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Subject: HMS Queen Elizabeth for the RAN
Volkodav    10/22/2010 5:53:12 PM
I know we can,t afford to maintain or operate her, I know the training and logistics would be a deal killer, but I just can't get over the thought of a proper carrier in the RAN. It is almost like a repeat of the late 70's early 80's, a very capable platform becomes available to Australia due to the short sighted, ideologically driven, stupidity of a new UK government. The question is could we do it, buy the ship, convert her to operate our SH's and restructure our fleet around her?
 
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Weps13       10/31/2010 7:25:36 AM
What's the point? The RAN will effectively have 2 carriers with the LHDs. These are huge ships, much larger than the old Melbourne. The only real stumbling block is the problem the US is having with the VTOL F-35. Apparently the concentrated rear vectored thrust creates too much heat for any current flight decks, causing buckling and possibly igniting cabling underneath the deck. They are working on a solution, including sections of deck with greater insulation for landings, but it is likely to be costly. We could buy the RN harriers, as they are going out of service, but I suspect they are being retired for good reasons.
 
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Aussiegunneragain       10/31/2010 7:55:07 PM

What's the point? The RAN will effectively have 2 carriers with the LHDs. These are huge ships, much larger than the old Melbourne. The only real stumbling block is the problem the US is having with the VTOL F-35. Apparently the concentrated rear vectored thrust creates too much heat for any current flight decks, causing buckling and possibly igniting cabling underneath the deck. They are working on a solution, including sections of deck with greater insulation for landings, but it is likely to be costly. We could buy the RN harriers, as they are going out of service, but I suspect they are being retired for good reasons.

The LHD's won't have the facilities to operate F-35C's, even the ski jump has been removed to make room for an extra chopper space.
 
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Aussiegunneragain       10/31/2010 7:57:28 PM

I know we can,t afford to maintain or operate her, I know the training and logistics would be a deal killer, but I just can't get over the thought of a proper carrier in the RAN.

It is almost like a repeat of the late 70's early 80's, a very capable platform becomes available to Australia due to the short sighted, ideologically driven, stupidity of a new UK government.

The question is could we do it, buy the ship, convert her to operate our SH's and restructure our fleet around her?

We could do it if we were prepared to ditch the $43 billion dollar broadband network. You could write to Julia suggesting that. Good luck.  
 
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albywan       10/31/2010 8:30:17 PM
Does Australia have a need for a (light) Carrier?
 
Under what deployment scenarios would you foresee a carrier being a primary asset?
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Albywan   10/31/2010 11:03:21 PM
I don't think you could consider the QE-2 class carrier to be "light", each ship will displace 65,000 tonnes. Anyway, we could use a carrier for a number of contingencies, including:
 
1. protecting or recovering offshore territories at the extreme of the range of land based air power, such as Christmas and Coco's islands;
 
2. protecting merchant shipping travelling to and from trading partners in the event of a maritime war in NE or SE Asia, or in the Middle East;
 
3. conducting strike operations independently or in a coalition.
 
We aren't going to get it though, so this is all just theorising.
 
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Aussiegunneragain       11/1/2010 12:28:40 AM
That said, I do actually think that now with the advent of the F-35B and the SM-6 that the smaller "sea control ship" concept has become more worthwhile. Basically all that we need to put up a credible anti-air defence of an escorted force is to be able to get confirmation of the type of aircraft approaching it, after which the SM-6's can do the rest. The APG-81 on the
F-35B now gives a detailed enough picture for the aircraft to identify an inbound type BVR, so all that we would need to do is keep one F-35B on patrol to undertake that role. That makes a couple of smaller ships such at the 11,000 tonne class HTMS Chakri Naruebet of the Royal Thai Navy, with a detachment of say 6 F-35B's plus ASW and AWAC helo's, a viable option.
 
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Aussiegunneragain       11/1/2010 2:56:42 AM
This thread actually has me thinking, instead of planning to buy eight whopping great 7000 tonne frigates to replace the ANZAC's as well as 12 submarines to replace the Collins class, wouldn't we be better off to trim down our ambitions in those departments and purchase a couple of sea control ships/VSTOL carriers? The LHD's are only going to cost $3 billion between them and with their docking wells are probably going to be more expensive than a couple of pure V/STOL carriers. Also, the Collins Class cost $5 billion to build and finally get working, so you would expect that adding another 6 subs to the fleet will cost a lot more.
I reckon that if we trimmed back from 12 to 6 future submarines and built ANZAC replacements in the 3500 to 4000 tonne class, without cruise missiles and the like, we could afford a couple of 20000 tonne plus carriers on a cost and crew neutral basis. We could also just replace some of the F-35A order with F-35B's for the air wing and use the extra helicopters which would have gone on the bigger frigates for ASW.
 
It sounds like a really easy way to get a cost neutral capability boost to me.
 
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Aussiegunneragain       11/1/2010 3:00:20 AM

This thread actually has me thinking, instead of planning to buy eight whopping great 7000 tonne frigates to replace the ANZAC's as well as 12 submarines to replace the Collins class, wouldn't we be better off to trim down our ambitions in those departments and purchase a couple of sea control ships/VSTOL carriers? The LHD's are only going to cost $3 billion between them and with their docking wells are probably going to be more expensive than a couple of pure V/STOL carriers. Also, the Collins Class cost $5 billion to build and finally get working, so you would expect that adding another 6 subs to the fleet will cost a lot more.


I reckon that if we trimmed back from 12 to 6 future submarines and built ANZAC replacements in the 3500 to 4000 tonne class, without cruise missiles and the like, we could afford a couple of 20000 tonne plus carriers on a cost and crew neutral basis. We could also just replace some of the F-35A order with F-35B's for the air wing and use the extra helicopters which would have gone on the bigger frigates for ASW.

 
It sounds like a really easy way to get a cost neutral capability boost to me.

Oh and I forgot to add, we would have a perfectly adequate AAW escort capability with the Hobart class ships. Imagine being able to field a taskforce with a light carrier, a large amphib, one to two AWD's, three or four frigates and one or two submarines at any time .... with the ability to double that force with notice. That would be a much more useful capability than being able to lobb a few Tomahawks at targets that we can already hit with land based air power, I think.

 
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albywan       11/1/2010 4:26:39 AM
that would represent a serious upscaling of forces in the region.and Australia's potential contribution to International taskforces or operations.
 
I'm not against the idea, if there was a threat to warrant it. regionally i guess that questions how one sees china and india...
 
Still, requires significant recruitment, budget, and political consideration.
 
 
 
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Aussiegunneragain       11/1/2010 4:42:05 AM

that would represent a serious upscaling of forces in the region.and Australia's potential contribution to International taskforces or operations.

I'm not against the idea, if there was a threat to warrant it. regionally i guess that questions how one sees china and india...

Still, requires significant recruitment, budget, and political consideration.  

I would see it as more of an act of giving our force a balanced range of capabilities. At the moment we seem to want a limited range of very high level capabilities, such as TLAM equipped destroyers, at the expense of being able to undertake a broad range of tasks. I reckon we could do the latter within the budget of the former and that it would be more useful to us.
As for political considerations, Japan, Thailand and India all have V/STOL capable carriers so I don't think it would raise many eyebrows if we got a couple. After all, they are really only escort rather than strike carriers. Nations in our region would probably be more threatenned by all the TLAMs.

 
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