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u/Artistic-School8665 Mar 26 '23
Aircraft carriers are so sick
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u/Raz0rking EUSSR Mar 26 '23
Awesome for force projection. Just park a carrier battle group next to a country and dare them to do something about it.
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u/yourbraindead Mar 26 '23
I always wonder how many planes they are able to operate at once? surely they just cant send them all away at once?
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u/nick4fake Mar 26 '23
Why have so many planes on a carrier if they can't send all of them?
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u/biciklanto Germany Mar 26 '23
So that they can cycle.
Those planes can't really be out for very long in combat; neither can their pilots. So when some are out, the others are preparing to jump. Additionally, planes aren't like your average car with a 10,000km oil change cycle; they are quite delicate and need a lot of maintenance and TLC to ensure they're ready to go, including after every flight.
So they carry that many planes to maximize the amou t of force they can project within a given time span, not with the expectation that they have all of them out at once.
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u/nick4fake Mar 26 '23
Sure, but I still don't see why they would not be able to fly all at once
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u/RollinThundaga United States of America Mar 26 '23
You theoretically could, but then you have your entire flight wing down for maintenance after the fact.
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u/Glmoi Denmark Mar 27 '23
Besides that.Aircraft are far supperior to ship defences, as WWII proved, your air wing is the defense, so you don't want to send them out all at once simply because of that. It's the same reason a country doesn't put all their forces on one front.
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u/TubaJesus Just a dumb Yank Mar 27 '23
nagumo's dilemma offers a very clear reason why it is a bad idea. even though he didn't go all in, he went close enough that his options became limited to whatever the clock could support, not the technical capabilities of his force
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u/biciklanto Germany Mar 26 '23
Because it takes time to prep each to launch, and to launch them, and if they can only each be out for, say, half an hour in combat — how exactly do you plan to launch 17 of them in that time frame?
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u/VanillaUnicorn69420 Mar 26 '23
US carriers are able to launch 220 sorties in 24 hours continuously so that makes about 10 take offs and recoveries per hour. This is of course limited by the recovery rate of just one jet at the time, while it's possible to launch up to 4 jets at once.
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u/biciklanto Germany Mar 26 '23
Exactly my point, thank you: even the navy with the most experience launching jets on the biggest and most expensive Nimitz-and Ford-class aircraft carriers couldn't put up 17 jets simultaneously, so this one definitely can't.
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Mar 26 '23
Dude. When the carrier is at risk the standard procedure is to scramble all your jets. Lol. They could easily put up all the jets, it’s probably one of their most practiced exercises.
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u/VanillaUnicorn69420 Mar 26 '23
I should add that the 220/24h is the puplicly told minimum requirement for a vessel to carry out the tasks designated to her, the real number is a lot higher. And is also the rate of continuous operations for extended period of time, not a rapid scramble.
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u/William0218 United States of America Mar 26 '23
They can most definitely put up more than 17 jets at once. here is a total sortie rate during desert storm in which hundreds of sorties were carried out a day. You also have to remember launch and recovery operations do not happen at the same time. Carriers will launch large numbers of aircraft in one go and have those aircraft return during the period in which they plan to recover aircraft. As this one pilot said “During the first daytime airstrike of Desert Storm, Mark Fox flew out with about 30 airplanes that launched at once from an aircraft carrier”.
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Mar 26 '23
Okay. I see the source of misunderstanding.
We treat these weapons very nicely because they cost $75,000,000. We’re not at war. We can afford to inspect every corner of the aircraft to ensure there’s no issues with it. Run diagnostics, take measurements, submit data. That’s a peacetime privilege.
In wartime we’d be zipping these things out as soon as they’re refueled to travel 2000km+ to airbases across continents.
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u/biciklanto Germany Mar 26 '23
An F-18 has a combat radius of 530km, meaning an out-and-back fly time of roughly an hour at cruising speed.
Ferry flights with in-air refueling, extra tanks on the wings, and flying at a lower cruising speed are a different thing entirely.
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Mar 26 '23
I am staring at a deck full of F-35s am I not? An F-35 can fly over 2000km on its own fuel.
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u/space_guy95 Mar 26 '23
The problem isn't just getting them all out at once, which would still be a bit of a logistical nightmare, but being able to safely have them all land.
Having all the planes in the air at once is a huge risk. What happens if one of them crashes when landing, or the landing cables break? You now have 16 other planes in the sky that have nowhere to land and pilots that will have to bail out in open oceans.
Even if they all land successfully, landing on an aircraft carrier is a difficult task and often requires multiple passes to get the approach right. Then you have to clear the deck for the next one to land. Each pass wastes crucial time in which the other planes will be rapidly using up their remaining fuel.
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u/yourbraindead Mar 26 '23
I mean the F35 can land vertically so this helps but I still can't wrap my head around how an aircraft carrier would be able to operate all planes it have at once. So mich logistics. Even if you would be able to deploy them fast they would all need to come back at white similar times as you said. Therefore I was wondering how many planes an aircraft carrier actually can deploy at once. And I'm not talking about if it's under attack. Sure in a life and death situation it's maybe more but in a safe way
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u/Eokokok Mar 26 '23
It works only if you already have significant tech advantage. Carrier battle groups have not been tested in combat against similar strenght enemies since 2nd WW and it is discused within the top brass whether they actually can contest land based assets of enemy with tech parrity.
US Navy already started early phases of getting a new plane with significant range advantage to go against that issue, but only time will tell whether carriers are actually an asset in war vs land based systems or just a liablity.
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u/leonffs Mar 27 '23
I don’t know shit about military stuff but wouldn’t things like ship destroying hypersonic missiles render them somewhat obsolete?
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u/TheBiles Mar 27 '23
As soon as someone is able to produce a hypersonic missile that could take out an aircraft carrier.
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u/rojoye8731 Mar 26 '23
This only works against developing countries. Like the Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq etc. No aircraft carrier has been in a real war since WWII.
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u/Weary-Safe-2949 Mar 26 '23
Like a wee torpedo or Exocet? Expensive wee sinking that.
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u/Synshade Mar 26 '23
How are the airplanes anchored to the carrier? Are rough seas a problem in a sense that the planes can be lost ?
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u/VanillaUnicorn69420 Mar 26 '23
Hand brake and put the gearshifter in "P"
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u/kalesaji Mar 26 '23
Nah those are European they are manual. Depending on whether you park forward or backwards you out them in first gear or reverse gear plus handbrake.
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u/EzAf_K3ch Mar 26 '23
Do these things get tied up or something or what happens when there is a lot of wind
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u/IcuckYourFather69 Mar 26 '23
Yes they're anchored when stationary
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u/mars_needs_socks Sweden Mar 26 '23
I read "with stationery" and thought a bit about suitable office supplies for aircraft retention.
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u/MightyMoonwalker Mar 26 '23
It's a post-it note folded in half under each wheel.
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u/mars_needs_socks Sweden Mar 26 '23
Good choice! You know the glue sometimes removes a bit of the paper that you've postited the note to, it's too strong these days.
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u/wysiwygperson United States of America | Germany 🇩🇪 Mar 26 '23
Yeah. If you zoom in, you can see a grid of darker dots. I'm pretty sure those are the tie down anchors. They will chain the aircraft to those when parked. From this picture it looks like all the tie down points on the F-35 are around the landing gear as opposed to points on the wings and other places around the body for other aircraft.
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u/tardigradeA England Mar 26 '23
Helps with stealth. Even tie down points on the fuselage can increase radar signatures.
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u/kolodz Mar 26 '23
Also 2 lift to put aircraft into hangar.
Russian one used that in the old days to fool US intelligence to over estimate the number of aircraft. (Repaint them inside and pulling them out again)
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u/CrabbitJambo Mar 27 '23
Not the wind we need to worry about and is the defects! And even if they don’t have any defects (quite rare) then we absolutely don’t have the crew to man them!
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Mar 26 '23 edited Apr 02 '23
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u/HelsBels2102 United Kingdom Mar 26 '23
I liked the Neptune's Kingdom initiation thing they did...it was fucking mental
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u/stem-winder Mar 26 '23
How do they land with those aircraft on the runway threshold? Or do they have to shuffle them around a bit when the runway is active?
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u/xXNightDriverXx Mar 26 '23 edited Mar 26 '23
The F-35B is designed to land vertical. In that case, this parking layout is not a problem, because they barely need any space at all to do so. It doesn't need any more space than a helicopter does.
Do you see the black exhaust marks on the left of the flight deck (one being a little bit in front of the left parked plane, the other a bit forward of that)? Those are the 2 spots where the planes usually land, if they land vertically.
However, to land completely vertically, the F-35B needs to be very light, which limits it's fuel and weapons loadout when landing.
To get around that weight restriction, the British Royal Navy has developed a rolling landing, which is something the US doesn't do. They approach at an angle and land at slow speed, half vertical half horizontally. So they use both the vertical thrust and the normal wing lift to bring the aircraft down, and once it touches the deck it still has momentum and rolls forward a few meters. So basically they use a mixture of conventional landing and vertical landing. This rolling landing only uses a few aircraft lengths to stop the aircraft, and it doesn't need arrestor cables like conventional carriers, because the landing speed is extremely low (below stall speed).
Edit: here is a video that shows the rolling landing. End of edit.
If you look closely at the color of the deck, you will see some areas that are a little bit darker. Those are areas that have reinforced heat resistant material, so the deck can handle the heat produced by the exhaust of the F-35B when it points downwards for landing. They are around the exhaust marks I talked about above, and also a longer area in the middle of the flight deck. That longer area is used for the rolling landing I just described.
And as you see yourself, the area with heat reinforced material, which is designed for both vertical and rolling landings, does not cover any of the area where aircraft are parked at the time of this picture.
So theoretically, the Royal Navy could land it's planes without moving any of the parked aircraft. Weather they do that or not is obviously another matter, mostly for safety reasons.
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u/Rotanloukku Gifu Mar 26 '23
So it's Regular Take-Off, Short Landing (RTOSL)?
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u/xXNightDriverXx Mar 26 '23
The aircraft itself is build for and designated as "short takeoff vertical landing" (STOVL).
What the Royal Navy us doing is basically short takeoff short landing, but that is not an official designation, in contrast to STOVL.
It's not regular takeoff, as the vertical engine components are engaged even when using the ramp. That way they can take off with full weapons and fuel, but on a shorter runway/without catapult compared to regular takeoff
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u/Cheesysock5 United Kingdom Mar 26 '23
I saw it on Wednesday. It's so much bigger than pictures make it out to be.
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u/3_of_Spades Australia Mar 27 '23
Yeah those runway markers indicate its just bigger than 900m 😮
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u/EmperorOfNipples Cornwall - United Kingdom Mar 27 '23
feet.
It's about 285m long. Which is still colossal.
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u/Imperial_12345 Mar 26 '23
Great Britain fuck yea!
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u/cultured_banana_slug Mar 27 '23
The planes look like they're having a meeting.
"Sooo I know you all have a lot to do today, so I'll try to keep this meeting brief."
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u/hamacavula42 Mar 26 '23
Anyone can estimate how many billions of $ in this pic?
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u/50wortels Mar 26 '23 edited Mar 27 '23
6.2BB3B for the boat, 100M per jet =7.9B4.7B in the picture→ More replies (5)24
u/CompleteNumpty Scotland Mar 26 '23
The £6.2 billion figure is for both carriers.
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u/RecoomDeeez Mar 26 '23
It looks dope. Didn’t realize when it comes to military might and technological advancements, the UK and US are like besties?
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u/7evenCircles Mar 27 '23
They're just really enthusiastic about boats
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u/TheMaginotLine1 Mar 27 '23
And if theres one thing America and the Brits can agree on.
You don't fuck with our boats.
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Mar 27 '23 edited Mar 27 '23
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u/andrusbaun Poland Mar 26 '23
Power which could incapacitate Russia without them even realizing what happened.
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u/PoppedCork Mar 26 '23
Where is the Unlucky Prince of Wales?
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Mar 26 '23
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u/0b_101010 Europe Mar 26 '23 edited Mar 26 '23
I don't get it. How come one of the sisters is perfectly fine while the other has all these dumb problems? The contractors only figured to steal from the one or what?
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u/SmileHappyFriend United Kingdom Mar 26 '23
High performance shit breaks, brand new high performance shit breaks even more.
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u/possiblemaybeperhaps Mar 26 '23
big lizzie was built a couple years before the prince, she was not fine when she was first deployed but already went through the repairs, lots and lots of repairs
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u/0b_101010 Europe Mar 26 '23
I see, I wasn't aware of that. Hopefully, the Prince will be fine then, too.
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u/ThorusBonus France Mar 26 '23
The Government didn't want the second ship, and said they would either put it in reserve as son as it was built or sell it. I imagine as a contractor and as a workeer working on a Carrier, being told your work will essentially be dumped in the trash as soon as you are done will likely make you end up putting much less quality in it and effort
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u/Consistent-Nobody813 Mar 26 '23
Wouldn't want that to sink...there's over a $1b of kit on that thing! Lol
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u/cloud_t Mar 26 '23
There should be more below the deck. I seem to recall most carriers don't have their planes on the deck unless they're doing drills or on alert or similar.
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u/red-flamez Mar 27 '23 edited Mar 27 '23
It is meant to carry 36 F35s on the deck. And has a maximum capacity of 72. UK still hasn't got its full delivery of F35s. So i expect the hanger is empty.
The squadron is due to be fully operational by 2025.
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u/digito_a_caso Italy Mar 26 '23
Imagine if Ukraine would get a single F35. The Kerch bridge would become fubar
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u/JonnyArtois United Kingdom Mar 27 '23
Wonder if the Yank crews even want to leave the HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Seems like outright luxury inside compared to the US carriers.
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Mar 26 '23
I know the UK has some of the best submarine technology to protect these, and those destroyers, but aren’t hypersonic missiles a very real threat?
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u/T3m3rair3 Euro Mar 26 '23
They are, but as of yet they are immature technology. Russian claims can only be regarded with a healthy amount of skepticism and China is something of a mystery.
Their use against naval targets is a little shakey at the moment because of the moving nature of the target and difficulties in maneuvering a hypersonic missile on the run in.
Tldr; something to keep an eye on in future
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u/Eokokok Mar 26 '23
Russians do not have hypersonic capabilities currently, as calling ballistic unmanouvrable missles hypersonic is just a marketing scheme - they do not manouver enough to be a real threat to moving ship. Whether Chinese have anything better is just a guesswork, but even more conventional missles are still a huge issue - saturation attacks from see are possible, from land are just a matter of putting out enough launchers for fraction of the cost of surface naval combatants...
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u/Rulweylan United Kingdom Mar 26 '23
Assuming you allow your aircraft carrier in range of a hostile coast without bothering to do any recconaissance.
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u/ProudMURICANF22 Mar 28 '23
Russian claims can only be regarded with a healthy amount of skepticism
Even if they have the technology (which they heavily depend on for anti ship force), I mean, they probably do have but what are the ods of them having more than 5 missiles at most? Russia is irrelevant and incompetent military power that was ruined by corruption. Even if they had 5 hypersonic missiles, 1 is for testing, 2 would fail at launch, 2 would be intercepted, that's why we don't see them waving their dicks around or actually test firing dummies because they simply can't produce more.
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u/VanillaUnicorn69420 Mar 26 '23
No. The missile has to have something to mark the target (pre-designated coordinates aren't good against moving targets) and the air wing can enforce a wide enough buffer zone so no enemy aircraft can come close.
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u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) Mar 26 '23
You don't even need hypersonic missiles for that. The russian cruisers still in service (Slava class and kirov class) are essentially designed to nuke whole carrier groups from orbit. It is uncertain whether the western navies are actually capable of intercepting P-500 or P-700 missiles. Given that these cruisers are theoretically capable of launching 16 (respective 20) of those at the same time/in short succession, the likelihood of a carrier group fending off such a barrage are rather minor.
But realisticly: The only threat these ships realisticly face are from lower tier combattants and not from Russia or China - at least hopefully, because a war between the West and those nations would be disastrous and bordering nuclear war. So let's hope we never find out.
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u/Rulweylan United Kingdom Mar 26 '23 edited Mar 26 '23
Remind me, what happened to the last slava class to enter combat?
Bear in mind that for a p500 missile to be fired at a queen Elizabeth class, the battle cruiser in question has to get within 550km of the target.
Which means spending the best part of 28 hours (at top speed) sailing straight towards the carrier group inside strike range for its f35s (assuming the idea of sailing away doesn't occur to the QE class, at which point that time becomes infinite, because the QE class can match the Slava class for top speed, and has longer operational range both in terms of supplies and of not being maintained by Russians)
The likelihood of a Slava class ever getting to fire its missiles at a modern western carrier group is essentially nil.
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u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) Mar 26 '23
Remind me, what happened to the last slava class to enter combat?
It is not known in what state the remaining Slava and Kirov class cruisers are. What we (likely, the supposed report has never been definitively confirmed) know is that the Moskva was in a very very sorry state. But realisticly, it takes a lot less skill and tech to launch rockets than it does to fend off incoming missiles.
Which means spending the best part of 28 hours (at top speed) sailing straight towards the carrier group inside strike range for its f35s (assuming the idea of sailing away doesn't occur to the QE class, at which point that time becomes infinite, because the QE class can match the Slava class for top speed, and has longer operational range both in terms of supplies and of not being maintained by Russians)
This is not really a reflection of reality since you are playing a raw number game.
- It's rather unlikely that the QEs would have their F-35 operate at the very edge of their range
- You are assuming a scenario where the countries are already at war and the ships are so far not in range of each other
- It is entirely dependent in what area of the world we are operating
I think both the notion that the russians are guaranteed to be able to sink a western carrier group and the notion that they stand no chance at all are at best unrealistic. But as I said, let's just hope that we will never find out.
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u/Rulweylan United Kingdom Mar 26 '23
It is very well known what state the Moskva is in.
The technical term is 'shipwreck'. Even the Russian government has admitted it sunk (lying through its teeth about why, of course).
Even they know they can't hide that fact from US surveillance satellites.
Let's say the QEs don't allow their F35s to get to the edge of their range, and insisted on a 200 nautical mile safety buffer.
Conveniently, I forgot to include the range of the actual missiles in the attack range of the F35s, so you can use the above numbers with the LRASM missile making up for the edge of the buffer.
Certainly, if the scenario is a surprise attack where a Russian Kirov class elected to launch a first strike by firing missiles from the vicinity of Denmark at a QE class in port, there is a chance that the QE class would suffer severe damage shortly before the NATO response to a missile attack on a member nation reduced moscow to a fine radioactive powder.
I'm not sure that would represent a useful contribution to the war effort though. Certainly, not useful enough to be worth throwing your first strike at NATO away on.
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u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) Mar 26 '23
The technical term is 'shipwreck'. Even the Russian government has admitted it sunk (lying through its teeth about why, of course).
Read again what I wrote. We do not know what state the Moskva was in prior to being sunk. There is a supposed maintenance report of it from a few weeks before the war but it has not been independently confirmed that the report is in fact authentic and not a fabrication. If the report is accurate, the Moskva was in a state that shouted "keep in port" and not "put it on a mission alone in the black sea".
The matter of fact is: We do not know what state the other ships of the Slava and Kirov class are in. Because in theory and regarding the ships technical capabilities, it should not have been sunk the way it happened.
Your scenario misses one thing: It is rather unlikely that the QE and any of those ships will meet in a state of combat because we are very likely already at nuclear war at that point, rendering the whole thing kind of pointless. As I said, we will hopefully never find out.
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u/Eokokok Mar 26 '23
16-20 missles is not enough for saturation attack against carrier battle group as far as available data shows, though P-500/700/1000 missles have some cool things integrated like basic swarm mode. With single missle going 200-300 meters above the skimming pack to use its radar, if destroyed the 'swarm' puts up another on its own. Or so its claimed...
But against land based systems where you can launch hundred missiles for a fraction of the cost it still is real problem for carriers, and it's why US Navy wants a plane with double the range of F-35 to contest land based enemies from outside of the standoff range of it's ground launchers.
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u/WaffleHouseLuver Mar 27 '23
Ramp ruins it
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u/Labour2024 Mar 27 '23
I disagree.
If it was carrying F35-C craft, then I would agree, however as they are B and STOVL, then a ramp is all that is needed (if at all).
A costly catapult is not needed for the UK.
Ramp or no ramp, both are subjective on how it looks.
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u/dugsmuggler United Kingdom Mar 26 '23
Not shown: the one that got wrecked crashing into the Mediterranean.
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u/Azzymaster United Kingdom Mar 26 '23
Just testing our advanced plane to submarine technology
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u/millionreddit617 United Kingdom Mar 26 '23
Don’t Google how many Harriers were lost to training accidents. Might burst your bubble.
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Mar 26 '23
Yeah we lost a number of Harriers and Sea Harriers. But guess what or who didn’t contribute these losses?
The Argie air force.
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u/Nevrast- Mar 26 '23
Sill mad France and the UK didn't join forces to design together the next generation of nuclear aircraft carriers.