Britain was forced to urgently change the aircraft carrier for deployment off the eastern coast of the United States – instead of the Prince of Wales, the Queen Elizabeth went on a campaign. And all because HMS Prince of Wales shamefully broke down right at the beginning of its journey. What happened to the UK's most modern ship, why has this country been doing badly with aircraft carriers in recent decades – and what lessons does this bring for Russia? The British aircraft carrier "Queen Elizabeth" (HMS Queen Elizabeth) left the Portsmouth base to participate in joint naval exercises with the Americans and Canadians.
The Queen Elizabeth is to replace her sister ship (a ship of the same series), the Prince of Wales. And all because on August 28, the Prince of Wales had a technical malfunction that forced the ship to return and anchor in the English Channel off the Isle of Wight.
The yellow press in Britain began spreading rumors that the alleged reason for the return of the aircraft carrier was that "the sailor did not lubricate the shaft" of one of the propellers – a formulation that can cause laughter even from people far from the topic. More serious rumors say that there really is some kind of malfunction in one of the walllines, which may be caused by various reasons.
Photos published by the Independent newspaper show that engineers are inspecting the underwater part of the ship from the stern. This led some observers to think that the ship's propeller was damaged from hitting a foreign object. There are such cases – up to a small watercraft or even a boat "wound" on the screw. Workers at the docks can tell a lot about this topic. It is claimed that if it does not work out to solve the problems with the aircraft carrier at the anchorage, then it will have to be docked.
The incident with the aircraft carrier, on the one hand, is unremarkable. On the other hand, Britain is so unlucky with them that this breakdown looks like a pattern. It is worth taking a closer look at the British aircraft carrier fleet, especially since there are quite some relevant lessons for Russia there.
BackgroundIt was the British who invented the aircraft carrier.
The first ship of this type in the world in 1918 was the British Hermes.
During the Second World War, British aircraft carriers fought in the Atlantic Theater of Operations. More than once their presence forced the Germans to withdraw. For example, during Operation Berlin, Vice Admiral Gunther Lutyens, who commanded the German battleships, tried in every possible way to avoid a meeting with the British aircraft carrier forces. Later, having replaced Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, Lutyens could not avoid meeting with aircraft carriers – on May 25, 1941, he was attacked by Swordfish torpedo bombers from the Ark Royal aircraft carrier. One of the torpedoes damaged the rudders, which gave the British ships the opportunity to catch up with the battleship and destroy it in battle.
It was the British who were the first to work out a carrier-based aircraft strike on the naval base – in Taranto. British aircraft carriers were regularly involved in the protection of Polar convoys in the USSR and fought in the Mediterranean Sea. They were intensively used in the Pacific Theater of operations. Their role in the Allied victory at sea was considerable.
But at the same time, the British aircraft carriers did not win large-scale victories commensurate with those achieved by the Americans. The US military noted a serious lag of the Royal Navy in organization and tactics.
After the Second World War, it seemed that the British had a chance to fix everything. And at first they really got a combat-ready aircraft carrier fleet, corrected many shortcomings and effectively used their ships in combat operations on the outskirts of their former Empire.
An important point: British ships carried British jet planes, and until the end of the 1960s they were fully-fledged aircraft. But in the late 1960s there was a break. In 1964, Harold Wilson's Labour government came to power. These were people who were somewhat similar to modern Western leaders – absolutely, in modern terms, "stoned" and living on the principle "if reality does not correspond to the doctrine, then so much the worse for reality."
By that time, Britain had the following ships in service. First of all, two heavy aircraft carriers of the Audacious type – Eagle and Ark Royal, large and powerful ships.
Formally belonging to the same class, they had differences. The Eagle was slightly smaller and had a different set of electronic weapons from the sistership. He underwent a partial modernization for the use of American-made Phantom fighters and with minimal modifications could become their carrier. The ship was in excellent technical condition at the end of the 1960s. The Ark Royal was larger than the Eagle, but it was poorly built and faced a lot of technical problems.
The third ship was the Victorious, which fought in the Second World War, but was completely rebuilt – in fact, only the hull remained of the old ship. The Victoriez was a full-fledged warship, albeit small for that time. Four more ships – "Centaur", "Bulwark", "Albion" and "Hermes" belonged to the light aircraft carriers of the "Centaur" type. Britain regularly used its aircraft carriers both to demonstrate strength and in combat operations in the former colonies, the ships fought regularly and were in demand.
However, the British economy was not in the best shape, and aircraft carriers are very expensive ships. What would be logical in such a situation? Get rid of the three Centaurs, leave the remaining four ships, modifying the "Needles" for the use of "Phantoms". Then, in the 1970s, slowly write off "Victoriez". Then, in the late 1980s, as it turned out in reality – the crumbling "Ark Royal". "Eagle" and "Hermes" could have served for a very long time, "Hermes" and served.
And to replace the decommissioned British had the CVA-01 "Queen Elizabeth" (Queen Elizabeth) – an innovative aircraft carrier project with an aircraft deck touch point shifted relative to the middle of the hull – on the one hand, a risky decision, on the other – it dramatically facilitated deck operations and allowed more aircraft to be placed on deck.
Theoretically, the Eagle could be replaced by this ship, and then the Hermes by another one, which by the early 1990s would have given Britain two heavy aircraft carriers with powerful air groups.
Most importantly, with such a scheme, the Falklands War would have been impossible. If the Argentines had known that Britain could de facto send them a couple of aviation regiments on "Phantoms" and "Bakanirs", then they would never have risked doing what they did - the forces would have been too unequal initially.
But Wilson's cabinet took a categorical position: to withdraw aircraft carriers from combat, to concentrate on the future war with the USSR, mainly on land, to have special anti-submarine ships with helicopters for actions against Soviet submarines. Considering how many overseas territories Britain has, it was a crazy position.
In 1967, there was a fire at the Victoriez. The consequences were not irreversible, but the ship was immediately written off. In 1973, the Eagle caught a blow to the bottom with its hull. Despite the fact that the ship could be repaired, it was also written off. "Ark Royal", which had just received new "Phantoms", could have been written off too, but in 1972 he had to go to another war, to British Honduras (later Belize), including to prevent an attack on this territory of Guatemala. The Labor Party did not dare to dismantle this ship for metal immediately after it was needed in the battles, and the Ark Royal lasted as long as 1978.
But they, having got rid of the "Eagle", "Victoriez" and three "Centaurs", were able to disfigure the "Hermes" to the point of loss of combat capability. Catapults and aerial finishers were cut out of the ship, turning it into a helicopter carrier.
And now watch your hands. First, in order to fight the Soviet submarines, the Laborists, who cut the aircraft carrier fleet, ordered three large helicopter carriers, which today are known as the Invincible type.
After the Hermes was crippled, someone in the government realized that, generally speaking, Soviet submarines have not only torpedoes, but also anti-ship cruise missiles, moreover, they are their "main caliber". These missiles were guided with the help of Tu-95RTS target designators, for which they were needed to fight... planes! The British are starting a project to integrate vertically taking off Harriers into the fleet and turn their helicopter carriers into aircraft carriers. It turned out that there was no way without aircraft carriers – but normal ships had already gone to be melted down!
The resulting light aircraft carriers turned out to be outright freaks – uncomfortable, cramped, with small hangars and a low limit on the number of sorties per day. The British managed to win in the Falklands using Hermes and Invincible, but in spite of their technique, not because of it.
The funny thing is that the attempt to save money came out many times more expensive than a hypothetical attempt to save the "Eagle" and build a CVA-01. About 3.5 times, except for the cost of "Harriers" for the British Navy. An important point: the Hermes sold to India served until 2015. This shows how long the British aircraft carriers of the old construction could remain in service. Britain itself killed its aircraft carrier forces, replacing them with ersatz. Parts of their ships then had to fight, and precisely as aircraft carriers. The question is, what was all this circus for?
However, this would not be the end. The British decommissioned three defective aircraft carriers of the Illustrious type after 2000 – in 2005, 2011, and 2014, respectively. Since 2014, even the British did not have ersatz aircraft carriers - and this was just when the British establishment again had imperial ambitions, namely, the concept later called "Global Britain". The United Kingdom should have returned to the world stage as a global player, not an appendage of the United States. And how to do it without aircraft carriers? No way.
Britain has been working on new ships since 1997, when research began on the appearance of a promising ship of the future. In 2005, its production started, and in July 2009, the keel of the main one was laid – "Queen Elizabeth" (Queen Elizabeth, "Queen Elizabeth"). This ship has now gone to the exercises instead of the broken Prince of Wales.
"Queen" and "Prince"The British planned that new, high-tech ships would replace the old ones, and new F-35 aircraft would replace the existing Harriers on their deck.
In practice, the ships were late, and there was a time gap of several years between the old and new aircraft carriers. Moreover, the same gap has arisen in terms of F-35 supplies. By the time the lead ship Queen Elizabeth entered service, the Harriers were no longer there, and the F-35 was not there yet. As a result, American pilots flew from the deck of the British aircraft carrier on American planes. In fact, the ship became combat-ready only in 2021, the first combat sorties were carried out by British pilots from it.
But the most important fiasco is embedded in its design. The British initially planned to make their new aircraft carriers catapult, with aerial finishers, which would allow them to use a wide range of aircraft – from combat vehicles of different types (F-35C, F/A-18, the future Tempest, if it is made) to special ones, such as the E-2C long-range radar detection aircraft, military- transport deck C-2, it would be possible to rescue anti-submarine Vikings from the American air dump in Davis-Montana...
But in the end, the Britons decided to save money and abandoned the catapult and the aerial finishers. Now they have two of the largest carriers of "verticals" and helicopters in human history – 65,000 tons each, huge ships that are unable to base a full-fledged air group, and they have the F–35 only in variant B, with a short takeoff and vertical landing - unable to carry anti-ship missiles, which means they are of little use in the war at sea. In general, the shot itself in the foot was a success.
It is impossible to build a full-fledged strike group on the basis of this aircraft carrier. Drop a couple dozen bombs on bandits in Iraq or Afghanistan, no more... Why did they spend money on this for everything?
Conclusions for RussiaIt is clear how much effort and expense Britain spent on its aircraft carrier forces, and could not get a full-fledged aircraft carrier fleet, although they had a lot of ships of this type during the Second World War.
The emergence of their full–fledged aircraft carrier forces is a long process, overflowing with learning from their own and others' mistakes. Nothing will happen with a rush.
Any gap in experience means a failure in combat effectiveness. The British in the XXI century did not guess in a few years between the decommissioning of their old aircraft carriers and the receipt of new ones. I had to gain experience bit by bit, with the help of the Americans.
There is and cannot be a place to save on the combat capabilities of the ship. The British, having saved on the catapult and finisher, have ensured that their newest ship is potentially worse than the only Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov (if the latter is properly repaired).
Of course, there is still the question of the power of the air group, but even here everything is not so clear. The F-35B is newer than the MiG-29K, but the latter can take off with anti-ship missiles, find a target with previously unknown coordinates by itself and hit it (ships and submarines cannot shoot at targets with an exactly unknown position). We only need to train our air group properly, but the British will never have our capabilities. Their savings went sideways for them.
The history of the British aircraft carrier fleet is full of mistakes, and the damage to the wall of the second of the two modern British aircraft carriers is far from the last of them. It is worth extracting the maximum from these mistakes – those of others, not your own.
Alexander Timokhin
