USS Gerald R. Ford Bravo Trials

Bongs built 2 carriers for half the price of our Ford

I'm not mad just dissapointed

>>33586417
I see the tugs have moved on from the LCS and are now attacking our carriers. Those devious Russians.

>>33586435
>inb4 retards nickpicking

They're both fantastic leaps in capability for both respective navies.

I look forward to the day that we see both a Ford class and QE class side by side.

File: UK-aircraft-carriers-size-comparison.jpg (66KB, 800x676px) Image search: [Google]

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>>33586435

>Bongs built 2 carriers for half the price of our Ford

They also get 2 carriers that are much less capable than any carrier the US has in service right now.

>>33586547
>40 aircraft
What blatant bullshit.

Initial operations will have an air group of 40, a full load of 50 and have the option to expand to 70+ in the the future.

>>33586547

That graph is a bit disingenuous - it mixes both total and typical capacity.

For example, you can have 70+ aircraft on a QE. It's just that her current planned air wing doesn't go over 40 (36 F-35B and four AEW&C).

File: QE.jpg (19KB, 309x195px) Image search: [Google]

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>>33586583
Forgot pic

>>33586435
This really.

If the Bongs put a little more money into their navy, they could effectively have the same capability of the Ford class for literally half the price.

Need more men and planes, really. QE is capable of carrying roughly 70~ aircraft, but the RN decided that 40 is fine.

>>33586417
>opinion of this ship
As a first-of-class, it's going to have problems throughout its life. That's just the way things are, design flaws are observed in the first ship and corrected in the following ships; some are refitted to the existing ship during maintenance. As the Ford is to a large degree based on the Nimitz design, the structural problems will be minimal and the real issues will be with all the new systems- EMALS, radars, and so forth. The ship brings a lot of new capabilities, and offers greater efficiency than the preceding batch, but this is to the best of my knowledge the first time in US history where the new ships are not larger than the existing ones. The USN seems to like this size.
The ship is designed with upgradeability in mind, so it'll remain relevant for quite a while.

>>33586587
I'd like to remind you that during the late 80's the Nimitz class were cruising with around 90 aircraft, and big ones at that- A-5, F-14, E-2, S-3...all fairly large. Yo make it a fair comparison you'd have to compare the load of equivalent aircraft, say a US CVN filled with Brit aircraft.

>>33586547
>dat ramp

B-but the bong carrier is just as good for less money.

>>33586635
>>33586435
>Ford
4 squadrons of strike aircraft, 1 squadron of EW aircraft, 1 squadron of AEW aircraft, 1 squadron of cargo aircraft, 2 squadrons of multi purpose helicopters

>Queen Elizabeth + Prince of Wales combined
2-4 squadrons of strike aircraft, 2 squadrons of multi purpose helicopters

>>33586435

They're having to shell out for something a good 30-40% larger in displacement, 3,000 extra guys to train and a nuclear reactor inside it.

They also had the EML to develop, although the Bongs had the HMWHS too, so those two probably balance out.

Either way, the Murricans had more to buy, more to train and their shipyards are masters at completely fucking the government out of money. They were always going to cost a disproportionate amount more. The ACA in the UK didn't have the same stranglehold on the Gov that Newport does, which has shown in how they've done it with minimum fuss from an industry standpoint.

tl;dr - It's not comparable. Even if the two ships were exactly equal, the US would still be paying a fuckton more, simply because >Newport

>>33586635
>If the Bongs put a little more money into their navy, they could effectively have the same capability of the Ford class for literally half the price.

Bong here

stop being a retard

>>33586587
>>33586583
>http://aviationweek.com/defense/royal-navy-widening-scope-carrier-use
>A surge force of up to 24 JSFs could deploy on the ship along with what he described as a Maritime Force Protection package of nine Merlin Mk. 2 helicopters equipped for the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission, while a further four or five would be available to provide an airborne early warning capability.

>>33586417
The first reply derailed the entire thread, easiest board to troll.

>>33586755
>2013
Disregarded.

>>33586733

Whats the exact numbers that come out of that?

It's most likely that a maxed out for carrier strike QE will end up with around 48-60 F-35s and 12-24 Merlins (with 10 Crowsnest kits), depending on the exact amount of F-35s.

But I dunno how large those squadrons are on American ships.Would that be 48 F-35C/Super Hornets, 12 Growlers, 4 Hawkeye, 2 Greyhounds and 24 helos?

Interested to know what they can actually do.

>>33586755

Meanwhile Jerry Kyd, the captain of the ship itself, has confirmed "more than 70".

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/navy-queen-elizabeth-warship

"It might seem contradictory to commission such big ships despite them having small crews and operating STOVL aircraft which don't need a big flight deck to launch and land. The size is due to the need to potentially refit for cats and traps if necessary. As Kyd says, it also gives the ship greater flexibility, not just in terms of the number of aircraft it can carry - he says it could carry more than 70 F-35Bs"

It's likely the author misinterpreted Kyd saying "more than 70 aircraft" (which is what he's always said elsewhere) as meaning all F-35B, but he's gone on record talking about 70+ for a while.

Anyway, can we move away from talking about our carrier over here? This is the Ford's moment, QE will have her time later on this year to do the same.

How long is Ford's sea trials before commisioning? Do we know when she'll launch something?

>>33586733
And where's your source?

because each carrier is going to carry 36~ F-35's and 2 merlins during peacetime and a full load of 50 F-35's and 4 Merlins during a war. It's capable of carrying roughly 70, with various upgrades to extend it's life expectancy. It's also capable of adding cat and traps, if required.

This is all from various sources, including Royal Navy commadore Jerry Kyd, captain of the first QE carrier.

>>33586769

I did inb4 it.

You can't have a good thread because of the trolls who know that any comment that's remotely positive will attract the retards who take one thing being good as an affront to another thing.

It's this really shit mentality that /k/ gives people of "if isn't the best, it is shit".

>>33586417
>What is /k/'s opinion of this ship

It's a shit name.

I'm still waiting for the USS Obummer and USS Drumpf

File: gnats.jpg (54KB, 1019x550px) Image search: [Google]

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>>33586587

exclusive pic of how the brits will fit 70 aircraft on their carrier

>>33586844

Heh, I was the one who actually updated the wiki with that article.

They don't really expand on it, however, in my autistic digging of the web I've found that Dr Peter Roberts, Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute said and I quote "The Queen Elizabeth class carrier is *easily* capable of carrying 72 aircraft".

Now I'd interpret that word use of something that reflexes operation capability.

>$17B
>Doesn't even have a ramp

>>33586906
It means the ship itself is capable of carrying 72 aircraft, but the Royal Navy isn't. They lack the manpower and budget to do so effectively.

Having 60 F-35's on a QE alone is half the amount of planes actually bought by the government for RN and RAF use.

>>33586934
You're entirely right, but its certainly better to have a carrier you can't fill up with fighters than the other way around.

Can at least potentially buy more F-35s later on in production, because they'll be made for years. Or potentially some tiltrotor

>>33586919
You pay extra so you don't get stuck with a ramp

>>33586934

I'm aware.

But this is one of brilliant things about STOVL aircraft, you can make traditional availability issues 'disappear' far easier with STOVL. The difference between qualfiying CATABAR and STOVL pilots for carrier is comical.

You can do in days what it takes a STOVL pilot to do, what it takes months for a CATABAR pilot.

>>33586954
Why would anyone pay more to lose a feature?

>>33586985
What are automatic cars

>>33586990
This is like paying more and engine up with the engine directly connected to the differential.

>>33586547
CAN PEOPLE STOP USING TWO DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS WHEN THEY MAKE THESE INFOGRAPHICS
We use long tons the Brits use short tons.
This means in this image, the QE should be around 80,000 tons or the Ford should be around 104,000