The development and maintenance of advanced naval platforms like the HMS Queen Elizabeth are costly endeavors. Budgetary constraints have often led to delays in maintenance and upgrades, exacerbating existing issues and preventing timely resolution of technical problems. Ensuring adequate funding is crucial for maintaining the carrier’s operational readiness and addressing its persistent challenges.
They are being coy about just how bad this ship is. And the very notion of having a single carrier instead of two does not say much about force projection capabilities. I am highly suspect the two carriers can even deploy together and the RN does not have the logistical capability to do this.
The F35B/C flying issues and readiness problems are compounding the military effectiveness problem.
The UK is a third world nation with a single teetering first-world city that is rapidly slipping to a point of no return.
The Royal Navy’s HMS Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carrier Is In Big Trouble
These ships have been plagued with drive-train issues and depend on allied navies to assist in blue water projection.
Just sell them.
The carriers were approved in 2007 by then prime minister Gordon Brown. One of them was almost scrapped before it even set sail, but ministers discovered axing it would actually be more expensive.
HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth cost a combined £7 billion. Today it is widely accepted the UK will not be able to adequately defend or operate them independently.
Navy might have to sell off £3,500,000,000 HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier
Retired Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharpe said: ‘If I was a carrier-skeptic, and there are plenty, I would be gunning for one of them right now.”
Sharpe is sharper than any navalist in the British Admiralty.
As existentially injured and incompetent as the Royal Navy is now, I am not surprised they would try to sell this carrier which shares significant “mechanical casualty” issues that make it eminently unreliable just motoring through the ocean. Much like the US Littoral Combat Ship offer recently rejected by the Greek Navy, no one could afford to fix these much less maintain them. Like aircraft carriers planet-wide, these are extraordinarily expensive dinosaurs.
