Forget naming them after monarchs the natural royal navy order would or should have been Eagle and Hermes! Two great names in their own right! These are British ships not Royal ships! Too much pagantry in the UK forces for my liking and time we came into the 21st century!

Anybody have more firm info on this?? Cant find it stated anywhere  Or is it just wishful thinking???

I always fancied the names Furious and Glorious for these carriers, I do believe that the first aircraft carrier ever was called HMS Furious, anyone?

INDOMITABLE and ILLUSTRIOUS are much better. Like ENTERPRISE, those British ships gave heroic service  Just design the QEs correctly please?

Herald

The official line on the two Type 45's is that they remain part of the MoD's planning assumptions. I don't think we can count on them until they are ordered though.

 

The thing that concerns me most about the carriers is that it seems their AEW platform is most likely to be a helicopter or an unpressurised aircraft. Even the French bought the E2C Hawkeye because they realise it's the only game in town in term of top quality AEW capability. We should do the same. It has been proved to be able to takeoff using a ski-jump rather than a catapult.

 

I'm still not sure why we're insiting on the STOVL version of the J35. It's more costly to maintain, has shorter range and a smaller payload.

 

As to names, I agree QE and PoW are not the most spine tingling. We couldn't go for Iron Duke as one poster suggested as there is a Type 23 frigate of that name in service.

 

I'd have voted for Warspite and Dreadnought.

It's hard to take a lot of pride in a 10x14" gun battleship with state of the art radar sinking a smaller 9x11" gun large, armoured, or battle (pick your adjective) cruiser with second rate radar. I suggest an Alaska vs. Scharnhorst would have been a more interesting match-up.