back to article Electric mass-driver catapults to beat Royal Navy cuts?

Hints are emerging that the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers may be equipped with innovative electromagnetic catapults in order to operate cheaper aircraft as part of the ongoing, behind-closed-doors UK defence and security review/cuts process. An F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to the Pukin Dogs of Strike Fighter Squadron ( …

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  1. Ian Ferguson
    Happy

    Or alternatively

    we could save a whole heap of money by not starting unneccesary wars.

    </standard response to Lewis Page articles, which he's probably a bit sick of>

    1. Paul_Murphy

      Thats right

      Because it's always us that starts a war, and if we don't join in then the enemy will just have to sulk.

      We will still need a defence force, and a the navy is by far the most flexible way of providing one.

      ttfn

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    T45

    "That issue is the provision of a carrier airborne-early-warning (AEW) radar aircraft"

    or you could build some air defence destroyers that can take out the threats without waking the fly-boys on the carrier. For arguments sake you could build six and call them Type 45s!

    1. SkippyBing
      FAIL

      You read the bit

      about the Earth being round? Air Defence Pickets are a WW2 tactic that caused the loss of at least 1 T42 in the Falklands as to be as effective as an AEW aircraft the ship has to get much closer to the threat. At £1 Billion a pop T45 is a bit pricey to risk on that sort of venture, plus it's shit at dropping ordinance in Afghanistan which is something the F/A-18 is rather handy at, something like half the close air support there being provided by USN carrier based aircraft.

      A cat and trap carrier and its airgroup is just that much more flexible than a one trick pony T45.

    2. Jason Tan
      Thumb Down

      Special amphibious Type45s with wheels?

      And how exactly will these Type 45s escort a strike force say 300 nautical miles inland?

  3. DaWolf

    let me guess

    US good UK bad?

    1. Lickass McClippers

      Have you...

      ...ever heard Lewis say anything else..??

      1. Dave Bell

        It's Be Fair to Lewis Day

        He's one of the people who had to use the results of the MoD procurement process. Though there were a lot of people who thought the RN, in his time, were rather good at dealing with mines. Which, to be honest, might have been a spin-off from the oil and gas business in the North Sea. Divers, you understand.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      nope

      Nope, think you wil find that the carrier tech used by the US was designed by the british, sadley we are pissing it all away like we always have done

    3. Keith T

      Cheap off shelf good. Expensive custom made job creator white elephants bad.

      I think you are misinterpreting. I think Lewis is saying:

      Cheap off shelf good. Expensive custom made make-work-project white elephants bad.

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
        Pint

        @Kieth T

        Let me try to make that a little shorter for you. I believe that Lewis Page's personal motto is:

        Pragmatism before Pork.

        I happen to agree with the sentiment. Carry on, Lewis!

  4. Desk Jockey
    Thumb Up

    A good article

    Praise given for where it is due. A much more balanced article although you forgot to mention the French Rafael jets which fly off the French carrier Charles de Gaulle. Not as capable as the US equivalents, but the French plane is likely to be more compatible with UK weapons systems as the US are a bit anal about letting people intergrate non-US designed weapons.

    Frigates/destroyers on their own may only be useful enough to host cocktail parties, but they are essential when sending off a carrier. When was the last time you saw a US carrier sailing about without a flotilla of cannon fodder-escort ships? If the planes/helis off the carrier fail to stop an attack, you would be damn glad that you had a few ships handy to save the carrier.

    As for the statement, "Overall savings are never as good to the MOD/Treasury as short term savings" that is all too true...

  5. Disco-Legend-Zeke
    Joke

    Darn Near Any...

    ...ship can launch a drone. The launch constraints are mostly the G-forces the mostly-water controller can endure.

    You could launch a drone with a gun. The fab and assembly tech already exists to build radars, etc. that can withstand explosive acceleration. But Short Electromagnetic Accelerators are the future of the navy, mostly because the acronym is SEA.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And in a time of spending cuts and an overstretched defence budget...

    ...you really need to pour more money into unproven defence technologies. Let's face it, sooner or later BAE are going to get involved and the whole thing will end up running late, and either not working or need to be fixed by the Americans. This is (yet another) defence disaster waiting to happen.

    Has anyone ever really explained what these carriers are for? Because with the rest of the armed services being hollowed out they come across as nothing more than big, impressive bits of ironmongery we can sail around the world in the hope of impressing someone. But will more likely turn out to be impressive bits of ironmongery we can't afford to sail around the world in the hope of impressing someone.

    Surely a fleet of ships like HMS Ocean would be more useful, cheaper and let us throw our toys out of the pram in a major league power sort of way?

    Last week the BBC was reporting the MoD is considering cutting back our helicopter squadrons to make ends meet - you know the helicopters we're short of. And this is *before* anyone has worked out how to pay for the Royal Navy's submersible white elephant. The rate we're going the only military action open to us will be to explode a nuke - whether the provocation was a bijou invasion of Blighty or a kid chucking a brick at a squaddie.

    Seriously, has no one at the MoD worked out they can't have everything they want?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What they're for?

      Consider the European context. Only three European nations have any particularly capable naval force and only two of those three are building carriers, but the European Union is quite keen to be able to project itself around the world akin to the United States (to which it has an institutional inferiority complex).

      ANd so we have a situation where different member states are equipping themselves with what, taken in isolation, seem to be very poor equipment choices. There are anomalies here and there - the UK's insistence on VTOL aircraft is a case of preparing to fight the last war (in naval terms that was the Falklands) but when you consider the actions of the member states under the aegis of the Common Security and Defence Policy it all starts to make a wonderfully worrying sort of sense. Each member state is supplying part of a single European armed force.

      Well, except for France. They're just going their own way as usual.

      So, the argument becomes not "what is the MoD thinking making such bizarre purchasing decisions" but a question of whether we want our naval forces taking orders from the European Defence Agency. In isolation our defence choices appear schizophrenic (for example, the public insistence for so many years that eternally-delayed Future Rapid Effects System would be a replacement for the snatch landrovers in afghanistan - never mind the fact that FRES was a complete *operations system* for fighting a land war in Europe and not merely the name of a vehicle - insistence that delayed the purchase and deployment of Mastiff and rejected the RG-31 and variants for a decade even though it was much better suited to the expected asymmetrical warfare of future conflicts and expanded on lessons for mine defence first learned in what was then Rhodesia) but when considered in a European context (With the MoD's "europe first" purchasing policy that saw us purchasing the Vector coffins on wheels as troop transports in preference to other much more suitable vehicles) it makes much more sense.

      Not complete sense, mind you. For some reason the Army still insists on sending out brownjobs with metal detectors to look for buried IEDs made from plastic.

    2. SkippyBing

      Has anyone ever really explained what these carriers are for?

      They're for launching aircraft off. The clue's in the name. What the aircraft do is up to you but as I say above the USN's carrier based F/A-18s are providing half the close air support in Afghanistan without any of the hassle of securing an airbase in a semi-hostile country.

      Think of it as an airfield you can park anywhere that's wet and you've got the general idea, you can monitor sea lanes, launch an amphibious attack, carry out a non-combatant evacuation, disaster relief etc. etc. all on a much bigger scale than the current dwarf carriers we have now.

      1. Annihilator
        Coat

        @SkippyBing

        "They're for launching aircraft off. The clue's in the name"

        No it's not. Being completely pedantic, the clue in the name would suggest that they're for carrying aircraft, which strictly speaking any vessel large enough and with a sufficient displacement could achieve. You'd be looking for an Aircraft Launcher...

        Much like the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft doesn't launch the Space Shuttle... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Carrier_Aircraft

        I know, I know, I'll get my coat.

      2. Mark 65

        @SkippyBing

        The other issue is that aircraft carriers only work as a launch platform provided you do not need to traverse foreign uncontrolled airspace. In that case you need to get permission which may not always be granted. In the current context in has been achievable due to Turkey being a friendly and Iraq being controlled.

    3. Tim #3

      BAE

      Er, I think you'll find that BAE is actually building large sections of these carriers. Tho wikipedia could be wrong about that....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Rail gun platform

    Cool...

    So Blighty will have two huge, movable, globally deployable gun emplacements fitted with super techy electromagnetic rail guns, shooting strange aircraft shaped projectiles... Scary!

    Let the coastal bombardement begin!

    (i'm off to hide in my bunker, hope it doesn't thave the range!)

    1. J-Wick
      Happy

      As long as they don't release...

      ...the dogs with bees in their mouths!

    2. J-Wick
      Happy

      As long as they don't release...

      The dogs with bees in their mouths!

  8. SlabMan

    The defensive option?

    "Downing Street to UK. Incoming nuclear strike detected. Commence evasive action."

  9. Steve May 1
    FAIL

    Oh foolish mortal

    Even if the MOD were to buy "off-the-shelf" F-18s, they would "of course" have to be re-engined with something Rolls-Roycey, requiring a complete airframe rebuild. And a new Euro-radar to guide the required Euro-weapons. And a new nav/attack system because we've got the thing in bits anyway. And some new wings because BAE have some very clever ideas. End result:- F-18Q. Twice the cost of F35s, 10 times the cost of standard F-18s. Anybody remember the RN Phantoms?

    As for carriers.. If they are intended to fight technologically competent opponents, the lack of decent AEW means we may as well scuttle them ourselves to avoid loss of life. If we intend to simply drop large quantities of explosives onto guys with AK47s, surely supersonic stealth is a LITTLE OTT? Perhaps we should have two sets of aircraft groups. One of F18s for the wars against people with planes and one of Skyraiders for "police actions" and "insurgencies". (Propellor Skyraiders of course. None of our nasty jets.)

    Possibly things might improve if defence ministers were required to go to sea with the real navy in time of peril. Shackled to a bulkhead perhaps.

    Last thought. Surely 'tis possible to build some kind of flash steam generator powered by electricty if steam is such a vital element of catapults? Hundreds of electric kettles?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Black Helicopters

      you nearly got there...

      New television show..... Osama v Obama, winner takes all, no other casualties.

    2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Happy

      @Steve May 1

      I think you'll find the US designed the A10A to replace the Sky Raider.

      It's seeing a *lot* of action in Afghanistan.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Alternatively if you can't find some spare Skyraiders...

      You could always buy a load of Goshawks:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-45_Goshawk

      Slow enough to see what your bombing, could be easily modified to carry a cannon as the Hawk 200, British made so no-one is going to try and put a bigger engine in it and it's still a jet so pilots will be willing to fly it.

      1. Marcus Aurelius
        FAIL

        ...and

        Fragile enough so that if it were deployed in Afghanistan it would be known as the "Snatch Land Rover of the skies"!

  10. Volker Hett

    Frigates and detroyers for cocktail parties?

    Hm, a carrier or two are nice if you defend yourself by bombing people very far away, but I'd give them some escort ships in case the opposition has a couple subs to leave your pretty F-18s with no place to land at.

    1. Stuart Van Onselen

      Misunderstood

      Why am I all in "defend LP mode" today? Maybe it's because lame arguments annoy me. Or maybe I'm just a lame fanboi/sycophant myself. :-)

      Anyway, I didn't read the article as suggesting that you Limeys sink all your non-carrier assets, just that without a carrier to defend, frigates and destroyers have only limited utility.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Misunderstood

        "All" is a relative term. We still have the 2nd largest navy in the world.

        It's just not as big as Lewis would like.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
          Pint

          @AC

          I seriously suspect the size of the navy isn't what Lewis cares about. It's how the UK is (in)capable of using it that counts.

        2. SkippyBing

          3rd at best

          The US one is massive and the Russian one is really big. I'd be surprised if we haven't been overtaken by China and India in the near future if not already.

          1. Thomas82

            Who has the 2nd best navy?

            You'd be wrong about the Russian navy(largely useless). China and India are having great difficulty manufacturing nuclear submarines(China has them but there is considerable doubt on their effectiveness) .

            Besides, numbers are irrelevant for the most part. At no extra cost, the RN could do double in size and be half as effective.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Catapult eh?

    Wil E Coyote uses a very big Acme elastic band with surprisingly good results.

    But if we had thought about these carriers we could have had nuclear off the shelf designs like the better, bigger and more capable Nimitz class- built under licence (like S Korea has).

    Which do have provision for steam catapults. Oh and they'd be one third of the cost.

    MOD grate doesn't it.

    1. Daniel Wilkie

      Of course there's a problem there...

      I don't know if you've been down to the south coast when one of the Yank carriers has been in, but they anchor in the Solent. Firstly, because the harbour channel is too narrow (or shallow, I can't remember) for them, and secondly because there is very limited parking for nuclear vessels in the dockyard, for some reason Portsmouth City Council don't like having huge nuclear powered ships sat there.

      Personally it doesn't bother me, hell my window overlooks the parking area. People these days :p

      Even to fit the QE class is taking a lot of work though - there's going to be a lot of disruption in the harbour before they can be bought in.

    2. Charles 9
      Joke

      Elastic band...

      "Wil E Coyote uses a very big Acme elastic band with surprisingly good results."

      Good on the launch, but the landings leaves a lot to be desired. Somehow he always seems to end up kissing dirt, asphalt, stone, or a steel grate. IIRC, springs and rockets met with noticeably negative results, and he was a failure as a Coyote Cannonball.

      Oh well. Makes for fun watching him try, though.

    3. Thomas82

      Oh my.

      One third of the cost? Source?

      South Korea has nuclear aircraft carriers?

      ROFL!

  12. Paul 77
    Stop

    But...

    Might it not be possible to have a carrier version of the Typhoon or Tornado? I seem to remember a bunch of Typhoons were going to be bought to spend most of their time sitting in a hangar. If so, surely a couple could be used as development aircraft to testnew undercarriage and arrestor hook arrangement.

    I would have thought a Tornado could be turned into a pretty good carrier aircraft because of its variable geometry.

    But I'm not an expert in these things. And yes, I know it would cost money, but I would imagine that much of this money would be spent in the UK, rather than elsewhere :-)

    1. GeorgeTuk

      I'll beat everyone to it.

      Navalised version of Typhoon scrapped a little while ago.

    2. John Hughes
      FAIL

      Carrier version of the ...

      "Might it not be possible to have a carrier version of the Typhoon or Tornado?"

      There you go again.

      "Let's develop a new aircraft, it's bound to be cheaper".

  13. James Hughes 1

    Flywheel catapults

    Have been wondering why you cannot use a big flywheel to store up the catapult energy. Only need a small motor to wind it up, then 'boof' let it go and hey presto, off flies the plane. If you need to up the launch rate, two flywheels, one winding up whilst the other is being used.

    Mechanically not too dissimilar from a flywheel regen braking system. Some sort of CVT and clutch and a big lump of metal should do the job.

    1. smudge

      Gyroscopes

      Wouldn't that affect the steerability of the ship? Mind you, I don't suppose carriers can turn on a sixpence anyway.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        @smudge

        "Wouldn't that affect the steerability of the ship? Mind you, I don't suppose carriers can turn on a sixpence anyway."

        It would. The *classic* way to handle unwanted gyroscopic forces is to mount them in pairs *contra* rotating to cancel out their forces. As long as they both spin up/down together it works pretty well.

      2. Keith T

        Spin on a vertical axis

        Spin the flywheel on a vertical axis and it won't affect the ship turning, just rolling and yawing.

        1. James Hughes 1

          Some matsh on flywheels

          To store the 66MJ as stated above you need a flywheel of about 600kg at about 25k RPMish, you can already get electrical storage flywheels like that. Would need top reduce the RPM though, so a bigger flywheel at lower RPM would be better.

          As to gyroscopics. Can you image a 2000kg flywheel having much of an effect on a a ship with a displacement of 100k tons? Would need good bearings though.

          And of course, when in use the ship will be facing in to the wind going in a straight line. Because that's what you do when launching planes. No turning required.

          1. /dev/null

            Sounds familiar...

            This talk of flywheels is reminding me of a possibly apocryphal story about a warship with a very early computer (1950s?) on board. Said computer had a very large, very heavy magnetic drum storage device. When the ship changed heading, alas, the magnetic drum didn't...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Great idea!

      Now try navigating with a gigantic gyro in the bow. On the other hand, it might help stabilise the ship...

      I'm torn now.

      1. Gordon 10
        Boffin

        Times two

        2 contra rotating flywheels should cancel out most effects, although I do remember something about precesssion and other forces acting at an angle to the main spin from my long ago school days.

      2. Anonymous Bastard
        Boffin

        Re: "it might help stabilise the ship..."

        Carriers already have gyros for stabilisation. I saw it on five so it must be true!

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