Per coelum et aequorem victrix - An Alternative HMS Victorious TL

Could HMS Victorious have served on past her 1970 expected end of service date?

In practice although old the 'long refit' in the 50s had created a new ship and there was some talk of making her F4 Phantom II capable after F4s from USS Ranger had successfully landed on her.

Could another refit - allowing her to operate the F4s have allowed her to serve into the 1980s?
 
The Victorious had 2 145' BS4A catapults. The Eagle and Ark Royal had 1 x 151' BS5 and 1 x 199' BS5A catapults, CVA01 was to have 2 x 250' BS6 catapults, all of which had considerably more power than the BS4A of the Victorious and Hermes. A lack of catapult power will be the primary limitation of the Victorious operating Phantoms.
BS4: 40,000lb@78kt; 30,000lb@101kt

BS4C: 35,000lb@99kt; 30,000lb@110kt

BS4A: 50,000lb@87kt; 30,000lb@120kt

BS5: 50,000lb@91kt; 42,000lb@110kt, 35,000lb@126kt

BS5A: 60,000lb@95kt; 50,000lb@105kt, 35,000lb@145kt
 
Harrier carrier role?

For all the reasons that Riain gives, it seems very unlikely that HMS Victorious would have been viable as a fleet carrier in the 1979s. Arguably it wasn't so by the late 190s, though it still was useful in the Indonesian Confrontation and the Beira blockade.

However, with an air group of ASW Helicopters plus 8 or so Sea Vixen and a couple of AEW Gannets, it could have fulfilled the same ASW/Sea Control role as the Invincible class later. And could have been as easily converted to carry Harriers as HMS Hermes.

In fact, with Gannets it could have been a pretty useful addition to the Falklands Task Force whether Harrier or Sea Vixen equipped.
 
Unfortunately the catapults were just the long pole in the tent. Even if her cats were lengthened to handle Phantoms she would have been too small to handle them effectively and too small to have a large enough CVW, as it was the larger Ark's CVW was on the small side by the 70s.
 
Given how long Midway, Coral Sea some of the British light fleet carriers served I don't see why Victorious couldn't be kept in service until the end of the 1980s.

That is if another navy wanted to buy her and the British Government was willing to sell her instead of scrapping her.

However, her new owner would probably want a bigger air group and the British would probably not want to sell the Buccaneer and Sea Vixen to them in the first place.

Therefore it would probably operate a mix of F-8 Crusaders and A-4 Skyhawks or A-7 Corsair II.

If its new owner was a nation like Australia or Brazil they might go into partnership with the French and jointly build the Mirage G to replace the Crusaders. The Mirage G was designed to operate from the Clemenceau class aircraft carriers so it should be able to operate from Victorious.
 
Thank you for your replies everyone

What I was thinking is if the 1966 White paper had not decided to end fixed wing operations (something that did not happen until 1979) then it might have made sense to keep Eagle, Ark and possible Victorious in the role - allowing 1 vessel to always be in the North Atlantic.

Hermes and Bulwark to be retained as Commando ships

This of course would have required another refit - possibly in 1970 - 1972 - modifying the deck and equipment to operate F4 - and this would include improved cats and traps.

However even under those condistions it would probably take something to go seriously wrong with Eagle or Ark Royal before Victorious would remain in commission until the 80s.

But would you agree that it would have been possible had the will existed?
 
The rebuild should have given her 15-20 years service life, taking her deep into the 70s and if the need was there until the 80s. However the logic of CVA01 was self evident and very powerful; if Britain wanted to operate big, all-weather aircraft in reasonable numbers in poor conditions it was going to need big carriers. Having a large number of small carriers operating small air groups is not an efficient way to go about the carrier business, especially since the half-arsed Ark Royal refit for Phantoms cost about half the cost of a new build CVA01 would have.
 
The rebuild should have given her 15-20 years service life, taking her deep into the 70s and if the need was there until the 80s. However the logic of CVA01 was self evident and very powerful; if Britain wanted to operate big, all-weather aircraft in reasonable numbers in poor conditions it was going to need big carriers. Having a large number of small carriers operating small air groups is not an efficient way to go about the carrier business, especially since the half-arsed Ark Royal refit for Phantoms cost about half the cost of a new build CVA01 would have.

If you don't refit Hermes 1964-66 and don't convert Tiger and Blake to helicopter cruisers then you've nearly got the other half the cost of a new built CVA01.

However, that assumes zero inflation between 1966 and 1972. Furthermore there is no guarantee that CVA01 would have been immune from the unexpected delays and cost escalations that are a plague on British defence projects to this day.
 
If you don't refit Hermes 1964-66 and don't convert Tiger and Blake to helicopter cruisers then you've nearly got the other half the cost of a new built CVA01.

However, that assumes zero inflation between 1966 and 1972. Furthermore there is no guarantee that CVA01 would have been immune from the unexpected delays and cost escalations that are a plague on British defence projects to this day.

Personally I'd suggest that's going too far, Hermes' 1964-6 refit wasn't nearly as extensive or expensive as the Vic, Eagle or Ark and would have gave good service for 6-8 years. And I think the RN could be forgiven for Blake, being a new concept and all, but Tiger cost 13 million pounds when they should have known better after Blake. So along with Ark's 32 million you have more than half of CVA01s price right there, in the financial years as well.
 
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