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Side armour and blast resistant bulkheads were added to the Alpha design as the result of the QinetiQ studies. In 2002 the leading candidate for CVF was the Thales Alpha design that incorporated self-defence weapons including Aster missiles and many other desirable, but expensive features. A two tonne Shock Table (2TMC) and Deck Shock Machine (DMC) has recently been recommissioned. QinetiQ also has a full-scale shock-testing facility in Rosyth used for evaluating naval and commercial marine equipment. The Survive® toolset continues to be refined and has been used in the design of all major RN vessels in the 21st Century. QinetiQ’s Marine Survivability Services has a team of specialists with extensive knowledge of ship and submarine vulnerability. Computer models of vessels can be subjected to virtual damage and evolved algorithms can calculate the effects on structures.
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QinetiQ has developed a sophisticated software toolset called Survive® based on more than 50 years of full-scale trials and experimental data. In 2002 QinetiQ were contracted to assess how damage-resistant the early CVF concepts would prove in a wide range of scenarios, ranging from an RPG strike to multiple torpedo hits. Greater protection from RPGs, suicide craft and unmanned boats or drones became an urgent consideration. It would be an embarrassing disaster, should the ship be disabled by a terrorist with simple or home-made weapons costing a few hundred dollars. The incident coincided with the early design phase of CVF (that became the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers). This event was a wake-up call to warship designers about the new asymmetric threat in harbours and confined waters. In 2000 the USS Cole was badly damaged and 17 sailors killed in Aden harbour by a terrorist attack using small boat packed with explosives. Today’s warships have many damage control features but are of relatively light construction and have dispensed with armour in favour of self-defence weapons, decoys, electronic countermeasures and stealth. Post-war carrier design still favoured armoured flight decks but by the by the time the Invincible class (CVS) were designed in the 1970s, naval architects had long since abandoned serious structural defence against the power of modern explosives carried by torpedoes and guided weapons.
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Even the most well-protected battleships ever built, the Japanese Yamato class succumbed air-launched bombs and torpedoes. Despite the benefits of toughened flight decks, WWII conclusively demonstrated the days of heavy armour were over. Unarmoured US carriers could embark more aircraft but suffered grievous damage when hit, while RN carriers were able to quickly return to operations, within hours of bomb or kamikaze strikes. This additional weight required greater structural support that constrained hangar size and aircraft numbers. In the 1930s the RN decided that all its carriers would have armoured flight decks and protected hangars.
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The Royal Navy has considerable accumulated experience in how to design aircraft carriers that can withstand damage, many of the lessons were learned the hard way during brutal actions during WWII. In this piece, we will look at some of the passive design features that would help preserve the ship if the worst happened and she was damaged. In a previous article, we looked at the active layers of protection that will surround HMS Queen Elizabeth when she is required to sail into harm’s way.