HMS QE and PoW to become dual role Carrier/Amphibious ships, with landing craft

[davecov]

I was told that they were not going to get steam catapults in a future refit and space has been left to install them. They were supposed to get the US EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System) providing the things work properly.

 

Dave

[Paul E]

7 minutes ago, davecov said:

They were not going to get steam catapults in a future refit. They were supposed to get the US EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System) providing the things work properly.

 

Dave

Sorry Dave,

 

But having been involved in the design of these damn things on off for 10 years in different guises, I can assure you consideration was made for steam on the basis of the poor maturity of the EMALS system, as the USN are finding out with their new carrier Gerald Ford.

 

The decision to go STOVL was made at the last minute after pressure was put on the then Labour Government, at the time there were fears that the programme would be cancelled and we would not get to Main Gate. Whether it was the right decision is open to debate.

 

Paul 

[davecov]

You may well be right but I was just repeating what I was told by Babcock managers.

 

Dave

[Flankerman]

1 hour ago, Paul E said:

As for the steam issue that was not much of a problem as space allocation had been considered for auxiliary boilers.

 

Paul,

 

You seem to have the inside track on this - can you confirm what was said about the gas turbines??

 

During a previous RN Yeovilton airshow, we were talking to the staff on the BAE Systems stand - where they had a large scale model of QE in one of the hangars.

 

The guy on the stand mentioned that the Marine Trent gas turbines were located in the bridge superstructure - with electric drive to the propulsion system.

 

IIRC - he pointed out the exhausts - but I may be mis-remembering that part.

 

Is this true?? - the Trents are there just to provide electrical power ?? - and the unusual location ? - isn't that very vunerable ?

 

Cheers

 

Ken

 

PS - They also have 4 X diesels for slow-speed running.

[Paul E]

Ken,

 

There are two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbine alternators located in the sponsons under the islands (These incidentally are the engines which power the DDG1000 Zumwalt and the Freedom class LCS in the US Navy). The advantages of this is that there is no need for extensive ducting for air feed and exhaust which can seriously eat into the volume of the ship (this was a problem in the Invincible Class). These engines generate the electricity to enable the ship to reach the upper speed ranges. There are 4 in number Wartsilla Diesel Generators located low in the ship for cruise running and normal electrical load. Propulsion itself is via 4 Electric Motors on to two propeller shafts. There is plenty enough power in the ship not to worry too much about the perceived vulnerability of the engines.

 

Cheers

Paul

 

 

[Dave Fleming]

From speaking to people involved in the ship, the original designs had provision for catapults and arrestor wires, and the appropriate voids in the hull for the equipment needed, but once STOVL was decided upon, the detailed design meant these were either used for other things or were inaccessible for that purpose (Give an engineer a space......). hence the apparently exhorbitant cost to change back post 2010.

[old thumper]

The reason it's called the PoW is because it will probably finish up being one after running aground while launching landing craft. 

[Francis Macnaughton]

I suppose it is the inevitable follow on from announcing that QE would be used as a helicopter carrier until F35s become available but any alterations for the assault role can only be limited.  From my involvement with the CVF project up till 2008 I know that there was no allowance for the loading, stowage and disembarkation of large numbers of combat vehicles, except presumably on the flight deck itself and it would be lunacy to start changing the internal configuration now.  To imply OCEAN's capabilities are available is very misleading and doesn't even touch on the issue of value for money that is normally MoD's prime mantra!

[alpine_modeller]

If (and I really mean IF) the withdrawal of Bulwark (Ocean is already GONE) and QE and POW adopting the dual role is the price to be paid to allow both QEs being in service at the same time, it seems to me to be a price worth grudgingly paying because of the F35 capability (if that really takes off). I would prefer that Bulwark is kept in extended readiness to cover QEs refits, to be honest. I am assuming Albion is unaffected.

[bootneck]

18 minutes ago, alpine_modeller said:

...........Ocean is already GONE

I thought Ocean was still active and somewhere in the North Sea?

[Barrovian]

36 minutes ago, bootneck said:

I thought Ocean was still active and somewhere in the North Sea?

Ocean due in Bahrain this week

[bootneck]

Thanks Barovian,  I did see that she was off Suez a while ago but didn't know whether she was outbound or coming home.  This means she was outbound; thanks for the confirmation.

 

Mike

[alpine_modeller]

I meant that she is already condemned.

[junglierating]

Hmm there seems to be a lot of hot air and missinformation on this thread.

1.Ocean will eventually be decommissioned and the last i heard regarding the LPD is that it one in reserve and one active just like they used to do with incepid and the deathstar.maybe darbs knows a bit more.

2.regarding cats and traps its all to do with not being able to produce enough steam from its diesel propulsion not gas turbines as some one said. I do believe the J Arthurs have now fixed the electromagnetic cats problem but obviously too late for the UK hence F35 B.

3.

Meanwhile nevermind all that harpoon has an out of service of 2018. So only the Mk8 4.5 offensive weapon unless you include torpedos and depth charges. Bit of a crisis i think  comments ????

[Dave Fleming]

Another 'capability gap'. Why is Harpoon going out of service in 2018? Is it the same for the US?

[junglierating]

Hmm there seems to be a lot of hot air and missinformation on this thread.

1.Ocean will eventually be decommissioned and the last i heard regarding the LPD is that it one in reserve and one active just like they used to do with incepid and the deathstar.maybe darbs knows a bit more.

2.regarding cats and traps its all to do with not being able to produce enough steam from its diesel propulsion not gas turbines as some one said. I do believe the J Arthurs have now fixed the electromagnetic cats problem but obviously too late for the UK hence F35 B.

3.

Meanwhile nevermind all that harpoon has an out of service of 2018. So only the Mk8 4.5 offensive weapon unless you include torpedos and depth charges. Bit of a crisis i think  comments ????

 

Addendum to my last.

Spouting off a bit last night and clearly not SQEP on QE class propulsion....but they still cant produce steam. Anyway apologises if i have offended anyone.

Sadly there are always issues in defence.

Dave cant say about the Americans but since our harpoon dates from 80s (see the daily telegrsph)it a safe bet a fair amount of their fleets will be up to date.

Anyone know about sub harpoon?

[Giorgio N]

8 minutes ago, Dave Fleming said:

Another 'capability gap'. Why is Harpoon going out of service in 2018? Is it the same for the US?

 

The US Navy has been purchasing the missile til very recently, IIRC their latest variant is still in production, and there's no intention of retiring the missile. At the same time they are looking for replacements and among the contenders are another new variant of the AGM-84 and the recent Norwegian Naval Strike Missile

[Geoff_B]

5 minutes ago, Dave Fleming said:

Another 'capability gap'. Why is Harpoon going out of service in 2018? Is it the same for the US?

 

Its Tube launched Harpoon and the rockets are probably on their expiry date. The USN has switched over to using VLS Harpoon so recent production is for VLS, Sub or Air Launched Harpoon.

 

The UK problem is as per usual the money in the previous decade was wasted in Iraq and Ascrackistan on keeping the Army in field without the appropriate hike in defence spending thus the Frigates were reduced to 19 hulls, the Type 23 follow on has become its replacement and still in limbo and weapon programs fell by the way side.

 

The other problem is that the Anti-ship missile hasn't really been used in anger too much and suffers from the problem that defensive systems are now common to counter it, which is why there are the hard punching fast missiles like Brahmos, the Chinese have developed a Ballistic Carrier killer, They sort of need a new missile smart enough and hard enough to defeat counter measures and incapacitate another ship whilst being dual purposed to be able to hit ground based targets too to give the punch.

 

The Sea Skua replacement should give some of the punch back when that enters service in a few years and we'll have to see what the SPEAR program can do in terms of a Surface to Surface role whilst at the same time seeing what the US replace Harpoon with. The new missile will be part of the Type 26 armament and space is available for additional VLS on the Type 45's but the Type 23 are going to be replaced by the Type 26 and Type 31 which will probably also have the VLS capacity for a surface to surface missile.

[Duncan B]

On 11/11/2016 at 1:51 PM, JohnT said:

 

 If I recall as well it also raised the whole question of operating with other nations in joint exercises and the impossibility of cross decking even in emergencies.  

 

We could cross deck with the Russians as they don't need cats! Well we could launch them anyway and that has the added advantage that we would know exactly where the enemy was without requiring a vtol Hawkeye (because they'd be sitting on our deck!!).

 

On a more serious note is it not possible to go down the route the Russians have taken with launching without cats, just lots of lovely thrust, a big ramp and a head wind? Imagine a Navalised Typhoon giving it Billy Big Steps off the front of the PoW .

 

Time for my Meds!

 

Duncan B

[bootneck]

48 minutes ago, Duncan B said:

....... is it not possible to go down the route the Russians have taken with launching without cats, just lots of lovely thrust, a big ramp and a head wind? Imagine a Navalised Typhoon giving it Billy Big Steps off the front of the PoW

Interesting.  If you look at the front of the QE and PoW's flight decks, they appear to be truncated and suggesting there's plenty of room for extending?

 

Mike

[Dave Fleming]

You'd still need arrestor gear to land them back onboard. If I recall correctly, one reason the Russians have gone back to the Mig29 from the Su-27 for Naval aviation is that the Flanker is too big and heavy to have any effective warload when flying off the ramp.

 

The truncated front deck seems to be the latest in naval archtecture from France, as the French 'Mistral' LPH (and the ones they originally built for the Russians) are similar.

[Paul E]

I read some of the comments made about the QE class carriers with a wry smile. As I had mentioned earlier, I happened to have been involved in the design process of these ships in a number of different guises over the years and had been exposed to some of the key design decisions in the early stages.

 

QE like the Type45 is an Integrated Electrical Propulsion (IEP) ship where the engines (Gas Turbines and Diesels) are used to generate electricity which then power the motors to drive the ship and everything else on board including the overgrown electric kettle which would have been fitted if a steam catapult was selected. 

 

Whilst not wanting to decry some of the comments and ideas made here, it needs to be remembered that the ship is designed with an intended 50 year life to a strict budget and was at one point under threat of cancellation. The preliminary design was quite fraught and the original ship design changed in size, shrinking at one point to 265m before growing back to the current size. Two designs were considered one STOVL and one CATOBAR which were largely common in architecture, however there were enough differences between the two that a decision had to be made on which option to take forward. It was not as simple as David is making out about giving an engineer a space and he will fill it! Once the decision was made there was no going back without spending a lot of money. Crunch time was the approaching Main Gate funding decision point, the then government selected STOVL. 

 

From a technical point of view the STOVL design offered the least risky option (considering EMALS and the Advanced Arrestor Gear System were along way from maturity at the time). Secondly there was still a requirement to replace the Harrier with the F35B and the RN operating the carrier version of the F35 would have introduced an extra level of cost that the MOD would have to shoulder. The F35C was also suffering issues at the time and the USN threatened to withdraw from the F35 programme altogether. The only other viable aircraft available for a conventional design would have been the Super-Hornet or the Rafale-M both of which are 4th generation and would need replacing in the relative early years of the ships long life. A Navalised Typhoon is nothing more than a fantasy, so STOVL was the only realistic and affordable answer, unless we bought Russian. I just don't get STOBAR it really is the worst of both worlds! The "Truncated Bow" by the way is legacy from trying to keep as much commonality between the two original designs and keeping the build simple and affordable.

 

STOVL is not at all bad, there are advantages of operating STOVL, firstly launch and recovery is only dependent on enough wind over deck and not on the availability and reliability of the Cat or Arrestor Gear. Also should someone put a hole in the runway you can still recover your very (very) expensive aeroplanes and equally precious pilots. And lets be honest here, QE has an awfully big deck and it will take quite a few holes to make it totally unusable. A large deck unencumbered by arrestor gear, cats and jet blast deflectors offers much more flexibility. I know there are perceived issues of interoperability with other navies but we already know the US Marine Corps are very keen on operating off QE's big deck. You can lay odds on that during the aviation trials of the East Coast of America the USMC will be flying Ospreys as well as their own F35Bs on to the deck and with that in mind why wouldn't the RN operate Prince of Wales as a Commando Carrier like they did with the old Bulwark and Hermes?  

 

As for the retirement of Harpoon, it is not surprising really. Geoff B hit the issue right on the head with his post. But to my mind it isn't the worst issue facing the modern RN. The lack of suitably qualified and experienced personnel is an urgent issue. Fundamentally there are not enough sailors to man the dwindling number of ships that are left in the fleet. The ships not being armed is not really an issue if you can't put them to sea. 

 

  

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 2016 by Paul E
typo

[Francis Macnaughton]

3 hours ago, Paul E said:

 The ships not being armed is not really an issue if you can't put them to sea. 

 

 

 

 

But might be an issue in getting new recruits to join up perhaps?!

[colin]

3 hours ago, Francis Macnaughton said:

 

But might be an issue in getting new recruits to join up perhaps?!

Pay them a decent wage and stop cutting away at their perks might help

 

[bootneck]

I think it is more to do with the changing culture of our youth today.  Not that there is anything wrong with that but there doesn't seem to be the desire to join up nowadays as it was when I joined.  There are so many more opportunities for them today.

However; we are going off the subject.

 

Mike