The incoming aircraft carriers: more than just carriers

HMS Queen Elizabeth will be officially named in a ceremony planned for July 4, and the ship will be pulled out of dry dock soon afterwards, so that a major, historic milestone is quickly approaching. The importance of these new carriers for the Royal Navy goes beyond the "simple" regeneration of naval fixed wing aircraft capability, expanding well into the amphibious domain. This truth has not yet been fully understood by many external observers, which continue to focus on impressive, but far less relevant aspects of the program. In this article i want to take a look at the current situation and explain how the carrier's air group is taking shape.
There is still confusion about what role the new aircraft carrier(s?) will have in the Royal Navy once they enter in service. Of course there’s realistic worrying about having enough aircraft embarked, both because doubts reasonably remain on how the RAF will utilize the aircraft (which it owns) and because the UK’s order for the F-35B is currently standing at 48, down from what once was an ambition for 150, then 138 from roughly 2006 onwards. More orders might be made in the 2020s, but no one is willing to bet on those as of now, and actually even the planned buy of 48 has to pass through the SDSR 2015 and multiple successive Gate points, which might actually reduce the number even further. I will try and provide a more in depth explanation of what is happening.

More than anything else, however, in this article i want to explain just how important the new carriers are for the future of the british amphibious capability as well. This is a key aspect, which needs to be cleared, because getting the carriers wrong would not only end the Fleet Air Arm's fixed wing branch once and for all, but also deal a very heavy blow to the Royal Marines. 

The aircraft to be carried

  

The Joint Combat Aircraft program, which is the purchase of the F-35B, is currently sitting at its Main Gate 4 decision point. This major development was announced a few weeks ago, with Philip Hammond releasing an interview to the BBC and with several reports appearing on the press. This main gate reportedly covers the purchase of 14 F-35B plus spares and infrastructure investment, not better specified yet, to support the whole planned fleet. It was understood that a formal announcement in Parliament would follow, but so far this has not happened. 

Of course, this silence has been interpreted by some as a way of the british government to distance itself from the F-35B, but this is absolutely false. There was never going to be a big contract signed at once for the 14 jets, but only an internal budget-setting exercise to cover purchases that will happen over several years, in different production lots, over multiple contracts signed through the F-35 Joint Project Office and the Pentagon.

The idea seems to entail receiving 14 F-35B by 2018, in order to form the training fleet in Beaufort and stand up the core of the first operational squadron (617 Sqn RAF). The UK has already ordered four jets, three of which are instrumented test aircraft destined to the soon-to-stand-up OEU Sqn (XVII Sqn RAF) on Edwards AFB, in the United States. BK-1, BK-2 and BK-4 are the instrumented aircraft, while BK-3 is not instrumented and will join the operational or training fleet.

The training fleet (expected to eventually number some 6 aircraft, judging from earlier plans) will be based on the US Marines air base Beaufort, where, in 2016, 617 Sqn will officially stand up again (the squadron disbanded on 1^st April this year, with the Tornado GR4). The core of the squadron will be trained in America, before transferring in the UK, in Marham, by 2018. 

Aircraft Carrier Alliance image

 

If this plan is respected, the 14 aircraft the UK will soon be ordering will have to be spread at most on LRIP 8, LRIP 9 and possibly LRIP 10. This is based on the roughly 2 years it takes from contract finalization to delivery. The UK has long been expected to order 4 F-35B in LRIP 8, and on March 25, 2014, the Long Lead contract for the LRIP 9 has been signed, including materials for 6 F-35Bs for the UK. That leaves 4 more to be ordered later in LRIP 10 to make up the total of 14. The aircrafts in production lots beyond the 10^th would only be delivered in 2019 and in the following years, as roughly two years separate the signing of the final production contract and the delivery of the airplane. 

In early march there was also the news of a 7 million dollar contract signed for site-activation activities for starting to make RAF Marham the main operating base for the british F-35Bs. So, even if without a formal announcement in Parliament, the acquisition programme is indeed going on.

RAF Marham is expected to be built up to include a full Integrated Training Centre, which means the UK plans to step away from training in the US to do things domestically. The ITC won’t begin operations before 2019, but we can expect investment for it to begin soon enough, if the plan does not change. The UK appears interested to gain money by selling training services in its ITC to other European customers of the F-35. Mainly, talks are ongoing with Norway. A recent agreement is pretty clear in foreshadowing the idea at the base of the collaboration: Norway’s state-owned AIM hopes to do depot maintenance for the engines of the british F-35 fleet. AIM signed an agreement with Lochkeed Martin and Pratt & Whitney in april 2012 to secure its role as a depot maintenance hub for the F-135 engine, and now wants to secure a long term gain, exploiting such role.

Norway, in exchange, would send its pilots training in the british ITC, instead of sending them all the way to Luke, in the US. 

It has been announced in Parliament that the F-35s will not wear squadron specific colors, but only the low-visibility grey national markings. Hope there will be a rethink...

 

... so we can see something like this. Image by savetheroyalnavy.org

 

Or at least, something like this, in grey. Image @ Al Clark, janetairlines.com

 

Depending on how things go with the announced new Defence White Paper in Italy, UK and Norway will probably have new talks with Rome about expanded cooperation. The Italian FACO in Cameri is expected to become the regional MRO facility for the F-35, which means doing depot maintenance and upgrades installation for the aircraft of the USAF-Europe as well as those of all other countries that will buy in.

As of today, a single MRO centre is expected in Europe and in the Mediterranean area, so that the options will be restricted: UK and Norway will have to choose between Cameri and the MRO facilities in the US.

Italy could collaborate with the UK by co-financing Meteor missile integration (discussions ongoing) and by sending its personnel to the UK for training in the british ITC, instead of sending people all the way to Luke and Beaufort in the USA. In exchange, the british F-35Bs could have their depot maintenance done in Cameri. Finding a fair agreement with Norway will be tougher, as Italy has already agreed to have its F-135 engines serviced by the Dutch, which are getting their F-35s assembled (and in future maintained) in Cameri in exchange.

As of October 2013, Lockheed Martin expects that the UK, in 2018, will have taken delivery of some 17 aircraft, with 9 based in Marham with 617 Sqn, 3 in Edwards with XVII Sqn, and 5 more as training fleet in Beaufort. 

The expected 2018 situation for the F-35, as of October 2013

In terms of UK-specific trials, work to develop and validate the Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing tecnique has resumed after being stopped over 2010 and 2011 when the plan was temporarily changed in favor of acquiring the C variant of the F-35. Work is now ongoing with computer simulations in Warton. SRVL will improve performance in hot climates, produce less stress on the vertical lift system and add thousands of pounds of useful payload at recovery. The F-35B is to be capable to land vertically with some 5000 pounds of unused fuel and ordnance, which is a value far higher than the Harrier's and close to the 6000 pounds carrier bring back of the old F-18 Hornet, but it could prove insufficient were the aircraft to be heavily loaded with, for example, Storm Shadow cruise missiles that the UK hopes to integrate in the future. 

SRVL could add some 2000 lbs of additional payload margin, which would do wonders to enable safe operations with heavy configurations. 

It has also been reported that it is likely that up to three F-35Bs, including one of the british ones, will do their first flight across the Atlantic in the Summer, to participate at the RIAT and Farnborough airshow. 

Beyond the F-35B

The CROWSNEST program for the replacement of the Sea King MK7 ASaC has finally started to roll, and the In Service Date has been moved closer in time, to reduce the gap that will be formed when the Sea King goes out of service.

The Merlin HM2 fleet will be fitted with a palletized radar suite enabling the helicopters to take up the role of Airborne Surveillance and Control platforms. 

The Merlin HC3 and HC3A of the Royal Air Force are going to be navalized and transformed into amphibious support helicopters, under a contract which has finally been signed. It will however take time to have the whole fleet of 25 machines fully ready.

Last, but not least, the Apache attack helicopters of the British Army are now being all fitted with additional naval features, including an emergency flotation device, to enable them to serve on board of warships in a safer and more effective way.

Details of these and other helicopter programs can be found in this detailed article.

A key role in amphibious operations

A factor that not always is kept in mind when talking of the new carriers, however, is that they will not just be fundamental to restore the british capability to deploy airpower at sea and from the sea, but they will also be absolutely vital for ensuring that the amphibious capability of the UK continues to exist and to respect the levels set by the SDSR 2010.

The defence planning assumption is that the Royal Navy has to be able to land a Royal Marines commando group with related vehicles, helicopters and supports, sealifting and then landing a total of roughly 1800 men.

This is only possible using one LPD of the Albion class, one LPH and the three remaining Bay class LSDs. The LPD is fundamental because it brings to the party the command and control facilities and the most part of the landing crafts available to the group, as well as vehicles and substantial amounts of stores. The LPH is fundamental as it carries the most men and almost the totality of the helicopters. The LPD and the LSDs have very limited aviation facilities, and no hangar, so the LPH is absolutely vital in order to ensure that the battlegroup can be supported from the air and moved by air.

The LSDs transport men, boats and landing crafts, bulky materials, normally at least one army workboat, mexeflotes and a lot of the vehicles and stores of the group.

None of these components can go missing, otherwise the whole force is in serious trouble. The 1800 men figure is not casual: it is quite clearly calculated on summing the capacity of the vessels remaining in force.

LPD: 305 men

LSDs: 356 men (x 3)

LPH: around 600   

The Royal Navy has two LPDs, but only one is in service at any one time, following the SDSR 2010. Currently, HMS Bulwark is in service and acting as the flagship of the fleet, while HMS Albion has been de-stored, disarmed and tied up in Devonport, in the amphibious center now known as HMS Tamar, where it is languishing, sealed up and fitted with controlled humidity devices to preserve her. The plan as of now is that in 2016, when HMS Bulwark hits refit time, HMS Albion will be re-activated, and the two ships will swap places.

The LPHs are also two, as of now, but again this is virtual only: HMS Ocean is about to come out of major refit, while HMS Illustrious has been working as LPH / Commando Carrier in the meanwhile.

HMS Ocean will be back into action soon enough, but that will be the end of HMS Illustrious, as she will be decommissioned.

HMS Ocean is more or less just air assault. It can lower a pontoon in the water at the back that serves as a steel beach. Light vehicles can drive down a ramp and use the floating pontoon to board landing crafts, but the LPH carries just a relatively tiny number of small vehicles and trailers (tipically Land Rovers). Other than that, she is pure air assault. 

HMS Ocean with the floating steel beach deployed

An LCU MK10 carrying BV206 vehicles comes to the steel beach during exercises in Norway

HMS Ocean normally carries just L118 Light Guns, land rovers with trailers and some BV206s

This photo of HMS Ocean during operation Ellamy shows the steel beach pontoon folded up and stored on top of the structure protecting the vehicle ramp going down from flight deck to vehicle deck

HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark are LPDs with an alarmingly low capacity for soldiers (only about 300 unless you start being less permissive with the space each man has, but that is not good for months-long deployments abroad which are now the norm for amphibious task groups including the RN's RFTG), and the LPDs offer limited air facilities, with no hangar.

The Point-class RoRo strategic sealift vessels are fundamental to carry stores and lots of vehicles for the support of the landing force, but they have no accommodation for troops, and can only carry vehicles and stores meant to be loaded ashore later, when the beach head is secure.
Besides, the Points are down to 4, from the 6 they used to be, as two were released from MOD service, despite the SDSR 2010 document promising specifically that all six would stay. 

The Point class Ro-Ro ships carry huge amounts of vehicles and stores

The LSDs used to be four, but the SDSR 2010 saw Largs Bay withdrawn from service and sold to Australia. Of the three that remain, one is permanently deployed in the Persian gulf (right now it is Cardigan Bay) to act as mothership for the MCM force based in Bahrain. Cardigan Bay has been fitted with a prefabricated shelter on deck, as a hangar of sorts, and has been recently assigned a permanent Lynx helicopter flight. It has also now been equipped with a Sea Eagle UAV system, which is entering in service in this week.

The end result is that the daily reality of the amphibious force is the ability to sealift and land a smaller force than the 1800 promised in the SDSR. The vessels can of course be crammed with more men for short periods of time (up to 700 on the LPD and LSDs, and over 800 on HMS Ocean) but this is not a very realistic capability, because it is not accompanied by an increase in stores and vehicles carried. And anyway, the men will start finding the crowded vessels unbearable very quickly, in a matter of days.

For a normal, yearly deployment such as Cougar 13 this year, the Response Force Task Group spends months at sea, so the ships are preferably lightly loaded in terms of men. The already mentioned Cougar 13 is a good example: 42 Commando, the formation currently at high readiness, did not embark whole on the ships. For example, Lima company was flown out to Albania ahead of the rest of the formation moving on the ships. The occasion was exploited to conduct mountain training.

The company then traded place with Kilo company. The end result is that the amphibious battlegroup pretty much never was fully present at once on the ships. Aside from the training requirements dictating the independent movements of companies, the availability of only 2 Bay-class LSDs has obviously part of the responsibility.

The big problem on the horizon, however, is the planned decommissioning of HMS Ocean, without replacement, in 2019. The task force however obviously continues to require a big platform for the amphibious assault helicopters and for the transport of hundreds of men, and this is where the carriers step in.

Since the platform for helicopters is going without a direct replacement, the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers will have to be hybrids. It is not a choice, it is an unavoidable necessity. And hopefully the new ships can pull such a mixed role off. They will be, in fact, closer to America than to a supercarrier. The Royal Navy and Royal Marines will need to be able to cram hundreds of marines into Queen Elizabeth, along with some stores and perhaps some air-liftable vehicles and L118 Light Guns too. Helicopters, including Chinook and Apache, will have to be carried. And in addition to that, at least a squadron of F-35B, if airpower is to be finally brought back to the fleet.

The fact that the new vessels are so large gives hope that the hybrid role can be covered well, despite the design of the ship being clearly centered on delivering fast jet sorties, not to land and support troops ashore.

The Royal Navy has finally formally recognized the need to operate the new carrier as a hybrid in the SDSR 2010, with the public description of the Carrier Enabled Power Projection concept. A surprisingly detailed note was shown in the SDSR fact sheets, when it was described that:

We will plan concurrently to operate a mix of helicopters as well as Joint Strike Fighters from the carrier. This will include up to 12 Chinook or Merlin transport helicopters and eight Apache attack helicopters. The precise mix will depend on the mission.

There are obvious challenges to be faced and won, if this has to work. Embarking and employing simultaneously jets and helicopters for amphibious assaults is not at all easy. The US Marines do it routinely on ships smaller than the QE-class carriers, but specifically thought all along for such use. And anyway, the fixed wing component they use in such cases is normally made up by just 6 Harriers (possibly growing up to 10 F-35B on the new America LHAs). Obviously, they enjoy the formidable cover offered by the US Navy supercarriers: the UK doesn’t, so it will have to embark more jets to give the task force proper cover.

A key difficulty is finding suitable space for the many hundred men needed. Fast jets and helicopters require a large number of maintenance and deck personnel, and having to add hundreds of Royal Marines means needing lots of accommodations.

The needs of the Royal Marines are different from those of an aircraft ground engineer, besides: the Marines need space for their weapons and kit, and also need to be accommodated in spaces properly dimensioned and located around the vessel: they need to be able, once kitted up and ready to go, to walk easily up to the flight deck or to the ship’s boats, to board landing crafts and helicopters.

Fortunately, a secondary role as Commando Carrier was always part of the aircraft carriers design, so that there are wide corridors and spaces for the embarkation of troops. The December 2013 issue of Navy News includes one of the very first, rare mentions of these arrangements. There are accommodation quarters for “easily” 250 men, with wide assault routes. 250 men, however, will not be enough, and it will always be a struggle to balance embarked forces and air wing personnel numbers and accommodations. 

The Marines will probably be able to board boats and landing crafts from the boat boarding area in the stern of the carriers, which can be accessed via stairs going down from the hangar deck. It has not yet been cleared whether the boat areas of the carriers feature spaces and cranes sufficient for the embarkation of LCVP MK5 landing crafts. 

This photo, courtesy of navyrecognition.com, shows well the stairs leading down to the boat boarding area. A crane is fitted to a sponson just beneath the flight deck level, and it could be useful to move stores to and from boats coming up behind the carrier.

 

It is not yet clear if the larger boat areas are LCVP MK5 capable. Image from navy-matters.beedall.com

 

This image from earlier phases of the building process shows (evidenced in blue by me) one of the large openings in the sponsons for the launch and recovery of ship's boats.

Other problems come from trying to operate large number of helicopters as well as fixed wing jets. The design of the deck of the carrier is being developed and refined with these conflicting needs in mind. As of September 2013, the Royal Navy was reportedly trying to carefully design the deck to achieve 10 helicopter ops spots.

If the “hybrid carrier” works, we will have a high value vessel which will be forced to sail far closer to the shore than we'd like it to. It is true that the Royal Navy is planning for escort ships sporting flight decks big enough to easily accommodate even the Chinook (Type 45 already in service, and even the new Type 26 frigate is planned to have such capability), which could be used as forward refueling sites to allow the carrier to stay further back and still fly troops ashore by helicopter, but the feasibility of such concept is questionable.

At least, even with all the conflicting requirements crammed together, all the three key capabilities of any naval / amphibious task force will be present: fast jets for air cover and support, helicopters, troops.
But if it does not work, we will have a disaster, with amphibious capabilities badly maimed and with air strike capabilities set to remain dramatically limited by the very small number of F-35B that are going to be purchased. In practice, the gap in embarked fixed wing aviation would be closed (at least in part), but a gap in amphibious rotorcraft capability and simply in amphibious troops lift will open, making the whole task force just as crippled. It would be a case of swapping  a problem for another.

The next time someone asks what the carriers are for, or wonders why they are so big, remind them that they are very much needed, and that their huge sizes are to be blessed, as smaller vessels would never be able to approach the kind of mixed role that lays ahead. And no, there is no guarrantee at all that building smaller carriers would have been made it possible to also build dedicate LHDs. It is pretty likely that the cost of more numerous, relatively smaller ships would have been equal, if not higher, especially considering that the CVF vessels have very small crews. More, smaller ships would have almost certainly required more personnel to crew and support them, and personnel is exactly what the Royal Navy post SDSR does not have.

It is painful to watch two fine LHDs of the Mistral class being built for Russia, knowing that having at least one such vessel in Royal Navy service would solve much of the problem, and represent an excellent boost in capability. But I’m not going to spend much time daydreaming: the deal will go ahead, as the money is too much and too good to pass up. Paris is highly unlikely to truncate the deal, and even if it did, the MOD has no budget to procure the vessels. Not one, and certainly not both. Besides, the ships would need some serious work done to remove the Russian kit and have Royal Navy equipment fitted in its place, which would make the purchase even more financially challenging.

Even in the best case scenario, the problem won’t be solved until HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark are replaced, most likely by large LHDs. Until then, the Royal Navy will have to make do.

This leaves the big question: will both carriers enter in service, or will the Royal Navy get only one?
If both carriers are kept, but one is held in reserve, mothballed like Albion, only coming out of its "coma" every six years to replace the sister as she goes into refit, the problem remains: perhaps a major operation (but it has to be really big) would see the second hull hastily reactivated (ala HMS Intrepid back in 1982) with the fleet then faced by the decision of perhaps using one as carrier and one as LPH, so only one of the two has to sail close to the shore.
However, this neat separation would probably be judged unworkable because if either of the two ships was damaged the task force would lose most or all of either air power or amphibious helilift. Probably, even with both ships in the task force, fast jets, Marines, helicopters and stores would still be split among the two in roughly equal terms for prudence.
In normal years and normal operations, the RFTG would still be faced with the problems coming from having a single flat top for two roles.
The above situation (with one carrier active, one tied up in port with sealed doors and Controlled Humidity kit installed to try and keep it together while it languishes in port for years on end) is probably the best outcome we can realistically hope for in 2015. Which is a bad scenario, but... not the worst of possibilities, at least.

If both ships are regularly operated, side by side, the RFTG could sail (most of the time) with both carriers in the group, one working as LPH, one as carrier (in "peacetime". In war, the split described before would probably still be preferred). This would cost more in terms of money and manpower, and i'm not optimistic. I don't think we are going to see it happening, sadly.
Even if we do see it happening, there will still be periods in which only one of the two hulls is available, with the other in refit. So the problem still pops up, but at intervals. 

Chinook night operations on HMS Illustrious during exercise Joint Warrior 14-1, in april 2014

So, the Perfect Solution is already out of the window, and it has crashed to the ground already years ago: the problem won't be eased until Albion and Bulwark are (hopefully) replaced with (hopefully) two LHDs, allowing the carrier to act as a carrier, while the large LHD carries both the large landing crafts and the helicopters, and more men.
The question is whether or not the Good Enough Solution (hybrid carrier / assault ship ala America but with greater number of fixed wing aircraft embarked, operated and supported) is achievable and workable. Considering that QEC is considerably larger than America, i think it should be achievable. But it is far from sure. It depends on how the spaces inside the carrier have been configured, on accommodations, on lots of other factors.

The worry here is that this reality has apparently been fully grasped only in 2010, with the emerging of the famous Carrier Enabled Power Projection acronym, which includes this double role problem (along with other things less directly connected to the carrier, such as MARS and CROWSNEST). My hope is that proper thinking about this problem was actually going on from many years earlier inside the RN and the design team which worked on the carriers. I hope they actually worked on the "Commando Aircraft Carrier" (which is something different from both the Commando Carrier and from the Aircraft Carrier) from much earlier, and that 2010 only marked the date in which the Royal Navy publicly admitted that, with no replacement for Ocean on the way, QEC would have, in a way or another, to do it all. Some provisions for a secondary LPH role are understood to have been into the requirements all along, and i hope they have provided a good base to build upon.

If it wasn't so, and planning for it only began in haste in 2010, the carrier design is probably going to struggle in taking the full burden of the requirements on the horizon because the time for making adequate adjustments was allowed to pass and go.

In a way or another, the concept must be made to work, because there is no real alternative in hand’s reach. What is clear is that the carriers are definitely needed. Next time someone asks, you’ll know how to reply.