USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20010622.1134 (On Screen): The Royal Navy has designed two new carriers to replace their three existing ones, and they are a major advance. The existing carriers can operate about 12 jets each, and the new ones will be able to operate 40. More important than the number is the kind, and the existing carriers can only operate Harriers. The Harrier has many virtues but it isn't capable of gaining air superiority over a competent land-based air force. (Note that the Argentinean Air Force was both obsolete and incompetent, not to mention very small. That wasn't a reasonable test.) Against a reasonable foe, the Harrier-armed fleet air arm will acquit itself well but only because of the superb training of the British pilots. Top-notch pilots can win even with inferior aircraft, but that doesn't mean you should force them to fly such beasts if it can be avoided.

These new carriers, on the other hand, will be able to operate more conventional jets, in particular the upcoming Joint Strike Fighter. And each of the two planned flat-tops will be able to operate more jets than all of the existing British carriers combined. So this is a major step forward, and unquestionably fills a need. The existing British carriers are reaching the end of their service lifetimes and do need to be replaced, and I fully agree that the RN needs its own organic air arm.

Still, I find the BBC's description of them as "super-carriers" to be a bit excessive (and uncharacteristically parochial), and while this article contained extensive comparisons to the three existing British carriers and spends time marveling about how huge they'll be at 40,000 tonnes, there was no mention of the 23 American ones. And there's a good reason why: by American standards these are not that large. The eight American Nimitz class carriers tend to run upwards of 90,000 tonnes displacement and routinely operate about a hundred aircraft, about 80 of which are jets. (The rest are prop-planes and helicopters.) In addition to those and four other fleet carriers of earlier designs, the US has 11 light carriers which primarily operate helicopters but also have a few Harriers. The proposed British carriers are about the size of the American light carriers (which the USN doesn't even call "carriers"), though they're not going to be armed the same way. The American "amphibious assault ships" are primarily intended to support air-mobile amphib landings (and they also carry landing craft).

It also strikes me that these new carriers are going to be unreasonably expensive. They're going to run about £6,000 million each (about $8 billion), which is actually more than a Nimitz-class carrier costs, at twice the size. I suspect the reason why is that the US has been building a new Nimitz-class carrier about every three to four years for the last 25 years, and we've got the process down. These new carriers will be unlike anything ever built in British shipyards. I have no doubt whatever that the British shipyards will do a good job, but they've got a lot of learning to do. They haven't built a warship this large since the 1940's. (discuss)