Pallamara has been able to field a single large carrier, albeit a flawed design. In return for basing rights, the nation recieved plans for the Forrestal class, the most advanced design the USA would part with, even at the height of US-Pallamaran relations.
The project was an expensive one from the start, the first challenge being the development of the infrastructure to support the project, which delayed actual construction until the 1990s, with the final delivery not taking place until 2003-2004.
The end result was flawed and troubleprone as the resulting ship had all the problems of the original Forrestal class, (in itself a first attempt at a supercarrier) and others resulting from incorrectly copied, or misplaced systems, as Pallamaran engineers tried to update the 1940s era design to modern standards, resulting in a tempermental vessel. Mainly the ship is being used to gain experience in deck and flight operations, seldom embarking the full airwing.
faced with the manpower, cost, and maintaince issues of joining the carrier club, it was only possible to construct a single unit of the class, and even that resulted in substantial changes in the way the navy (RZM) was organized. Mostly, the project has been an expensive, painful learning experience as deck and flight operations had to be learned from scratch, with numerous training accidents involved along the way. (fortunately this had been expected, and cheaper aircraft had been used for this period of training, but the expense and damage incurred was still high) Building from knowledge gained with this class, a successor is planned for the 2030 period that will hopefully fix the flaws of the current design, but until then, the Rijkzeemacht has instead chosen to procure two cheaper, smaller modified Cavour class type VTOL carriers to bridge the gap.
These vessels have proven so successful in service that a vocal minority are calling for the abandonment of large carriers in favor of these type vessels. The cited problem with this being that current VTOL design, the Peregrin (based on the P.1154) is reaching the end of its developement potential, and its replacement would either involve the development of a new aircraft, or procural of the F-35, which with poor relations with the current American administration is not feasible at the moment, not to mention doubts about the ability to finance both the F-35 and the F-14F Sabercat currently in the works. For now, the monarchy insists on the continued carrier program.
((What I really wanted was a CVV design to work with, based on a Midway, but the closest thing I could find to work with was Forrestal, which fit the bill for F-14 operations anyway. I realized I had something of a design gap for the 1990s, and a carrier seemed to be just the thing to plug in there, along with the first generation of SSNs. (which I need to figure out what will look like for a future design) At one period, SSBNs or even SSBs were mooted, but it was either a matter of those, or a carrier program, but the monarchy was firm about the carriers, and the RZM was doubtful about the practicality of such a program to begin with, the likely end product not much more advanced than early Polaris boats anyway. For sea based nuclear deterrant, a future class of SSGNs are more likely to emerge, but no real progress has emerged in this direction.
The main potential enemy is considered to be Indonesia, whose modernization and cooperation with China are considered to be growing threats. There is a bit of friendly rivalry with India, which nonetheless wishes that Pallamara were less militaristic, with concerns being that such rivalry could turn into an arms race that neither desires.
A final note regarding the economic plausibility of the fleet is that the nation should be able to support all the designs I have so far fielded for it, based on the economic setup (see page 1) I have so far presented. The nation does have oil wealth, which gives it about the same GDP per capita as Austrailia which I used as a model. Based on those numbers, the fleet I have so far fielded should be quite plausible, so long as the national willpower to maintain it is there, which I had done my best to develop a plausible rationalle for. My only real concern is that I need to increase the manpower to represent the strain of fielding the carrier and the airwing. I would kindly direct the reader to my response about fleet numbers on page six. The nation is as always, a WIP--I still have work on the other branches to do, but the navy is the main one, and the one most pertinant to SB.))
_________________ We can't stop here--this is Bat country!
If it's close enough to cast a shadow, I think the flying house wins initiative.
Bronies are like the Forsworn. Everyone agrees that they are a problem but nobody wants to expend the energy rooting them out.
"That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."
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