From the Wikipedia supercarrier article, regarding the British QE class:
Giving evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee, the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Alan West explained that interoperability with the United States Navy was as much a deciding factor of the size of the carriers as the firepower of the carrier's airwing: "I have talked with the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) in America. He is very keen for us to get these because he sees us slotting in with his carrier groups. He really wants us to have these, but he wants us to have the same sort of clout as one of their carriers.10
"I have talked with the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) in America. He is very keen for us to get these because he sees us slotting in with his carrier groups. He really wants us to have these, but he wants us to have the same sort of clout as one of their carriers.10
Sure, light carriers are handy for swatting pirates, but are they more handy than an equivalent amount of resources, yard time and man-hours spent building corvettes or submarines?
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Frigates and corvettes would be the larger share of such a navy, with two or three escort carriers to allow the smaller ships to operate in tasks on sea-lanes beyond the reach of land based aircraft.
An EU navy would not want a massive number of big ships, and while any military vessel could be used to create mischief, the modern light aircraft / heavy helicopter carrier would seem best suited to complementing a backbone of frigates and corvettes, in particular when acting in support of sea-lane protection and disaster relief.
Obviously two largeish light aircraft carriers already exist in one of the EU navies, but as alluded to above, are due to be de-commissioned and replaced with super carriers ... which seems to me to be a step in the wrong direction, and so its no surprise to me that the Pentagon had a hand in the decision.
Fortunately France seems to be backing away from participation in the supercarrier boondoggle. If the Hayugo class helicopter carrier costs around ¥110b, that is around €800m, considerably less than the roughly £2b (~€2.5b?) that the Queen Elizabeth class was supposed to cost sometime last year. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
... so there's three EU Sea Control Ships, even after the Invincible class UK light carriers are decommissioned.
You need planes to patrol a sea lane over the horizon, you need helicopters for anti-piracy in sea-lanes, you need them to be on ships if there is not going to be a arm-twisted-behind-back-friendly-base onshore, if you are going to send helicopters up you need to be able to provide them with air cover.
On an EU basis, all up, three mean that you can have two task forces at two hot spots and still have a reserve. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
You could run two simultaneous taskforces as an emergency measure, but it wouldn't be sustainable in the long term.
Regards Luke -- #include witty_sig.h
In which case, four would be needed to support one extended mission and one on call, or for classical escort missions ... which the five spread across the EU at the moment would cover. After 2015, there would be the three light carriers for one extended mission and the amphibious assault vessels on call, acting a classical escorts, or other short-term tasks. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
I mean, if the objective is to get a convoy from point A to point B without having it attacked by guys in rubber dinghys armed with rusty kalashnikovs... won't one to three perfectly ordinary non-aircraft-equipped ships suffice?
It's not like we'll be having running battles with pirates equipped with American destroyers or privateers in Chinese light cruisers... Not unless things get rather a lot nastier than they are now.
