Wi:HMS Queen Elizabeth supercarrier

What if instead of the illustrious class carrier been built the Queen Elizabeth class carrier was built. What would the knock on effect be regarding the Falklands war
 
What air group would she have?
A- F35B?
B- Cats with F4/Buccaneers?
C- Sea harrier near to that of invincible?

A - Hum not sure this is fun for Argentina AF....
B - Still not fun look at Ark royal in Falklands threads only more so....
C - Even this means much more Shars than OTL and the longer runway may mean they have larger drop tanks fitted for more endurance and range?

D - Presumably she would carry more helicopters as well
E - Would Junta want to fight if they think GB might still be interested in carriers and therefore expeditionary warfare?
 
I presume you mean the CVA rather than the current QE design? I suppose there's plenty of knock ons, as mentioned having the CVA's would change the very nature of the set up of the RN and it's capabilities, I mean you have Phantoms and Buccaneers, and Grannets for AWACS so the capability of any Task Force is massively increased. But what else would be changed in terms of the UK military?
 
Cvf version built instead of the illustrious class carriers

There's no way the UK would have gone for something CVF sized at that stage, just look at how they've had to gut the RN right now to pay for the CVF's. Remember at the time the RN had to call them "Through Deck Cruisers" just to get political sign off on them.
 
Cvf version built instead of the illustrious class carriers

Almost certainly impossible to build considering the computers and other modern technology that didn't exist in the late 1970s, to be honest. You could build a 70s equivalent but we tried that in the late 60s with CVA and the Treasury forced so many compromises even the designer was glad when it was cancelled.

What would the RN be giving up for three (?) 65,000 ton fleet carriers because there wasn't all that much money knocking round in the defence budgets of the 1970s and the money to build them (and far more Sea Harriers or a whole new fleet fighter) has to come from somewhere.
 
How big is this design or from my American perspective, what class of US CV would these have been roughly equivalent to?
 
I'd think that building two CVA's is possible even two CVA's of slightly larger and less compromised design. It'd just be a matter of using the defence budget better. Not converting the Tiger class in to helicopter cruisers would be a start. Maybe going down the Blackburn P.150 route instead of TSR-2. Buy only minimally modified Phantom J's for the RN. Refit Eagle instead of Ark Royal to operate Phantom's. There are plenty of ways to save the money required and two CVA's and that also means saving the money that was spent on building the Invincibles. With a refitted Eagle that'd give the RN three CATOBAR carriers in to at least the late 80's.

The knock on effect for the Falklands would be the RN task force being headed by two CATOBAR aircraft carriers (likely a CVA and Eagle) leading to less loses of RN ships and a swifter victory for the British forces. Alternatively, a significant strike carrier capability might change the 1981 defence review enough to butterfly the whole conflict and replace it with a reignited Beagle conflict. Particularly if there's no 1981 British Nationality Act.
 
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I'm thinking if the RN actually has legit cats and traps CVs in their inventory that are more or less equivalent to the US Midway class post re-design, then Argentina doesn't even try.

Even one of those carriers in the South Atlantic in 1982 with Phantoms flying CAP supported by E-2s or something similar and the Argentinians get curb stomped good and hard.
 
Well for one thing, the Illustrious class carriers have nothing to do with this discussion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_of_the_Royal_Navy#Illustrious_class

The Illustrious class was a series of four aircraft carriers built just before and during the early part of World War 2, so I have no idea why they are in the discussion.

I believe the OP ment the Invincible class ships, one of which happened to be named HMS Illustrious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_of_the_Royal_Navy#Invincible_class

If the CVA-01 program had gone through and HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Duke of Edinburgh had been built, you'd have probably seen the Royal Navy operating more F-4 Phantoms longer. I don't know about F-14 Tomcats, but I would not be at all surprised if the Royal Navy later replaced the Phantoms and Buccaneers with F-18 Hornets and possibly later the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets.

Going forward into the Falklands, suddenly you have jets that can outperform the Argentine military, and have better range. You'd quite possibly see the Royal Navy standing up a squadron or two of E-2C Hawkeye aircraft for airborne early warning and control operations, giving them a much better situational awareness. With jets that have longer range and that can carry a wider variety of weapons, the threat of actually hitting Argentine land bases isn't something that can be ruled out.
 
What if instead of the illustrious class carrier been built the Queen Elizabeth class carrier was built. What would the knock on effect be regarding the Falklands war

Potentially useful in deterring the invasion to begin with.

Engaged as per the Hermes and Invincible IOTL however they aren't quite a panacea. Depending on the maintenance requirements of the air-wing embarked sortie rates might be lower than that achieved with the Harriers, and South Atlantic weather would definitely reduce the sortie rate compared to that achieved with the Harrier. The Harriers continued operating in weather that would have (and did in fact with the Vienticinco de Mayo) halted conventional carrier ops.
 
Potentially useful in deterring the invasion to begin with.

Engaged as per the Hermes and Invincible IOTL however they aren't quite a panacea. Depending on the maintenance requirements of the air-wing embarked sortie rates might be lower than that achieved with the Harriers, and South Atlantic weather would definitely reduce the sortie rate compared to that achieved with the Harrier. The Harriers continued operating in weather that would have (and did in fact with the Vienticinco de Mayo) halted conventional carrier ops.
Good point. The task force was operating in South Atlantic autumn. With CATOBAR carriers it might have been necessary to delay the operation until late-September/early-November. That would have given the Argentine force a substantial opportunity to dig. I'd think that sending a couple of SSN's down to enforce the exclusion zone would make that a lot more difficult for the Argentines, but I wonder whether they'd be put at too much risk operating without supporting forces.
 
Good point. The task force was operating in South Atlantic autumn. With CATOBAR carriers it might have been necessary to delay the operation until late-September/early-November. That would have given the Argentine force a substantial opportunity to dig. I'd think that sending a couple of SSN's down to enforce the exclusion zone would make that a lot more difficult for the Argentines, but I wonder whether they'd be put at too much risk operating without supporting forces.

One issue at the time regarding the SSN's was the reliability of the the Tigerfish Torpedoes wasn't it?
 
The fast jet compliment of CVA01 was 36 aircraft, and because the RN had more Buccaneer than Phantom (assuming the RN gets all 48 they ordered ) they might have 14-16 Phantoms and 20-22 Buccaneers including those permanently configured as tankers. This compares favourably to the 20 Sea Harriers that initially went south in 1982, and the 25 SH and 6 GR3 that the force peaked at on 21 May.

In a broader sense, Britain would have to emphasize her naval commitment to NATO, in particular contributing a strike carrier to NATO strike fleet Strike Group 2 and amphibious capability to the same fleet. They would also likely have to buy the F111k or a large run of Buccaneers and maybe take up the extra Phantom options for the RAF.
 
One issue at the time regarding the SSN's was the reliability of the the Tigerfish Torpedoes wasn't it?
It was, but I expect that the slow-moving cargo ships that'd be supplying the Argentine forces would be at least as vulnerable to Mark VIII's as General Belgrano was. My concern is that without supporting surface ships the SSN's could be vulnerable to Argentine Navy ASW. I don't think that if they're hunting cargo ships resupplying Argentine forces on the Islands then it wouldn't be impossible to lay a trap of some sort.
 
The fast jet compliment of CVA01 was 36 aircraft, and because the RN had more Buccaneer than Phantom (assuming the RN gets all 48 they ordered ) they might have 14-16 Phantoms and 20-22 Buccaneers including those permanently configured as tankers. This compares favourably to the 20 Sea Harriers that initially went south in 1982, and the 25 SH and 6 GR3 that the force peaked at on 21 May.

In a broader sense, Britain would have to emphasize her naval commitment to NATO, in particular contributing a strike carrier to NATO strike fleet Strike Group 2 and amphibious capability to the same fleet. They would also likely have to buy the F111k or a large run of Buccaneers and maybe take up the extra Phantom options for the RAF.

Would that mean that as well as the CVA's you'd have new Amphibs within the fleet meaning potentially a greater capability to land forces?
 
It was, but I expect that the slow-moving cargo ships that'd be supplying the Argentine forces would be at least as vulnerable to Mark VIII's as General Belgrano was. My concern is that without supporting surface ships the SSN's could be vulnerable to Argentine Navy ASW.

FAir point about the Cargo ships, but how good was the Argentinian ASW compared to USSR capabilities the SSN's were meant to handle?
 
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