Comment

Steam Still Rules – The Carrier Saga Continues – The “clowns” in charge of making procurement decisions seems to have very little in the way of a even a basic understanding of naval history on which to make the decisions on which the Nation’s defences rest.    The American and French carriers are all nuclear powered – a fact that seems to have escaped those concerned BUT that is there for all to see and know, and always has been.

When the decision was made to take the non nuclear option for the QUEEN ELIZABETH class it meant a power generation plant comprising six electrical generators, four driven by diesel engines and two by gas turbines.    This was the exactly the propulsion mix chosen for the “Through Deck Cruisers” ordered in April 1973 which later metamorphosed into the aircraft carriers of the INVINCIBLE class.   Edward Heath was the then Prime Minister and Peter Carrington was Secretary of Defence building on the work of Dennis Healy who in the 1966 Defence Review had cancelled the UK CVA-01 Carrier project.   One of the lessons learned at that time was the advantages of size – a 42,000 ton carrier could carry only 27 aircraft, whereas a 55,000 ton carrier could carry 49 - an 80% increase in the size of the air group for a 30% increase of displacement.

An electrical propulsion system using diesel engines and gas turbines mean that there is was no steam produced as a byproduct and the commonly used catapult on aircraft carriers relies on the availability of large quantities of high pressure steam.    On any nuclear powered vessel steam is available in large measure and charges a steam accumulator which releases steam faster it can be produced by the ship.   This is a basic and unchanging fact.   There is another basic and unchanging fact that weight in the design of aircraft has always been a curse to aerospace engineers.    The F-35 is no different and is 2002 the aircraft was recorded as having a weight in excess of 30,000 pounds and since then a least another 2,000 pounds has been added.    The kinetic energy needed to accelerate a 14 ton F-35 off the deck of an aircraft carrier to the velocity required is one imagines is a simple calculation and with no steam available the only other option was to opt for the un proven American Electromagnetic Aircraft Launching System with the Advanced Arresting Gear that is to be pioneered on the USS GERALD R.FORD, due to enter service in 2015.     The USS GERALD R.FORD is powered by an A1B nuclear reactor which is a smaller and more efficient design than the ones previously used, and provides approximately three times the electrical power of the NIMITZ class A4W reactor plant, and enough to power the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launching System   All of the above was known before the 2010 Strategic Defence Review in the United Kingdom.

With no steam available the design of the QUEEN ELIZABETH class aircraft carriers was always based on using HARRIER style short take off and landing aircraft and the size of the design was dictated by the desire to be able to mount a sizeable air group.   It was a sensible approach to a simple problem – once you go down the road of a non nuclear carrier the electrical power required to produce the kinetic energy would come at a prohibitive cost in terms of space as well as finance.   This too was there for all to see and know, and always has been.

That it fell to a soldier, albeit the Chief of the Defence Staff to explain the decision in some detail and explain the waste of money following the Ministerial statement to Parliament.   All seem to have swallowed the line that the facts changed and it was only a small amount of wasted money.   That was far from the truth.   We the Nation have lost a valuable capability in an abrupt and dangerous way.   Forget the loss of the ARK ROYAL before time as we still have the ILLUSTRIOUS.   What we have lost is the 81 HARRIERs, sold off swiftly at a knockdown price of £ 112 million, despite being valued by the Ministry of Defence at many more times that, and just having a £ 600 million upgrade the make the suitable for future use.   This decision needs to be at the very least investigated and the actions taken need to be justified and explained to the wider public.                                                             

More importantly the coterie of officers and men which flew and operated the aircraft, manhandled them on moving decks safely and efficiently have all be made in effect redundant and there is now a skills gap and those skills will have to be re-learnt at considerable and as yet unquantifiable cost.    There is also the fact that in the Falklands and Afghanistan we have military forces actively deployed and they are very exposed and we have no aircraft carrier in the mix if a pro-active stance is required.   As Libya exposed a handful of HARRIERs operating from the decks of the OCEAN would have saved several small fortunes in fuel costs for the Royal Air Force, without really any loss of bang for our buck in military effectiveness!  Half a dozen HARRIERs working in tandem with the APACHE gunships would have lifted our capability by a factor inconceivable to many and a the Treasury they would have noticed the reduction in the fuel bill even if the wear and tear on the air frames of the TORNADO GR4 and the tanker aircraft was not so apparent.

The (UK) National Security Council, headed by the Prime Minister, which is the very top table in terms of defence decisions is made up of politicians with a few civil servants and is not capable of making any decisions based on scientific or technological issues, but relies on the briefings coming up from below.   It is not a clear decision making process at nobody really knows the questions to ask.   You cannot, on the face of things, blame the politicians for making the decisions they do – they are only politicians – Liam Fox was a medical doctor (and former GP), George Osborne has a degree in modern history and worked briefly for the NHS and Selfridges before becoming a politician, and both William Hague and David Cameron have PPE degrees and really did very little in the real world before becoming politicians.   The present Secretary of State for Defence, Phillip Hammond also has a PPE degree but was a business man before public service as a politician called and has done no more than clean up the mess left by the wrong decisions made in 2010 Strategic Defence Review.

In the case of the aircraft carriers it is not the facts that have changed – the line being pedalled by the Government – it is the understanding of the facts by the politicians that has changed.  They are not the same thing!