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| Europe |
| Britain and France Build Robocarrier |
| 2006-03-09 |
| March 9, 2006: Britain and France finally signed the deal to build three new aircraft carriers. This followed several years of negotiations. What's surprising about all this is not the large size of the carriers (about 58,000 tons, the largest ships ever for both navies), or the unique cooperation (two of the carriers are British, one is French, and both nations will cooperate on design and construction, with the Brits taking the lead.) No, what is amazing about all this is the aggressive plans for automation. These "Queen Elizabeth" class carriers are planning on having a ships crew of 800 (or less) and an air wing complement of 600 personnel. Currently, you need a ship crew of about 2,000 for a carrier that size. The reduction in size of the air wing personnel is even more aggressive. These carriers are going to cost about $4 billion each, and are to be in use for half a century (including several refits and refurbs). But the biggest cost will be personnel. Currently, it costs the U.S. Navy a bit over $100,000 per sailor per year. Do the math ($7 billion in crew costs over the life of each carrier.) So the smaller the crew, the greater the savings, and the more you can spend on upgrading the ship, buying new aircraft and the like. The carriers will haul 34-45 aircraft and helicopters and be able to handle about 110 flight operations every 24 hours. That's with current aircraft. The F-35B will be the primary warplane on the British carriers. But it's also likely that many, or all, of the next generation of aircraft on these ships will be robotic. But first, the ship has to be equipped with an unprecedented degree of automation. While 250,000 ton oil tankers can operate with a crew of under 40, all those large vessels do is move their cargo from place to place. An aircraft carrier must fight, and find the enemy, and do a lot of other stuff. The new class of 100,000 ton American CVN-21 carriers are trying to get their ship crew down from 4,000 to 2,500. Warships have a lot of unique functions, like damage control, and manning many systems for high alert, and combat, situations. Some crew reduction ideas are pretty obvious, like installing conveyers to help move supplies when ships are replenished at sea, or even when in port. Many maintenance tasks can be eliminated by using materials that require less effort to keep clean, and are just as safe as those used in the past. It's also been noted that many maintenance tasks can be left for civilians to do when the ship is in port. Most navies has also not kept up on automation. There is still a tendency to have sailors "standing watch" to oversee equipment that, with the addition of some sensors, can be monitored from a central location. If there is a problem, a repair team can be sent. But in the meantime, thousands of man hours a week are saved, and another few dozen sailors are not needed. Another angle is removing a lot of administrative jobs from the ship altogether. All warships are connected, via satellite, to military networks. So many sailors can stay ashore, and do their work without ever going near the ship. Some sailors have long noted that their administrative jobs aboard a carrier rarely brought them in touch with the people they were serving. Carriers have phones and email. Why use it aboard ship when you can use it from some (much cheaper) shore location? Moreover, many of these admin jobs can be done, more cheaply, by civilians. But the new British/French carriers aim to take warship automation into uncharted territory. This should be interesting, and it is certainly bold and daring. All three carriers are expected to be in service by the middle of the next decade. Just in time for the centennial of the First World War. Hmmm, that's ominous. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #20 Something submersible? I'm confident that the Anglo-French version will be, whether they intend it or not. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-03-09 21:03 |
| #19 Something submersible? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-03-09 19:50 |
| #18 Funny, I envisioned a minimally staffed vessel carrying a large complement of task-varied UAV Predator and GlobalHawk drones that could be catapult launched for extended missions. Toss in defensive mini-guns and Aegis phased array radar with UAV based AWACS plus some Tomahawk cruise missile tubes and such a platform could keep many less developed nations on the ropes for quite some period of time. We'll neglect to mention how Britain and France would be hard pressed to construct such a fighting machine. Aside from that, I'm sure we'll be deploying something on this order in another decade or two. Think of it as the buzzcut of flat-tops. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-03-09 19:35 |
| #17 Lol, SteveS! They need to bring Japan into the deal, lol. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-03-09 18:51 |
| #16 With the French involved in building the carriers, I hope they're budgeting for a few tugboats to help move them around. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2006-03-09 18:48 |
| #15 Staff reduction is proportional to the number of monkey butlers. |
| Posted by: Master of Obvious 2006-03-09 15:17 |
| #14 Saudia Arabria will be managing our ports before those ships are built. |
| Posted by: kelly 2006-03-09 15:06 |
| #13 I don't see Europe turning into Eurabia. Instead I see increasingly draconic rules and laws combined with near civil war type military actions that eventually causes many Moslims to emigrate and sends Europe deeper into foreign policy isolation and guilt. I also see a corresponding rise in christian religions as the fight against Islam is fought. This will create an increased birthrate once again. I"m also painfully optimistic and let down often. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-03-09 14:17 |
| #12 Britain and France Build Robocarrier now if they only could miniturize them..nano like, and make zillions of them! »:-) |
| Posted by: RD 2006-03-09 14:14 |
| #11 What would be realllly cool is if this baby could transform into a giant flying robot! |
| Posted by: SteveS 2006-03-09 14:08 |
| #10 Across all fronts. It's going to be a long decade or two or three for the US as we build and deepen relationships in Asia instead. Our main value in Europe is to delay their fall to islam in the meanwhile. And to keep the economic benefits of trade with them so long as their protectionism doesn't interfere too badly. |
| Posted by: Slavique Shinenter9520 2006-03-09 13:45 |
| #9 "The F-35B will be the primary warplane on the British carriers." I call bulls*** on this one. If you follow the EU/Brit press (see blog EUReferendum) the Brits are preparing to pull out of the JSF program using the battle of the second engine contract as an excuse. They will then purchase the French Rafael plane. This is rumored to be the main selling point that got the French to pony up the bucks. The UK is selling out the "special relationship" quite cheaply to the FrEUnch in virtually all defence areas. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2006-03-09 13:24 |
| #8 Beyond the damage control and shifts brought up (which was exactly what I initially thought) one has to wonder what is the point when both countries have shown a declining will to project power. By the time they are done Europe will have no use for them. A better use of European funds would be to plan on urban warfare and rockets and planes capable of hitting their Islamic neighbors in case of trouble. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-03-09 13:06 |
| #7 Flip side of the long-deployment question is the possible gain in crew comfort. |
| Posted by: Throlulet Graviling7296 2006-03-09 13:06 |
| #6 Station-keeping and length of deployment are also affected by the available manpower. I don't think these are intended for the kinds of deployment US carriers are. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2006-03-09 12:38 |
| #5 They must also be disposable; who's going to handle damage control? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-03-09 12:24 |
| #4 By the time these carriers will be ready, they will be the jewels of the Islamic Navy of Eurabia. |
| Posted by: Poitiers-Lepanto 2006-03-09 11:26 |
| #3 Must have decided it was easier to make them unmanned craft than to fix the radiation leaks. |
| Posted by: BH 2006-03-09 10:59 |
| #2 Not Halon free. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2006-03-09 10:49 |
| #1 Asbestos-free? |
| Posted by: .com 2006-03-09 10:26 |