For You ATL Navy Buffs.
- Thread starter Fellatio Nelson
- Start date
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
I don't see how this is possible. Britain is too small to maintain the military power necessary to even remotely counterbalance the USA. Also, I think you're approaching this with a lack of historical perspective, and I don't mean that as an insult. I'm just old and grew up during the Cold War.
Old as Methuselah! Well I agree it's not very realistic. The context of the cold war was important in the planners decision. In the standoff, the Royal Navy's main task was submarine hunting in the north Atlantic. You don't need super-carriers for that.
Riain
Banned
In the immediate postwar period the RN had a chioce between defence against the SU fleet and deterrence against it. The RN faslely assumed that the Sovs were building hundreds of TypeXXI clones, rather than the improved standard WW2 subs that they did build. Instead of structuring the RN around carriers and amphibs to threaten the sub bases they chose to build anti-sub escorts to aviod a repeat of the Uboat 'Happy Times' in the first weeks of WW3. In the mid 50s it became apparent that deterrence and proxy and limited wars were the way the Cold War was to be fought, so they reshuffled RN resources to favour carriers and amphib ships. But just as this move got underway Suez erupted, which gave the idea of deterrence and limited war a knock as it was being born. So while in the late 50s early 60s the RN was very powerful the replacement for these war built ships were not forthcoming in the mid 60s. A POD could have been the immediate postwar decision, which would have changed RN force structure, or post Suez where the Cold War paradigm was confirmed and perhaps Britain saw the need to give itself some distance from the USA.
Agreed. Although it's quite nice to think of 5 large carriers being built by 1980, but it's always interesting to see what the Brass Hats want and what eventually transpires decades later.
The RN, and Canadian Navy, for that matter, were concerned almost exclusively with anti-submarine warfare from the 1960s onwards (although obviously the RN had other non-NATO commitments).
In a WW3, alongside the RAF, USN subs and other NATO assets - this would have involved clearing a path for the US carrier groups so they could get at Soviet ships and air bases, in addition to the obvious convoy protection.
Hence why the RN was allowed to become dangerously reliant on aircover provided by the RAF from the UK, and by the USN/USAF further out to sea, during the late 1970s/early 1980s (and why the Nott Review of 1981 called for axing most of the carriers and amphibious force, in favour of nuclear submarines and modern ASW frigates).
The only other commitment to NATO the RN had was keeping the approaches clear of mines and reinforcing Norway in the event of WW3.
Riain
Banned
There was idle talk of 5 carriers, but the RAF attacked the RN case by quoting the cost of 2 CVAs plus 4 Bristols, so that's all I assume the RN could have afforded in the long run. However I do like to think the RN would have also got 3 or so combined command cruiser-LPHs as well as the pair of CVAs. I think the political shift which sees these ships built could alo see a different British take on alliances and economic alignments. Perhaps Britian would concentrate on policies where it was an equal or larger partner, such as the Commonwealth and EEC, rather than as a junior adjunct to the USA.
Of course the money could have been found, but those carriers where mooted when it was presupposed that the RN would still remain a big player at the forefront of superpower naval powers, and prior to the economic crises of the 1960s-80s.
We always get away with the very least we need and make up the rest on the hoof. Same was true in the Crimea, at the start of WW1, upon entering WW2, the Falklands etc.
I'm always amazed at the idea of the RAF providing RN air cover though (which I first learned from Sharkey Ward's Sea Harrier over the Falklands). The very idea (at least as he puts it) is absurd, and the reality (Vulcans flying halfway around the world to almost completely miss a small dirt airstrip, which we can't even do anymore) would be laughable if it wasn't so expensive :s
I'm fully aware of the cold war mindset of sub-hunting and relying on the USN to give us air cover... Buit I don't see how Britain could ever trust itself to the USN, especially after Suez.
I'm fully aware of the cold war mindset of sub-hunting and relying on the USN to give us air cover... Buit I don't see how Britain could ever trust itself to the USN, especially after Suez.
I think it would have been great if Britain had been able to build and maintain two large convential flat-tops. Imagine "Red Storm Rising" or "The Third World War: August 4, 1985" with a major British carrier task force. I think having it in the Med or Indian Ocean would be the coolest, but the name Queen Elizabeth sounds like a cruise ship. Pick better names and I'm all for letting the Limeys play with the big toys!
Benjamin
Benjamin
No, but it's a lot cheaper than building carrriers and crewing them, even if it does severely curtail you ability to conduct operations outside WW3.
The USN would've been very reliant on the RN if it wanted to be able to use its carriers against targets in the USSR - to destroy their anti-shipping aircraft and assist the war in Europe - without in all likelihood being sunk en route by scores of Soviet submarines who had concentrated in likely operating areas; assuming, of course, that Soviet missiles hadn't already destroyed most of them in mid-Ocean.
Yes. We Brits must have natural rhythm.
Thanks Benjamin, I'm glad you'd approve if the UK built some bigger aircraft carriers.
As for decent warship names: something along the lines of Devastation and Revenge etc.?
Only the RN submarine still have decent names.
MrP
Banned
P Minor and I did name a major RN warship HMS Imperial Grandiosity in Englishman. She was a motorboat, IIRC, but because of defence cutbacks she was one of the most powerful ships in the RN.
We do our political satire with a brush so big there's no room for subtlety.
Here is an artists impression of the proposed "Queen Elizabeth" class carriers from this sitehttp://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server.php?show=nav.2226
Here is a comparison with some existing carriers
and here are two alternative flight deck layouts for operation with STOVL on the top picture and catapult launch with arrested recovery landing on the bottom picture.
if these were built it might require a POD before when the Carriers are built, maybe something along the lines of Atlee doesnt get involved in Korea for some reason which makes his economic policies more successful and/or they do a 'white heat of technology and turn the UK into a techno powerhouse like Germany and Japan- except one that still considers itself a great power.
It would be cool if they could build the 5 or 6 as originally planned, that might be a bit much- maybe 3.
the result could be a UK through to today that is a sort of 3rd superpower or maybe half a superpower, still closely allied to US but able to act relativly independantly and with a much better military. In the 90's/2000's those Carriers are replaced by Nuclear powered ones.
is that Britwank, i'm considering doing a TL based on this scenario.
It would be cool if they could build the 5 or 6 as originally planned, that might be a bit much- maybe 3.
the result could be a UK through to today that is a sort of 3rd superpower or maybe half a superpower, still closely allied to US but able to act relativly independantly and with a much better military. In the 90's/2000's those Carriers are replaced by Nuclear powered ones.
is that Britwank, i'm considering doing a TL based on this scenario.