New bow fitted to Queen Elizabeth carrier

Navy Net ^

[Smartisan]

Aircraft Carrier Alliance workers at Rosyth in Scotland successfully attached a 1,000-tonne bow unit to the huge ship, completing the forward part of her hull.

Yesterday, 7 February, the forward island section of the ship departed from Portsmouth to join the other parts of the vessel in Rosyth.

[GeronL]

That is a big bow, who tied it?

//sarcasm

[moose07]

Nice...

[mountn man]

So is this going to be called the QE3? /sarc>

[Huskrrrr]

Bow envy.

[SandRat]

Is that to be the class or the name? If it’s to be the name, that alone will make it target #1 for any enemy of the Crown to attack and sink.

[Rockingham]

The Brits are determined to build and equip two smallish entries in the modern supercarrier class — which is a wise precaution given that the Argentines are making noises again about the Falklands. Apart from national pride, the likelihood of substantial oil and gas deposits makes retention of those remote islands a paying proposition despite the burden of defending them.

[Oztrich Boy]

OK yes technically this is a brand new bow. However the use of the adjective misleads as it implies there was some old bow that was replaced.

[Sigurdrifta]

I would be more worried about the name they are going to give the second carrier: HMS Prince of Wales.

[Delta Dawn]

‘However the use of the adjective misleads as it implies there was some old bow that was replaced.’

Yeah, I was kinda thinking along the same lines.

I even started to look up the 1-800 # for the Royal navy to see if I could make a spot bid on the old bow.

[Smartisan]

Thanks for putting the pic up, couldn’t figure it out.

[jmacusa]

Take heart. They could have named it ‘’HMS Hood’’.

[Colonel_Flagg]

Didn’t turn out too well for the last HMS Prince of Wales either. Unfortunately.

[mikrofon]

[okie01]

Is that to be the class or the name? If it’s to be the name, that alone will make it target #1 for any enemy of the Crown to attack and sink.

It's both.

And she's not the first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth-class_battleship

Interestingly, the WWII Queen Elizabeth spent a couple of years sitting on the bottom of Alexandria Harbor. She and her sister ship, the Valiant, were both sunk at dockside by Italian frogmen.

But, since the harbor bottom was only a couple of feet below her keel, her condition wasn't readily apparent. The British set about repairing the two ships where they lay...and the Italians never realized the attack had been successful.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Why didn’t we just sell or give them the USS Enterprise and another fleet carrier?

[Red Steel]

Or the HMS Repulse.

[GeronL]

1,000 tons seems like a bit much for one of those. :)

[GeronL]

we could name a ship after Mooshell... the Repulsive!

[GeronL]

That is an interesting tidbit

[rmlew]

I always thought that Hood was a fine name.

Of course, just like the US, Britain has named carriers after carriers that sunk. They had Ark Royal. We had a Yorktown, Hornet, Lexington

[Average Al]

"we could name a ship after Mooshell... the Repulsive!"

The U.S.S. Ox Butt.....

[Rockingham]

We use our carriers to the end of their effective service lives and then replace them with new ones. In their final years, old carriers tend to have a lot of maintenance, reliability, and crew comfort issues; and even at their best, they are reliant on thirty year old technologies.

The Brits buying and refitting an old US carrier would be like shopping for a new car by going to a salvage yard and rebuilding an old junker. Instead of buying an old, broken down maintenance headache, the Brits want to buy new, and with capabilities designed for their current needs, based on modern technology, and to keep their shipyards in the business of building warships.

[Oztrich Boy]

Britain has named carriers after carriers that sunk. They had Ark Royal

Also a HMS Invincible fought at the Falklands 1982, after a previous HMS Invincible was sunk at Jutland in 1916, after it fought at the Falklands 1914, where is sunk the German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

And Germany named a couple of later ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

[lwoodham]

Gah, a 1,000-tonne bow? I wonder what the arrows weigh.

[ThunderSleeps]

Yes, that is a very graceful line. Sure, it has the underwater “nose” and the flat-top upstairs... But once in the water, she’ll be very pretty... Ok, maybe that’s the Jack talkin’. Hey, it is Saturday night...

[Smartisan]

Will be both the class and name. Second in class will be called Prince of Wales, probably.

Some voices (though not heard it said for a while) want the name ‘Ark Royal’ to be reprised for the 2nd in class, instead of PoW. PoW himself said a bit ago he wasn’t averse to the idea...

There should have been a HMS QE in the 60’s but the project was cancelled.

Personally, I’m a sucker for the classical names, like HMS Indefatigable (just post WWII).

A CV class names from UK ‘Overseas Territories’ would have been nice too, throwing in names like HMS Gibraltar, Falkland, Akrotiri or Ascension.

[central_va]

Twin screws, no angled flight deck and a ski jump launch. Well, it is a start....

[jmacusa]

They never re-named one The Bismark.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Maybe when Germany gets back into the big ship business, they may name a carrier the Bismark. Germany may yet reach he day in the sun.

[Vanders9]

Who cares? Its an aircraft carrier. It would be the target #1 anyway.

[Vanders9]

Yes that is odd. The last HMS Prince of Wales had a less than stellar career.