Why did we build a huge Aircraft carrier?

Deadman

It's not like you to be silly. 

This argument will forever go in circles. I think it just depends what side of the fence you're on.

ICBM

Deadman said:

It's not like you to be silly. 

This argument will forever go in circles. I think it just depends what side of the fence you're on.

Seriously, can you answer the question - when has our nuclear capability *actually* deterred a real war? It's arguable that it might have in the early years of the Cold War, but not since. It simply doesn't address the potential threats of the modern world.

And secondly, when has any US-led military intervention we've been part of (especially in the Middle East) ever done anything other than either exacerbate existing problems or create new ones? I will grant Kosovo as a possible exception, but even that is debatable.

We really do not need this "capability to project force around the world" or "punch above our weight on the world stage" as seem to be the catch phrases, and the sooner we accept that and stop wasting money on the ability to do so, the better. It causes us serious harm, let alone no good.

Aircraft carriers and nuclear missile submarines are vanity projects we simply don't need.

VimFuego

I think it's a fundamental disconnect between those who think we should be projecting our opinion onto others and those who think we shouldn't.
I've yet to see a convincing argument, other than the shark repellent fallacy, that says we should have these things. I still maintain that the money could be better spent elsewhere, even within the defence budget, on things that could actually work to defend us.

Deadman

It goes without saying I wish nobody else had them and we could all live in peace without the threat of aggression. 

Until then it's my opinion that they're needed and we're very lucky that we can sit here and debate it.

ICBM

VimFuego said:

I think it's a fundamental disconnect between those who think we should be projecting our opinion onto others and those who think we shouldn't.
I've yet to see a convincing argument, other than the shark repellent fallacy, that says we should have these things. I still maintain that the money could be better spent elsewhere, even within the defence budget, on things that could actually work to defend us.

Exactly. I'm in favour of defence spending, on the conditions that it's exclusively or at least overwhelmingly on British-made equipment, and that it's on things which are actually useful for the practical defence of this country against threats we now face and are likely to in the future.

Many of our top military don't even want the carriers and Trident.

fandango

Roland said:

axisus said:

Considering that the main threats these days seem likely to be Terrorism and cyber stuff, why have we built the world's biggest and most hittable target?

The life of these things is easily 20 years, often more, and political situations can change far faster. Who would have forseen the Yugoslav conflict? Remember that the Falklands episode arose, in part, because the Argentines saw the decommissioning of an Antarctic survey ship as a reduction in Britain’s interest in the area. A carrier also has a role in disaster support activities. Then we get onto the subject of manufacturing and support jobs, and continuing ship design capability.

Remember too that military reasoning does not get discussed in public. There was fuss in the press about the cost of sending one Vulcan to drop a stick of small bombs across Port Stanley airfield. The Argentines filled the holes within hours ... and then moved all of their fast jets back to the mainland. We were expecting to lose at least one of our carriers to air attack, and the Vulcan sortie reduced that risk significantly.

The Argies were caught sleeping and shat themselves silly over that one single Vulcan.

Yes it wasn’t an aircraft carrier, but having such equipment sorts the men from the boys.

Stuff like aircraft carriers (and missiles) are also what keeps the likes of Kim Jong-whathisface of North Korea, in North Korea. 

And if someone pipes up and says they don’t like war, and that we shouldn’t be encouraging such, then to them, understand this: war is direct result of defending oneself, one’s neighbours, one’s possessions, and most importantly, one’s way of life, from someone else’s empire building/land grab.

prowla

VimFuego said:

well, the falklands were the result of  series of failures by thatcher. It was well known that the junta had been making sabre rattling threats in the year leading up to the invasion, yet the govt went out of it's way to send signals that some could read (and the junta did read) that we weren't serious about defending the falklands. It would have been much simpler to forestall the invasion, but intelligence was misinterpreted or ignored. The result was 250 odd dead young men. 

I think you need to blame the Argentinian Junta, who were a nasty bunch of torturing murdering swines; regardless of what signals may or may not have been there, they are the ones who took up arms.

They are also the ones who are responsible for the maiming and death of all those young men, of both sides.

VimFuego

prowla said:

VimFuego said:

well, the falklands were the result of  series of failures by thatcher. It was well known that the junta had been making sabre rattling threats in the year leading up to the invasion, yet the govt went out of it's way to send signals that some could read (and the junta did read) that we weren't serious about defending the falklands. It would have been much simpler to forestall the invasion, but intelligence was misinterpreted or ignored. The result was 250 odd dead young men. 

I think you need to blame the Argentinian Junta, who were a nasty bunch of torturing murdering swines; regardless of what signals may or may not have been there, they are the ones who took up arms.

They are also the ones who are responsible for the maiming and death of all those young men, of both sides.

clearly yes, however you are taking my post out of context, which is related to the defence/retaking of the falklands.

VimFuego

fandango said:

Roland said:

axisus said:

Considering that the main threats these days seem likely to be Terrorism and cyber stuff, why have we built the world's biggest and most hittable target?

The life of these things is easily 20 years, often more, and political situations can change far faster. Who would have forseen the Yugoslav conflict? Remember that the Falklands episode arose, in part, because the Argentines saw the decommissioning of an Antarctic survey ship as a reduction in Britain’s interest in the area. A carrier also has a role in disaster support activities. Then we get onto the subject of manufacturing and support jobs, and continuing ship design capability.

Remember too that military reasoning does not get discussed in public. There was fuss in the press about the cost of sending one Vulcan to drop a stick of small bombs across Port Stanley airfield. The Argentines filled the holes within hours ... and then moved all of their fast jets back to the mainland. We were expecting to lose at least one of our carriers to air attack, and the Vulcan sortie reduced that risk significantly.

The Argies were caught sleeping and shat themselves silly over that one single Vulcan.

Yes it wasn’t an aircraft carrier, but having such equipment sorts the men from the boys.

Stuff like aircraft carriers (and missiles) are also what keeps the likes of Kim Jong-whathisface of North Korea, in North Korea. 

And if someone pipes up and says they don’t like war, and that we shouldn’t be encouraging such, then to them, understand this: war is direct result of defending oneself, one’s neighbours, one’s possessions, and most importantly, one’s way of life, from someone else’s empire building/land grab.

lol, except no one here has.

Deadman

I shouldn't have got involved in this debate as I'm completely biased having spent 22 years in the military as well as having been to the Falklands, lived with the people there and been part of military exercises. Not to mention my involvement in the Gulf war and everything else up until 2010.

I'm out.

axisus

Deadman said:

It's not like you to be silly. 

This argument will forever go in circles. I think it just depends what side of the fence you're on.

But what if the fence is a mobius strip?

Fretwired

axisus said:

Considering that the main threats these days seem likely to be Terrorism and cyber stuff, why have we built the world's biggest and most hittable target? Seems like some kind of ludicrously expensive vanity project. By all means correct me on my naive view, I'm perfectly happy to be educationalized.

We actually built two and whilst they're big they are still dwarfed by the US carriers.

Why did we build them? To keep Gordon Brown's constituents in jobs. A complete and utter waste of money - we don't have enough ships to defend them so when they are going to be used the Yanks have to protect them.

But I have a plan ... a cunning plan.

Paint them pink and turn them into floating casinos, strip clubs and brothels for the super rich. We'd probably clear the national debt in ten years. Having a flight deck would be very useful.

VimFuego

think of all them private jets they could land on it. The oil princes will love it (erm, allegedly, I'm sure, being good muslims, they don't whore, gamble and partake of intoxicants) 

TimmyO

As this went tinfoil-mode in post #2 I've skipped most of the intervening posts so apologies if this is repeating someone else but:

Lots of reasons. 

Primarily a carrier is about Force Projection. That means the ability to reach out and touch someone (where 'touch' means rain down ordnance suddenly and overwhelmingly) at a time and place of our choosing. 

Both Gulf Wars would have been almost impossible to achieve without nearby friendly airfields, be they in Turkey, Cyprus, Saudi or wherever. A carrier force drastically increases your options for where you can operate, and therefore who you can fight and/or prevent from fighting.

It's absolutely right to say that a carrier group is a tempting target with lots of kersplosive eggs in one basket - and that's why they operate as such a large force group. 

I think you'd still struggle to spend as LITTLE relative money as a carrier group costs to maintain and also achieve the ability to fight so close to so many borders. 

As for the criticism that we have to operate cooperatively - that's putting the cart before the horse. We operate cooperatively. 

VimFuego

I'd make the argument that it should be difficult for our forces to fight overseas. If we hadn't been able to fight the gulf wars etc, then maybe it would've given the politicians pause for thought. Anything that makes it hard for governments to fight wars of aggression are a good thing IMO.

ICBM

Deadman said:

I shouldn't have got involved in this debate as I'm completely biased having spent 22 years in the military as well as having been to the Falklands, lived with the people there and been part of military exercises. Not to mention my involvement in the Gulf war and everything else up until 2010.

I'm out.

In which case I'm even more surprised that you hold the views you do, having been at the sharp end of the results.

I respect your right not to answer that .

VimFuego said:

I'd make the argument that it should be difficult for our forces to fight overseas. If we hadn't been able to fight the gulf wars etc, then maybe it would've given the politicians pause for thought. Anything that makes it hard for governments to fight wars of aggression are a good thing IMO.

Exactly.

Myranda

axisus said:

Considering that the main threats these days seem likely to be Terrorism and cyber stuff, why have we built the world's biggest and most hittable target? Seems like some kind of ludicrously expensive vanity project. By all means correct me on my naive view, I'm perfectly happy to be educationalized.

Actuallly naval assets play a big part in cyber warfare and even terrorism ...

Suspected terror training camp sets up in country X... so you sail up to a few hundred miles off shore and you can launch recon drones, precision strikes, and AWACs type planes. 

Cyber-warfare wise... Aircraft carrier bridges have some of the most sophisticated signals gathering equipment in the world and it's on a floating platform you can move to 70% of the worlds surface - combined with the air capability you have a huge cyber impact - if you can helicopter in a team with a couple of laptops of a fibre-tap you can reach-out-and-touch-someone even when they think they're air-gapped from the rest of the world (the US did exactly that against Iran on at least one occasion, putting false data through their AA network so that a flight of planes could swan across the boarder like they were invited).

Oh... and carriers don't go anywhere without a frigate or two, maybe a destroyer and a sub... aside from the ship to ship and ship to land latoral combat abilities of such a group there will be a combined radar picture of the surrounding area that should make it very difficult in deed to exploit the big target nature of the big aircraft carrier.

Look at the US - even when fighting militaries that were approaching similar levels of sophistication (Iraq before its entire military was demolished, Vietnam while it was being supplied by China and Russia, Korea ...) they have had some of the worlds largest boats as carriers for years... last one sunk (not including one that was deliberately used as target practice and then scuttled) was in 1945 off the coast of Iwo Jima and they have 10 massive nimitz/roosevelt/regan class carriers 332.8 m long compared to 280 m Queen Elizabeth classes we built.

Now... could something be built that is cheaper, faster and smaller than an Aircraft Carrier? Yes. Without doubt £6.2 billion for two boats was a big budget (though less than others spend on such things the Goerge H W Bush cost $6.2 billion on its own) ... would a host of small fast boats be able to launch 4 types of helicopter, an AWACs and fighter/bombers, would it be able to operate for months at a time with little or no re-supply? 

Aside from agressive actions or military engagements - it's also a great centre of operations for disaster relief - sail off to the coast of an island nation that just had a huge earthquake and you can use the chinooks and Merlins to air-lift in supplies, food, engineers and equipment, medics, hospital tents etc... relief density on a big carrier has to be better than most delivery methods - and a big frieghter would have to be manually unloaded, what if the docks were damaged.

Depending on how the carriers get used during their service will determine if they were a good investment or a posturing waste, but they have *potential* to be really useful in many ways. Political will may be the deciding factor here - that and a steady stream of disasters to help with, or wars to fight... 

darthed1981

ICBM said:

darthed1981 said:

The second, complementary objective is what we bring to the table as (lets face it) a junior partner in the Pax Americana.  This is the role we have played in Kosovo, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Syria etc.  Britain to pull it's weight (and indeed exceed it) in this role, has certain exceptional capabilities for a country of our size.  One of these has always been to take on a role otherwise requiring the deployment of a US Carrier Battle Group.

...

We aren't alone, we are part of NATO and if the current stand-off with Russia gets worse, or if god forbid there was a war in the Far East, we might be glad of being able to send a big well-defended warship with stealth aircraft to take part in the USA's next conflict, rather than having to deploy some troops on the ground.

Edited your quote for clarity.

This in a nutshell is everything that we *don’t* need or want in our “defence” capability - the ability to act as America’s  stooge in ill-advised military interference around the world.

It has caused immense damage to our national interest, international reputation, security and economy, not to mention destabilising whole regions and leading to millions of deaths and a refugee crisis, and wasting the lives and health of British service personnel.

The sooner we stop doing this the better, and losing the capability would be the most effective way of ensuring it.

Well yes, though the political cost of that would be losing our seat at the "top table" - arguably we are doing so anyway, but it is the last thing any government wants.

I am not sure I agree with your last point, it's a bit moot.  The implied reason we shouldn't have the capability is because it encourages our politicians to use it, but it is also the politicians who decide what capabilities to buy... so you can't expect them to enforce good behaviour on themselves...

Also, we do a LOT of good humanitarian work from our landing platforms and carriers, an awful lot.

ICBM

darthed1981 said:

Also, we do a LOT of good humanitarian work from our landing platforms and carriers, an awful lot.

That's absolutely true, but we only need helicopter carriers for that, not full-size aircraft carriers with strike aircraft.

While it is true that until we get the planes, these will indeed just be oversized, overpriced helicopter carriers... that's missing the point .

darthed1981

fandango said:

And if someone pipes up and says they don’t like war, and that we shouldn’t be encouraging such, then to them, understand this: war is direct result of defending oneself, one’s neighbours, one’s possessions, and most importantly, one’s way of life, from someone else’s empire building/land grab.

War certainly can be that, there are so many layers to it though and the human cost so horrific you have to justify, check, re-justify, re-analyse and still be critical of your choices.

For example, the USA had what they considered a damn good reason for their involvement in the Vietnam War.  It can be justified on the terms you specify above, but would you support it now, with 40 years of hindsight?