In a book I have about Royal Navy aircraft carriers there is a section devoted to CVA01 and the admiralty hoped that Australia would acquire one to replace HMAS Melbourne. The paragraph says that ship one would be for the RN , the second for the RAN with the last for the RN. I’m sure you have this book.
Once the RAN got the USN DDG Adams class destroyers in 1965 they became very much sold on the superiority of USN ships, missiles and guns. The CVAO1 and TRS2 were rather beyond the RAN/RAAF price range and frequent shoot downs of the Vigilantes RG5 in Vietnam rather demolished the case for low level deep penetration strike bombers for the RAF, RAAF or even USAF.
Churchill never really wanted the large carriers of the Malta and Audacious class as he judged the cost of their completion and air groups just too high and unpredictable and their vulnerability as highly visible large targets perfect bullseye's for land based bombers. Churchill mainly opposed the large carriers by bringing forward the intermediate Centaur and Hermes class and constantly delaying the progress of the second Audacious carrier, HMS Ark Royal not completed till 1955
In terms of unrecognised deterrence the Important ship Is Surprisingly Endurance an arctic survey ship of negligible military value but one that Indicates the UK’s Commitment to the Antarctic.
One of the overlooked aspects of a navy as opposed to an air force is it’s very physical presence creates a much greater deterrent effect. In essence, while the air force might have more utility in fighting a war, naval power reduces the chance of actually fighting one. Therefore the cost benefit is dramatically different, and the optimum is a balance where critical mass is maintained by the dreaded inter service interoperability. The current conflict has shown that the old maxim “Quantity has a quality all of its own”, and hulls are one of the longer leadtime elements of a fighting force. My personal view is that a combination of NATO and the European Project allowed the politicians to hide behind a smokescreen of mutual defence to make expedient decisions while fudging the consequences. In hindsight, Britain and her allies would have been better to have focussed on being an expeditionary power at the expense of the BAOR.
You stated somewhere that next year will likely be the year of the aircraft carrier. I was recently listening to a video with Trent Hone on his new book about Nimitz and when he talked about Midway, it brought this question to my mind that I hope you will address. What was the Royal Navy's opinion/analysis on the Pacific Carrier battles like Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Philippine Sea? Assuming you saw them in the British archives somewhere during your research. Typically, we only see the American perspective as they were the main combatives. It would be interesting to get another take. The Japanese perspective would be also nice, but given the language barrier and some document destruction at wars end, that might be hard to come by.
One thing we do know is that the aircraft chosen for CVA-01; Phantoms and Buccaneers were chosen by the man likely to have been her first captain Eric Brown
Realistically if CVA-01 was to happen at all it would have been between the major expenditures of the Polaris and Trident procurement's roundabout the same timeline we actually got the Invincible's Would the legacy ship's have lasted that long? Sure Eagle had emerged from her 64 refit with 20 more years on her clock whereas Hermes served the RN quite comfortably until 1984 (not to mention her extensive foreign service)
It is my understanding that the first of the GW cruisers was suppose to be HMS Duke of Edinburgh. I do agree that it would be unlikely for a Carrier. For my part I assume the first pair will be QE and PoW, the latter pair may include an Ark Royal but I doublet a Hermes or Eagle as they will overlap with the them in service, so perhaps Formidable or maybe even Argus.
Any clue on any other names intended for the GW Cruisers? Given that the Counties were built in their place I always thought they'd become the counties themselves if they been built.
@@NightHeronProduction No. According to DK Brown it is unlikely that the Ships’ Names Committee had even asked the Queen her opinion yet, and so not only does he not provide the names for the successors it is quite possible their wasn't. However if we assume they stick to the theme of Royal Dukedoms then the Duke of Kent and Duke of Gloucester are obvious choices. Their are two final options for the last ship however both come with baggage, Duke of York is rather too grand for a cruiser and Duke of Windsor would mean naming a ship after the Duke of Windsor.
The RN post WWI seems to have had the terrible luck of designing excellent ships or at least decent ones for the price tag but has been cursed with politicians not willing spend the money to buy them or at least very many of them.
Not sure you can criticise British Cold War era governments for being unwilling to spend on Defence. It was around 10% of GDP in the 1950s, 7% in the 1960s and 5% in the 1970s, a much greater proportion of the national economy being devoted to defence than at any other point in peacetime apart from 1938-39. The real question is what is sacrificed to pay for and crew these ships. Some of this is at least ameliorated by the fact that some Fleet Air Arm Phantoms and Buccaneers were diverted to the RAF, who then promptly used them for Maritime Support in the GIUK gap. This at least means that the aircraft, aircrews and maintainence personnel were already paid for.
@@forcea1454 1951-64 governments were awful, as bad as the one today. A lot of money was wasted and project management in defence was terrible. Government totally lied about equipment costs and capabilities.
In the 1950s the British politicians and treasury favoured using the shipyards with slips capable of building large cruisers and carriers to build large oceangoing trans Atlantic and commonwealth passenger ships and cruise liners which often required equally powerful steam turbines as new aircraft carriers, the original QE2 and Canberra that were used in the Falkkands were the last of many fast steam ocean liners built for the Atlantic and Commonwealth trade. In the 1960s the priority of Labour white heat industrial revolution was building civilian air liners and nuclear power plants rather than warships or high speed railways. The main opponents of building new aircraft carriers were the Treasury and MOD. Treasury demanded strict tonnage limits on all new warships until the late 1970s and 3 Invincible class were approved on a strictly enforced 16,000 light tonnage base which was met only by fitting lightweight scantlings, fittings and furniture. The actual RN budget would have allowed for two new 35,000 ton carriers to be ordered in 1955 and 2 more in say 1965 but Treasury was determined no more real aircraft carriers would be ordered and would not even allow the initial politically approved engines and systems for CVAO1 to proceed in 1963-5.
@@forcea1454 Yes Eagle's projected FG1's were diverted straight into RAF service as were her Buccaneer MK2's upon her forced retirement Eagle had emerged from her 64 refit with 20 more years on the clock which ended up being only 8 before being mothballed
Very good video, with a lot of good points about having a sane and productive defense and naval policy. Some of this discussion reminds of the issues with the defense policy of the New Republic in Star Wars. For a mid-size power I would say that cost of construction and operation is the biggest factor, as to have a constant capability at or ready for sea, you need at least three ships. That means if you are a Brazil or Indonesia and you want a carrier capability, then a warship like the Italian landing helicopter dock Trieste makes a lot of sense.
Great comparison QE vs CVA. Thank you. Though got to say it, it's a Whirlwind under the Sea King, not a Wessex. And also Gannet ESM 6 would also have been in the airgroup until the Hawker p139 that was initially meant to replace it. They then moved to Gannet AEW7 with a mini AN/APS 91 (Hawkeye A radar).
frigate, mixed up my notes... what is annoying is I used the same picture in the 824 squadron correctly - I wonder if I put the wrong picture in the slide... ah well you are the first to notice, thank you for paying attention. The Gannet ECM 6 aircraft I didn't include purely because of speculation about their power supplies(there only ever 9 converted to the standard) and whether they could have be utilisd for the upgraded electronics needed even to cover the transition, a friend of my dads who worked on them had always felt strongly they would not have been and I couldn't find enough written sources either way, as their deployments on carriers had been getting less and less constant. So my assumtion was pretty much that there would be capability gap until a new aircraft or pod provided for the duty. The AEW 7 was never actually built, it was to use a FMICW radar system, which does look outwardly similar to the Hawkeye radar, but the Anglo-American relationship at the time meant that surface simiarity was it. Sadly, as honestly I think some of the developments within it were both interesting, but needed more money than the British government were prepared to spend at the time to properly round out. Interestingly enough though the AEW 7 actually outlasted the Hawker Siddeley P.139B in development time terms, the mostly Blackburn Aircraft design team working on that finding themselves hunting a new project in 1964; CVA-01 was of course cancelled in 1966. All together some interesting history
The Question: Consideration Superpower v Medium Power. I'm thinking about this in the modern context rather than the historical one. 1. (as you mentioned) Crew Nombers, but whats the reason for this. To my mind its not just cost (although that is a factor), its the fact that (assuming you are a volunteer service not a conscript one) crew are a scarce resource. If you can economise on crew numbers, fewer crew per ship means you can man more ships 9and/or allow the crew some tours of shore duty - being on a condstant stream of deployment - deployment - deployment kills crew retention. 2. Task. The USN NEEDS to be a swiss army knife, able to tackle anything, and their ship designs reflect this. Medium powers are more likely to be Regional powers, so can focus on theissues effecting them regionally, ignoring the problems of other theatres as not relevent(i.e the modern Japanese Navy focusing on the Chinese in the Pacific, but not interested in combating Somali pirates). 3.Range - linked in with the above, a Regional power that only intends playing in its own back yard won't necessarily need the range of a Superpowers ships, which have to worry about Global deployment. 4. A Superpower needs some ships to be the most modern, with all the latest bling kit, something that shouts out "I'm a Superpower, a Superpower I say, don't mess with me." A Major Navy still needs modern, effective and reliable kit, but it doesn't have to be the cutting edge, simply something that says "I can do the job, don't make me show you."
Bravo Zulu. I think a significant requirement for a medium power is a clear communication of needs. The ability to create a consensus in society about what the nation needs a military to do is key to achieving those goals because it is the only way to create a will to achieve them.
The British people have lost control of their country. The people who rule them have very different wishes to the British people about the country and don't seek a consensus on anything. They just rule.
Why? Our loathsome and typically clueless political/bureaucratic establishment classes rarely have the remotest practical notion about any defence-related issues and essential preconditions for them to be realisable. It's still much the same now, a good example being re the four initially projected but never built CVAs real but VERY eventual direct successors, the two QE Class ships. As is illustrated by a a single glance at the current, long-since predictable (yet with tedious inevitability, over half-a-decade-late and now s.t. desperate, artificially confected limitations) plan for partial conversion of the vessels for hybrid STOVL/STOL + CATOBAR operation. PS; as for a credible budget CIWS fit for the QEs, replacement of the current obsolescent (or otherwise insipid) gun armament by a mix of 57mm Bofors mk110 and 30mm DS30M Mark 2 Bushmaster + LMM, along with two new Sea Ceptor AAW missile installations, each of 2x ExLS 3-cell units for a total of 48 quad-packed CAMM missiles (24 fwd/sbd; 24 aft/port), would easily suffice until c2045 mid-life upgrade.
You can't really do this discussion without talking about CdeG. For example. CdeG flies E2, our carriers have Crowsnest. I know which I would prefer to covering my back.
That wasn't the original plan... they looked at five options originally, smallest was 30,000tons, largest 70,000tons... the Queen Elizabeth class are based on the second largest option as once it was decided the Treasury would only pay for two ships, no matter how big they were, they decided crew requirements were not that much of a differential, but survivability & adaptability favoured the larger designs, so that's what they went with... but the 40k option was under consideration only when they hoped to get one for one replacements of the Invincibles & Ocean...
Bring back the Gannet for the QWLS class. Im sure they could make a skijump Stovl modern equiv 😂 Realistically it'll be a drone that replaces the Crowsnest Merlin
@@stephenchappell7512 All four countries are loyal to the same Monarch. All fought together for over 100 years. CANZUK was around before Imperial Preference.
Just watched your video. Very enjoyable, typical governments, we should never have sold Hermes or scrapped Blake and Tiger the Sea king in the Air Group picture is actually lifting a Westland Whirlwind and not a Wessex.
Its worth to compare the French Navy and the Italian Navy, both plagued by bad decisions, both are (mainly) Mediterraen medium powers, but the former pursuing nuclear detterrence and propulsion, the other didn't and probably won't in the foreseeable future. And Turkiye INTENDING to rise into this league, but - unlike the former two - having a very close, very Russian neighbor. Oh, and Israel and Iran too.
They were designed to carry cats but they have not been installed yet. They were looking at the electromagnetic cats of the ford carrier. Stock planes have much reduced weapons load and range.
Another great video. Thanks, Dr Clarke! The sketches of CVA-01 Queen Elizabeth look elegant and quite gorgeous. Had the class been built and maintained, the Argies would never dared invading the Falklands and a lot of lives would have been saved in 1982. But I suppose Ark Royal might also have been a proper deterrent. I really don't care for the aesthetics of HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08). It looks like a floating version of London's National Theatre! Only landlubber politicians could approve such a hideous design. And they put useless women on them! Even maniac Zelensky isn't dumb enough to send West Ukrainian girls into harm's way!
Total BS I'm afraid, British had two Carriers in service and a buttload of SSN's and Argies still invaded. CVA-01 or the Old Ark would have been next to useless down south in 1982 due to the weather conditions on the whole being too bad for conventional carrier ops.
@@richardvernon317 open for discussion If it would have stopped it happening in the first place i grant you. I presume however we can agree however that when the task force was sent, if they were around, the presence of a full size carried with phantoms, buccs would have greatly facilitated maintaining air superiority and strikes against the Argentinian airforce. Not sure about the weather comment. It was just on the tipping point I grant you, but not yet. Otherwise how did the existing harrier CVs operate.
@@richardvernon317 The greater strike radii of CVA-01s airwing would have enabled the Carrier groups to sail around the bad weather whilst not being tied to a a position close to the Falklands to provide support. The Falklands War is still likely to happen if Thatcher gets into power, since the Thatchers did repeatedly try to hand over the islands to the Argentinians prior to the war despite opposition from the islanders, up to and including attempting to strip citizenships from the islanders.
@@Knight6831 Ze lensky ist ein Mon ster, das die Westukraine zerstört und sein Volk zu Sklaven der globalistischen Elite gemacht hat, aber er schickt keine westukrainischen Frauen zum Sterben an die Frontlinie. Die Verräter der politischen Klasse des Vereinigten Königreichs, die ebenfalls der gleichen globalistischen Elite angehören, der Ze lensky gehört, sind der Meinung, dass britische Frauen der gleichen Gefahr ausgesetzt werden sollten wie Männer, obwohl die Natur Frauen seit Anbeginn der Zeit für die Kriegsführung ungeeignet gemacht hat. Ich glaube nicht, dass die Royal Navy einen Sinn hat, wenn sie nicht unsere Küste vor der täglichen Invasion aus Frankreich verteidigt. Können Sie sich vorstellen, dass Churchill oder auch nur ein Labour-Führer vor Blair einer ausländischen Armee von jungen Männern im militärischen Alter freien Zugang zu unserer Küste gewähren würde?
I'm very interested in this area of the UK's naval history and began watching with great anticipation but gave up after 20 minutes. You have a great knowledge of the subject and an interesting story to tell but to be perfectly frank your delivery makes it an extremely tedious and frustrating watch. Please stop trying to speak "off the cuff", it doesn't work and the annoying pauses, pop-swigging and eyebrow-raising are intensely irritating. Start using a script, or some notes even, and stick to it, not only will you be easier to listen to, more concise and easier to follow, you will also be quicker and cover more ground. Please accept this criticism in the spirit it is intended.
I suspect Dr Clarke’s dyslexia would be an inhibition to your idea, but I have to admit I find a depth of knowledge such as Dr Clarke’s, allowing him to speak at such length without notes, is as impressive and entertaining as anything else.
In a book I have about Royal Navy aircraft carriers there is a section devoted to CVA01 and the admiralty hoped that Australia would acquire one to replace HMAS Melbourne. The paragraph says that ship one would be for the RN , the second for the RAN with the last for the RN. I’m sure you have this book.
To confirm the book that I made my comment from. It’s from Rebuilding the Royal Navy by DJ Brown and George Moore. Page 60 top right paragraph.
Once the RAN got the USN DDG Adams class destroyers in 1965 they became very much sold on the superiority of USN ships, missiles and guns. The CVAO1 and TRS2 were rather beyond the RAN/RAAF price range and frequent shoot downs of the Vigilantes RG5 in Vietnam rather demolished the case for low level deep penetration strike bombers for the RAF, RAAF or even USAF.
I personally will always think that if the Malta Class had been built this issue wouldn't have come about
Churchill never really wanted the large carriers of the Malta and Audacious class as he judged the cost of their completion and air groups just too high and unpredictable and their vulnerability as highly visible large targets perfect bullseye's for land based bombers. Churchill mainly opposed the large carriers by bringing forward the intermediate Centaur and Hermes class and constantly delaying the progress of the second Audacious carrier, HMS Ark Royal not completed till 1955
In terms of unrecognised deterrence the Important ship Is Surprisingly Endurance an arctic survey ship of negligible military value but one that Indicates the UK’s Commitment to the Antarctic.
One of the overlooked aspects of a navy as opposed to an air force is it’s very physical presence creates a much greater deterrent effect. In essence, while the air force might have more utility in fighting a war, naval power reduces the chance of actually fighting one. Therefore the cost benefit is dramatically different, and the optimum is a balance where critical mass is maintained by the dreaded inter service interoperability.
The current conflict has shown that the old maxim “Quantity has a quality all of its own”, and hulls are one of the longer leadtime elements of a fighting force.
My personal view is that a combination of NATO and the European Project allowed the politicians to hide behind a smokescreen of mutual defence to make expedient decisions while fudging the consequences. In hindsight, Britain and her allies would have been better to have focussed on being an expeditionary power at the expense of the BAOR.
You stated somewhere that next year will likely be the year of the aircraft carrier. I was recently listening to a video with Trent Hone on his new book about Nimitz and when he talked about Midway, it brought this question to my mind that I hope you will address. What was the Royal Navy's opinion/analysis on the Pacific Carrier battles like Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Philippine Sea? Assuming you saw them in the British archives somewhere during your research. Typically, we only see the American perspective as they were the main combatives. It would be interesting to get another take. The Japanese perspective would be also nice, but given the language barrier and some document destruction at wars end, that might be hard to come by.
One thing we do know is that the aircraft chosen for CVA-01; Phantoms and Buccaneers were chosen by the man likely to have been her first captain Eric Brown
Didn't he retire in the early 70's?
@@stephenchappell7512 Yes after serving in WWII on the very first escort carrier HMS Audacity
@@davidmcintyre8145
I think his last deployment was as base
commander at RNAS Lossiemouth
@@stephenchappell7512 It was and his autobiography Wings on my Sleeve is an excellent read it also gives his own perspective on the CVA 01 debacle
@@davidmcintyre8145
Got it 👍
It's a must read for anyone interested in the most rapidly changing period of naval aviation
Realistically if CVA-01 was to happen at all it would have been between the major expenditures of the Polaris and Trident procurement's roundabout the same timeline we actually got the Invincible's
Would the legacy ship's have lasted that long? Sure
Eagle had emerged from her 64 refit with 20 more years on her clock whereas Hermes served the RN quite comfortably until 1984 (not to mention her extensive foreign service)
What was our ship building slipway and dry dock size limit at this time? How big a ship could we have built and maintained?
the move the aircraft around the island thing reminds me of Furious
I believe it was called an 'Alaska Highway'
6:42 let's be honest, in the mid to late 1960s, probably Marlborough. And that's only because there was already a Churchill class submarine.
It is my understanding that the first of the GW cruisers was suppose to be HMS Duke of Edinburgh. I do agree that it would be unlikely for a Carrier.
For my part I assume the first pair will be QE and PoW, the latter pair may include an Ark Royal but I doublet a Hermes or Eagle as they will overlap with the them in service, so perhaps Formidable or maybe even Argus.
Any clue on any other names intended for the GW Cruisers? Given that the Counties were built in their place I always thought they'd become the counties themselves if they been built.
@@NightHeronProduction No. According to DK Brown it is unlikely that the Ships’ Names Committee had even asked the Queen her opinion yet, and so not only does he not provide the names for the successors it is quite possible their wasn't.
However if we assume they stick to the theme of Royal Dukedoms then the Duke of Kent and Duke of Gloucester are obvious choices. Their are two final options for the last ship however both come with baggage, Duke of York is rather too grand for a cruiser and Duke of Windsor would mean naming a ship after the Duke of Windsor.
Around the 24 minute mark you start getting sound issues (clicks/interference). Its not enough to make the video unviable, but its noticable.
Do you think they will have another ship named HMS Hood considering the USN is building new SSN with names of Arizona etc?
@@Knight6831
We still got a 'Repulse' though
and now a 'Prince of Wales'
The RN post WWI seems to have had the terrible luck of designing excellent ships or at least decent ones for the price tag but has been cursed with politicians not willing spend the money to buy them or at least very many of them.
Not sure you can criticise British Cold War era governments for being unwilling to spend on Defence. It was around 10% of GDP in the 1950s, 7% in the 1960s and 5% in the 1970s, a much greater proportion of the national economy being devoted to defence than at any other point in peacetime apart from 1938-39.
The real question is what is sacrificed to pay for and crew these ships. Some of this is at least ameliorated by the fact that some Fleet Air Arm Phantoms and Buccaneers were diverted to the RAF, who then promptly used them for Maritime Support in the GIUK gap. This at least means that the aircraft, aircrews and maintainence personnel were already paid for.
@@forcea1454 1951-64 governments were awful, as bad as the one today. A lot of money was wasted and project management in defence was terrible. Government totally lied about equipment costs and capabilities.
In the 1950s the British politicians and treasury favoured using the shipyards with slips capable of building large cruisers and carriers to build large oceangoing trans Atlantic and commonwealth passenger ships and cruise liners which often required equally powerful steam turbines as new aircraft carriers, the original QE2 and Canberra that were used in the Falkkands were the last of many fast steam ocean liners built for the Atlantic and Commonwealth trade. In the 1960s the priority of Labour white heat industrial revolution was building civilian air liners and nuclear power plants rather than warships or high speed railways. The main opponents of building new aircraft carriers were the Treasury and MOD. Treasury demanded strict tonnage limits on all new warships until the late 1970s and 3 Invincible class were approved on a strictly enforced 16,000 light tonnage base which was met only by fitting lightweight scantlings, fittings and furniture. The actual RN budget would have allowed for two new 35,000 ton carriers to be ordered in 1955 and 2 more in say 1965 but Treasury was determined no more real aircraft carriers would be ordered and would not even allow the initial politically approved engines and systems for CVAO1 to proceed in 1963-5.
@@forcea1454
Yes Eagle's projected FG1's were
diverted straight into RAF service
as were her Buccaneer MK2's upon
her forced retirement
Eagle had emerged from her 64 refit
with 20 more years on the clock
which ended up being only 8 before
being mothballed
Very good video, with a lot of good points about having a sane and productive defense and naval policy. Some of this discussion reminds of the issues with the defense policy of the New Republic in Star Wars. For a mid-size power I would say that cost of construction and operation is the biggest factor, as to have a constant capability at or ready for sea, you need at least three ships. That means if you are a Brazil or Indonesia and you want a carrier capability, then a warship like the Italian landing helicopter dock Trieste makes a lot of sense.
Great comparison QE vs CVA. Thank you.
Though got to say it, it's a Whirlwind under the Sea King, not a Wessex. And also Gannet ESM 6 would also have been in the airgroup until the Hawker p139 that was initially meant to replace it. They then moved to Gannet AEW7 with a mini AN/APS 91 (Hawkeye A radar).
frigate, mixed up my notes... what is annoying is I used the same picture in the 824 squadron correctly - I wonder if I put the wrong picture in the slide... ah well you are the first to notice, thank you for paying attention.
The Gannet ECM 6 aircraft I didn't include purely because of speculation about their power supplies(there only ever 9 converted to the standard) and whether they could have be utilisd for the upgraded electronics needed even to cover the transition, a friend of my dads who worked on them had always felt strongly they would not have been and I couldn't find enough written sources either way, as their deployments on carriers had been getting less and less constant. So my assumtion was pretty much that there would be capability gap until a new aircraft or pod provided for the duty.
The AEW 7 was never actually built, it was to use a FMICW radar system, which does look outwardly similar to the Hawkeye radar, but the Anglo-American relationship at the time meant that surface simiarity was it. Sadly, as honestly I think some of the developments within it were both interesting, but needed more money than the British government were prepared to spend at the time to properly round out. Interestingly enough though the AEW 7 actually outlasted the Hawker Siddeley P.139B in development time terms, the mostly Blackburn Aircraft design team working on that finding themselves hunting a new project in 1964; CVA-01 was of course cancelled in 1966.
All together some interesting history
The Question: Consideration Superpower v Medium Power. I'm thinking about this in the modern context rather than the historical one.
1. (as you mentioned) Crew Nombers, but whats the reason for this. To my mind its not just cost (although that is a factor), its the fact that (assuming you are a volunteer service not a conscript one) crew are a scarce resource. If you can economise on crew numbers, fewer crew per ship means you can man more ships 9and/or allow the crew some tours of shore duty - being on a condstant stream of deployment - deployment - deployment kills crew retention.
2. Task. The USN NEEDS to be a swiss army knife, able to tackle anything, and their ship designs reflect this. Medium powers are more likely to be Regional powers, so can focus on theissues effecting them regionally, ignoring the problems of other theatres as not relevent(i.e the modern Japanese Navy focusing on the Chinese in the Pacific, but not interested in combating Somali pirates).
3.Range - linked in with the above, a Regional power that only intends playing in its own back yard won't necessarily need the range of a Superpowers ships, which have to worry about Global deployment.
4. A Superpower needs some ships to be the most modern, with all the latest bling kit, something that shouts out "I'm a Superpower, a Superpower I say, don't mess with me." A Major Navy still needs modern, effective and reliable kit, but it doesn't have to be the cutting edge, simply something that says "I can do the job, don't make me show you."
Thank you, very enjoyable!
Something weird happend to the sound at 24 min. I am listening to this 7 sept
Ah xsplit & youtube, such a fun combo
Bravo Zulu. I think a significant requirement for a medium power is a clear communication of needs. The ability to create a consensus in society about what the nation needs a military to do is key to achieving those goals because it is the only way to create a will to achieve them.
The British people have lost control of their country. The people who rule them have very different wishes to the British people about the country and don't seek a consensus on anything. They just rule.
Why? Our loathsome and typically clueless political/bureaucratic establishment classes rarely have the remotest practical notion about any defence-related issues and essential preconditions for them to be realisable. It's still much the same now, a good example being re the four initially projected but never built CVAs real but VERY eventual direct successors, the two QE Class ships.
As is illustrated by a a single glance at the current, long-since predictable (yet with tedious inevitability, over half-a-decade-late and now s.t. desperate, artificially confected limitations) plan for partial conversion of the vessels for hybrid STOVL/STOL + CATOBAR operation.
PS; as for a credible budget CIWS fit for the QEs, replacement of the current obsolescent (or otherwise insipid) gun armament by a mix of 57mm Bofors mk110 and 30mm DS30M Mark 2 Bushmaster + LMM, along with two new Sea Ceptor AAW missile installations, each of 2x ExLS 3-cell units for a total of 48 quad-packed CAMM missiles (24 fwd/sbd; 24 aft/port), would easily suffice until c2045 mid-life upgrade.
BZ Doc Alex, I'll concider the question and drop another comment later.
You can't really do this discussion without talking about CdeG. For example. CdeG flies E2, our carriers have Crowsnest. I know which I would prefer to covering my back.
Do French CVs have five reverse gears, like their tanks?
@@MartinMcAvoy >yawn
What is your opinion about the original plan for CVF being 40,000 tons instead of it ballooning to 65,000 tons.
That wasn't the original plan... they looked at five options originally, smallest was 30,000tons, largest 70,000tons... the Queen Elizabeth class are based on the second largest option as once it was decided the Treasury would only pay for two ships, no matter how big they were, they decided crew requirements were not that much of a differential, but survivability & adaptability favoured the larger designs, so that's what they went with... but the 40k option was under consideration only when they hoped to get one for one replacements of the Invincibles & Ocean...
Bring back the Gannet for the QWLS class. Im sure they could make a skijump Stovl modern equiv 😂 Realistically it'll be a drone that replaces the Crowsnest Merlin
Re the QEs cruising speed, at least as part of a CBG, c15kts won't be far away.
CANZUK should have operated four conventional supercarriers from Malta class to CVA-01 to Queen Elizabeth.
CANZUK is not a thing now or then
@@stephenchappell7512
All four countries are loyal to the same Monarch. All fought together for over 100 years. CANZUK was around before Imperial Preference.
Just watched your video. Very enjoyable, typical governments, we should never have sold Hermes or scrapped Blake and Tiger the Sea king in the Air Group picture is actually lifting a Westland Whirlwind and not a Wessex.
Its worth to compare the French Navy and the Italian Navy, both plagued by bad decisions, both are (mainly) Mediterraen medium powers, but the former pursuing nuclear detterrence and propulsion, the other didn't and probably won't in the foreseeable future.
And Turkiye INTENDING to rise into this league, but - unlike the former two - having a very close, very Russian neighbor. Oh, and Israel and Iran too.
Thanks for the Video. Bravo Zulu.
I wish the Queen Elizabeth class carriers had catapults.
@@Knight6831 For capability and power projection I think the cost is worth it but opinions yeah.
They were designed to carry cats but they have not been installed yet. They were looking at the electromagnetic cats of the ford carrier. Stock planes have much reduced weapons load and range.
@@Knight6831 the ski jump helps but it’s not the same as cat
Another great video. Thanks, Dr Clarke! The sketches of CVA-01 Queen Elizabeth look elegant and quite gorgeous. Had the class been built and maintained, the Argies would never dared invading the Falklands and a lot of lives would have been saved in 1982. But I suppose Ark Royal might also have been a proper deterrent. I really don't care for the aesthetics of HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08). It looks like a floating version of London's National Theatre! Only landlubber politicians could approve such a hideous design. And they put useless women on them! Even maniac Zelensky isn't dumb enough to send West Ukrainian girls into harm's way!
The loonies are out in the last line 🤣
Total BS I'm afraid, British had two Carriers in service and a buttload of SSN's and Argies still invaded. CVA-01 or the Old Ark would have been next to useless down south in 1982 due to the weather conditions on the whole being too bad for conventional carrier ops.
@@richardvernon317 open for discussion If it would have stopped it happening in the first place i grant you.
I presume however we can agree however that when the task force was sent, if they were around, the presence of a full size carried with phantoms, buccs would have greatly facilitated maintaining air superiority and strikes against the Argentinian airforce.
Not sure about the weather comment. It was just on the tipping point I grant you, but not yet. Otherwise how did the existing harrier CVs operate.
@@richardvernon317 The greater strike radii of CVA-01s airwing would have enabled the Carrier groups to sail around the bad weather whilst not being tied to a a position close to the Falklands to provide support.
The Falklands War is still likely to happen if Thatcher gets into power, since the Thatchers did repeatedly try to hand over the islands to the Argentinians prior to the war despite opposition from the islanders, up to and including attempting to strip citizenships from the islanders.
@@Knight6831 Ze lensky ist ein Mon ster, das die Westukraine zerstört und sein Volk zu Sklaven der globalistischen Elite gemacht hat, aber er schickt keine westukrainischen Frauen zum Sterben an die Frontlinie. Die Verräter der politischen Klasse des Vereinigten Königreichs, die ebenfalls der gleichen globalistischen Elite angehören, der Ze lensky gehört, sind der Meinung, dass britische Frauen der gleichen Gefahr ausgesetzt werden sollten wie Männer, obwohl die Natur Frauen seit Anbeginn der Zeit für die Kriegsführung ungeeignet gemacht hat. Ich glaube nicht, dass die Royal Navy einen Sinn hat, wenn sie nicht unsere Küste vor der täglichen Invasion aus Frankreich verteidigt. Können Sie sich vorstellen, dass Churchill oder auch nur ein Labour-Führer vor Blair einer ausländischen Armee von jungen Männern im militärischen Alter freien Zugang zu unserer Küste gewähren würde?
I'm very interested in this area of the UK's naval history and began watching with great anticipation but gave up after 20 minutes. You have a great knowledge of the subject and an interesting story to tell but to be perfectly frank your delivery makes it an extremely tedious and frustrating watch. Please stop trying to speak "off the cuff", it doesn't work and the annoying pauses, pop-swigging and eyebrow-raising are intensely irritating. Start using a script, or some notes even, and stick to it, not only will you be easier to listen to, more concise and easier to follow, you will also be quicker and cover more ground. Please accept this criticism in the spirit it is intended.
I suspect Dr Clarke’s dyslexia would be an inhibition to your idea, but I have to admit I find a depth of knowledge such as Dr Clarke’s, allowing him to speak at such length without notes, is as impressive and entertaining as anything else.
Interesting content poor delivery. You Improve the way you communicate stop pausing so much it's a switch off.!