David's HNF Blog

I've always been interested in things naval so it's great news that the once great Royal Navy is to get some decent ships at last. It has been announced that two 65000 tonne ships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will be built. Cost £3.2 billion. They should carry up to 40 jet aircraft, however it seems as usual the government can't get anything to do with military aircraft right and the jets won't be ready in time. How ridiculous. Only 6 years to wait to see the first of these ships. Haven't seen an anouncement about engines. Are they to be nuclear powered? You have to wonder how useful just two will be. How much time will they spend in port being refitted. I seem to remember when the current batch of carriers (actually through deck cruisers) were built that if you needed to keep 1 ship on distant station (without all our former bases such as Hong Kong) you needed to have one replacement on it's way out, the last one on it's way back, one in minor refit and one in major refit. A need for 5 ships just to keep one available all the time.