It has been a common refrain in recent years, sometimes on the letters page of this paper, that Britain’s aircraft carriers are an expensive error. Their detractors argue that they are too expensive, vulnerable to new forms of warfare – such as hypersonic missiles or drones – and have been made redundant in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The news that HMS Prince of Wales, the Royal Navy’s £3 billion carrier, has broken down, therefore, could not come at a worst time. It is to be hoped that this is not a design fault but rather a mechanical breakdown that can be resolved relatively rapidly.
However, those who seize this opportunity to denounce the carriers yet again are wrong. Not only is their strategic value immense, but their cost relative to other military spending here and abroad has been overblown.
Britain is an island and, first and foremost, a maritime nation. Twas ever thus, though Brexit has brought this into sharper focus. London is still the headquarters of global maritime trade, and our relationship with Asia gives this a particular impetus. Thus the ability to protect trade routes has always been paramount, as we learned in the First and Second World Wars.
But carriers do far more than protect shipping. Their defensive and offensive capabilities are enormous and as a seafaring nation, all our overseas operations are expeditionary. A fleet with a carrier at its heart can ensure theatre entry, as we saw in the Falklands. Indeed, it would have not been possible to fight and win that war without a carrier. All bar one of the enemy planes shot down in air-to-air combat by the UK since the Second World War have been shot down by Naval aircraft.
Detractors cite carriers’ excessive “vulnerability” from enemy attack. This, too, is incorrect. Carriers are far less exposed to attack than, say, airfields. Airfields are static and known to the enemy – hence why Hitler chose to target them, to great effect, in the Battle of Britain. Carriers, by contrast, are almost invisible amid the vast ocean. I know because it was my job to make them so.
As the commander of the UK Task Group deployed to the South China Sea covering the withdrawal from Hong Kong in 1997, we did so to great effect. The Chinese were agitated at their inability to find us. We also conducted a naval exercise with the Americans, where our effectiveness took even them by surprise. Indeed, it is not surprising that the US is hugely supportive of the formation of two UK new carrier battlegroups.
Evolutions in military technology have not changed the difficulty in targeting carriers. They can travel 500 miles a day in any direction, and other ships can be easily disguised to look like them. Hypersonic missiles need accurate knowledge of a target’s position to make an effective strike. Likewise, no small drone would be able to reach carriers out at sea, and large drones would be detected and shot down by F-35s long before they were a threat.
Of course, anything in war is vulnerable when matched with comparable force, but carriers are if anything less so than any other ship. The last carrier we lost was in 1942 – HMS Hermes – which did not have its airwing, a lesson to be learned from.
The other main charge against British carriers is that their cost is “exorbitant”. This, too, is erroneous. The two that we have cost £7 billion – a considerable amount, it’s true, but not when one considers that £1 billion of that was due to a year-long delay in construction, and when compared with other countries’ carriers. The US carrier Gerald R Ford cost at least $13 billion: $5 billion for research and development plus $8 billion to build.
Our carriers are also more efficient: due to their cutting edge design, the HMS Prince of Wales only requires 700 personnel aboard, whereas American carriers require over 3,000. They are also the first in the world to be designed from the keel up to operate 5th generation fighter aircraft. When compared to the cost of the RAF’s Typhoon programme – £90 billion – a carrier hardly seems the great absorber of funds it first appears.
That said, there is more that can be done to make our carriers more effective. Fixing mechanical faults aside, it is vital that they have a full air-wing at all times. Yet the Government has been pusillanimous regarding training F-35 pilots and speeding up orders of F-35 aircraft. I hope the next prime minister, whoever he or she may be, will rectify this urgently.
Britain is an island. If matters escalate into a world war – and it is the job of the armed forces to always consider this – then the maritime front will be crucial for our defence. Despite this, I cannot recall any time when a Naval programme has come under such a sustained barrage of criticism.
The blunt truth is that if you are a serious naval player then you need aircraft carriers. Why is it the Chinese, Indians and numerous others are building them? As the foremost naval power in Europe, it is vital that Britain continues to invest in them.
Admiral Lord West is a former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff.
Totally agree with Lord West. Please see below and article published on the DefenceUK website in March 2020:
DEFENCE UK DISCUSSION PAPER
The Utility of the Aircraft Carrier
By Fred Dupuy
After a decade of frequent combat air operations over Vietnam, on 17 March 1975 the aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19) was ordered to Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, where she disembarked a large part of her air group and loaded 25 helicopters. She then proceeded to Subic Bay in the Philippines where the rest of her combat air group were put ashore and she loaded more helicopters. Then, on 12 April, she took part in Operation Eagle Pull, where her helicopters evacuated refugees from Phnom Pen, Cambodia, as they ran from the advancing Khmer Rouge forces. On 29-30 April she was one of the carriers taking part in Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of distressed personnel from Saigon, via the US Embassy and the Defence Attaché’s Office. On this operation even her expansive flight deck was not large enough to handle all the helicopters involved and some of them had to be ‘wet stowed’, i.e. thrown overboard.
The Hancock was one of 24 Essex class aircraft carriers built during the Second World War. Commissioned in 1944, she operated exclusively in the Pacific during that conflict, in both defensive and offensive roles. At different times, she was struck by two kamikaze aircraft and the debris from another, two bombs, and one of her own aircraft exploded when abreast the island structure, killing 50 men and injuring another 75. In all of those cases her damage control organisation quickly recovered the situation and kept the vessel, with her air group, in operation. At the war’s end she was quickly fitted out for and used in Operation Magic Carpet, the repatriation of personnel from the Far East to the United States, followed by a short period as an aircraft transport until decommissioned and put into the reserve fleet.
In 1951 the Hancock was brought out of reserve and modernised. She was the first American carrier fitted with steam catapults capable of launching jet aircraft and five years later she was fitted with an angled flight deck. In the first half of the fifties she was used as a test base for aircraft and missiles and then in the second half she was used on several occasions in show of force exercises, when the Communist Chinese threatened the Nationalist islands of Quemoy and Matsu. At the very end of that decade she was a part of the fleet stationed off Laos to ease the tension building up there at the time.
Early 1960 saw the Hancock working off the west coast of the US in Operation Communication Moon Relay, a demonstration of reflecting ultra high frequency radio waves off the surface of the Moon. That was followed by more patrols in South East Asia to try and ease some of the tensions building there and in June 1962 she again appeared of Quemoy and Matsu to stem a threatened Communist invasion. From the mid ’60s until the mid ’70s she was regularly involved in combat air operations over Vietnam. In July 1969, during an operational work up for one of her many deployments to the region, an F8 Crusader jet fighter bomber, coming in to land, struck the stern of the vessel, split in two and careered down the length of the flight deck, causing much damage. Repair work was carried out 24/7 and the vessel deployed on schedule. In January 1976 the USS Hancock was decommissioned, stricken from the Navy list and then sold for scrap.
I relate this short history of the USS Hancock’s 32 year career not because it is unique – it is not, and many of the incident and operation types mentioned above could be attributed to any number of aircraft carriers that have operated since their inception, both American and British. But it perfectly demonstrates just how useful these vessels are in different situations of stress and how they can be continuously and progressively updated in order to handle current situations. The Hancock story also shows just how robust these vessels can be and how difficult they are to put out of action for any length of time. They are, as the situation demands, instruments of defence, strike, threat, persuasion, rescue, support and succour. They are the left hook of diplomacy, when the right hand of friendship has been slapped away and they are a demonstration of a nation’s footprint on the world stage, which helps to bond alliances. It is worth relating the story of USS Hancock in order to demonstrate the utility of the aircraft carrier.
British carriers have been in regular use since the end of WW2 for example: 1950 Korea, 1956 Suez, 1961 Kuwait, 1964 East Africa, 1963-1966 Malaysia, 1967 Aden, 1972 Belize, 1982 Falklands, 1990s Bosnia, 1998 Honduras & Nicaragua, 2000 Sierra Leone, 2003 Iraq, 2006 Lebanon, 2011 Libya, 2017 British Virgin Islands. The actions were very varied, with some providing aid after natural disasters, while others were helicopter evacuations or acting as a safe haven and standing by to do so. Others put troops ashore and provided top cover in a timely manner to stop a situation from deteriorating and some did the same with a show of force by the overflying of combat aircraft and the very presence of the carrier herself. Others were the classic, strike, ground support and fleet defence. Time and again, having the ability to quickly place a sovereign airfield close to a distressed or hostile shore, without having to ask anybodies permission and without embarrassing friends has paid dividends.
Britain now has two new aircraft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth (QE) class, that have attracted criticism from many quarters. It has been claimed that they are too expensive, under-armed, obsolete because of new carrier killing weapon systems, and that without catapults they are of limited capability because of the aircraft types they cannot deploy. Possibly the most damaging is the claim that they are a symbol of Britain’s unaffordable pretensions, because it cuts to the core of how we see ourselves. With the exception of being under-armed – a criticism that could be levelled at many British warships – these criticisms do not stand up to close scrutiny.
At £3 billion for the two vessels (about the cost of 4 type 45 destroyers, or 3 of the new type 26 frigates) they are a bargain. The other £3 billion attributed to them is actually the cost of governmental indecision, delay and a procurement system that increasingly seems unfit for purpose. However, even including that cost, the average annual purchase price over the two vessel’s proposed 50 year life span is £120,000 (£60K per vessel), which is about the same as the cost of one Member of Parliament, some of whom are claiming that the QE class carriers are too expensive and poor value for money!
When it comes to vulnerability because of the new hypersonic missiles being deployed by potential enemies, we are considering peer states with a full spectrum of intelligence assets that provide the targeting data required to effectively use those weapons. Thus, when we are talking about the sinking of aircraft carriers, we are considering a major war, where many other assets and systems will be involved. As far as the claims that the carrier and fleet’s defensive systems will not have the time to acquire and intercept those rapidly approaching missiles, one should consider the problem from the other end. When that missile pops over the horizon and eventually breaks through the electronic and possibly atmospheric haze, it will not have much time to decide which among the many decoys and other vessels it sees, to decide which is the right target. In the Falklands conflict in 1982, Admiral Sandy Woodward did not cluster merchant vessels and a screen of other warships around his carriers for warmth! If one of our carriers does get hit, history and a study of the redundancy features built into the QE class carriers, indicates that they will be hard vessels to sink.
Without catapults and arrester gear, the new carriers will not be able to deploy the latest most capable fighter aircraft. The F35B which they will deploy is, it is claimed, a poor alternative to the others and because of that these vessels will be reduced in their combat effectiveness. That view ignores the benefits that those aircraft bestow upon these vessels. If you want to operate an aircraft carrier in the North Atlantic, during winter and in all weather conditions, opt for a STOVL type (short take off and vertical landing). When the seas are alternatively throwing that vessel’s bow and stern into the heavens and then dropping them to almost sea level, being flipped into the air by the bow ramp and then being able to stop and land in the middle of the ship, where the motion is the least, will ensure that those aircraft can be deployed when their conventional sisters are struck below for safe keeping. The same of course applies to helicopter born airborne warning, which doesn’t even have to operate from the carrier, as opposed to more capable fixed wing assets. If, as suggested in the previous paragraph, the carrier does get hit and is possibly dead in the water or operating on very reduced power, provided she remains upright, her aircraft will still be able to take off and land, which again, those from a conventional carrier will not and if the worst comes to the worst, being able to land vertically, they will be able to deploy to other assets in order to fight another day. Their comparative lack of range is only a problem if aerial refuelling is not available. Which of course is also a problem that applies to conventional aircraft, operating from fixed bases some distance from the action. When the Storm Shadow armed, RAF Tornados flew from their Norfolk base to Libya, they were refuelled four times on the way out and twice on the way back and we had to ask the Americans to help with tanker aircraft for the Euro Fighters operating out of Italy. In several ways Britain’s two new aircraft carriers are more operationally flexible than their American sisters, with which they are often unfavourably compared. According to one US Navy source, who had served aboard a US Nimitz class carrier, “one of those little Brit carriers” (an Invincible class deploying Harriers) “beat the hell out of us in exercises because they could get their aircraft into the air so quickly.” Having the fastest and longest legged aircraft is not always the deciding factor!
The allegation that Britain is being pretentious with the QE class carriers suggests that we are harking back to our imperial past. Are we? Or by deploying two aircraft carriers are we not just holding up our end of the North Atlantic alliance? NATO forms the bedrock of our defence and the United States provides the roof of that alliance, but the UK is one of the pillars that holds it up, possibly the main pillar on this side of the Atlantic. As the eminent historian (and Defence UK Vice-President) Professor Andrew Roberts pointed out in his Daily Telegraph article on 1 February 2020, Britain had always made her way in the world, and succeeded, by forming, joining and supporting alliances. She is continuing to do that, and the QE class carriers are an overt symbol of that effort. When HMS Queen Elizabeth deploys next year on a world cruise, she will carry with her a squadron of US F35B fighter jets, and may also, for short periods during that voyage, host similar aircraft from Italy, Singapore and Japan. She will be escorted by frigates and destroyers of other nations and will pass through areas of the globe where that solidarity of purpose among allies will be noticed and taken account of.
It is unfortunate that the term ‘Strike Carrier’ is now being used to describe vessels that were previously called Fleet Carriers. As a part of a balanced fleet they are so much more than a strike machine. They are a convenient airfield that, when required, can be used to support Britain’s new Strike Brigades when they are deployed to foreign parts while at the same time providing a safe haven to which those forces can be evacuated, should the need arise. They are also an important step in the ladder of deterrence, which climbs from the man with a rifle, through the various military capabilities to the Trident submarine hiding somewhere in the ocean depths. They are an item that says, yes, you might be able to hurt us, but we can also reach out, in various ways, and touch you, so beware! On the other hand, if you have a problem, thanks to these two mobile airfields we may be able to help you. They are extremely useful vessels. By deploying these carriers, a capability which most other countries cannot or will not have, we may be seen as ‘pretentious’, but, if the United Kingdom cannot commission and operate two aircraft carriers and a few dozen jet aircraft, what is her real worth as an ally? Without them, is she worth anything?
DEFENCE UK
Directors: David Wedgwood (Chairman), Cdr Graham Edmonds RN (Vice-Chairman),
Andy Smith (Chief Executive Officer), Col Andrew Allen, Steve Coltman, Fred Dupuy, Col Peter Walton
Company Secretary: David Robinson
Defence UK Ltd, PO Box 819, Portsmouth PO1 9FF. Tel 023 9283 1728. Email secretary@defenceuk.org Web http://www.defenceuk.org Company No. 06254639
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March 2020
HEAR HEAR!