Comments by "Billy Bob" (@davidrobertsemail) on "UK's biggest warship HMS Prince of Wales returns after US deployment" video.

It’s got no planes on it.
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@JaneGalvin this one left the US with no planes. Sailed across the Atlantic with no planes and sailed in to port with no planes. It’s an AIRCRAFT carrier with no planes.
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@Orbital_Inclination each carrier carries 36 planes but we only have 27 or so in the UK between two carriers and apparently the RAF is supposed to share them as well. It’s a joke. Add that to the lack of surface ship’s required to protect a carrier and no early warning defense aircraft the whole program is a white elephant. I don’t care what you say aircraft carriers are supposed to have planes.
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@furiousscotsman2916 nope. There will never be enough for both carriers.
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@Orbital_Inclination we don’t have enough aircraft for one carrier never mind two. We retired our carriers too early and scrapped the harriers. These two ships are great big white elephants and the navy has half the surface ships it needs fir two carriers anyway. Even if we buy 73 planes in total that’s still only enough for one carrier. I suspect one will be mothballed soon enough. Probably the POWs. You know the one without planes.
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@matthewwelch3007 we would struggle to defend one carrier against any half capable enemy.
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@thetruthhurts7675 I agree that’s why we shouldn’t have retired the harriers early. If we had kept them on and at least one carrier we would have had continuous carrier operations.
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An aircraft carrier without planes is like a Lamborghini without an engine.
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⁠⁠ @D-Z321 I know. The point I made was that we should have kept the harriers until we received the f35s. Thus keeping continuous carrier operations. We received our first f35s in 2018. The harriers were supposed to be retired in 2018. They were retired early in 2011 and effectively sold for scrap.
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⁠ @furiousscotsman2916 Italy, Spain and the US still use harriers. They are still extremely capable. When we sold them for £35 million to the US they had just been modernized. We sold them for peanuts. It was a terrible decision. The f35s we have are the b variant not the c variant. The 65 thousand ton ships we have don’t have a catapult! We should have bought 3 or 4 smaller ships which would enable us to field 2 or 3 at a time and sustain losses. Instead we have in effect one great big target with shorter range b variants and not enough escort ships to protect it.
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@furiousscotsman2916 that’s because we sold off our carriers and scrapped the harrier fleet. Another genius decision. On top of huge carriers without catapults.
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@matthewwelch3007 not sure I get your addition 5 plus 8 plus 6 plus two equals… Either way we don’t have enough of any class of ship.
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@importantjohn it has less than 20 combat ships. Two of which are aircraft carriers without enough planes for one of them.
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@Orbital_Inclination so no planes then.
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@furiousscotsman2916 this one has zero planes the other doesn’t have enough for a full load out.
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@admiralmallard7500 the carriers are sitting ducks without destroyers and frigates. They are only more capable with aircraft on them.
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⁠ @Orbital_Inclination you are literally arguing for an aircraft carrier without aircraft. Two carriers exist and there’s not enough planes for one of them. If we go through with the purchase of the already reduced number of 73 planes then eventually we will have two carriers with enough planes for one carrier. The RAF are also supposed to fly the planes as no f35a planes will now be bought.
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@Orbital_Inclination if we went to war would we need aircraft on the aircraft carriers? Or would no aircraft on them be perfectly normal.
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@JaneGalvin it’s got no planes!
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@Orbital_Inclination we could have built three or four small carriers by now and kept the harriers and replaced them with f35s as they came on line. Carrier operations are extremely difficult and we lost years of experience scrapping them before replacements were ready. The whole thing has been a debacle. Diehards defending carriers without planes and a navy with too few ships is where we are at. Sad.
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@Orbital_Inclination it’s got no planes full stop. Between two huge carriers we don’t have enough for one carrier.
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@admiralmallard7500 deliveries aren’t slow. They are what they are. We retired the harriers too early and instead of going for 3 or 4 small carriers we went fir two huge ones without catapults that have taken twice as long to build. Then we decided to halve the f35s order and delay purchases as well as cancelling the A variant. It’s all a debacle. Now we have people fawning over a 65,000 ton carrier that will never have any planes or enough escort ships.
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@admiralmallard7500 we should have at least stuck with the original order of 12 destroyers. And 24 frigates. Cuts after cuts have left us in a mess. You can pretend otherwise if you like. Look a big shiny aircraft carrier with no planes. ;-)
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@admiralmallard7500 these carriers are not super economic. One is going to be a spare! What a waste of £3.5 billion! Yes I know the surface combat fleet has been slashed. That’s why this whole charade is a nonsense. Two carriers with not enough planes or escorts. It’s insane. A useless carrier coming back to port isn’t to be celebrated.
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@admiralmallard7500 we used to have three small carriers this the ability to always be able to field two and be in two places at once as well as sustain a carrier loss. Now we can only be in one place and can’t sustain a loss. Except it’s cost us a lot more money and taken longer. It’s a disaster.
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@FelixIsMyName both carriers will never have a full complement of planes. There will only be enough for one carrier.
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@admiralmallard7500 you don’t think an aircraft carrier without planes, early warning aircraft or air defense destroyers or frigates is a problem. It looks like a £3.5 billion target and a symbol of government mismanagement and Britain’s decline. Sad.
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@thetruthhurts7675 several terrible decisions. The result are two big carriers and there will never be enough aircraft fir them. The argument repeated on this thread is that that was somehow the plan. It wasn’t. The decision to go for 2 big carriers instead of 3 or 4 smaller ones was defended because both were going to be fully operational with full complements of planes and plenty of support ships. Support ships (destroyers and frigates) have been halved and the procurement of the planes has been halved. So now we have two carriers and for £3.5 one is a spare! Celebrating this achievement is a farce.
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@splatoonistproductions5345 nonsense. We retired our harriers not them.
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Carrier of what?
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@Orbital_Inclination it didn’t have any planes on it after it left the US. None on the journey and none as it arrived back here. It’s an aircraft carrier with no planes.
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