Opportunity to add one more Aircraft carrier...Should we take the bite.?

[bubble123]

wow destroyers at just 1 million pounds ?

Nahh its probably scrap otherwise i mean are they mad ?

If the prices quoted here are infact true and equipment is worthwhile our armed forces should look into the matter.

 

[888jamie888]

The ship is 30 years old. It's served Britain well, but it's had its time. India should develop its own tech.

 

[Skull and Bones]

We can use HMS Ark Royal as a helicopter carrier, will be quite economical since the French Mistral class( which we are evaluating) is priced at around $600-800 million a piece.

And we can even station S/Vtol F-35s on it, if we select it in the future.

 

[Mani2020]

We can use HMS Ark Royal as a helicopter carrier, will be quite economical since the French Mistral class( which we are evaluating) is priced at around $600-800 million a piece.

And we can even station S/Vtol F-35s on it, if we select it in the future.

you cant coz i m thinking of buying that carrier for my personal use, why not build a compartment on it with a beautiful artificial loan and a mini golf resort . living happily in home while floating around the globe

 

[Jango]

What??,,,,3 million only?, even amban can buy it then, fake news probably, UK is nnot that desperate, they are building Type 45 destroyers, type 26 frigates.

 

[T90TankGuy]

the reason the arc royal is up for sale is because it has been de commissioned and had all its weapons systems taken out . the ship is being sold as scrap . i believe there was a thread on it earlier where some Pakistani members were discussing whether to buy it .

 

[Jango]

It would only be the hull, but still, that is really cheap for a hull.

 

[Indian Tiger]

One of the Royal Navy's new £2bn aircraft carriers could be sold off under government cost-cutting plans, the Guardian has learned.

It is understood that India has recently lodged a firm expression of interest to buy one of the two state-of-the-art 65,000 tonne carriers, which are still being built by BAE Systems in the UK.

Any sale of the long-delayed carriers would be highly controversial and would leave the Royal Navy with just one carrier. It could also force Britain to borrow from the French navy, which itself only has one carrier and is reluctant to build any more.

Last summer French president Nicolas Sarkozy proposed to Gordon Brown that the two navies co-ordinate the maintenance and retrofitting of their carriers, so that at least one of them is at sea at any time.

The government has accepted it would cost more to cancel the contract for one of the carriers than it would to carry on building. BAE Systems is also keen to increase its arms exports and would welcome the sale of such a flagship piece of hardware to a country such as India, which is keen to upgrade its military, particularly its air force.

According to senior defence sources, Whitehall officials are examining the feasibility of selling one of the carriers. It is understood they are planning to put forward the option as part of the government's strategic defence review, which will start early next year. The review will publish its conclusions after the general election. Whichever party wins the election, the review is expected to result in savage cuts to the UK's military budget.

"Selling a carrier is one very serious option," a defence source said this weekend, although the government is a long way from committing to any sale. It could take between six and 12 months to reach a decision, he added.

The £4bn aircraft carrier programme has been dogged by controversy and has become a totemic in the issue over how public spending – and in particular the military budget – should be cut. The programme has already been delayed by two years to push back spending commitments, which will end up costing the taxpayer more in the long run. Construction finally began in July on HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is due to come into service in 2016. Preparatory work on the HMS Prince of Wales, due for launch in 2018, has also started. The two carriers will replace the ageing Invincible class carrier fleet, and are three times the size.

Military chief and the companies involved in building the carriers had feared the government could scrap one of the carriers altogether to save money. But it is understood that the financial penalties the government would be required to pay to BAE Systems, the company building the ships, would be prohibitive. The company is currently drawing up a formal estimate of the cost the government would incur from cancelling the order.

About 10,000 jobs in Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Fife and Glasgow depend on the work. Now that construction of both carriers will almost certainly go ahead, the government is desperate to find other ways to cut costs.

Another option under consideration is to only equip one of the carriers with aircraft, leaving the other to only operate with helicopters, which could save more than £3bn. Alternatively, the two carriers could share one complement of planes. The original plan envisaged equipping each carrier with 75 new US-made Joint Strike Fighter planes, but the cost has soared from the original price tag of £18m each.

Asked about the plan for a sale of the one of the carriers, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said lots of options for the carriers were being considered, but stressed that no decision had been taken. "We have got the strategic defence review coming up, so all options are on the table," she said.

The debate over whether British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan have the equipment they need – most notably enough helicopters to enable them to avoid heavily mined roads – has brought the issue of military spending to the fore. Military analysts say that the navy's budget, such as that earmarked for the carriers under review, is most vulnerable to cuts, compared to that of the army and air force.


Royal Navy aircraft carrier may be sold to India | Business | guardian.co.uk

 

[harpoon]

An entire AC for 3.5 million pounds. You can get more than that if you sell it for scrap.The news seems fake.

 

[Indian Tiger]

An entire AC for 3.5 million pounds. You can get more than that if you sell it for scrap.The news seems fake.

It's not 3.5million pounds, its a 2billion pound AC.

Just a point from the article posted by me.
One of the Royal Navy's new £2bn aircraft carriers could be sold off under government cost-cutting plans, the Guardian has learned.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

DAMN!!!!

they are really undergoing liquidation!

 

[harpoon]

It's not 3.5million pounds, its a 2billion pound AC.

Just a point from the article posted by me.
One of the Royal Navy's new £2bn aircraft carriers could be sold off under government cost-cutting plans, the Guardian has learned.

Check the OP post again:

Price of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal built at a cost of £200 mn has dipped to a ridiculous level of £3.5 mn. (Reuters)
This is the ship mentioned:
HMS Ark Royal (R07) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The ACs you mentioned are still under construction and it cost 2 billion pounds a piece.

 

[harpoon]

DAMN!!!!

they are really undergoing liquidation!

No, they are undergoing financial restructuring so that they remain a welfare state rather than a security state.

 

[typhoon77]

You realize that this is the price for just the hull. All of the subsystems including engines would be removed. There would be no air wing included in the price. Its not worth it. What will you fly off the Ark Royal? Sea harriers won't happen, the UK is keeping theirs, India doesn't have enough for their own carrier let alone another one. The US won't sell you their modified Harriers. The Mig-29 might work, but you would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to put the subsytems/engines in etc. Plus the air wing. All in all its not worth it. On the other hand considering how most Indian projects are delayed, if there is a delay in the new carriers India should just look into seriously purchasing a QE class carrier, it would be expensive but at least you would get it in a decent time frame. And due to the size i'm sure it could accomdate the Mig-29's easily.

 

[Abingdonboy]

I dont think this is a particularly good idea for IN just buying for the sake of it. the HMS ARK ROYAL was only retired 4 years early meaning it was close to its "expiration date". I saw a documentary on Discovery on the HMS ARK Royal's last deployment (before they knew it was to be decommissioned) and the number of things that went wrong was too long to list including the entire flooding of the engine room which left it adrift and out of action. And it offers little in capabilities over the current INS Viraat it only carried 12 Harriers. If bought by IN how long would IN operate it? it would be another INS Viraat with constant maintenance headache that the IN just doesn't need and is now beyond operating small carriers like this. Just wait to the much bigger and more capable ACCs in a few years time.

However it may be worth the IN considering looking at the RAF Harriers which have been retired but were recently UPG and have many superior features over IN Sea Harriers. which numbers are depleted. Maybe an option if Virrat is to be kept in service til 2017-8 but then given the amount of time in will no doubt take the MoD/GoI to clear this purchase and it does take a while to get to grips with new planes (even UPG versions of similar platforms).