not?

If a major war hits the carrier will be protecting their supply chains so they will be trying to protect the carrier….however anyone sometimes feels about it the defence of the European western democracies are intimately linked….The really big question mark for the future is European US levels of support for each other and if the US goes into hibernation as that would change the geostrategic picture dramatically.

Having the US and Europe linked makes the west unassailable in Geo politics. The risk is that even a perceived weakening of the bond invites challenging powers to have a go a changing the status quo.

The is exactly what happened in 1939-41

It’s also exactly what happened in 2022 with Russia in Ukraine.

With the rhetoric coming out of Washington now it’s easy for China to interpret that to mean the US won’t support its Allie’s in East Asia if congress is having a hissy fit about a measly $60 billion in support for Ukraine.

This is exactly what Japan did in 1941 and ended up starting a war it had no chance of winning based on mixed messages from the US Congress.

The US is in danger especially under Trump 2 of looking like a country that spends big on defence for political industrial interest but lacks the will to use those forces.

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Spot on Jim and it concerns me that Trump 2 to help shore up failing US corporations who have had it far too easy (are you listening Boeing, LM) wasting US dollars will tie ‘protecting’ Europe with substantial commitments to buying US weaponry, or other offset business to weaken Europes competitive edge. It’s the way he has always done business. Anyone who thinks Trumps ‘love of Britain’ as someone put it will in anyway alleviate any animosity to it (or others) ‘stealing’ what the US sees as its defence clients is being very naive. He will try every trick and threat in the book to sabotage any such competition.

I agree you have highlighted the key issue facing western civilisation. In my view both Russia and China are targeting the UK intensively with hybrid warfare in order to break the Atlantic relationship physically, diplomatically and economically in order to separate the UK from both the EU and the US and therefore the US from Europe – which extends eastward to Ukraine. We must cure our addiction to dirty Russian and Chinese money.

tbh we’ve give Trump everything he needs to weaken NATO, there’s even support on this forum to only deploy close to our shores. But yet we expect US to come our aid. Even without Trump 2 thats very hard for a US leader to justify the one sided relationship.

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I hope there’s a comprehensive plan to deal with what’s in Kaliningrad, which if loosed, could be very devastating at short notice. No GBAD anywhere in UK making ships, subs in docks, airfields, infrastructure, general population, all very vulnerable to any unannounced even announced conflict. Sorry, this a bit worse case scenario, but hopefully those in the know and in charge are covering all the bases (pun intended) literally! 😁

Exactly and that is the overwhelming danger there is a large section of US voters who seem to think Europe is an entity they can do without. Short term maybe but if the US deserts Europe its own demise is inevitably set in motion I’m afraid. Sadly I will say that fact and the general assumption the US will always be around has been exploited by too many in Europe not to spend enough on defence. Russia is taking advantage of these factors and testing the glue that holds us together so anyone playing their game is beyond stupid and naive. Sadly there has never been a shortage of that in the West

And what are we doing to give the US the comfort that we’ll be there for them? We’ve only just had countries commiting to 2% GDP and that took a war on our boarders. Politicians are talking about deploying to EU and ‘our patch’. Forget Trump how does any US leader sell that to an electorate as something that has value for them?

I completely agree, Trump is using a kernel of truth in regards to European defence spending..all the western democracies in NATO should be turning up the defence expenditure to 3%, while hardening their economies against action from china…

Like if Trump gets in next Election , ? Could he pull out of NATO ? he’s already said members not paying there way are on there own .If USA do leave NATO how many other countries would drop out I wonder ,then how many Allies would you have one thing for sure no were near the USA resources .Never rely on allies 🙄

Unless Trump wins the US election, that brings the risk of the US exiting NATO.

Under nato command

Our logistics and that of Western Europe will be pretty much identical so I don’t see anyone for the overwhelming scenarios going it alone. Britain is not going to operate a task force against a serious opponent on its own it would be combined operations, even during the War when European allies had sparse resources esp after occupation we had various ships operating alongside the Royal Navy.

Disagree. Look at the Red Sea now. That’s a coalition. All it takes is 2 or 3 additional NATO ships to complement 2 or 3 RN escorts, and these carriers will be fine. They are the centerpiece of task groups.

That said, additional defensive armament won’t hurt. Phalans, RAM, SeaRAM, and counter-drone systems like VAMPIRE would all be of good use. My hunch is that when they get their angled decks and catapults, they will also get additional defensive systems in new sponsons.

Really, ever heard of China?

An interesting take on that.
I would suggest anythng that threatens ‘peace’ in that area and the geopolitical impact on the availability of the technology and supply chains we in the West base our whole economies on , nonwithstanding the Chinese attitude to basis freedoms does indeed make China a threat to the UK.
I dont believe it will be all that optional.

Our trade is almost exclusively from Europe, US, Middle East and China. The rest of the Asian region adds very small amount to our GDP. Not saying it wouldn’t be the right thing to do to support our allies, but we wouldn’t be going in to it as full out war as the UK major interests are not at risk. We would be a.minor partner behind the Asian counties that decide to get involved and the US assuming they do, which is a big assumption as like the UK, US trade is heavily reliant on China.

Our alliance and geopolitics make it we would inevitably fight in a U.S. China war..we are bound by a treaty that would drag us and the rest of Europe into it…

That’s assuming a war would happen, which I see as highly unlikely. A war between the two would absolutely destroy the US economy and way of life, the great depression would look like a blib in comparision. They are just too dependent on Chinese made goods.

Steve you need to read the evidence base on what china is doing it’s spending thousands of billions on Harding its economy for war, building its internal security apparatus and military forces…it’s changed it laws making all companies prepare to become part of a war effort, it’s actually significantly harmed is economy by decoupling its supply chains from the west ( up to around a 2% loss in growth per year)…most importantly every agency of the government has been told to be ready for war by 2027…china has now told Taiwan it will be reuniting one way or another and that will be pursued firmly with the possibility of war.( there is no more mention of peaceful reunification in Chinas language)..china has specifically told the world any interference with china Taiwan integration will be met with the use of deadly force..the U.S. has told china it will defend Tiawan…

A lot of clever people now think that because china assumes it has to go to war with the US to reintegrate Tiawan it will simply use strategic surprise via one of its annual invade Taiwan practices to both invade and subjugate Taiwan via a beheading strike/invasion as well as first strike all the U.S. military assets in the western Pacific to delay the U.S. responce…and the evidence for this is china has build replicas of major U.S. bases which it practices blowing up with missile attacks.

I would suggest purchasing and reading “the next major war, can the US and its allies win against china”…by DR Ross Babbage..in this research he puts together, the political,social,economic, economic and military data and information as to why china is heading to war with the U.S. and why the West will find it harder to win than everyone thinks.

China is getting ready for war with tiawan and wants to make sure the US doesn’t think to get involved. China knows US economically would be insane to attack China over Taiwan, but can’t be 100% sure of it, so is making sure it’s military is big enough to add that to the equation.

Realistically the US has already confirmed it won’t get involved. If it was serious about defending Taiwan it would have a big base there, it would annoy China but they would get used to it over time.

Same with nato and Ukraine. If they had deployed into Ukraine, Russia wouldn’t have dared attack, but they didn’t want to risk annoying Russia as too dependent on Russian oil and gas at the time.

it was just recently made official that green berets are permanently stationed in taiwan and are currently on one of those taiwanese islands just a few km from chinas shore. announcing that was pretty huge news. a far cry from having a fighter wing there but china has to keep that in mind when they attack- that they will have to fight american service members and deal with those possible repercussions.

That’s a positive. I assume the plan is to pull the out fast if China tells the US an attack is coming but it at least gives China more questions. If it kills US service man its stuffed as political pressure will be huge in America to hit back hard.

Can the US win against China at such extreme range, who knows but a lot of damage will for be done.

I’m pretty sure there has been deaths of nato service man in Ukraine but its being kept quiet to avoid the political s*** storm.

The USN submarine force is unbeatable in the pacific. As the UKCSG proved, Chinese SSN technology is very dated and weak, its much harder for them to steal than aerospace tech which is in the open.

In the event of a direct conventional conflict, Guam and possibly Hawaii would get smoked by long range BM’s but the USN would sink most of the Chinese navy in a week. Then it becomes another power projection exercise.

It does appear that Taiwan is a red line for the US. China is attempting to get in everywhere they can. This is not a policy that the US likes. The economic long term effects would be serious. China has prospered without Taiwan where they are not welcome anyway. To continue the status quo seems like a win win for all sides.

To our shame we didn’t at least declare a no fly zone to Russia over Ukraine.

I should think the exchange of several hundred nuclear weapons would be a bigger issue than America being cut off from its supply of IPhones.

About half the people in China would be dead in a year just from a naval blockade.

The USA is the most self sufficient country in the word. It has minimal trade relations outside North America.

If it goes nuclear then yeah all bets are off, world ends. It won’t be a full out war, my guess it would be Ukraine mark 2, US supporting Taiwan or which ever south east Asia country that attacked from a distance for as long as it wins votes. Clearly Ukraine has been stuffed the last fair few months since it got political in the US and the supply stopped.

Ww1 or ww2 was never about doing the right thing, it was all about politics and self interests both from a UK and US perspective. We can pretend as much as we like it was any difference. Bright side whatever the reason we ended up on the right side.

If you read Article 6 of the NATO treaty it’s pretty clear the Pacific not included. If China did not attack the US Mainland or Alaska it could easily be argued it’s not under NATO jurisdiction just like the Falklands.

It’s worth noting it was the USA that wrote this clause in 1949 as it did not want to be drawn into Britains wars outside of Europe.

good point. i think a great move would be if a pacific version of NATO was formed.

Jim’s not correct ,article six state an attack “on the territories of one or more parties in Europe or North America”..an attack on the U.S. or Canada by anyone is an article five….that’s why we invaded Afghanistan…the attacks on US territories in North America triggered article five…can I just point out Afghanistan is right next door to china so how does everyone think china is somehow immune to triggering article 5…

Sorry I think you need to go and re read article 6, the USA was not attacked in Afghanistan, its was attacked in New York which is in North America so article 5 applies.

Guam is not in North America, neither is Hawaii. If Argentina bombed London in 1982 article 5 would apply. As it bombed Stanley article 5 did not apply.

If China bombs Guam article 5 does not apply. If China bombs San Francisco article 5 applies.

The US has unilaterally declared that an attack on Hawaii would envoke article 5 as its a US state. This would be open to interpretation by other members.

Jim you are not listening to what I am saying, I’ve not discussed qaum, I have discussed the territory of United States in m North America..an attack on a party in the territory of North America…what I am saying is that china will undertake some form of attack on the Continental United States..it will need to do this to drive the war home to the US public…that will trigger article 5…attacking quam will not, I never said attacking Guam would.

Just a matter of time I suspect.

Actually Jim North American is part of article 6 an attack on either Canada or the U.S. triggers article five..it’s irrelevant where that attack originated from….if you notice if it only related to the Atlantic the USSR could have initiated an attack on Canada from its pacific seaboard and negated NATO…

the treaty is clear “ on the territories of North America and Europe” the Atlantic bit you quote is only in regards to ships and planes…on the high seas..

so if a U.S. Carrier battle group is attacked in international waters in the pacific that is not an article 5..if that same carrier battle group was attacked while sitting in territorial waters in the continental US it would be an article 5…because the key point is “on the territories of North America” it’s irrelevant to the treat who and where the attack came from just if it’s on the territories of “North America”

As I said Guam is not in North America, NATO does not include attacks on embarked forces outside of Article 6 defined territories, for example British soldiers were attacked in the Falklands in 1982 NATO does not respond.

US forces and warships have been attacked repeatedly over the past few decades in the Gulf but Article 5 does not apply.

NATO is designed for territorial defence.

Jim who mentioned Guam..I’m talking about an attack on US home soil.

We could do a Roosevelt 1939, talk alot about doing the right thing while continuing to do nothing until your Allie’s are almost on the verge of defeat before starting to sell them guns at a profit and bankrupt them.

Then we could take the morale high ground while simultaneously enriching ourselves 😀

Yea nice one. The US wanted the Empire broken, they had plans to attack Canada in the 1930’s conveniently forgetting the USA is in effect one huge contiguous Empire itself, as is Russia.
Still that said it does’nt do us much good ‘going there’.

US trade is hardly heavily reliant on China. On the contrary, China’s trade is highly reliant on the US.

They are insanely reliant on each other. Trade is a two way thing. Pretty much everything on US stores is fully or partially made in China. Capitalism at its best, race to the bottom. The quality of life in the US would be destroyed by a war, along with pretty much every other western country. Even American grown food as shipped to China for processing and packaging.

The CCP is alien to our way of life for sure but is China an expansive power outside of its region is the question? If not they are a long way from any British interest these days. If the US is going to win anyway do we need to get involved at great expense in blood and treasure with a severe risk of nuclear war?

Agreed.

I would suggest that although you are correct, we would likely have little choice..a U.S. china war would inevitably see the US trigger article five.

Article 5 wouldn’t work, as its not in the area covered by the nato treaty. It’s why it didn’t trigger during the Falklands. Assuming that is that it is US on the attack and not an attack by China on the US.

Yes it would Steve the NATO treaty does not specify who and where the attack comes from only where the attack occurs..china makes an attack on the U.S mainland and it’s article 5.. just ask Afghanistan..NATO invaded them in response to an article five after a terror attack from that nation. If china somehow launched an attack on UK soil within the treaty area it would be an article five.

Not true it has a geographic limiation. Afgan triggered it due to 9/11, which was an attack directly on the US mainland.

Yes if china attacks the Continental US, which it will in a major war..it triggers article five…chinas whole strategy includes the idea of attacks of all kinds on the U.S. mainland, to destroy the U.S. publics will to fight a long war.

the Geographical part of the treaty is clear..china attacks Continental US …it’s article 5..in a major war the china will use terror attacks, political warfare and cyber attacks against the mainland U.S. ..it’s part of their doctrine.

Does china’s strategy include that? I haven’t seen any evidence they are gearing up to deploy at that big a range outside the defence of their missile batteries and land based air forces. They are gearing for conflict in South East Asia.

Hi Steve the chinese have developed a stockpile of around 1500 theatre based conventional ballistic missiles that are basically in place to saturate and interdict the US western pacific military infrastructure while china consolidates into Taiwan. There is documented evidence of china practicing missile strikes on mock ups of the key U.S. Japanese bases and quam ect…not even the Russians are so blatant as to build replicas of NATO infrastructure and practice operations to blow it up.

The Chinese are building for a wider conflict than the western pacific…they are investing huge amounts In military infrastructure across the eastern and western Indian Ocean and now have major navel facilities on the key choke points at the western end of the Indian occean ( with a base that can support and sustain a carrier battle group as well as large surface action groups/10,000 soldiers and aviation)..they are also finishing a navel base in the gulf….the PLAN now have a pretty much permanent presence of 6 large surface combatants in the western Indian Ocean/gulf/gulf of Aden region..they have also parked navel base right next to the strait of Malacca..which is essentially the most strategically important strait in the world…(separates the Indian Ocean from the pacific)..they are planning a west African base and have a lot of options from seaports they effectively now own through debt and are working to get a base on the eastern seaboard of South America…..

There navy pretends to be a green water navy but in reality is also a huge blue water navy…the have two 45,000ton fast fleet replenishment vessels and 11 25,000 to 37,000 ton…that’s 380,000 tons of fleet replenishment vessels…as a comparison the RN..considered the second Blue water navy which is active in every occean only has 200,000 tons of fleet replenishment….the PLAN are in no way staying in the western pacific they plan excuse the pun to take the fight into the eastern pacific and Indian occean/gulf.

basically the the Chinese are planning a long war to bleed the west into giving up…phase one will be a blood bath in the western pacific…but their main plan revolves around the long war and hitting their enemies via every possible domain in every possible place…AKA strait out of Mao “ on the protracted war” which is standard reading for all officers in china from every service and forms the basis of their military paradigm for beating the west.

1500 is a tiny percentage to their overall missile force, which is huge.

Attacking US bases in South East Asia is about ensuring the US doesn’t interfer. If they wanted to go after the US they would need to invest a lot more in bases in Latin America etc, to allow them to launch attacks on the US mainland.

I’m sure their eventual plan will be just that but right now their focus is on Taiwan and making sure the US doesn’t get involved.

Unfortunately they are thinking full spectrum…so they will be attack the US population with cyber attacks, terrorist attacks sabotage, political warfare ( people developing civil strife)..Mao was a crap leader of a county but he was a military genius in regards to full spectrum warfare against states with a dominant military…and the west simply does not even recognise a lot of the spectrums of warfare in the Chinese paradigm of the long war….they are fighting it now and we are hardly reacting…they will hit the continental US with everything they can…we already have the answer to can article five be enacted through grey attacks such as state sponsored terror …yes it can.

Russia was considered the cyber specialist of the world and they have thrown a whole load at the west and done sod all. Well other than buying off trump/boris.

I really hope I’m right as if I’m not we are talking at best cold War mk 2 at worse end of the world.

Bright side all the news of Chinese missiles being filled with water rathe than fuel and mass purges, indicates China has the same level of corruption as Russia, which would indicate they might be nervous about war.

Unfortunately Steve I’ve done a lot of research on china and it’s drivers and the reality is it’s almost inevitable it’s going to go to war over Taiwan it’s only a matter of when between 2027 and 2035 ( these are two key dates in the Chinese view around this and mark the lower and upper limited of when the will invade)..they have essentially given the world notice that at some point after 2027 and before 3035 if Taiwan does not unify china will go to war.

I will try to give you some of the reasons why… but basically Taiwan is more than a red line for china it’s a national shame and the only way the nation can fulfil its destiny..and we are talking a burning belief in a destiny here…

the history…china is essentially now a 1.4 billion strong cult, with a priesthood of 98 million members of the Chinese’s communist party..all lead by a figure considered a communist versions of a near deity in Xi…now you need to understand that Xi is called the great leader…there was only ever one other great leader and that was Mao..basically Mao and Xi are the god like leaders of a cult, not a modern nation state as we think of it. Mao is essentially now worshiped like a deity and Xi as the only other great leader is a living version of the same…and Xi wants to make sure that after death he is cemented as “great leader” just as Mao is ( Xi is competing with dead man who is being a deity…that’s profoundly hard to get your head around as a westerner). Xi has been building this foundation of being the next deity of the CCP by ensuring unification of China by 2035…he’s going to do anything for that to happen ( don’t forget Mao killed around 80 million Chinese and they still worship him).

So the cult of reunification…

deep in Chinese culture and belief is the story of the three kingdoms and specifically the tale of the romance of the three kingdoms..this is a 14 century classic novel in china ( think Geoffrey Monmouth’s history of the kings of Britain, the tale of King Arthur…) this novel was basically taken up by Mao and weaponised to create the soul of the Chinese communist party nationalist views ( you have to remember the CCP is a sort of cross between the third Reich and Stalin’s Russia…it’s communist, but rampantly nationalist and basically Han exceptionalist)

what this story says is that china goes through cyles of greatness when it it’s whole and chaos when it is separated and that the aim of the Chinese people is to become whole, all the while knowing that at some point they will be torn apart suffer and the. Struggle to reunite into greatness against…what this means is that china must be United and any struggle and suffering is acceptable to achieve that and it’s the fate of the nation to undergo this struggle in an eternal cycle of dynastic decay, chaos struggle and rebirth.

the opening line of this 14 century story was actually added by Mao and it epitomises what the CCP is going to do:

”the empire, long divided, must unite, long United, must divide, thus it has ever been”

Now according to CCP mythology, the last cycle of unification and collapse into chaos started at the beginning of the century of humiliation which began when British gunboats forced in 1839 and ended in 1949 with the defeat of the government of the republic of China and its retreat into the island of Taiwan…but according to CCP mythologies the nation will only finally shrug off its shame defeat and chaos when it is reunified and any level of suffering is acceptable to achieve this:

 “Resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakeable commitment of the Party. It is also a shared aspiration of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation, and it is essential to realizing national rejuvenation.” ( CCP 2022 national congress and setting of the requirement to be ready for war in 2022)

2027 is important because this is the timeframe that Xi set for war preparations and is the year of the next national congress, the nation is to be ready for military action in regard to reunification by the 2027 congress and this will probably be that last time Taiwan is offered peaceful reunification…2035 is when the CCP long term plan says that Taiwan will be unified with china ready for the end of the first century of the victory of the CCP over the ROC government and it will be a century in 2049 which is the year of the great rejuvenation of chinas ) US and others analysts states that the high watermark for Chinese power will be 2030 and that it’s the time it will need to force unification if it ever will.

finally we go to the high priest and his motivation..as he completely controls the CCP and the CCP completely controls every aspect of China.

Xi is a true believer who was created by suffering..we are not talking about a western politician or tinpot dictator we are talking about a believer in the destiny of china, the CCP and reunification.

he was the child of two generals of the revolution, both very close to Mao…he was educated as a child of the party until his parents were accused of treason, his parents were to be executed, he and his siblings were questioned and at one point he though he would be killed..instead his parents went to prison and he and is sibling’s were cast onto the streets…his sister committed suicide and they lived as street children for a few years…he was then picked up by the cultural revolution and sent to be a child agricultural slave in a collective farm ( this is timeframe in which millions died) he escaped and was later captured, arrested and then the sentenced to a Labour camp….after a number of years of hard Labour xi returned to the village he had escaped from with nothing but a box of book on Mao and the CCP..he became a true believer…spend a few years trying to apply to become a member of the CCP..but after a large number od requests he was let in…he went to University to study economics and history of communism…the. Gradually made his way up the party….to become the second great leader and essentially the 21c Mao….this is a man who believes, has suffered accepts suffering as a normal part of the struggle for reunification…he will go to war..the CCP will follow him like the cult they are and the rest of China will follow or be re-educated/die….just as Xi was re-educated.

the sad thing is the Chinese’s are not that much bothered about the rest as long as they think they are respected and have there place in the world they would be reasonable neighbourhoods……but Taiwan is like a knife in their national heart that the west keeps twisting…and they are not going to back down from this ever.

China would likely practice gray zone operations, hitting Guam and US regional bases leaving Hawaii and the US mainland alone and wait to see what NATO does.

At the same time threatening Japan and the Philipines with nuclear weapons if they allow US forces based there to attack China.

Attacking the US mainland is suicide for China given the current state of their nuclear arsenal.

Need I remind you the U.S. triggered article five over a none state actor terrorists and invade a county because the evidence said the terrorists were trained and funded there…the type of attacks that are part of Chinese military doctrine will trigger article five…to think otherwise is bonkers…a huge cyber attack knocking out power and killing a lot of people…will trigger 5, a terrorist attack will trigger article five. China invading Taiwan is a world war..it will be an unstoppable contagion china knows this..and from all the evidence they are preparing exactly for that..a long war with the western powers..

That was more a political decision in support of the US than a real invocation of article 5.

It’s irrelevant what the driver was…article five was triggered…it’s a treaty based on international agreements…if it was triggered then….it will be triggered if china make any form of attack on the continental U.S…what’s the US going to…say well it’s alright lads I know we triggered article five when we invaded a third world nation because it sponsored a terror attack,but now we are being attacked in the same way and via other domains and are in an existential war against the only near peer on the planet..we won’t trigger it because we know you all don’t want to fight a war with china…off course they will hold NATO nations to the wording of the treaty and the word is attack…how and what type or magnitude are not discussed in the treaty and irrelevant, it’s the attacked nations choice to trigger.

Article 5 does not actually require any members to do anything it’s up to the individual member state to consider what actions it feels appropriate to take, hence Germany sent peace keepers to Kosovo not special forces to Afghanistan.

If the US gets into a shooting war over Taiwan it will find it very difficult to enact article 5 if China only attacks Guam or US forces in the region.

Jim, china is not going to just attack Guam…it’s planning for a long war that will essentially mean beating down the USA will to keep fighting over Taiwan..it’s going to make attacked against the continental US..it would need to if it was going to win.

It does in article 6, have a read. The US claims it believes Hawaii is covered but Guam certainly not.

Yes but my whole point is if china and the US go to war..china is going to attack the continental US…it’s plans are to wage a full spectrum long war using every means to inflict pain on the population of the enemy until they give up…its basic Mao…you hurt them and split them until they no longer have the will to fight over what you want….china will launch terrorist, cyber, political warfare and kinetic warfare attacks against the U.S. where ever it can including the mainland..it has to its the only way it can win…

I don’t think we can afford to let China beat the United States in a war but it might be nice if we could show up towards the end of a war in time for tea and medals for a change rather than being stuck in at the start.

China and the US go to war and our economy is completely toast, who ever wins. Would be welcome to the third world, assuming it doesn’t go nuclear and no world left.

Pointless sending the carrier to fight China, it wouldn’t be within a useful F-35 range before it got deaded. Pointless sending it anywhere, why risk it Vs a pikey nation, let alone rebel groups on mopeds.

The point was not the carrier, it’s whether Russia was our only necessary adversary, Greg.

Complicated with China we won’t get involved directly with a China conflict any priority will be in Europe where Russia would inevitably try to take advantage of any such conflict, but the big unknown esp in the future would be any Chinese operations out of that Pacific zone from places with whom they have links, bases and ports which could be anywhere from the Middle East Africa, or South America at some stage. So a little unpredictable at best.

Classic example, the Red Sea & Bab el Mandeb at present. China in Djibouti, yet another choke point, but could be interpreted as leveraging relationship with Iran to encourage Houthis to back off theirs & Russia’s vessels, perhaps utilising carrot in finance & potential big stick in naval base proximity. In meantime, West busy protecting marine traffic to their own considerable risk and expense in advanced weapons systems; whilst UKMTO makes itself available – to any nation – that requests it’s maritime risk and security assessment in the region, night & day.
I use ‘perhaps & interpreted’ as reasonable acknowledgement of a degree of uncertainty, Spy – as yourself, I suspect! but my real view does not extend far into that extent of ‘lip-service’. In fact, one facet of an admirable strategy for unending the current system by a country – group of countries – intent upon the classic authoritarian solution of dominance by military and repressive means. Their own and any other states populations notwithstanding – Hong Kong?
It may not be direct confrontation at present, but the degree of choice over China, optioned elsewhere, remains – moot.
On a more familiar note, yet again the early & recognised weaknesses of liberal democracy are to be tested by authoritarianism – and that will not involve acquiescence on our part.

I see military knowledge and experience not your strong point! Never mind eh, all posts are encouraged! This is a great site to lear from however, lots of SMEs all there to educate you 👍

It is hard to see a wartime situation where a carrier could operate freely, usefully and safely,. A2AD makes it a vulnerable entity anywhere near an enemy shoreline. The short range of the F-35 (and the F35b in particular) means that the carrier would be at significant risk if it closed to a distance at which the F35s could carry out an attack.

The idea that allies will rush to provide the additional escorts that we failed to provide is for the birds, unless its the USN, the others will all be deployed doing their own national and NATO key tasks.

But it’s not an optional war for China. Liberal democracies are anathema to a growing consortium of autocratic states, convinced our time is over.

I think NATO would need the carriers! We would probably take the North Atlantic and free up a US carrier for deployment elsewhere. The convoy routes will need protection against anything that can get past Sweden etc.

Not Sweden surely if you mean ships/subs? Nothing would escape the Baltic even subs I suspect but getting past Norway would be the greater problem though again only subs but that is a massive threat and will need to be stopped getting into the Atlantic between Iceland and Scotland but yes your gist is spot on. Freeing up US resources for the Pacific and Indian ocean would be the priority. And this is the greater point the US population must understand any conflict with China will inevitably include Russia on the Wester front you can’t separate the threat from one from the other if China starts a war.

Can easily foresee places like Svalbard being future flash points despite the 1925 treaties. Imagine Trump declaring that any dispute was Russia simply resolving a historical anomaly from a time when soviets were weak and the matter is down to those involved to sort out…’Russia send more ‘miners’……meanwhile UK declares it stands shoulder to shoulder!…the UK Carriers become critical european assets in projecting European will 800 -1200km km north of the Norwegian mainland.

Yep it’s the main problem spot now that Gotland is secured. Such US policy would be madness of course because it would open up the Artic to Russian domination but since when have some US politicians played Chess rather than draughts.

I would guess they would go for something like the RIM mounted at a level below the flight deck to avoid any issues from launch.

That’s something that they still could do, maybe convert the Phalanx mount to take a UK missile type like Starstreak/LMM /ASRAAM. The vertical launch CAMM flying around might be a problem.

Starstreak is beam tracking, which I couldn’t imagine would work well with a ship bouncing around. The US have hybrid versions of phalanx that has the gun and RIM, that seems like the best option for a cheap fit. Trying to pay to get uk kit installed would just end up costing way too much.

Interesting comment on Starstreak as there was a proposed SeaStreak platform ages ago. That can surely be reworked, and brought up to date. All 🇬🇧 too.

yeah the USMC got rid of their abrams and some other heavy equipment and focusing on agility and sea denial. they’re purchasing a bunch of land based NASAM launchers with the idea they can get spread out amongst and move QUICKLY among the hundreds of smaller islands there and give china’s navy hell from the land, sea and air with minimum logistics trail.

USN / USMC DMO Distributed Marine Operations, lots of much smaller but more mobile inter locking weapon systems, distributed from multiple locations and platforms. They are trying all sorts of ideas from NSM on light trucks, to TLAM and Standard missiles in Containers mounted on Lorries and even on LCS2. It’s even driven them to decreasing the size of their F35B down to 10 so they can be more flexible.
It flies in the face of everything they have been doing since WW2.

Point taken on the core RM size. The smallest of the Damen Enforcers (120m, 9000 tons) has the same beam as a Bay so I assume can host LCU / LCVP. I read a post on Naval News saying the Dutch are planning to replace 2 LPDs and 4 Holland Class OPVs (4000 tons) with 6 of the smallest Enforcers, which have crew size roughly the same as a batch 2 River. Thinking about replacing the 3 batch 1 Rivers I can see an argument for 2 LPD sized Enforcers and 4 smaller ones whose primary role might be global OPVs: they would do a better job than the Rivers in the hurricane season and would be better armed.

More versatile certainly.
As long as they don’t spin a Bay as useful as a LPD. They cannot carry 4 LCU and 4 LCVP. But if we’re going away from landing D day style to lighter, smaller, I guess that’s the fit.

To be honest Daniele I honestly cannot envisage any possible requirement for over the beach deployment into a high threat environment using LCU and LCVP..apart from anything around the risk to the landing, the littoral is now more deadly than ever and sticking your flag ship into it would be bonkers.

So in the future is there a place for an Albion type direct replacement…probably not.

Actually what would be more use would be replacing the Two albions with a single LHA along the lines of an America class.. that way we have three multi purpose flat tops/flight decks with the correct facilities to act as a flag ship/CC

then we can replace the 3 bays/Argus with four enforcer types of some description.

Although there is no way we can build and crew 3 large carriers…I think we do need another large flight deck…so an LHA that could take F35s if needed would be a very good guarantee…

I suppose it all depends on what we see the RM doing ? Is it expeditionary warfare at distance or reinforcing the Northern Flank in the Nordic countries. If you look at the recent History of Major Exercises then I think the writing is on the wall that it’s the latter.
And historically the Dutch Marines have been our partners in crime for decades in Joint Viking Exercises. And we can see which direction they are now heading ? Smaller but more numerous Amphibious assets rather than large LPH / LPDs.
But if we have a more effective RFA able to support those smaller assets at distance I don’t see why they couldn’t be used to say reinforce the Falklands.

Having a bunch of small LPDs (branded as Multiple Purpose Support Ships as they are) that can handle most of the patrol tasks and have escorts focus on protecting carriers and handling dangerous tasks feels like a good idea. A 9ktn LPD can do the work of multiple Rivers depending on what patrol craft it can launch. Maybe we could have up to 7-8 of them, 3 for the Bays, 1 for RFA Argus, 2 for the Albions and 1-2 for the 3 Rivers.

I had a crazier idea though, 6 Enforcers for the Bays/Argus/River (7 ships) and 2 SVTOL Helicopter Carriers/Light Carriers (like the Izumo with F35Bs) for the Albion/Bulwark, and lease/sell one of the QE carriers, upgrading the remaining carrier to CATOBAR and buying carrier capable fighters like the F-18 and F35C, giving us 1 large carrier (F35C/F-18) and 2 light carriers (F35B) that can be more easily rotated. I am sure that won’t will go down well with people here, though.

Well, good luck with that. Two Izumos or LHDs would be nice but we would have to win the lottery 🙂

My crazy plan involves selling one of the QE for 3 billion (optimistic), with which we could buy EMALS (France paid roughly 1 billion GBP, or 1.3 billion dollars) for a QE and 2 Izumu/Juan Carlos style for 1 billion each, put the current F35B on the small carriers, cancel the rest of the F35B and buy F35C/F18 instead. Theoretically costing us little but the time it takes to build the new carriers/refit the QE, which is just more work for our industry. Just a bit of out of the box thinking, pay me no attention!

Cheaper airframes/flight cost for the QEs new fighters and the net loss of 1 ship (1 QE, 2 Albions for 2 light carriers) could even potentially save money.

The history of QE class catobar vs stobar etc is what it is. We are where we are; committed to a QE strike capability based on F-35B plus future drones with a secondary LHD capability likely based on Chinook. O
Our challenge is that we can’t man or afford Albion sized LPD capability; we are in any case arguing that large scale opposed landings these days would risk heavy losses. Hence the convenient solution to our problem is a switch to a raiding doctrine for a smaller RM from smaller ships- OPVs, frigates, mini LPDs….
I can’t help but notice that a 9000 ton Enforcer LPD cum OPV isn’t a million miles away from the Type 32 designs with stern ramps…..

Project Ark Royal is not dead yet, so we can yet have hope! Even with just arrestor wires, that opens up the possibility of Gripen or similar aircraft (stobar will have weight limitations however). Gripen costs less than half the F35B to fly and has a Growler equivalent, plus Saab will let us build it in the UK and it already uses 30% UK made parts like radar, ejection systems and wheels etc. I am personally sick of the F-35B availability issues, and it is well known that flying just the F-35 is not sustainable.

Haven’t the MOD asked for (drone) catapult proposals for QE?

And if they ever had to use any of those weapons, then something has gone very very badly wrong. The best offensive/defensive weapons for a carrier are it’s aircraft. Let the escorts do the job they are designed to do. With T45 and T23 and the future T26/T31 that is the most capable integrated air defence system on the planet. Add in allied escorts and US assets and you have the most protected vessels that can put to sea. We took the Sea Dart system off the Invincible class to make more room for aircraft. Generating airpower is what a carrier is for. Its not a big Destroyer. The investment has gone into Sea Viper on T45 and Sea Ceptor. And F35B with AMRAAM/ASRAAM provides an air dominace capability only matched by F22. And F22 is only better in brute airframe performance. It lacks IRST and a Helmet Mounted Display. Compared to F35 And inferior networked capability.

I don’t agree with that, I think drones, both airborne and seaborne, are becoming more and more of a threat. All ships including carriers will need more CIWS to counter them.

Wouldn’t a T31 inner layer be the best way to address that risk?

Yes, but we do not have any T31s in service today, so how do we mitigate the risk right now? Also, that means the T31s end up as dedicated carrier escorts. I’m still in the mindset that the Carriers need to have more close-in defence weapons.

Well, that’s a view. And its true that RN doctrine does look like a bit of an outlier. I just assume that someone in the RN has assessed the probability of a drone swarm attack in the next 2-3 years versus escort defences and availability and have concluded the risk is manageable with help from allies. The Dwight D Eisenhower carrier group in the Gulf of Aden has 3 US escorts and one French escort + Rafales flying out of Djibouti. Worth noting that even the US carrier keeps her distance from Yemen. I think the RN have got it right in prioritising the Ceptor upgrades and the new propulsion for T45.

The carrier group can detect track and engage targets across hundreds of miles. The air threat is constantly monitored, and the ready state is constantly monitored. The operation in the Red Sea is a very good example of that in action. That US carrier will never use any of its close in weapons. Operations like this don’t work how many people think they do. The Navy are absolute experts at this stuff.

I have worked with politicians and agree that they do not look beyond the next General Election. Of course they are not looking 45 years ahead, but it is no bad thing to set a planning date for their replacement.
I agree that the electorate would not care if we got shot of one or both carriers – it does not help that we managed without carriers for 10 years. They do not have a role in the defence of the UK homeland and I struggle to see much of a role in regional defence except if you include the Med and the Red Sea, the former required jets to fly from Marham for Op Ellamy (no carriers) and the latter relates to delivering air power against the Houthis. They are principally for the Global Britain role. Many Brits just do not get the Global Britain role.

The first duty of Government is Defence of the Realm! Monies are often reallocated. They can be reallocated back to Defence if the matter is serious.

The Realm is defended in many way nowadays Graham. The NHS defends the people whithout which there would be no Realm. The Education Budget Educates the Realm etc. etc.

I think there is a good case for bumping the budget towards 2.5% and then maybe 3.0% however in peacetime a sudden jump might cause more problems than it solves. Certainly any Government that did it would be ousted before you could say “Liz Truss”.