By Alex Clarke
Howdy, it’s once again come to pass, another historically informed maritime current events podcast is inbound!
The Bilge Pumps is where three naval geeks who enjoy being monitored by the Russians (judging by the number of blonde ladies we don’t know who keep wanting to befriend us on Facebook whilst their embassy keep tagging us in photos – anyway listen and decide for yourself) have a chat about the world.
So what is episode four about? Well the #Bilgepumps team are talking about the history of aircraft carriers and which new frigate design looks like someone has smashed the head of a cylon and a clone trooper’s helmet together.
#Bilgepumps is a new series and new avenue, although it may no longer have the new car smell, in fact more of pinnaple/irn bru smell – but so far we are getting the impression it’s liked. Going forward, we’d very much appreciate any comments, topic suggestions, or ideas to be tweeted to the Bilgepump crew (with #Bilgepump) at Alex (@AC_NavalHistory), Drach (@Drachinifel), and Jamie (@Armouredcarrier). Or you can comment on our Youtube channels (listed down below).
The Bilge Pumps 4 – Aircraft Carriers and Brand New Frigates
Links
3. Jamie’s Youtube Channel Armoured Carriers
Alex Clarke is the producer of The Bilge Pumps podcast.
Contact the CIMSEC podcast team at [email protected].
Random ideas for discussion if you get bored with China, inspired by the NavyCon 2020 video and Alex’s 50th What, Why, and How special.
Carriers with very long range strike aircraft. Is that really an option if your navy has to fight in the Baltic, the Eastern Med, the Gulf, Malacca Straits?
Phil Pournelle at NavyCon stressed the usefulness of small ships in numbers, and Alex in his special expressed … strong … opinions about the short duration of naval ministers and secretaries. Maybe instead of reforming British politics to handle long term big projects, the RN should instead build small, simple, warships? If you can’t design it in a year, it doesn’t get built? (Is it even possible to design a new warship in a year?)
To a software developer the British QE carriers look like classic second system effect. The RN built the simplest thing that might work, the Invincibles, and they did work at Falklands. So instead of building more of the thing that worked, the QEs were bigger and much more expensive and took much longer to construct. Was the result actually significantly better than Charles de Gaulle, Liaoning, or (aesthetics aside) a Juan Carlos/Canberra?