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I am not sure where to put this thread as it is both a rant and a question.
Only three countries in the Cold War era built and operated CTOL aircraft carriers. Of these, The United States and France deployed carrier forces which still operate CTOL ships today.
The saga of the Royal Navy's CTOL carrier force from 1945 to 1979 is examined to destruction in various threads on this site. In essence it could not match the ships and aircraft available to its requirements in the numbers needed. Since 1980 the RN has not been a carrier navy. Its anti submarine/commando helicopter carriers have operated a token force of VSTOL jets.
Comparison with France is more instructive than the RN's own love affair with the USN. The very name CVA 01 revealed the RN's yearning for its own Forrestal CVA. France meanwhile had built and was deploying two modern ships which operated from the 60s throughout the Cold War.
Why did the Royal Navy have such a hard time with its carrier force? Reading the accounts in Grove and Friedman you soon become dazed by the changes in RN thinking about what they want carriers to do. In "general war" as a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was gentilely called the RN was not sure how long its carriers would survive and whether they would hunt submarines, kill Swerdlow class cruisers or launch raids on Murmansk?
Meanwhile the few carriers that managed to hobble into service were kept busy in "limited war" from Korea to Singapore, Aden to Suez.
Could it have been different? I think the problem started in 1946 when the RN had to adjust to a postwar world in which Britain was ruined financially but still responsible for an Empire and for sharing the task of countering Stalin's Soviet Union.
Sorting out the aircraft carrier building programme between the heavy and light carriers was not easy. On the one hand the smaller ships were easier to get into service and could cope with the peacetime workload. Heavier ships were expensive, required difficult materials and used up scarce resources in the shipbuilding industry. Getting the Maltas built would have required a crystal ball.
The 1950s allowed the RN to run on its obsolescent ships as there was no serious naval threat. Sea Venoms, Scimitars and Wyverns faced no opposition from Migs at Port Said. Eagle's Sea Vixens nearly a decade later were not challenged in the Straights by Indonesian Migs.
Leaf through Jane's Fighting Ships in 1962 and most navies look little different from WW2. Only the US and Italian navies have cruisers and destroyers with anti aircraft missiles. Other navies have a handful of such ships under construction.
But the new decade was going to bring more missiles and faster bigger jets. The US Navy set the pace. Its super carriers of the Forrestal class were joined by four newer ships and the nuclear Enterprise. But perhaps a warning for the future the next nuclear carrier (Nimitz) was not to enter service until the second half of the 70s.
The Royal Navy was forced to choose between nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. The threat posed by Soviet submarines made this choice for the UK. Nimrod ASW and Seaking helos were vital as were the Hunter Killer subs (SSNs). Phantoms and Buccaneers were nice to have but not of much use in dealing with Soviet submarines.
So it was that the much talked about Escort Cruiser (killed off in 1962 to get CVA01) became 1966's Command Cruiser. Two decades after its demise in 1982 the Escort Cruiser had become an ASW carrier (CVS) and gained the Sea Harrier the RN had also scorned in 1962.
From 1982 to 1991 the Royal Navy fought its silent war with the Soviet Navy and the lack of a CTOL carrier had ceased to be an issue.
Far from being "the end of history" the 1990s saw the Balkans and Iraq remind the world that war had not taken a holiday. The ASW carriers and their Harriers impressed a new generation of UK politicians that aircraft carriers had their uses.
In 1997 the Blair Government decided that two new aircraft carriers were needed for the RN. The ships were not to enter service for many years and did not bring the CTOL carrier back into RN service.
The carrier programme proved the 1966 decision had been right. The UK could not have a significant nuclear submarine and ASW force and operate aircraft carriers. I cannot help but wonder whether twelve Astutes would not have worried Mr Putin more than the carriers?
I am sure the above will bring many of you to disagree but the subject seems as rich as ever.
Only three countries in the Cold War era built and operated CTOL aircraft carriers. Of these, The United States and France deployed carrier forces which still operate CTOL ships today.
The saga of the Royal Navy's CTOL carrier force from 1945 to 1979 is examined to destruction in various threads on this site. In essence it could not match the ships and aircraft available to its requirements in the numbers needed. Since 1980 the RN has not been a carrier navy. Its anti submarine/commando helicopter carriers have operated a token force of VSTOL jets.
Comparison with France is more instructive than the RN's own love affair with the USN. The very name CVA 01 revealed the RN's yearning for its own Forrestal CVA. France meanwhile had built and was deploying two modern ships which operated from the 60s throughout the Cold War.
Why did the Royal Navy have such a hard time with its carrier force? Reading the accounts in Grove and Friedman you soon become dazed by the changes in RN thinking about what they want carriers to do. In "general war" as a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was gentilely called the RN was not sure how long its carriers would survive and whether they would hunt submarines, kill Swerdlow class cruisers or launch raids on Murmansk?
Meanwhile the few carriers that managed to hobble into service were kept busy in "limited war" from Korea to Singapore, Aden to Suez.
Could it have been different? I think the problem started in 1946 when the RN had to adjust to a postwar world in which Britain was ruined financially but still responsible for an Empire and for sharing the task of countering Stalin's Soviet Union.
Sorting out the aircraft carrier building programme between the heavy and light carriers was not easy. On the one hand the smaller ships were easier to get into service and could cope with the peacetime workload. Heavier ships were expensive, required difficult materials and used up scarce resources in the shipbuilding industry. Getting the Maltas built would have required a crystal ball.
The 1950s allowed the RN to run on its obsolescent ships as there was no serious naval threat. Sea Venoms, Scimitars and Wyverns faced no opposition from Migs at Port Said. Eagle's Sea Vixens nearly a decade later were not challenged in the Straights by Indonesian Migs.
Leaf through Jane's Fighting Ships in 1962 and most navies look little different from WW2. Only the US and Italian navies have cruisers and destroyers with anti aircraft missiles. Other navies have a handful of such ships under construction.
But the new decade was going to bring more missiles and faster bigger jets. The US Navy set the pace. Its super carriers of the Forrestal class were joined by four newer ships and the nuclear Enterprise. But perhaps a warning for the future the next nuclear carrier (Nimitz) was not to enter service until the second half of the 70s.
The Royal Navy was forced to choose between nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. The threat posed by Soviet submarines made this choice for the UK. Nimrod ASW and Seaking helos were vital as were the Hunter Killer subs (SSNs). Phantoms and Buccaneers were nice to have but not of much use in dealing with Soviet submarines.
So it was that the much talked about Escort Cruiser (killed off in 1962 to get CVA01) became 1966's Command Cruiser. Two decades after its demise in 1982 the Escort Cruiser had become an ASW carrier (CVS) and gained the Sea Harrier the RN had also scorned in 1962.
From 1982 to 1991 the Royal Navy fought its silent war with the Soviet Navy and the lack of a CTOL carrier had ceased to be an issue.
Far from being "the end of history" the 1990s saw the Balkans and Iraq remind the world that war had not taken a holiday. The ASW carriers and their Harriers impressed a new generation of UK politicians that aircraft carriers had their uses.
In 1997 the Blair Government decided that two new aircraft carriers were needed for the RN. The ships were not to enter service for many years and did not bring the CTOL carrier back into RN service.
The carrier programme proved the 1966 decision had been right. The UK could not have a significant nuclear submarine and ASW force and operate aircraft carriers. I cannot help but wonder whether twelve Astutes would not have worried Mr Putin more than the carriers?
I am sure the above will bring many of you to disagree but the subject seems as rich as ever.
