Why Britain's Aircraft Carriers Should Be Equipped with Their Own Missile Defenses

[@mac2626]

Successive governments have already shortchanged the Royal Navy by not sticking with angled decks, Cats & Traps. Now they won’t spend a few million pounds, for a decent last line of defence? It’s criminal what has been done to our navy.

[@lingth]

I wonder if they have enough F-35B to staff both carriers even

[@danielh4032]

I read that some Navy top brass - West probably - didn’t want the angled deck, etc. as it ran the risk of getting cheaper planes than the F35 and the brass wanted the F35 as the shiniest toy. The real problem with the carriers is that they were meant to be part of a multinational European carrier group but the other participants didn’t build their ships due to financial constraints and we were stuck building the carriers as too much money had been sunk into them. Now total white elephants, despite the BS from some old Navy brass - Putin scared of the UK because it has two carriers? Totally delusional.

[@mac2626]

@@danielh4032 I honestly think you might well be the one that’s a tad delusional dude.

[@ENGBriseB]

The UK has the money to put a missile system on our Aircraft carriers.

[@painfulorwhat8872]

Not now the government has changed.

[@mikestarkey7989]

The government wanted to cut construction costs, so the missile defence went! To the families of the sailors on board, that's how much your government thinks about lives of your family!

[@stephennelmes4557]

We got the wrong type of carrier, the wrong type of F35, and the wrong airborne early warning AEW aircraft.... And no self-defense missiles. Brilliant. We should have had angled flight decks, catapult, and arrestor wires. With this arrangement, we could have bought the F35 C, which is designed for aircraft carriers instead of the F35 B, which is designed for the Marines. Cats and traps also enable the use of fixed wing AEW aircraft carrying a more powerful radar to a higher altitude with longer endurance that can see further. The F35 aircraft carry out combat air patrols in the fighter engagement zone many miles from the carrier. It is there to interdict the enemy aircraft before they can fire their missiles. The CAP operates in conjunction with the AEW and the fighter controller in the operations room on the carrier. Without catapults and arrestor ( cats and traps ) wires, we are limited to the F35 B, which carries less fuel because of the vertical launch gear onboard, hence more weight, less missiles and less endurance. It can get out to its CAP station, loiter for a short time before having to return to refuel. Again, with cats and traps, fixed wing AEW aircraft could be embarked instead of the helicopters, which can't fly as far as fast or as high. Thus limiting the radar coverage of the battle group. In my opinion, these carriers were ill conceived from the start. Now we have carriers, fighters and AEW systems that are just as expensive and less capable. If we ever got to war alongside the American carriers it must be noted that we can land the F35 B on their flight decks but without arrestor wires and catapults they are unable to land their F35 C on ours. Look at the now thankfully decommissioned Type 22 ( batch 2 ) frigate and it's woefully inadequate weapons. This class of ship typifies MOD thinking.

[@flyingdutchman7757]

I’d like to say the HMS Queen Elizabeth isn’t currently in service she isn’t expected to be in combat and is therefore not loaded for combat operations, what is known is that once she is and Sea Captor has finished trials, it is likely several sea captor ‘pods’ will be placed on hardpoints on the vessels. Currently she has the Land Based Version parked on her deck.

[@sparkiegaz3613]

Get them working first be great 😂

[@moodogco]

This argument is abit pointless & imo is a lack of understanding of how the aircraft carriers will be operated etc as there is no circumstances where it'll be sailing anywhere without the carrier strike group!! It will never sail without 2x type 45 air defence destroyers (they only there for this job & was y they was built), a anti submarine frigate & a astute nuclear sub so y does it need this extra systems? Plus they have f35 stealth aircraft as well

[@timothyseabrook1584]

Angle decks are pointless for STOVL aircraft!

[@jackduddle9449]

The carriers shouldnt use missiles because it reduces the aircraft capacity and it interferes with deploying air groups which was realised during the falklands war which is why they didnt fit missiles on the new ones as well as removed missiles on the old ones instead of missiles decoy launchers could be better as they can divert missiles away from the carrier

[@GrahamCStrouse]

Literally every other carrier in the world has an organic missile defense system of some kind.l