Just imagine a maritime strike Victor.

Is that a hint?

 

Last time i looked, the Canberra's were LHA/ LHD's.

I made the suggestion in another post some time ago that a hybrid frigate with a small docking well and a large aft flight deck might be an interesting partial replacement for the ANZAC's for the exact reason it would be suitable to operate as a mothership for a variety of manned and unmanned combat vehicles.

 

A load out for operations in the Gulf would include a mix of a couple each of CB90's, RHIB's, and say Protector USV's with a couple of helo's and armed Firescouts. 

 

Think about it, changing what it carries in its dock and hanger could tailor these vessels for anything from sea control, ASW, MCM, or even disaster relief.

Arguably the best bet is to develop the 'forward' bases, e.g. Christmas Island, and make routine detachments for flag-waving purposes. Beef up the maritime patrol fleet, i.e. pick up a good size batch of AP-8 Poseidons, and some Global Hawk or Mariner UAVs. Rather than forking out a lot of money for the dubious gains of a 40,000 ton carrier or two, forward bases, more aircraft, and more tankers should be pursued. If you really want to make a point, add a network of long range radars, and some land-based SM-2/SM-3 missiles, for anti-air and ABM use. Routine deployments of a squadron or so of Bugs/Rhinos to forward bases, for 'exercises' with the Navy will make its point quite effectively.

 

All a carrier would do is end up stealing money from the Navy's other projects, and steal valuable personnel. As it is, the Navy is shaping up pretty well, with the new AWDs, LHDs, FFH upgrades, Collins etc... The LHDs could take on some power projection roles if necessary, even if it is little more than operating UAVs. For the price of one large carrier, we could invest in a heck of a lot of other projects, and be a heck of a lot more useful!

Maybe its time to drag out the Incat 112m mini carrier plan again!    Incat have since increased the size of their yards and can build up to 150m now.  The original plan sowed 5 F35's plus several helicopters below decks, with a heap of trucks, armoured vehicles etc. The aircraft used only about 35-40% of the available space.  If devoted solely to aircraft would have held perhaps 12 F35s and 8 helicopters below decks.   Increase its size and you can see the potential.    Was said to cost about $100m then.

This was about 2001/2.

The conceptional Vosper Thornycroft Harrier Carrier comes to mind.  This was offered as a replacement for Melbourne, it was too small for my liking but would have been better than nothing and would have been great if their small size and low cost had allowed additional hulls to be acquired. 

 

Had we ordered three Harrier Carriers instead of a single used Invincible there would have been a chance the number hulls would have been reduced instead of cancelling the entire program.

Frankly, I'm not sure what a light carrier is meant to be used for in this context. If you plan on facing off hoardes of 'Red Flankers' in some sort of Sum of All Fears type scenario, then think again! Any new naval aviation role for the RAN is going to have to be tempered by reality; a US Marine style batch of half a dozen F-35Bs flying from the LHDs might be possible, but much more than that? No.

 

Even funding a third LHD might be difficult, more because of the increased number of escorts needed (unless to trim the escort down to one AWD and two FFHs, which would tie up pretty much the entire surface fleet). I am not saying there is no merit in pushing for it, but it must be part of a logically planned expansion of forces. Manpower issues are already an issue, adding more ships just makes availability worse; this must be fixed before you even think of investing in more ships.

 

I am a very serious fan of naval aviation, and I do think that it could play a role in Aussie defence (partly because I'm not an Aussie taxpayer yet... ). However, this cannot be at the expense of more sensible force improvements; buying tanker-capable A-400Ms to replace the C-130Hs would be a good start, as would improvement of general support. This also includes providing a better status quo for the average ADF personnel - better pay, better housing, better support for families etc...

 

 

As for the replacement of the Melbourne, it was a great pity that Britain chose to cancel the sale. I would have much preferred to see Britain selling one Invincible, keeping the other two, and replacing the sold one and Hermes with a stretched version, to accomodate proper numbers of Sea Harriers. The Falklands had shown the weakness of the Invincible design, with Hermes carrying around twice as many aircraft. Admiral Sandy Woodward had said something along the lines of 'lose Invincible, things get difficult, lose Hermes, and we may as well go home'. Two 25-30,000ton CVLs more like Hermes would have helped the RN a lot; and the sale of Sea Harriers to Australia would help as well. It might have provided the necessary sense to allow the RN to see the merits of basing the follow on to the FRS-1 on the AV-8B airframe. This would have allowed a much more powerful RN fighter, and likely resulted in the RAN getting their own ones as well, in all likelihood with the same APG-65 radar as the RAAF's new Hornets! Heck, scrapping Blue Vixen in favour of an Anglicised APG-65 would have made some sense for the RAF too - it could easily have been fitted to the RAF's Phantom fleet (as the German and Greek Phantoms received), Tornado F-3s, and perhaps even the Tornado GR-1s (perhaps giving them some genuine secondary air-to-air capability). Okay, I've had enough coffee today, I'm turning into Dropbear!

Okay, I've had enough coffee today, I'm turning into Dropbear! http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/images/emsmilep.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" />

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Moon pool....now that is an idea....still doesn't help for launching surface craft though which means a well dock or davits

 

How about a proper fixed wing carrier or 2 that doesn't take the crew of the larger carriers

yes i know it was only a concept drawing that wasn't even seriously considered but maybe Australia should consider it in stead of one the Canberra class or as an addition too it could even be designed and built in oz to our specs

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