The Brits new carrier

Daily Mail:

They will be the largest warships Britain has ever sent to sea, capable of projecting unprecedented firepower across the globe for the next 50 years.

Yesterday, the Government ended a decade of uncertainty over the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers, confirming plans to build the ships which they first promised in 1998.

HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will each weigh 65,000 tons and will be constructed in huge sections at yards across Britain before being assembled at Rosyth, Scotland.

They are due to enter service in 2014 and 2016 respectively - two years later than originally planned.

Each will carry 40 advanced Joint Strike Fighter stealth jump jets, and will transform Britain's ability to operate in hostile waters and hit targets thousands of miles from friendly territory.

They will dwarf the Navy's two ageing 'mini- carriers' which they will replace, and represent an ambitious return to full size-carrier operations, 30 years after Labour ministers scrapped the old HMS Ark Royal.

But the long-delayed ships will come with a combined £4billion price tag - with a new generation of aircraft costing at least another £10billion.

...

While the cost does not seem out of line, it is a measure of how low the British Navy has fallen that this amount is a strain for it. there have also been concerned raised about whether the UK has the manpower to operate the ships and the planes that will be launched from it. The Brit Navy has been on a modernization spree of late and it was needed. It has launched several new ships with stealth capabilities. These two carriers will keep her a player on the world stage.

Click on the image for a larger view.