Re: Again why beancouters
The QE Class are a joke. There is no way we needed fleet carriers. After the mid-life upgrade, which expanded the flight deck, they were more than capable of operating enough sorties for the types of missions they were deployed on.
The proof can be seen in the numerous navies, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, etc., that are building/have built carriers similar in size and aircraft complement to the Invincible class.
using the same techniques used to keep the crew count down on the new carriers and using the lessons learned from deploying the Invincible class, for all likely operations, the carrier strike capability is not something the UK is going to need to employ alone, and by combining with partners, we can mount that volume of sorties as happened in Libya.
The FAA(Fleet Air Arm) was never likely to have the funding to provide 96 aircraft for both carriers, and keeping them operational was always going to be an issue.
The optional EMALS upgrade, at a highly restrictive cost and with the technology unproven.
The only option is VSTOL; no time should have been spent considering the F-35C, as the A and C are thoroughly compromised to have commonality with the B.
The loss of resilience on the third vessel, the loss of speed, the cut corners going CODLOG rather than CODLAG, invincible steaming from the Caribbean to the Gulf of Aiden in less than a week was a feat that the QE or PoW could never achieve
Basically, the QE class were an overambitious plan to provide a capability that we did not need, at a cost we couldn't afford. something similar to what we had, with a new Mach 2 capable V/Stol from BAe detailed designs were created, never made it to prototype, would have carried considerably less risk, and provided capability considerably quicker, at a reduced cost, and be able to use the current facilities and maybe delivered before the previous lot were retired.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
