A sad end...

[Kai]

...but also a bargain:

http://www.edisposals.com/is-bin/IN...yID=VaLAqBELPagAAAED8GeasfoP&JumpTo=OfferList

Shame all the Goalkeeper CIWS guns and SAM launchers have been stripped out...and the engines...and the generators - but still, can anyone say floating city? :naughty:

 

[GrimJack]

The no engines, generators, or pumps bit is a bit of a deal killer for anyone that isn't just planning to melt it for the scrap.

Even if the engines were still there... any clue what it costs to power one of these for any length of time? Doesn't matter whether it's nuclear or diesel, it'll bankrupt your average power ball lottery winner in no time flat.

Now if we could put together a couple thousand millionaires who were interested in living tax free in international waters... Well, maybe tax free, we'd still need to pay for fuel. And I bet France would sell us weaponry again, they seem more than willing to arm questionable members of society.

 

[Kai]

Well, the powerplant is fairly common - Rolls Royce Olympus Gas Turbines (no-nuclear carriers in the UK fleet), used in a lot of naval vessels. It's a shame really, we're down to ONE aircraft carrier. The US has what, 16?

 

[Flateric]

I was just about to ask how far out to see you have to be for all laws to no longer afect you. It could be our little land of moral disrepute and fun-ness'o rama!

That's right I said "FUN-NESS'O"!

 

[WesPatt]

Should be turned into a floating museum like the Intrepid was.

The Invincible is a piece of history, an epic ship, should be preserved as such.

A Phenomenal ship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Invincible_(R05)

Was such a waste to decommission after they modernized her.

 

[Kai]

Ark Royal was decommissioned as well. The only carrier we have left, is the Illustrious, and that may go the way of the dodo the moment the new Queen Elizabeth Class come into service in about 2015. We're building TWO carriers, neither of them nuclear (WHY?!) and in all likelyhood we'll have to sell the second one to the french.

 

[GrimJack]

I don't understand the British navy's apparent fear of nuclear power either. For a country that's had one of the world's premier navies since ... well, since navies, they sure are falling behind.

 

[SupraMario]

Well, the powerplant is fairly common - Rolls Royce Olympus Gas Turbines (no-nuclear carriers in the UK fleet), used in a lot of naval vessels. It's a shame really, we're down to ONE aircraft carrier. The US has what, 16?

the way we are headed, we might end up selling a few of ours ><

 

[Jayhall]

lets pool our money together

 

[trucker]

thats a great idea! with all the mk3 owners in here, we ought to be able to scrape up at least $16.71

 

[IJ.]

thats a great idea! with all the mk3 owners in here, we ought to be able to scrape up at least $16.71

You kicking in the $15??

 

[Kai]

Its not a fear of nuclear - its cost, i think. We're reliant on the US for nuclear fuels & nuclear weapons for naval vessels, and we have to ask the US nicely, or we don't get anything. It's also the total cost of disposal once the vessel has reached the end of its life, decommissioning a regular naval vessel it literally cut it up, use it for scrap...getting rid of a used, 'hot' reactor, is marginally more complicated and expensive. However, i personally think that for vessels of that size, we should be using nuclear reactors as its prime power source - no reliance then on refuelling it every few thousand miles, and being reliant on primarily russian resources, which are getting increasingly unstable in terms of both price & supply :/

 

[GrimJack]

Exactly. And worries about decommissioning it are easy to assuage - stop decommissioning perfectly good ships!

 

[Kai]

Well - you're still tooling around in CVN-65 for the next few years, thats got a service life of what, 55+ years? The Illustrious class were never designed for that length of service (they'd have been decommissioned within 5 years anyway), unlike the new ones. Plus the new design has the OPTION of nuclear propulsion as they're still only now putting things together, and the French (who may acquire one of them) will no doubt insist on it.

 

[GrimJack]

Well - you're still tooling around in CVN-65...

Err... Canada doesn't have *any* aircraft carriers. Hell, I think our navy consists of a dozen icebreakers and 4 submarines, and I'm pretty sure a couple of those subs are landlocked in an amusement park on the prairies somewhere.

 

[Dirgle]

Well - you're still tooling around in CVN-65 for the next few years, thats got a service life of what, 55+ years?

True, but they have to go through refueling and overhaul after 25 years, that cost us 2.5 billion on the last one. Outside of the keel and superstructure they damn near rebuild the whole thing. And then roughly every 4 years they go back into dry dock for system upgrades, usually in the 250 million to 500 million dollar range. A brand new one costs 5.1 billion. So they may last a long time but they are expensive as hell to keep going that long.

 

[Flateric]

And don't forget our Navies helicopters! Yes fear us and our helicopters as they rail a hail of defective parts down upon you before crashing into you!

4 subs, really? Wow, that would be 3 more than I figured we had.

 

[Kai]

You currently have 33 ships in the Canadian Navy - 3 destroyers, 12 frigates, 4 submarines (all small diesel electrics - no nuclear in canada), 12 minesweepers and a bunch of support craft.

 

[trucker]

You kicking in the $15??

sure! i will stick it in my petty cash coffee cup, and will wait a couple of years for the rest of you to pony up the 1.71

 

[GrimJack]

You currently have 33 ships in the Canadian Navy - 3 destroyers, 12 frigates, 4 submarines (all small diesel electrics - no nuclear in canada), 12 minesweepers and a bunch of support craft.

Ha! That's what we tell foreigners, anyway.

Seriously, though, we have a history of building, and, for that matter, staffing, whatever size navy we need when we need it, instead of keeping it around in peacetime.