I doubt it. While the Midways lasted that long, they could be withdrawn for proper refits due to the availability of other carriers to fill the gap. Eagle would have been the sole large carrier in British service and so would have been worked hard with prolonged periods of time between refits. I could see the Falklands war (if it happened) being the being the straw that broke the camels back, and it being found when she returned that she was too worn out to repair.
The third Audacious class carrier - what might have been ?
- Thread starter Archibald
- Start date
They would have been used heavily, you're right, but with a commitment (based I'm sure on some kind of demand from the US for the presence of British as well as French fleet carriers to make up numbers due to post-Vietnam reductions, to which the reply from HMG's political/upper administrative class would've been "mumble mumble mumble top table and all that, chaps" and then getting on with it for as little money as they could get away with) to keep the carriers running post-Sixties, a U-turn on policy since the replacement plan (F-111K plus either Anglo-French VGFA or Panavia Tornado) had collapsed already, Eagle especially could've held out longer, and with some proper patching Ark could've made it through the Falklands and run on fumes into the middle of the decade. I suspect based on the survival rates of Hermes/Vikrant and Minas Gerais, and how relatively well Bulwark was doing at the end, that Eagle with her proper fix-up (just as @Riain detailed) and Ark with more work would've run on into the Eighties, Ark to the middle of the decade and Eagle up to the edge of the Nineties. At that point, of course, you have to look at replacements, but so are the French, and now you can have an Anglo-French replacement project with both nations looking at two ships apiece (or at the very least as the Cold War dies down one apiece trading off whose carrier is at sea.) That might have worked out as the best of both worlds compared to Charles de Gaulle: British design teams might've come up with something less of a "let's try to leap forward further than we're capable" hot mess than Charles de Gaulle, while the French, wanting to do the job and be done (much as, with the SEPECAT Jaguar, they exercised their veto and fixed the design just before the MoD teams tried to make three or four different aircraft out of it instead of building the damn thing) would veto the typical British procurement process -- a result of the fact that MoD rotates its project-management personnel, which means (1) each management/design team try to put their own stamp on and you get multiple redesigns and (2) the longer a project runs the more jobs for the boys -- and say "you've drafted a nice ship. Now go build it. On y va." That would've been a good outcome. Or if it's not a CdeG approximation, maybe it's a vehicle to have joint Anglo-French production of P.1216, and you get something like Cavour only not trying to be an LPH at the same time so it has a proper hangar that really holds 30-35 aircraft, with c. 20-24 P.1216 and the rest AEW and helicopters for ASW, ship's flight, etc. Which is not the same capability as Ark or Clemenceau, but still nothing to sneeze at if you've got a good iteration of P.1216.
Archibald
Banned
Last chance to derail the Charles de Gaulle is late 1985. Political approval was February 1986 (and it took a decade to build the thing).
There is a way to derail CdG however. At the very beginning PH-75 (Porte Helicoptères, 1975, as the name entail) was a small commando carrier, to replace, not Foch and Clemenceau, but ye old Arromanches (a Colossus class carrier, by the way). The French Navy really and badly wanted two carriers + a commando carrier (Jeanne d'Arc was a training ship and too small) and the loss of the Arromanches in 1974 due to old age was bitterly felt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_aircraft_carrier_Arromanches_(R95)
so there is probably a way to sneak a Centaur commando carrier successor into the French Navy, plus of course Italy and Spain navies. Which mean Harrier for everybody, including Dassault, but the Super Etendard was small potatoes for them (less than a hundred aircrafts) plus they got the Mirage 2000 contract in 1976 so their future is safe.
I'm often asked how to curbstomp Dassault lack of enthusiasm for international cooperation. There is a remote possibility.
Just have the French government threaten them that the heavyweight public aerospace company (Aerospatiale) may build combat aircrafts again and break Dassault monopoly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aérospatiale
This should scare the shit out of Dassault, they fought hard from 1955 to get that monopoly in place (De Gaulle enshrined it by 1965, and Breguet was the last to stand in 1967 when they were eaten by Dassault).
Aerospatiale still wanted to build combat aircrafts: by 1972 they proposed to licence-build A-7 Corsair IIs from Vought, but the French government shot the proposal down and told them to concentrate of civilian aircrafts and helicopters.
Last edited:
Archibald
Banned
The big question is of course whether the Falklands happens or not, with Eagle + Hermes as backup (let's say old Ark Royal don't survives the infamous 1981 defense paper).
An interesting question is, could Phantoms and Buccaneers fly out of Eagle in the South Atlantic winter heavy seas ? I've heard conflicting accounts about it, that Harriers could fly where CATOBAR aircrafts couldn't.
wasn't there a pre - Falklands scare in 1976 or 77 that got defused ?
An interesting question is, could Phantoms and Buccaneers fly out of Eagle in the South Atlantic winter heavy seas ? I've heard conflicting accounts about it, that Harriers could fly where CATOBAR aircrafts couldn't.
wasn't there a pre - Falklands scare in 1976 or 77 that got defused ?
Centaur Class clone with a 100 foot extension and deck edge lifts and you've still got a viable conventional carrier with the right aircraft. What the Invincibles should have been in my opinion.
The rebuild was supposed to last 15-20 years, so if she got another big refit in that timeframe she could maybe stretch to 1991.
Keep in mind things are different in Britain than India and other places that kept of WW2 carriers forever, acceptance of risk and the expectations of crew mean you can't keep old ship forever.
Lost Freeway
Banned
The Argentinian junta needed something to distract the populace from their incompetence and brutality.
This, plus a combination of the actual crypto-fascists (there were some) and the caudillo-wannabes in the junta were wedded to a revival of the old dream of Argentina dominating the Southern Cone and, if they could complete the race to the Bomb first, overawing Brazil. They'd already tried to get a war going with Chile at the end of 1978 and only herculean efforts (and some possible threats of excommunication to these ultramontane Argentine four-stars) from Pope John Paul II -- yes really, he was dealing with two reactionary governments in Buenos Aires and Santiago that put over-the-top reactionary Catholicism at the center of their sense of self -- prevented it. They were damn sure going to have a war somewhere, possibly even a nuclear one with Brazil by the mid-to-late-Eighties if they held on that long and work picked up steam from their improved refinement processes at the end of the Seventies. The Falklands were a natural target and had been forever, just until about 1970 the sheer severity of how badly and assuredly they would be curbstomped by the UK prevented them. But that had seemed to change during the Seventies, and by the global economic downturn out of 1979 the junta were engaged in what the Germans call "the flight forward" -- doubling down on bad decisions already made or paths of reasoning that had failed them, figuring that things had to turn around eventually. Instead the Juntamobile hit the concrete wall doing somewhere just south of ninety and apparently no one had put in airbags.
Very true. And very much in agreement with this and, separately, with @Archibald, which puts the time for serious debate about replacement no later than the mid-Eighties, right when the French are having the same conversation. Some interesting AH could come out of that.
And as a sidebar to a comment above about the utility of the Centaur design, it's interesting to wonder whether a couple of Vincis might have been built regardless as an upgrade (newer hulls, cooler gubbins -- my favorite bit of British technical slang -- and most wonderfully for the Treasury smaller crews) for Hermes and Bulwark, truly in the ASW helicarrier/LPH role. Be interesting to (1) see that happen and (2) see the results of shifting the GR1/GR3 Harriers from the "they can take off from anywhere after the Soviets introduce our runways to Mr. Instant Sunshine" role in Germany to the potentially more useful role of fjord-hopping in Norway attached to 3 Cdo Bde's deployment there.
But back to the original point -- mid to late Eighties is the timeframe where replacement becomes a major political issue, and the coterminous timeline with France points to either a falling-out which could negatively affect both nations' build schedules, or a collaboration to achieve some economies of scale on a project of this importance (also, on the downside, that both nations' treasures might try to push them into singletons, effectively trading off time at sea and calling it "European collaboration" or whatever other such thing bean-counters call it when they gut two companies for the proceeds and rebrand what remains as one.)
Admiral Beez
Banned
The bigger question IMO is what happens to the three Audacious when decommissioned in the late 1970s, and does India, RAN or the Latins get one? If India has an Audacious in the 1980s, that changes a lot. Or, if Argentina has it?!
I'm surprised that Eagle or Ark Royal weren't sold to other navies IOTL. Maybe Ark was in too rough a shape, and Eagle too cannibalized for her sister, but together there should be one usable ship there. So, was there US or Foreign Office pressure not to market a fast fleet carrier to the world?
I saw a local TV programme about Cammel Lairds where Ark Royal was built, a lot of old workers were interviewed and they said that when construction was suspended after 2 years work the hull was built but the decks werent plated over. She sat on the slipway open to the weather for about 3 years with a lot of bare metal that should have been painted and when construction was restarted a lot of rust was just painted over. I have often wondered if the time sat on the slip contributed to Ark Royals problems.
That timing might actually work. That Woman is in No 10 and due to the tensions with the Soviets she might actually insist the Carriers are replaced. Conventionally powered CdG sized carriers would be a good match for the RN and if they're being honest (fat chance) the French. 2 each of the carriers coupled with at least 1 and preferably 2 LHDs apiece and Europe's naval aviation needs are covered.
Last edited:
With three audacious in service In would imagine we would see them less heavily used and all survive in British service til the 80s. Probably retiring after the Falklands (if it happens).
If sold in the 80s I can't see too many friendly nations capable of purchasing and operating such a large vessel.
If built by the time you have them being retired they'd be completely clapped out. Even if another country could afford to run one the thing would barely be able to leave port without breaking down so buying it would be pointless.
Hermes only entered service in 1959 and for the last 30 years has been in the Indian Ocean not the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea. Even when in RN service she spent a large proportion of her time in the Indian Ocean, she simply didn't get the battering from rough seas that Ark Royal and Eagle faced as part of Britain's Nato commitments.
Even if this third Audacious-class was still in commission by the 1980s she would likely be around twenty-five years old and pretty much shagged out, needing a large crew to operate - manpower being a perennial problem for the Royal Navy, thus almost certainly slated, alongside her sisters, for retirement in the 1981 Defence White Paper. There were also rumours of possibly paying off the two Fearless-class amphibious assault ships which would retire pretty much all of the expeditionary warfare capabilities. If the Foreign Office still sends out mixed signals and HMS Endurance is removed then I think things still go as in our timeline, a larger carrier being planned retired not changing things. There's also the machismo factor.
From what I remember those weren't rumours, Knott really was going to scrap them as apparently Britain had no need for any out of Nato expeditionary capability. Oops.
But there is one issue:Falklands War in 1982. If that happened like IOTL with that third audacious class in RN, Then the Falklands war will end quicker.