Hms Queen Elizabeth

[Stuart Galbraith]

The props do seem to be a design weakness. Still, its remarkable how few other problems they seem to have had, so I guess it had to be something.

[shep854]

5 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The props do seem to be a design weakness. Still, its remarkable how few other problems they seem to have had, so I guess it had to be something.

Lack of interface with a torpedo is helpful...

[Stuart Galbraith]

Reckon he ran over the Red October myself...

[lucklucky]

Title in Telegraph

Quote

 

HMS Prince of Wales, the £3bn pride of the Navy, grinds to halt over ‘failure to grease propeller shaft’

‘Embarrassment’ as new aircraft carrier's landmark mission to the US hangs in the balance over major fault

 

 

This comment in says different: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-carrier-likely-to-head-to-amsterdam-for-repairs/

Quote

Richard Beedall

 1 hour ago

The Telegraph today:

Naval sources have told The Telegraph initial thoughts are pointing to a lack of lubrication on the starboard side at the point the propeller shaft leaves the interior of the hull. Any overheating at this point due to friction could have damaged the metal shaft, sources close to the issue have said. A better understanding of the problem, upon which navy chiefs can make decisions, is not expected before the end of the week. However, it is thought likely that a period in dry dock will be required, to have a proper look at the area and carry out repairs. The dry dock in Rosyth, Scotland, is thought to be the most likely base for any maintenance given the facility is owned by BAE Systems, the manufacturer of the aircraft carrier. Suggestions the ship hit a submerged object have been discounted, added the source.

A senior defence source told The Telegraph that while they would have to wait for the divers to confirm what the source of the issue was, they had “a good idea what the problem is”.  The source added: “We think there is significant damage to the starboard shaft. It’s not working.” The source also said that this would prove a “major problem to fix”.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2022 by lucklucky

[Stuart Galbraith]

Unprecedented failure according to this.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Guess having more than one Carrier was the right choice after all.

https://news.sky.com/story/broken-down-hms-prince-of-wales-replaced-by-hms-queen-elizabeth-for-us-visit-12688208

HMS Prince of Wales - the aircraft carrier that broke down shortly after leaving Portsmouth last weekend - is to be replaced on a trip to the US by its sister ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Initially described as having an "emerging mechanical issue", the £3bn NATO flagship floundered off the southeast coast of the Isle of Wight after a starboard propeller shaft coupling failed.

 

The 65,000-tonne carrier limped back to Stokes Bay in Gosport, Hampshire, on Monday at a rate of four knots, accompanied by tugs.

It is due to return to Portsmouth on a single propeller, again with the assistance of a tug, but that will be dependent on the weather and the tides.

Once crew and equipment have been unloaded, it is then likely to travel up to Rosyth in Scotland to be repaired in a dry dock.

It had been due to undertake training exercises with the US Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the US Marine Corps.

The programme was also expected to include exercises with F-35B Lightning jets.

HMS Queen Elizabeth had been due to visit the Baltic and the Mediterranean.

Navy chiefs are thought to be looking at which of the US commitments require the presence of a carrier and which can be carried out by other ships from the fleet.

 

Rear Admiral Steve Moorhouse, director of Force Generation, responsible for making sure Royal Navy ships are ready to deploy, said HMS Queen Elizabeth will "depart Portsmouth next week to undertake elements of Prince of Wales' programme in the United States".

Regarding HMS Prince of Wales, he said: "Royal Navy divers have inspected the starboard shaft and the adjacent areas and they have confirmed there is significant damage to the shaft on the propeller and some superficial damage to the rudder but no damage to the rest of the ship.

"Our initial assessment has shown that coupling that joins the final two sections of the shaft has failed.

"This is an extremely unusual fault and we continue to pursue all repair options."

[TrustMe]

I'm in two minds about air craft carriers. Sure, it's cool to have them as we can lord it over other countries. But are they survivable in the era of cheap ground looking radar satellites?

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well that was true 40 years ago. And they would be considerably more survivable if the Americans got serious about Meteor integration with F35.

[lucklucky]

4 hours ago, TrustMe said:

I'm in two minds about air craft carriers. Sure, it's cool to have them as we can lord it over other countries. But are they survivable in the era of cheap ground looking radar satellites?

At moment i don't think so.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Even assuming you can find a carrier which is not easy, you then have to attack it. Which is assuredly a lot harder. Even China's capability to that end is marginal, despite their bold claims.

[Dark_Falcon]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Well that was true 40 years ago. And they would be considerably more survivable if the Americans got serious about Meteor integration with F35.

The US is committed to the AIM-240.  Meteor remains Not Invented Here.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Which considering the US was perfectly happy to take British money with the assertion they would work on it, to my mind at least just isn't good enough.

 

[TrustMe]

4 hours ago, lucklucky said:

At moment i don't think so.

If you look at the growth of things such as cube satellites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat which can be produced at low cost ( plus also constellation satellites ) you could easily produce enough of them to provide large area ground mapping.

Cube satellites are definitely the way forward technology wise.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Mapping isn't the problem. Identification and desemination quickly enough to allow an attack will be. 

[lucklucky]

I was not clear, imo  they are not much survivable unless outside missile range.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, but what missile threat?

There are a LOT of claims from Russians and the Chinese they have the Acme supercarrier killer missile. Which is fine, they can assert that, but they have not successfully demonstrated it works.

I can fully believe a ballistic missile can kill a carrier. Absolutely. But you need 3 things to make it work. You need an adequate means of acquiring and tracking a missile. Very difficult to do, which is why the Soviets stuck with tattletales for the entire cold war.

Secondly, you need a rapid means of transmitting that information to command units to make a decision to attack. Thats far from certain in a future conflict, because of cyberattack. There is a reason major warships Captain's still practice using a sextant.

But most importantly, you need a strike system. Russia has some, mainly dating from the former USSR. They have 64 Backfires split between two oceans. They have a handful of Oscar submarines. They have some Yasens, 3 currently. And thats about it. The Khinzhal has never been demonstrated against warships afaik, certainly never one utilizing air defences. Yes, it may do brilliantly. But its unproven, and the aircraft carrying it is still going to be vulnerable to carrier based aircraft. Ultimately, does anyone want to believe Russian weapons are undefeatable, on the basis of all their bold claims before invading Ukraine?

China have made some very bold claims abou the DF21, and in fact are currently mounting it on a destroyer. In fact last I heard the Chinese were reerecting their test range, which strongly indicates that something is NOT working correctly, and they have never made a successful test against a moving target at sea. Which frankly they really need to before everyone starts blythly asserting the Carrier is dead. Secondly, its got only a range of 1500 kilometres. Which sounds like a lot, except a cruise missile can fly 1700-2500 kilometres. And of course if its fired from a submarine, its even more academic what the range is. Thats before you count the carrier air wing with aircraft that are either stealthy (like the F35) or can carry their own range of cruise missiles, like the superhornet. So even if you accept the DF21 is a surefire carrier killer, which is far from proven, its going to have a significant footprint every time it fires, and be highly vulnerable to counter attack or preemption.

Id be a lot more pessamistic about the future of the aircraft carrier, were all the people slamming them not owning their own aircraft carriers and planning to build more (Yes even Russia hilariously), be strategically inferior, and ultimately, such proven bullshitters. You really have to take those points in mind, before nailing your colours to the mast that the Carrier is done. Indeed if it is, every surface warship down to the minesweeper is done too, which I find difficult to accept because of what it implies for the future of naval warfare.

[Daan]

Besides anti-ship missiles one has to factor in the proliferation of modern diesel submarines, as well as modern sea mines. If the carrier is to be relevant to the conflict on land, it will be in the operating area of these submarines. Especially the PRC has invested heavily a building up a large inventory of these mobile mine fields in the hope of pushing USN carriers out of the area. However, any conflict in Norwegian sea, Baltic, Persian Gulf etc. will have similar problems on a smaller scale.

Given the limitations of the British defense budget (escorts, aircraft) and other priorities, in my view a single Cavour class carrier would have been a more sensible choice. Currently, we have two ships of Kitty Hawk class water displacement, but  of which only is realistically deployable at any one time with only a handful of combat aircraft ever embarked and conspicuously escorted by foreign vessels. However, carriers are long-term projects and there we are. Given the rough waters ahead for the UK, it would come as no surprise if they would simply mothball one of the ships to cut costs.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Daan

[Stuart Galbraith]

Diesel Electrics, even with modern innovations like the Stirling Engine, are not usually well placed to sneak up on a carrier, except perhaps in places like the Baltic or the Persian Gulf. If you are ARE attacked that way, thats because you encroached on its environment, not that it encroached on yours. For one thing, with an American nuclear powered carrier capable of doing 30 plus sustained knots, it couldnt possibly keep up.

Ultimately the British designed the QE the way they did, to deploy it the way they want. They want to deploy with 12-20 F35's in peacetime,well ok, do that. Its not personally the way I would choose. But there is a case for saying that yes, with the tanker force we have, you can forward deploy more jets as you need them.  I suspect it will probably in places we can easily get to, like the Mediterranean, we will low deck them, because its easy to fly them in via Gibraltar. if we are going to keep going east of Suez, or to the Falklands I suspect we will be going for a full deck just because of the difficulty of making that concept work.

If the failure of HMS Prince of Wales proved anything, its that having 2 carriers is the right idea, because if you have one, you can absolutely guarantee the bugger will break at exactly the wrong moment. TBH, I think you are quite wrong, if we DO buy 70 plus F35's, I think both Carriers are deployable at the same time. However, I think that would inevitably be deploying them together with an enhanced battlegroup. The other problem then are support vessels, which is the weak point. We are working on that. But s far as escorts, you can just as easily escort 2 carriers as you can one.

[lucklucky]

Today we can have image recognition(visual, IR, radar) in the guidance head of a missile.

You will need a couple of QE dummies at sea to escape that. The SAM's - that QE do not have - will have to work every time.

[BansheeOne]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Diesel Electrics, even with modern innovations like the Stirling Engine, are not usually well placed to sneak up on a carrier, except perhaps in places like the Baltic or the Persian Gulf. If you are ARE attacked that way, thats because you encroached on its environment, not that it encroached on yours. For one thing, with an American nuclear powered carrier capable of doing 30 plus sustained knots, it couldnt possibly keep up.

Theoretically yes, but there are too many periscope snaps of American carriers by diesel subs from exercises to entirely discard the idea. For starters, if you're doing 30 knots sustained, none of your escorts get to slow down and listen; but your making lots of noise for even the slowest boats on your general course to position themselves for you to run into them, rather than having to sneak up to you.

CV-59 as seen from USS Tork (Tench class) in the Mediterranean, late 1963 or early 1964:

CVN-66 as seen from HNLMS Tijgerhaai (Zwaardvis class) in the Mediterranean, 1993:

CVN-65 as seen from U-24 (Type 206A) in the Carribean, 2001:

Etc.

Edited September 4, 2022 by BansheeOne

[DB]

The one consistent thing about all of the stories of submarines getting CVs in their sights is not that it is possible, nor is it that the submarine thinks it was undetected.

It's that the defending side does not publicly state that they failed to detect the submarine.

[TrustMe]

One thing I have noticed is that all the anti-China propaganda coming from European powers has declined as their anti-Russian propaganda has increased. It's almost certain to continue and no European NATO power has the existing capability of fighting a two front war.

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Theoretically yes, but there are too many periscope snaps of American carriers by diesel subs from exercises to entirely discard the idea. For starters, if you're doing 30 knots sustained, none of your escorts get to slow down and listen; but your making lots of noise for even the slowest boats on your general course to position themselves for you to run into them, rather than having to sneak up to you.

CV-59 as seen from USS Tork (Tench class) in the Mediterranean, late 1963 or early 1964:

CVN-66 as seen from HNLMS Tijgerhaai (Zwaardvis class) in the Mediterranean, 1993:

CVN-65 as seen from U-24 (Type 206A) in the Carribean, 2001:

Etc.

We all know that SSK's can theoretically sink Carriers. The problem is that any carrier that has a halfway competent ASW screen out has the advantage. A nuclear carrier has a double advantage, in that it can run far faster than an SSK can, and still put an ASW screen out whilst doing it.

The thing I note about those, they are in congested waters. Carribean, the Mediterranean. That plays to the advantage of an SSK, it does not play to the advantage of a carrier. Sonar conditions are shit, and land may interfere with the carriers ability to keep threats at arms length.

You keep an carrier out in deep water, particularly with an SSN in company, I do not rate the chances of an SSK getting close enough to take the shot.

You know, being the sad walt I was, I once setup the 5th Eskadra vs 6th Fleet setup from Yom Kippur, just to see how it would go. There were something like 14-20 SSN's and SSK's (and some SSG's) surrounding the carriers. And the interesting thing was thing was that not one of the SSK's could run fast enough to get to the carriers, before the helicopters and land based ASW got them. Thats despite having most of the theoretical advantages. The only submarine shots that counted were missile shots. But the interesting thing to note is they only got accurate shots if an MPA gave them the shooting location, and how rapidly the submarines died after they shot. So if they didnt get a kill, you were throwing away the boat for very little. In the event, the majority of the missiles that killed 6th Fleets carriers were aircraft delivered, not submarine delivered. Of course technology moves on, but Im willing to bet that would still be true.

If anyon has CMANO or CMO, let me know and Ill put it up. Ill warn you it will melt your computer though...

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

30 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

One thing I have noticed is that all the anti-China propaganda coming from European powers has declined as their anti-Russian propaganda has increased. It's almost certain to continue and no European NATO power has the existing capability of fighting a two front war.

Neither has America anymore. Oh, it might be able to keep one burning whilst it finishes the one. But win two wars at once? Dont think so.

[Daan]

If the carrier is limited to a position far out in deep water where is freely maneuverable, the defensive strategy of deploying the diesel submarines has worked admirably in most theaters as the carrier's aircraft have been rendered irrelevant to the fight on land.

Somehow I doubt CMANO gives an accurate representation of ASW and the ship numbers of Yom Kippur are long gone. The submarines are still there and have become much more capable, but where is that halfway competent ASW screen nowadays? The RN is far too small to provide a sufficient numbers of escorts and perform its other tasks at the same time. Furthermore, have they been training on ASW as they did in the Cold War? Given the improvements in shore-based AshM and SAM systems and the proliferation of modern fighter jets, the submarines also have greater areas in which to hide from ASW forces.

With regards to aircraft numbers, the amount of Rafale Ms provides a clue as to what size fleet one needs to provide a steady number ready for deployment. The French Navy acquired 48 examples and the CdG seems to deploy with around 12 in peace time, very similar to the RN, but it has only one carrier of smaller size. In one exercise the CdG hosted 30 Rafale Ms, but that is an exception and not sustainable for a protracted period of high tension.

South Korea has just cancelled its plans for a F-35B STOVL CVX carrier in favor of more missile carrying submarines. A sensible decision in that theater.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Daan