UK Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

November 25, 2016 - A £120m investment will mean that Portsmouth Naval Base will be ready for Britain’s biggest ever warship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon told personnel at the ship’s new home today.
The Defence Secretary was speaking during a tour of the new facilities being built to support the first of the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers, which include power facilities, a reinforced jetty, and an area equivalent to over 200 football pitches dredged in the harbour so far.
Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said:
Britain’s new aircraft carriers are the biggest and most powerful warships ever built for our Royal Navy. The over £100 million being invested in Portsmouth Naval Base will ensure that it is a fitting and state-of-the-art home for our new warships from spring next year.
The Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales will lead our powerful and growing Royal Navy and reflect that, in a dangerous world, Britain is stepping up.
The Defence Secretary also opened Portsmouth’s brand new Ark Royal facility and met the personnel responsible for clearing historic ordnance uncovered by dredging work. The Ark Royal Facility will provide the ships company with top of the range facilities before they embark onto the ship for training and operations.
To prepare the harbour and dockyard infrastructure for the 65,000 tonne carriers, 276 metres of jetty have been reinforced with over 3,300 tonnes of new steel work. New navigation lights have been installed in the harbour and Solent, with huge new fenders and gangways delivered to accommodate the giant ships.
Commander of HMNB Portsmouth, Commodore Jeremy Rigby said:
With the opening of Ark Royal building today, we have reached another important milestone in the preparations to get Portsmouth Naval Base ready for HMS Queen Elizabeth. I was delighted to be able to show the Defence Secretary how the last pieces of the complex jigsaw of getting the Naval Base ready for the new era, are falling into place.

HMS Queen Elizabeth, the QEC First of Class, is now well into her commissioning phase. It is expected that she will leave Rosyth for Sea Trials in early 2017 and arrive at her new home in Portsmouth in late spring 2017. These infrastructure works form a major nautical-milestone on her journey to becoming an operational warship, ready for duty: a journey that will see her deploy in every ocean around the world over the next five decades.

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Jura said:

Army to slash frontline tanks

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Army chiefs are planning to slash the number of frontline tanks by up to a third, leaving Britain with fewer tanks than Serbia.

Under the plan, one of the army’s three tank regiments will see all its 56 Challenger 2s replaced with Ajax fighting vehicles. The cut would leave the army with only about 40 more tanks than traditionally neutral Switzerland. At the other end of the scale, Russia has 2,700 tanks.

The plan, due to be announced in coming months, has alarmed serving and retired commanders and comes as Russia introduces the T-14 Armata — a new generation of tank that some experts believe has the firepower to defeat any British or American equivalent.

Colonel Bob Stewart, who led British forces in Bosnia, said:…

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no, it was enough

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Jura said:

since
Nov 11, 2016

Jura said:

...
UK to retire GWS60 Harpoon at end of 2018

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...

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I've been looking for any explanation (or "explanation" by some spin doctor), found none ...

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US Marine Corps F-35Bs are to be deployed onboard the British Royal Navy’s new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier when it undertakes its first operational tour, the two governments have announced.

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and his US counterpart, Ash Carter, signed the deal Dec. 15 on the sidelines of a UK-hosted meeting of the coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

The intention to deploy US Marine F-35s was announced in September this year, but the formal signing confirms the deal.

Both forces will operate the F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing version of the Lightning II strike jet. It’s unclear at this stage how long the US Marine deployment will last or whether the service will also deploy V-22 Osprey aircraft as part of the package.

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said the agreement allows for deployment planning to continue, but did not offer additional details.

In late September, Capt. Jerry Kyd, the commander of HMS Queen Elizabeth, said he would like to see US Marine Corps F-35Bs and V-22s embark for up to nine months at a time once the warship becomes operational.

“We’ll certainly see some footprint aboard the ship. The big question is: Do they deploy with us much longer term in the future, maybe for six, seven, eight, nine months from when we deploy? That’s what I would love to see,” the naval officer told reporters during a briefing.

The first of two 70,000-ton carriers is now virtually complete, and the warship is due to start sea trials in the first half of next year. If things go as planned, the first operational deployment will take place in 2021.

Fallon said : “Having British and US F35s alongside each other aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth on its first operational tour will further cement our close defense ties as Britain steps up internationally,” Fallon said. “As Britain’s preeminent operational partner, including in our current fight against Daesh, the interoperability of British and American forces is crucial.” Daesh is an Arabic abbreviation for the Islamic State group.

A second carrier, the Prince of Wales, is about two years behind the construction schedule for the first of class.
Queen Elizabeth is expected to start fixed-wing flight trials with three British F-35Bs off the East Coast of the United States at the end of the summer of 2018.

Helicopter flight trials with the Merlin and Chinook are scheduled to take place earlier in the year.

Britain axed its fleet of small carriers in 2010 as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) and turned to the US and, to a lesser extent, the French to help maintain key operational skills until the new warships became available. UK pilots, engineers and deck handlers, who are currently operating from US Navy carriers, are already working on these skills, which will be important during the deployment of the new British carriers.

The opportunity to deploy US Marine F-35s on the Royal Navy warship has in part been triggered by Britain’s inability to fund the acquisition of sufficient aircraft to provide a credible strike force in the years immediately following the introduction into service of the Queen Elizabeth.

Kyd confirmed in September that few British jets would be available for the first operational deployment.

“We are constrained by the F-35 buy rate even though that was accelerated in SDSR in 2015, so initial operating capability numbers in 2020 are going to be very modest indeed. We will flesh it out with helicopters, and a lot depends on how many USMC F-35s come on our first deployment in 2021. But by 2023, we are committed to 24 UK jets onboard, and after that it’s too far away [to say]," he said.

In September, analysts here said embarking US jets was not just about saving British blushes due to lack of aircraft, but it had a wider operational benefit as well.

“Embarking USMC F-35s does get the UK out of an embarrassing position of having a lot of floating real estate with very little to go on it. But it’s convenient for both sides and there is operational utility in such a policy,” said Doug Barrie, the senior air analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank in London.

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FORBIN said:

Why are the Queen Elizabeth class carriers so big ?

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Jura said:

it's dated
September 2, 2015

it quotes
“The reason that we have arrived at what we have arrived ...
— Admiral Sir Alan West, evidence to the Select Committee on Defence, 24 November 2004
which is tragicomic because of the later changes

it's 'feel good' article (for example
"The carriers, in peacetime, will usually deploy with around 24 F-35B’s as a minimum and a number of various helicopters."
while
“We are constrained by the F-35 buy rate even though that was accelerated in SDSR in 2015, so initial operating capability numbers in 2020 are going to be very modest indeed. ..." inside Today at 8:41 AM
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/f-...os-and-pics-thread.t5796/page-411#post-428970

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