Joint franco-british aircraft carrier project

[ran 0]

Guardian's article

why diesel ? wwwwwwhhhhhhhyyyyy ??

well ... it's nice to see some cooperation though .....

This may be a step toward European forces.

[Badgerboy 0]

Didn't the French nuclear carrier have major problems with its reactor? Perhaps conventional propulsion is simply a cheaper and faster way of completing the ships?

[ran 0]

yes . we've had a few probs . but hell, it was our first try

[Lucretius 0]

if the damn goverment did not keep cutting back on millitary spending we would not have to really resort to this... or is it just more "european integration"?

We should sell some more of our crap to Isreal and use the money made from that to help fund the carriers

[red oct 2]

are there any pictures of what the new ships might look like?

[Dauragon 0]

why diesel ? wwwwwwhhhhhhhyyyyy ??

french are diesel fanatics,

because its cheap?

[munger 25]

are there any pictures of what the new ships might look like?

I would like to see some too. I'll try Googling it...

[red oct 2]

why diesel ? wwwwwwhhhhhhhyyyyy ??

french are diesel fanatics,

because its cheap?

isn't it also because that not as many of their ships have to sail all around the world as often so a nuclear reactor wouldn't be needed? that and there is the little problem where you would have to w/ time replace the reactor it and find a place to store the nuclear material. i don't think there are many places in europe where you could store nuclear material nor would people be to thrilled about their neighborhood having to become a nuclear waste dump.

[denoir 0]

i don't think there are many places in europe where you could store nuclear material nor would people be to thrilled about their neighborhood having to become a nuclear waste dump.

That's no problem, we have a lot of dumping places in the pacific

Quote[/b] ]i always figured it was also because they don't have to sail all around the world as often so a nuclear reactor wouldn't be needed.

The thing is that it does indeed have to sail all around the world. Both the French and the British troops are deployed around various parts of the world on a regular basis. France's newest carrier (Charles de Gaulle) in service is nuclear. Also France has nuclear powered submarines.

So the decision to go with disel is odd indeed.

[hellfish6 7]

Here is an article from Strategypage.com

Quote[/b] ]NAVAL AVIATION: Anglo-French Carrier Program Announced

February 16, 2004: France has confirmed that it is not going to build a second nuclear powered aircraft carrier, but will instead join with Britain to build a conventionally powered carrier. As the problems with France's nuclear powered carrier "Charles de Gaulle" piled up, it was rumored that France would not build a second ship of this class. Last year Britain announced that it was building two carriers, of roughly the same size and capabilities as the "Charles de Gaulle". Immediately there were rumors that France would dump its plans to build another "Charles de Gaulle" and instead join with Britain to build three carriers. That's what is being done. The three new carriers will not be identical, but the two British and one French ships will be very similar, and identical in many respects. Much of the machinery and electronic equipment will be identical. A French firm, Thales, has won the contract to design the new class of carriers. The two British carriers are expected to be in service by 2015. The French pitched the deal as an effort to build greater naval cooperation between the British and French fleets. The problems with the "Charles de Gaulle" were not mentioned. It was noted that 2004 marks the hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Entente Cordiale, a treaty of friendship between France and Britain that ended over a thousand years of hostility.

Here is a link to some information about the British carriers: click me

[hellfish6 7]

This might be of interest to y'all too:

(also from strategypage.com)

Quote[/b] ]February 13, 2004: Publications in China report that China is building, with the assistance of Russia, three aircraft carriers. Called Project 9935, the ships are probably based on a Russian Nevskoye Design Bureau design contracted for in 1994. An article published in China says that the final design decision was made by Hudong Shipyard, Shanghai in 1999. The ship is thought to be a modified Russian Admiral Ghorshkov carrier “to Chinese specifications.†The ship is scaled up only about 6 percent.

Significant changes are the mounting of all point defenses and associated fire control systems, the mounting of a steam catapult on the angled flight deck, and modification/updating of the electronic suite. The Chinese article says that formal authorization to build a carrier was made in 1992. This apparently refers to legislation passed in that year which authorized “two aircraft carriers.†Three covered graving docks were constructed at Shangahi and eyewitness reports indicate all three now have carriers building in them. Another source says the lead ship launched in 2002 and was expected to complete about 2004. The Chinese article says the lead ship should “commission†in 2006 and that a “battle group†should form “by 2010.†These appear to be very conservative dates. Evidence strongly suggests that these ships are intended to be a technical surprise in several senses, including initial operating dates. The 2006 date is more realistic for the first carrier group. All three ships could be operational with battle groups by 2008-2010. The Chinese article says that maintenance facilities have been built at Shanghai, Dailan and Zhejiang. From this, and PLAN (Peoples Liberation Army Navy) organization, it appears each fleet will be allocated a single carrier.

The operational concept of these aircraft carriers differs from that of other nations. Aircraft carriers are not seen as the “core†of the fleet. Rather submarines are. Instead, carriers have a primary fleet defense mission: to provide air and anti-submarine defense for surface forces, especially amphibious flotillas and logistic convoys. There is a significant secondary offensive strike mission, indicated by the mounting of SSMs and also inherent in the ability of fighter-bombers to carry offensive weapons. However, it appears that the carriers are not intended for distant power projection operations in the sense US CVNs are. Designed to operate near PLAN bases, they are to be offshore aviation platforms for a mainly land based naval air force. This may mean the aviation staying power of these ships is much greater than would normally be expected if they operated dedicated air groups. Further, in the absence of the need to buy aircraft and train crews for them, the unit cost of the carriers is lower than otherwise would be the case, while the cost of lost maintenance assets is also less, should a carrier be sunk. This is an imaginative, but very reasonable, application of naval air power to the essentially regional requirements of the PLAN. However, the Chinese air force (PLAAF) is buying carrier capable aircraft and training pilots to use them.

[toadeater 0]

An article published in China says that the final design decision was made by Hudong Shipyard, Shanghai in 1999. The ship is thought to be a modified Russian Admiral Ghorshkov carrier “to Chinese specifications.â€

The Admiral Ghorshkov is a ship, not a class, and was sold to India, they mean the Kiev-class. globalsecurity.org lists the Kiev and the Minsk as two carriers sold to China. A third one "sold as scrap" to South Korea was later also bought by China instead of being scrapped. I have heard claims that one of these is being built into a giant floating casino, but this is probably a cover story by China?

Where did China hide three carriers anyway? Or is China refurbishing *three* carriers not newsworthy to the mainstream media?

Kiev Class Carriers

India's Refurbishment of the Admiral Ghorshkov

[red oct 2]

i don't think there are many places in europe where you could store nuclear material nor would people be to thrilled about their neighborhood having to become a nuclear waste dump.

That's no problem, we have a lot of dumping places in the pacific

naw, can't do that. wouldn't be good for all the fishes. especially since most of whats on our dinner plates probaly comes from the pacific. the North Pole would be the better choice, nobody would never notice  

anyway did a search and found this:

http://frn.beedall.com/cvf1-1.htm

basicly its more about what hellfish posted.

[havocsquad 0]

The U.S. isn't too concerned yet about China getting an aircraft carrier.  The Chinese don't have enough experience in using such an asset, and I'm sure a Virgina class or Improved LA class SSN will always be shadowing it when it goes out to sea.  Mk48 ADCAP's are proven very effective in sinking carriers if war breaks out between the U.S. and China.  If the subs don't or can't finish it off, the F/A-18E's from a U.S. CVN will with Harpoons.

Any major guided missile ship, carrier, or nuclear submarine of the PLAN will be vigilantly shadowed every time it goes out to sea.  The Chinese know it and the world knows that the U.S. keeps track of the PLAN's main ships/subs.  

The U.S. protect its allies by this in the region and the PRC is able to project the proper political and military force near it's borders to maintain its political position in Southeast Asia, both sides currently benifit with the current status quo.

[GoOB 0]

i don't think there are many places in europe where you could store nuclear material nor would people be to thrilled about their neighborhood having to become a nuclear waste dump.

There is one fairly large Nuclear waste storage here in Sweden. Not far from where I live really, it is quite safe actually. And plans are being arranged by SKB for more permananet storage as CLAB is only intended to store the waste 40-50 years after useage... All they need to do is find a place to build it, wich has taken almost five years now I think.

They are indeed planning to build the permanent storage fairly close to highly populated areas since the project as is now is deemed to be failiure proof and completly safe. Enough of these OT bits, interested can read more on SKB's homepage (English and Swedish)

And this carrier project seems very interesting indeed! But why does France and Britain see the need for aircraft carriers?

NOTE: CLAB takes about five thousand metric tonnes of nuclear waste it's beginning to fill up though

[EiZei 0]

Theres plenty of uninhabited land in some northern eu countries..

[hellfish6 7]

An article published in China says that the final design decision was made by Hudong Shipyard, Shanghai in 1999. The ship is thought to be a modified Russian Admiral Ghorshkov carrier “to Chinese specifications.â€

The Admiral Ghorshkov is a ship, not a class, and was sold to India, they mean the Kiev-class. globalsecurity.org lists the Kiev and the Minsk as two carriers sold to China. A third one "sold as scrap" to South Korea was later also bought by China instead of being scrapped. I have heard claims that one of these is being built into a giant floating casino, but this is probably a cover story by China?

Where did China hide three carriers anyway? Or is China refurbishing *three* carriers not newsworthy to the mainstream media?

Kiev Class Carriers

India's Refurbishment of the Admiral Ghorshkov

I think the article answers all your questions. The carriers are based on the latest version of the Kiev-class, the Admiral Gorshkov (which is usually described as a seperate class from the standard Kievs). The Chinese have been building them in covered shipyards, so satellites couldn't see them.

As for the Kievs, two were scrapped in China, as I understand it, one (the Minsk) converted into a casino in China and the Kuznetsov's sister, the Vargyag, was also scrapped in China after being abandoned mid-contsruction.

[havocsquad 0]

You can hide them in covered dry docks but you can't hide them while at sea.  If those carriers were a big enough threat like the North Korean nuke issue, I'm sure the U.S. would be raising all sorts of public diplomatic hell about it.  The Chinese know that their skills at using and operating carriers is deplorabily bad, and the PLAN don't have the skilled personnel and training necessary to put a full airwing of carrier based aircraft ready for deployment right now.  They'd be better off making hoards of profits on Taiwan and U.S. citizens stupid enough to gamble their money away.  This way if the enemy, oops I mean gambling customers quit going to the Mao Zedong moving carrier casino, it can always be rapidly reweaponized and loaded with aircraft for combat use in crushing the corrupt capitalist swine.

It's a different issue about India, they've had plenty of Carrier operations experience using the Virat CV and despite the smaller size of their naval force and no locally created nuclear powered warship, the Indian Navy is vastly more experienced and more well equipped in many aspects of naval warfare than the PLAN.

Out in the middle of the Indian Ocean with both having the same number of MiG-29 carrier capable aircraft and strike capable aircraft.  J-8's for the PLAN and Harrier's for the Indian Navy.   I'd put down good gambling money that the Indian navy would come out as decisive winner in a neutral naval engagement setting without homeland aircraft support.

The Indian surface fleet is also better designed than most of the PLA Frigates and Destroyers currently in service.  Although that is slowly changing with the PLAN's experiments in stealth ship design and in radar systems.

[Koolkid101 0]

sorta ot Could Bill Gates build a small army, navy, airforce with all his money?

[havocsquad 0]

Sorry bro, defense isn't measured mainly in billions of dollars, it's done in Trillions of dollars.  1 Billion dollars will barely pay the electric bill for the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).  

Nope, hell just three large naval ships would cost at least a total of 1 to 1.5 billion dollars.  (2 Destroyers, 1 Crusier or light Carrier)  That's buying cheap too, Bill Gates would be dirt poor quicker than you can say poor man if he invested sigificant money into all areas of warfare (land, sea, and air.)  That doesn't even include regular maintance and personnel, and replacement parts.

Not many individuals have the real finances to fund a mult-area warfare by just themselves. It takes the power of a government to come up with that much funds and the financing to cover the costs to use it.