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Posts: 240
By: 90inFIRST - 15th January 2010 at 13:18 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
How much coal is left in Wales?
:diablo:[/QUOTE]
@4845 mt or 300 years worth:)
Posts: 1,142
By: Grim901 - 15th January 2010 at 13:28 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Huh, thought they'd forgotten to pace themselves and had dug it all out by now.
Back to the nuclear thing, the CVFs have 110MW installed capacity, so 2-3 of these "shed sized" reactors would be necessary based on the particular design output.
Posts: 104
By: steely dan - 22nd January 2010 at 22:44 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
[size=3]Navy's new carriers take shape in Scotland[/size]
Build programme 'well under way'...
The Aircraft Carrier Alliance (ACA) is forging ahead on the Queen Elizabeth (QE) Class, having recently made contract awards worth £325 million that will drive momentum into the ongoing build of HMS Queen Elizabeth.
On 14 January, Secretary of State for Scotland, Jim Murphy MP visited Govan to welcome the contracts which have been placed in Scotland. Following the visit, he said
"These contract awards are great news for Glasgow, the Scottish economy and Scottish jobs. There has never been any doubt how important the aircraft carriers are to Scotland as a multibillion pound project securing thousands of jobs."
full article: http://www.shippingtimes.co.uk/item_10274.html
HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH takes shape in Govan
Posts: 5,267
By: Fedaykin - 22nd January 2010 at 23:51 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
A good sight to see!
I hope pictures like this silence the unnamed pundits who like to release statements stating the carriers should be cancelled or are under threat.
I noticed recently a couple of statements released to the press from these unnamed sources. The first one was about how the increadibly cheap to operate (just £3million a year - and peanuts in the grand scheme of things) Battle of Britain Memorial flight was under threat for financial reasons and then the next day a statement from a nobody on the inside that the new carriers were hyper expensive to buy in the modern world of counter insurgency in A-Stan and were under threat/should be cancelled. Then within days you get the head of the army stating that money should be spent on building up the Army for counter insurgency in A-Stan. (Considering that the target is to be out of A-stan by 2015 I wonder about that...)....Conveniant timing methinks!
Posts: 366
By: harryRIEDL - 23rd January 2010 at 00:08 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
looking at the image realy places it to scale as a it looks like most of a T-45 is in the background you can realy see what huge ship its going to be when completed.
Posts: 1,533
By: kev 99 - 23rd January 2010 at 00:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I think that's just one of the middle hull sections, but you're right it does look pretty damn impressive all the same.
Posts: 949
By: roberto_yeager - 23rd January 2010 at 11:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well at the end good news for the QE!!
1Saludo
Posts: 767
By: snake65 - 23rd January 2010 at 20:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
A better pic
Posts: 3,614
By: Bager1968 - 24th January 2010 at 03:51 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Elsewhere, it has been identified as one of the aft sections of HMS Duncan D37, 6th T-45 destroyer.
Posts: 251
By: F-18RN - 24th January 2010 at 10:44 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
By comparrison, how far did they get constructionwise back in the 40s with HMS Malta and her sisters before the plug was pulled?
Posts: 13,432
By: swerve - 24th January 2010 at 11:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Very different situation. We'd been spending half of GDP on the armed forces, building up debts as fast as Gordon Brown has this year, but year after year, despite liquidating assets as fast as we could. We had more ships already at sea than we could sustain. The choice wasn't between Malta et al & no major ships, it was which of the plethora of already built, building, & planned ships to keep or finish, & which to sell or scrap. Our national credit was exhausted. We had to cut, & cut hugely: 80-90%, & fast, or the economy would collapse.
We're now spending just over 2% of GDP on defence, & the choice is between completing two carriers which we've already paid a fair proportion of the cost of, & no large surface ships at all. We can choose whether to cut or not. The cost difference between having these ships & not having them is lost in the margins of error in spending by other departments.
Posts: 240
By: 90inFIRST - 24th January 2010 at 21:24 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Its the only one still under construction?
Posts: 475
By: MisterQ - 25th January 2010 at 00:01 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
More's the pity :(
Posts: 334
By: Frosty - 2nd April 2010 at 09:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Bow being floated out looks pretty big to me
Posts: 519
By: Obi Wan Russell - 2nd April 2010 at 10:57 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
None of the Malta class were ever laid down, and it is unlikely steel was ever cut for any of them. Too late in the war to make a difference, and the shipyards had higher priorities. By comparison, at the rate the shipyards are going ahead with the two carriers, they could have all the sections ready for assembly before the election!;):D
Posts: 251
By: F-18RN - 2nd April 2010 at 19:19 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
So the Cancelled CVA-01 actually progressed further than the Maltas with components such as what became Ark Royal's waste Catapult actually being built?
Posts: 519
By: Obi Wan Russell - 2nd April 2010 at 20:03 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Some long lead items for CVA-01 probably did find their way onto Ark Royal, her water cooled JBDs for a start but not the waist catapult, it was a 199ft stroke BS5 whilst the CVA-01 class would have had 250ft stroke BS6 catapults. The DAX II arrestor engines could have been part of the CVA order too, but Ark Royal's refit was planned anyway as aprt of the CVA program, along with a full upgrade for Eagle. As the three new CVAs could not be built simltaneously, two of the existing carriers would have to be 'Phantomised' as stop gaps until CVA-02 and CVA-03 could be built. So equipment like water cooled JBDs, DAX II wires etc would have been ordered for more than one ship. Eagle received a single DAX II wire for Phantom trials around 1967-68 in addition to the four fitted to Ark Royal. AFAIK, no BS6 catapults were built once the CVA program was cancelled. The scisors lift design found it's way into the Invincible class, but these units were not ordered until several years later. Like the Malta class, no steel was cut for the hulls of the CVA-01 class carriers.
Posts: 130
By: Colombamike - 2nd April 2010 at 20:18 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
There is some (doubtfull) hope for the hms queen elizabeth
but personally, I have no more to the prince of wales (only a dream)
A 130-160 million $ (?200?) piece for the F-35, the british will never have enough money to buy 50-70 aircraft.
We are heading toward 25/35 aircraft ... and 1 aircraft carrier ... in the best case....
As for the entire cancellation of the program, it is still possible, expecting the end of 2010 :rolleyes:
Posts: 604
By: Stan hyd - 2nd April 2010 at 20:37 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
dont agree with any of this. Both aircraft carriers are coming and only one will be at sea - 60 F-35 would be enough for that situation. Not great though if you need to surge and put both to sea.
Posts: 1,142
By: Grim901 - 2nd April 2010 at 20:44 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Do you have any idea how badly the next govt would be chewed out for cancelling a ship so far gone in construction? They can't exactly reuse those already constructed blocks on anything.
And by the time PoW is laid down everyone will have forgotten about the financial crisis and people will be sick of hearing about cuts, it'd probably just be best to keep quiet about PoW for a few years and no one will question trying to fight it out with BAE over cancellation costs.
At least try and cut back on the pessimism a bit. I doubt many people see QE being cancelled at the very least at this point.