From Aviation Week's Ares Blog

 

Ships, I See No Ships

Posted by Douglas Barrie at 10/26/2009 7:09 AM CDT

 

Picture Credit Royal Navy/Crown Copyright

 

With consummate ill-timing U.S. policy makers efforts to sustain a second-engine for the F-35 are met with claims that London is ready to ditch equipping its planned second carrier with the aircraft.

 

The British government has been lobbying Washington to support the GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine

 

Britain’s “Sunday Times” claims the Royal Navy has “agreed to sacrifice” one of its two 65,000 ton aircraft carriers, instead saying the navy would use the ship only as a helicopter carrier. For good measure the story speculates only about 50 of the F-35 will be bought, to save on cost.

 

With, however, around up to 18-months between now and the conclusion of a Strategic Defense Review – and the small issue of a general election in-between – agreeing to sacrifice anything this early appears at the very least dubious.

 

When it gets to the meat of the debate during the actual SDR what will the navy have left in the locker to give up.

 

The first of the two carriers is now anticipated to enter service in 2016-17, with the second to follow around a year later, though this timescale remains elastic.

 

While the UK has signaled it will purchase up to 138 of the F-35 to meet its Joint Combat Aircraft requirement, there were always indications that the type would be bought in at least two batches. Whitehall officials had previously said an initial order for 80 aircraft could be anticipated.

 

Given budgetary pressures cutting the initial number to 50 appears credible – it would provide enough aircraft to equip the first carrier with a strike wing, and also for training needs.

 

The notion of having the second 65,000-ton carrier and using it only for helicopters seems far less so.

From Defense Aerospace

 

Royal Navy Surrenders One New Aircraft Carrier In Budget Battle (excerpt)

(Source: The Sunday Times; published Oct. 25, 2009)

 

The Royal Navy has agreed to sacrifice one of its two new aircraft carriers to save about £8.2 billion from the defence budget.

 

The admirals, who have battled for a decade to secure the two new 65,000-ton carriers, have been forced to back down because of the soaring cost of the American-produced Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft due to fly off them.

 

The move is a blow to the navy’s prestige and has come on the heels of Gordon Brown’s announcement last month that he was axing one of the navy’s four Trident nuclear deterrent submarines.

 

It is too late for the navy to renege on contracts to build the two carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, due to go into service in 2016, and the Prince of Wales, due to follow in 2018. Although the second carrier will be built, it will be used as an amphibious commando ship, with only helicopters on board instead of JSF aircraft.

 

The move will leave the navy without a carrier when the Queen Elizabeth goes into refit, leaving open the possibility that it might have to borrow one from the French navy. In a meeting with Brown last year, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, had suggested that refits of French and British aircraft carriers should be co-ordinated.

 

The decision to have only one new aircraft carrier will cut the number of JSFs to be flown by RAF squadrons from 138 to about 50, saving £7.6 billion. At current prices, the aircraft will cost close to £90m each, but this could rise to more than £100m.

 

Using the Prince of Wales as a commando ship will save a further £600m, the amount that would have been needed to replace the amphibious landing ship Ocean, which is due to go out of service in 2018. (end of excerpt)

From Sunday Times, 25 October 2009

 

Navy surrenders one new aircraft carrier in budget battle

Michael Smith

 

The Royal Navy has agreed to sacrifice one of its two new aircraft carriers to save about £8.2 billion from the defence budget.

 

The admirals, who have battled for a decade to secure the two new 65,000-ton carriers, have been forced to back down because of the soaring cost of the American-produced Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft due to fly off them.

 

The move is a blow to the navy’s prestige and has come on the heels of Gordon Brown’s announcement last month that he was axing one of the navy’s four Trident nuclear deterrent submarines.

 

It is too late for the navy to renege on contracts to build the two carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, due to go into service in 2016, and the Prince of Wales, due to follow in 2018. Although the second carrier will be built, it will be used as an amphibious commando ship, with only helicopters on board instead of JSF aircraft.

 

The move will leave the navy without a carrier when the Queen Elizabeth goes into refit, leaving open the possibility that it might have to borrow one from the French navy. In a meeting with Brown last year, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, had suggested that refits of French and British aircraft carriers should be co-ordinated.

 

The decision to have only one new aircraft carrier will cut the number of JSFs to be flown by RAF squadrons from 138 to about 50, saving £7.6 billion. At current prices, the aircraft will cost close to £90m each, but this could rise to more than £100m.

 

Using the Prince of Wales as a commando ship will save a further £600m, the amount that would have been needed to replace the amphibious landing ship Ocean, which is due to go out of service in 2018.

 

The decision to cut the number of JSF aircraft has been agreed by senior navy and air force commanders in discussions preparing for the strategic defence review.

 

Both Labour and the Conservatives are committed to conducting a strategic defence review after the general election, which must be held by the late spring.

 

A senior Royal Navy officer said: “We always knew that the real cost of the carrier project is the JSF fleet to go on them. It would cost us at least £12 billion if we bought all the aircraft we originally asked for. We are waking up to the fact that all those planes are unaffordable. More than half of the £5 billion contracts to build the two new carriers have been contracted, so it is too late to get out of building the ships. This way at least we are covered when Ocean goes out of service.”

 

Since both aircraft carriers will still be built, there are unlikely to be job losses at the Rosyth ship yards, close to Brown’s constituency. The JSF aircraft are being built in Fort Worth, Texas, with the involvement of BAE Systems.

 

The RAF, which had been due to replace its Tornado aircraft with the JSF, will now equip all its frontline squadrons with Eurofighter aircraft instead.

 

The Conservatives said any decision to axe a carrier would be “absolutely unacceptable” and typical of the government’s “chaotic, inconsistent and incompetent defence procurement policy”.

 

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said the move exposed the government’s claim that it wanted a completely independent strategic defence review. “The government is saying it is fully committed to the carriers while at the same time forcing them to be cut,” he said.

 

“It is confusing for the navy, it is confusing for industry and it is completely inconsistent with the whole concept of running an independent defence review.”

 

The Ministry of Defence said Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, remained 100% committed to the carriers but “financial circumstances mean some difficult decisions will have to be taken to prioritise our forces’ efforts in Afghanistan”.

 

The Royal Navy currently has three smaller 20,600-ton carriers: Illustrious, Ark Royal and Invincible. Illustrious is on a visit to Liverpool. Invincible has already been mothballed.

From Guardian, 25 October 2009

 

Navy sacrifices fast-jet aircraft carrier amid £1bn budget overrun

 

Defence chiefs aim to save £7bn on fewer joint strike fighters, with second in pair of carriers taking only drones and helicopters

 

* Richard Norton-Taylor

* guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 October 2009 21.44 GMT

 

Defence chiefs are considering scrapping plans to have two large aircraft carriers equipped with fast jets, a move that could save billions of pounds, Whitehall officials said today.

 

The idea would be to have just one carrier holding US-made joint strike fighters, with the second, more basic, ship, being used only as a platform for helicopters and possibly unmanned drones equipped with missiles and cameras.

 

The two proposed carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, due to go into service in 2016, and the Prince of Wales, to follow in 2018, are already running £1bn over budget. The original estimated cost was £3.9bn.

 

Consideration is being given to cutting the number of joint strike fighters to be flown from the carriers, from 138 to about 50, saving more than £7bn.

 

The head of the Royal Navy last month conceded that the decision to build two large aircraft carriers could be overturned. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope said that though contracts had been signed to build the carriers, next year's defence review could cause those plans to change.

 

Stanhope said that the navy was bracing itself for cuts. "Alongside the other two services we will have to make some difficult decisions," he said, adding that a balance was needed between the number of ships the nation could afford and the range of capabilities they offered.

 

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, appeared to cast doubt on the Tories' commitment to build the carriers in September, saying he did not know what the "break clauses" were in the contracts.

 

Army chiefs in particular doubt the relevance of large aircraft carriers equipped with fast jets when the main enemy for the foreseeable future is likely to consist of insurgent groups.

 

MPs said this month that the number of aircrew being trained to land on carriers had been reduced. The Commons public accounts committee said a shortage of equipment had affected training, with the RAF having to "hibernate" some skills by cutting air crew trained for specific tasks, such as Harrier fighter pilots practising landing at night on carriers.

 

Also this month a report criticised the Ministry of Defence's spending on weapons and equipment, saying the MoD's weapons procurement was "unaffordable on any likely projection of future budgets". That report, by the former ministerial adviser Bernard Gray, drew attention to failings in the air defence programme, noting that delays meant the UK could not have carried out a Falklands-style mission over the past 20 years without risking significant casualties and the costs of acquiring adequate equipment at short notice, "or the embarrassment of not fighting at all". The Gray report said: "Our blushes have in part been spared by the fact that we have not generally been called upon in recent years to fight the kind of campaigns that have required the services of some of our most expensive and delayed weapons systems."

 

The new proposal to downgrade one carrier, modelling it on the existing commando and helicopter-carrying HMS Ocean, could be included in the government's defence review green paper in the spring. The MoD said today that no final decisions had been made.

Any real decision on this wouldn't be taking place under this Government, that's for sure.