CVA-01 was a proposed
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...
, designed during the 1960s. The ship was intended to be the first of a class that would replace all of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
's carriers, most of which had been designed before or during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. CVA-01 and CVA-02 were intended to replace and , while CVA-03 and CVA-04 would have replaced and respectively.
The planned four carrier class was soon reduced to three before further being reduced to two and finally, following a government review, in the form of the
1966 Defence White Paper, the project was cancelled, along with the proposed
Type 82 destroyer
The Type 82 or ''Bristol''-class destroyer was a 1960s guided missile destroyer design intended to replace s in the Royal Navy. Originally eight warships were planned to provide area air-defence for the planned CVA-01 aircraft carriers. They ...
class, which were intended primarily as escorts for
carrier group
A carrier battle group (CVBG) is a naval fleet consisting of an aircraft carrier capital ship and its large number of naval convoy, escorts, together defining the group. The ''CV'' in ''CVBG'' is the Hull classification symbol#Aircraft carrie ...
s. Factors contributing to the cancellation of CVA-01 included
inter-service rivalries, the huge costs of the proposed carrier, and the technical complexity and difficulties it would have presented in construction, operation, and maintenance.
Had CVA-01 class been built, it is likely they would have been named HMS ''Queen Elizabeth'', HMS ''Duke of Edinburgh'', HMS ''Prince of Wales'' and HMS ''Princess Royal'' respectively.
Origin
In the 1960s, the Royal Navy was still one of the premier carrier fleets in the world, second only to the
US Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
, which was in the process of building the 80,000-ton s.
The British fleet included the fleet carriers and , and two smaller carriers, the completely reconstructed , and the somewhat newer light carrier , both with 3D
Type 984 radar
Type 984 was a Royal Navy radar system introduced in the mid-1950s, designed by the Admiralty Signals and Radar Establishment. Type 984 was a 3D S band system used for both ground controlled interception (GCI) and as a secondary early warning ...
and C3, but limited to air groups of 25 aircraft: at the most 20 fighters and strike aircraft and five helicopters, or alternately 16 fighters and strike aircraft, four turboprop
Fairey Gannet AEW
The Fairey Gannet AEW.3 is a variant of the Fairey Gannet anti-submarine warfare aircraft intended to be used in the airborne early warning (AEW) role on aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy. It was introduced to service in 1959 to replace the ...
, and five helicopters. A fifth carrier, , was modernised to the minimum standard to operate second-generation
Supermarine Scimitar
The Supermarine Scimitar was a single-seat naval strike aircraft designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Supermarine. Operated exclusively by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, it was the final aircraft to be entirely designed a ...
s and
de Havilland Sea Vixen
The de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen is a British twin-engine, twin boom-tailed, two-seat, carrier-based fleet air-defence fighter flown by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm during the 1950s through to the early 1970s. The Sea Vixen was designed by ...
s in 1959, but was never satisfactory or safe for operating nuclear strike aircraft and was a purely interim capability while ''Eagle'' was refitting.
While all four of the Navy's large carriers were capable of operating the S.2 version of the
Blackburn Buccaneer strike aircraft, only ''Ark Royal'' and ''Eagle'' were realistically big enough to accommodate both a squadron of Buccaneers (up to 14 aircraft) and a squadron of
redesigned McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms, which the Royal Navy intended to procure as its new fleet air defence aircraft. With the remainder of the air group this would give a total of approximately 40 aircraft, which compared poorly to the 90 available to a ''Kitty Hawk''-class ship. The increasing weight and size of modern jet fighters meant that a larger deck area was required for takeoffs and landings. Although the Royal Navy had come up with increasingly innovative ways to allow ever-larger aircraft to operate from the small flight decks of their carriers, the limited physical life left in the existing ships (only ''Hermes'' was considered capable of reliable and efficient extension past 1975), and the inability of both ''Victorious'' and ''Hermes'', the most effectively and expensively modernised of the carriers, to operate the F-4 or an effective and useful number of Buccaneers, made the order of at least two new large fleet carriers essential by the mid-1960s.
Design
Considerations
Once the Chiefs of Staff had given their approval to the idea of new carriers being necessary, in January 1962 in the strategic paper
COS(621)1
Cos, COS, CoS, coS or Cos. may refer to:
Mathematics, science and technology
* Carbonyl sulfide
* Class of service (CoS or COS), a network header field defined by the IEEE 802.1p task group
* Class of service (COS), a parameter in telephone syst ...
''British Strategy in the Sixties'', the
Admiralty Board
The Admiralty Board is the body established under the Defence Council of the United Kingdom for the administration of the Naval Service of the United Kingdom. It meets formally only once a year, and the day-to-day running of the Royal Navy is ...
had to sift through six possible designs. These ranged from 42,000 to 68,000 tons at full load. The largest design, based on the American , had space for four full-sized
steam catapult
An aircraft catapult is a device used to allow aircraft to take off from a very limited amount of space, such as the deck of a vessel, but can also be installed on land-based runways in rare cases. It is now most commonly used on aircraft carrier ...
s, but was rejected early on as being significantly too costly, particularly in terms of the dockyard upgrades that would be needed to service them.
The advantages of size were immediately apparent; a 42,000-ton carrier could only hold 27 aircraft, while a 55,000-ton carrier could carry 49 Buccaneer or Sea Vixen. This was an 80% increase in the size of the airgroup for a 30% increase in
displacement
Displacement may refer to:
Physical sciences
Mathematics and Physics
* Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...
. The Board of Admiralty decided in 1961 that minimum would be 48,000 tons. The carriers would have two main roles: strike carrier (including attacks on airfields) and defence of the fleet. They would also operate early warning aircraft and - later - anti-submarine helicopters. Even with these smaller designs, cost was a serious issue. The
Treasury
A treasury is either
*A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry.
*A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...
and the
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
were pushing for a new set of
long-range strike aircraft operating from a string of bases around the globe. For the former this appeared a cost-effective solution for the
East of Suez
East of Suez is used in British military and political discussions in reference to interests beyond the European theatre, and east of the Suez Canal, and may or may not include the Middle East. issue, and for the latter it meant that the Royal Navy would not get a majority of the defence budget.
Four ships were planned but the addition of construction of four Polaris missile nuclear submarines (ordered in April 1963 introduced delays of ten months in expected production. Considerations included the availability of berths at shipyards, sufficient trained welders for use of QT35 steel, drawing office capacity at the shipyards, number of electrical fitters. A new dry dock at Portsmouth was also needed.
By July 1963 it was announced that only one carrier would be built, though there was a possibility that one would be ordered by the Australian navy.
Details
The "sketch" approved by the Admiralty in July 1963 was for a , at the waterline, vessel. Three shafts powered by a new steam plant design would give 27-28 knots and one shaft could be shut down at a time for maintenance.The electrical distribution system, using step down transformers from 3.3kV, was also new to the Royal Navy.
The CVA-01 would have displaced no more than 54,500 tons, with a flight deck length (including the bridle arrester boom) of and wide. Overall width was . The size of the flight deck, combined with
steam catapult
An aircraft catapult is a device used to allow aircraft to take off from a very limited amount of space, such as the deck of a vessel, but can also be installed on land-based runways in rare cases. It is now most commonly used on aircraft carrier ...
s and arrester gear, would have enabled the carriers to operate the latest jets. The two long catapults, which could operate aircraft of maximum weight of were set at 4 degrees apart. There were four take-off positions to operate V/STOL aircraft.
Initially no armour was planned but was added to the magazines, ship sides and hangar bringing displacement up to 54,500 tons.
The sketch included 30 Buccaneer strike and Sea Vixen fighter aircraft. The variable geometry aircraft under design to
Operational Requirement
An Operational Requirement, commonly abbreviated OR, was a United Kingdom (UK) Air Ministry document setting out the required characteristics for a future (i.e., as-yet unbuilt) military aircraft or weapon system.
The numbered OR would describe ...
OR.346 was expected to be carried later.
The aircraft complement in the design approved on 27 January 1966 was a mix of 36
British specification McDonnell Douglas Phantom II fleet defence fighter (with secondary strike role) and
Blackburn Buccaneer low-level
strike aircraft
An attack aircraft, strike aircraft, or attack bomber is a tactical military aircraft that has a primary role of carrying out airstrikes with greater precision than bombers, and is prepared to encounter strong low-level air defenses while pres ...
, four early-warning aircraft, five anti-submarine helicopters and two search-and-rescue helicopters.
Defences included an
Ikara anti-submarine system and a
Sea Dart anti-aircraft missile (then under development) on the quarter deck. The Ikara was deleted from the design in February 1965.
The large 'Broomstick' radar dome above the central island on the carrier was planned to be a
Type 988 Anglo-Dutch 3D radar, which would subsequently be fitted on the
Royal Netherlands Navy
The Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Koninklijke Marine, links=no) is the naval force of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
During the 17th century, the navy of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world an ...
s, although this would not have been fitted to the final carrier as Britain pulled out of the project.
Cancellation
By early 1963 the
Minister of Defence
A defence minister or minister of defence is a Cabinet (government), cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from coun ...
Peter Thorneycroft
George Edward Peter Thorneycroft, Baron Thorneycroft, (26 July 1909 – 4 June 1994) was a British Conservative Party politician. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1957 and 1958.
Early life
Born in Dunston, Staffordshire, Thorn ...
announced in
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
that one new aircraft carrier would be built, at an estimated cost of £56 million, although the Treasury thought that the final cost was likely to be nearer £100 million. This was based on the carrier using the same aircraft as the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
, the
Hawker Siddeley P.1154
The Hawker Siddeley P.1154 was a planned supersonic vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) fighter aircraft designed by Hawker Siddeley Aviation (HSA).
Development originally started under P.1150, which was essentially a larger and fas ...
supersonic V/STOL aircraft (a larger version of what would become the
Hawker Siddeley Harrier
The Hawker Siddeley Harrier is a British military aircraft. It was the first of the Harrier series of aircraft and was developed in the 1960s as the first operational ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft with vertical/short takeoff an ...
). After the
General Election of October 1964, however, the new Labour Government wanted to cut back defence spending, and the RAF attacked the Royal Navy's carrier in an attempt to safeguard first its
BAC TSR-2
The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 is a cancelled Cold War strike and reconnaissance aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The TSR-2 was designed ...
strike/reconnaissance aircraft and then its proposed replacement, the
General Dynamics F-111
The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production variants of the F-111 had roles that included ground attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons c ...
, from the cuts.
The new government, and by extension the Treasury, were particularly concerned about the size issues involved, as these were fluctuating quite frequently. They therefore demanded that the Admiralty keep to 53,000 tons. With the navy unwilling to alter the size of the carrier and its airgroup accordingly the difficulties spiralled, and the final tonnage was much more likely to be nearer 55,000 tons. The design issues also increased, including dramatically reduced top speed, deck space, armour and radar equipment. When the Cabinet met in February 1966, the new Secretary of State for Defence,
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey, (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he ...
, strongly supported the RAF and their plan for long-range strike aircraft, by now the F-111, partially due to the cost issues of running fleet carriers, and partially due to opposition to a strong British military. This meeting resulted in the
1966 Defence White Paper. In this paper the CVA-01 was finally cancelled, along with the remainder of the
Type 82 destroyer
The Type 82 or ''Bristol''-class destroyer was a 1960s guided missile destroyer design intended to replace s in the Royal Navy. Originally eight warships were planned to provide area air-defence for the planned CVA-01 aircraft carriers. They ...
s that would have been built as escorts, of which only was eventually completed. Instead plans were made for the modernisation of ''Eagle'' and ''Ark Royal''. The final chief designer of CVA-01 said that by the time project was cancelled, so many design compromises had been made because of size and budget restrictions, that the whole project had become risky.
The following year, a supplement to the review marked the ending of a global presence with the withdrawal of British presence "
East of Suez
East of Suez is used in British military and political discussions in reference to interests beyond the European theatre, and east of the Suez Canal, and may or may not include the Middle East. ". The year after, the purchase of F-111s was cancelled.
One argument about the cancellation of CVA-01 states that the RAF moved Australia by 500 miles in its documents to support the air force's preferred strategy of land-based aircraft.
[ Regardless of the story's veracity, the principal reason for the cancellation was that the Defence Review board believed adequate cover could be better provided East of Suez by RAF strike aircraft flying from bases in Australia and uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean, rather than by a small carrier fleet in the 1970s which would have still included ''Hermes''. The Review asserted the carrier's only effective use was to project British power East of Suez, and that the RN carriers were too 'vulnerable' for the RN's other major theatre in the North Atlantic. When the British government later decided in 1967 that it would withdraw from east of Suez, the case for carriers weakened further. The 1966 Review stated that the ability of RAF to cover 300 miles offshore was enough for the 1970s, regardless of the RAF's contested claim to be able to provide air cover out to 700 miles. The cancellation of 150 TSR2 aircraft by Labour in mid-1965 was the basis of the RAF's argument for the 'island hopping strategy'.]
Subsequent Royal Navy carriers
''Eagle'' and ''Ark Royal''
The cancellation of CVA-01 was planned to be compensated for by the minimum updating of both ''Eagle'' and ''Ark Royal'' to enable them to operate the 52 Phantoms ordered. However, a decision was taken later to completely phase out fixed-wing flying in the Royal Navy by 1972 in line with withdrawal from "East of Suez". ''Victorious'' was withdrawn in 1969 and ''Hermes'' was converted to a "commando carrier" to replace her sister ''Albion'', in 1971-73.
At the time of the announcement, ''Ark Royal'' was beginning a reconstruction with an austere refit of radar systems, communications, partial electrical rewiring and fittings needed to allow operation of the Phantom (despite the fact that it was a worse base for such a conversion than ''Eagle''), and it was deemed unacceptable either to cancel the much needed work, or to spend such a large amount of money (approx. £32m) for less than three years continued use. A change of government led, as a consequence, to retain ''Ark Royal'' following her 1967–1970 refit, but not to proceed with a refit of ''Eagle''. ''Eagle'' was decommissioned in 1972, partly due to damage inflicted in a partial grounding a year before; repairs would have probably required a minimum 18-month refit in 1972–1973 at a cost of around £40 million to operate till 1977. Many of the second squadron of F-4 Phantoms intended for ''Eagle'' were immediately transferred to the RAF. ''Eagle'' remained officially in reserve as a source of spares to maintain ''Ark Royal'' until 1978, but could never have been brought back into service.
"Through Deck Cruiser"
The Royal Navy did not however completely surrender aircraft carrier capability, despite the eventual withdrawal of ''Ark Royal'' in 1978. The concept of the "through-deck command cruiser" was first raised in the late 1960s, when it became clear that there was a good chance of the Fleet Air Arm losing fixed-wing capability. The "through-deck cruiser" name was chosen to avoid the stigma of great expense attached to full-size aircraft carriers, with these 20,000 ton ships having significantly less fixed-wing aviation capability than the planned CVA-01 carriers. However, they were to function as part of combined NATO fleets, with a primary mission of providing Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
anti-submarine patrols in the north-east Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
, in support of the American carrier battle group
A carrier battle group (CVBG) is a naval fleet consisting of an aircraft carrier capital ship and its large number of escorts, together defining the group. The ''CV'' in ''CVBG'' is the United States Navy hull classification code for an airc ...
s.
In order to ensure the safety of the battle group around the "cruiser", the facility to carry the Sea Harrier
The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval short take-off and vertical landing/ vertical take-off and landing jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft. It is the second member of the Harrier family developed. It first entered servic ...
was added at a late stage of development, the intention being that it could give the battle group the capability to intercept Soviet aircraft without having to rely either on land based or US Navy interceptors. The ultimate result of this was the Royal Navy being able to deploy carrier-based aircraft during the Falklands War
The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
. One officer who worked on the CVA-01 believed, however, that had the United Kingdom "built two or three ships to this design, they would now n 1999
N, or n, is the fourteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet# ...
be seen to have been the bargain of the century and they would have made the Falklands War a much less risky operation" due to greater functionality.
CVF
The United Kingdom returned to the fleet carrier idea with the construction of the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier
The ''Queen Elizabeth'' class is a class of two aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy which are the central components of the UK Carrier Strike Group. The lead ship, , was named on 4 July 2014, in honour of Elizabeth I. She wa ...
s, which are larger than the cancelled CVA-01s. The two new carriers, initially dubbed CVF (F for 'Future'), are named and . The contract for these vessels was announced on 25 July 2007 by the Secretary of State for Defence
The secretary of state for defence, also referred to as the defence secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the business of the Ministry of Defence. The incumbent is a membe ...
Des Browne. Following ''Queen Elizabeths commissioning on 7 December 2017, ''Prince of Wales'' was commissioned on 10 December 2019.
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
* Royal United Services Institute Journal – Aug 2006, Vol. 151, No. 4 By Simon Elliott – CVA-01 and CVF – What Lessons Can the Royal Navy Learn from the Cancelled 1960s Aircraft Carrier for its New Flat-top?
*
*
* {{cite book, editor=Jordan, John, publisher=Conway, location=London, year=2014, title=Warship 2014, isbn=978-1-84486-236-8, last=Sturton, first=Ian, chapter=CVA-01: Portrait of a Missing Link, pages=28–48
External links
A comprehensive essay on the history of the CVA-01 design and related issues
Aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy
Proposed aircraft carriers
Abandoned military projects of the United Kingdom
Proposed ships of the Royal Navy
Cancelled aircraft carriers