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What a waste of money, by a country still dreaming of past glories and playing at pretend-to-be-relevant.
Hilarious that they will be giving them these names. The last HMS Queen Elizabeth missed the greatest naval battle of the first world war, a battle it was designed to fight, by being in dry dock IIRC. The HMS Prince of Wales, was battered by the Bismarck, suffered multiple failures, and now rests off of the Malay coast courtesy of Japanese aircraft. You'd thing that the stain of failure would have removed these names from contention. |
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Originally posted by Zkribbler
Ironic. I was just thinking the other day that the U.S. should have fewer carriers and concentrate more on frigates, hydrofoils and other small patrol craft. At least the US has a reason to have aircraft carriers. We may not agree with US policy, but given its position in the world, you can see why they might want them. Britain is no longer that kind of country. Then again, Britain just committed itself to spending a fortune on Trident, which it needs even less than it needs aircraft carriers. |
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Originally posted by Agathon
At least the US has a reason to have aircraft carriers. We may not agree with US policy, but given its position in the world, you can see why they might want them. Britain is no longer that kind of country. Then again, Britain just committed itself to spending a fortune on Trident, which it needs even less than it needs aircraft carriers. QFT They can use Lithuanian airbases when they start bombing Moscow. |
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Originally posted by Lonestar
How did you come to that clearly well thought out opinion? The chief threat to the U.S. is al Qaeda. Since the fall of the Taliban, they haven't been in a situation where they've been able to hide behind a state sponsor. Thus, the need for a major armed conflict is minimal. The most effective means of countering al Qaeda is trying to win the "hearts and minds" of the Islamic world -- which mandates even more than the U.S. not engage in any major conflict in the region. (Can you guess what I think of our war in Iraq? ![]() At most, we need small commando-type units to launch quick hit-and-run raids against al Qaeda hideouts, headquarters, and training facilities. This implies small, fast, stealthy ships to transport them in and out. And small launching platforms for a few helicopters. Also, piracy is a growing problem along the Somali and Indoneasian coasts...so again, more small patrol craft are needed. We need to think small, fast, stealthy and smart -- not big, blundering and hamhanded. |
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Originally posted by Agathon
What a waste of money, by a country still dreaming of past glories and playing at pretend-to-be-relevant. Hilarious that they will be giving them these names. The last HMS Queen Elizabeth missed the greatest naval battle of the first world war, a battle it was designed to fight, by being in dry dock IIRC. The HMS Prince of Wales, was battered by the Bismarck, suffered multiple failures, and now rests off of the Malay coast courtesy of Japanese aircraft. You'd thing that the stain of failure would have removed these names from contention. The Prince of Wales hit the Bismark and inficted serious damage |
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Originally posted by Patroklos
If you going to build a carrier, build a damn carrier. Considering much of the cost of a ship these days goes into electronic systems, the marginal cost of a large ship goes down considerably for each extra ton of displacement. I was particularly appalled to read in Wiki (god knows how accurate that was though) that they were only going to be able to carry 36 fixed-wing aircraft. 65,000 tons of ship for 36 aircraft? That's insanely low: a Nimitz carrier can carry over 80 fixed-wing aircraft for its 100,000 tons. Heck, even the Charles the Gaulle can carry 36 aircraft and it's only 40,000 tons. |
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You missing my point, Lonestar.
While carriers were nice to have vs. the Soviet thread and in Desert Storm, those are past situations. I'm looking into the future. And while I'm sure we will need some carriers in the future, IMHO we won't need as many. I haven crunched the numbers, but I'll be we could cut the number of our carriers by 2/3 and still whip the bejesus out of any other navy in the world. |
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