HMS Queen Elizabeth Commissioned

Weighing in at 65,000 tonnes displacement, HMS Queen Elizabeth is the largest ship ever built for the Royal Navy. She will be used in a full range of military tasks, from war-fighting to providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Operating with Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter jets onboard and having a long-range 3D radar fitted which can track a tennis ball travelling at 2,000 miles per hour, HMS Queen Elizabeth will be versatile enough to carry out these capabilities.

Which should come in damned handy, tennis balls being one of the primary weapons in modern naval warfare.

The bigger story, however, is that the QE is built entirely around the the F-35B, that aircraft being intended to serve as both the striking and defense force of the carrier. But the Lightning II is an unproven horse, its design having been finalized and put into production prior to completion of flight testing. It is, in a literal sense, a flying computer model.

The development and pre-production of the aircraft was plagued with massive cost overruns, meaning that for the first time in naval history, the air wing is more expensive than the carrier itself. That's a far cry from the days when planes were pushed over the side when damaged. Put a Lightning II in the drink and some mid-grade bureaucrat in procurement will have your career for lunch.

It's a big roll of the dice, especially with Britain's economy tottering around like a drunken sailor in Trafalgar Square. With our idiot pseudo-President effectively mothballing two-thirds of our carrier fleet while China builds ships as fast as they can lay down keels, it is in our best interest that the QE work as advertised. That, however, is far from a foregone conclusion.



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