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For other ships of the same name, see HMS Invincible.
HMS Invincible (R05) is a British Anti-Submarine Warfare Carrier, the lead ship of three in her class in the Royal Navy. She was launched on 3 May 1977 and is the seventh ship to carry the name.
[edit] HistoryInvincible was built at Barrow-in-Furness by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering. She was laid down in 1973, and launched on 3 May 1977. The ship was commissioned on 11 July 1980 and joined the older carriers Hermes and Bulwark in service. On 6 June 2005 the Ministry of Defence announced that HMS Invincible would be inactive until 2010, available for reactivation at 18 months' notice. She was decommissioned on 3 August 2005.[2] HMS Illustrious succeeded Invincible as the service's flagship. The Royal Navy maintain that Invincible can be deployed should the need arise and that navy policy assumes that it is still an active aircraft carrier. However according to Jane's bringing the ship to a state of operational readiness would require 18 months and could only be done by the removal of systems from the other ships. [edit] Proposed sale and Falklands War On 25 February 1982 the Australian government announced that it had agreed to purchase Invincible and a number of Sea King and Wessex helicopters as embarked airpower for £175 million after several months of negotiations. The sale was confirmed by the Ministry of Defence.[3] The ship would have replaced the Royal Australian Navy's HMAS Melbourne and would have been named HMAS Australia.[4] On 2 April 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. On 5 April 1982 a naval task force headed by Invincible and Hermes left Portsmouth bound for the South Atlantic. On 20 April 1982 the British War Cabinet ordered the repossession of the Falkland Islands. During the journey south from Ascension Island to the Falklands, on 23 April, Invincible locked its Sea Dart system onto a Brazilian Airlines DC10 which was initially believed to have been an Argentine Air Force Boeing 707 which had been monitoring the fleets movements for several days[5][6]. Task group commander, Rear Admiral "Sandy" Woodward had the previous day requested permission from Commander-in-Chief Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse to shoot down the 707[7], which had been nicknamed the "burgler"[8], as he believed it could precede a raid launched from the Argentine aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo against his own carriers. Woodward believed he had been given permission to shoot it down as long as it came within a certain distance, and could be positively identified, although he held this belief as a result of a conversation via the Defence Secure Speech System, and had not had this confirmed in writing.[7] As the 707 was no direct threat to the fleet, Woodward ordered its course tracked, and it was reported to him that the plane was on a "direct line running from Durban to Rio de Janeiro"[5]. With this in mind, Woodward gave the order "weapons tight"[6] which immediately stopped any ship from engaging the plane, and sent a Sea Harrier up to investigate. The Harrier pilot reporting that "it was a Brazilian Airliner, with all the normal navigation and running lights on"[9]. Details of the Harrier interception appeared in the Brazilian press, with passengers "alleged to have been frightened", with Woodward's reply to Fieldhouse's request for details of the incident being "Inconvenience to passengers underwear regretted unless any of them were Argentinian".[10] On 1 June, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser advised the British Government that the sale of Invincible to Australia could be cancelled if desired. The UK formally declared an end to hostilities on 20 June 1982.[11] In July 1982 the British Ministry of Defence announced that it had withdrawn its offer to sell Invincible and that it would maintain a three-carrier force.[12] Although Argentina claims to have damaged this ship during the Falklands War,[13] this is officially denied by the British Government and there is no evidence that any damage was inflicted.[14][15] [edit] Other deploymentsIn December 1983 Australia refused the use of dry dock facilities in Sydney for Invincible during the Orient Express group deployment when the Royal Navy declined to say whether the ship was carrying nuclear weapons.[16] Invincible was accompanied by a number of other ships, including HMS Achilles, during this deployment. From 1993 to 1995, Invincible was deployed in the Adriatic for Operation Deny Flight over Yugoslavia and contributed to Operation Deliberate Force which concluded the deployment. In 1998 and 1999, she contributed to Operation Bolton in Southern Iraq along with air forces from Saudi Arabia, the United States and (in 1998) France. Also in 1999, she was deployed once more the Balkans to assist action against Yugoslavia. Her Harriers were involved in military strikes while her helicopters aided refugees.[17]  [edit] Weapons and aircraft Invincible was originally completed without any close in weapon systems. As part of the lessons from the Falklands War, Invincible initially had two 20 mm Raytheon Phalanx close in weapon systems fitted but these were later upgraded to three Thales 30 mm Goalkeeper CIWS; they also have two Oerlikon 20 mm cannons. Countermeasures are provided by a Thales jamming system and ECM system, Seagnat launchers provide for chaff or flare decoys. Initially the carriers were armed with a Sea Dart SAM missile system, but these were removed in order to increase the flight deck size and to allow magazine storage for Royal Air Force Harrier GR7s. The carrier's air group comprised nine Harriers and twelve helicopters (usually all Sea Kings, either anti-submarine warfare (ASW) or Airborne Early Warning (AEW) variants). The carriers also provide an operational headquarters for the Royal Navy task force. The runway is 170 m long and includes the characteristic "ski jump" (initially at 7°, later increased to 12°). [edit] References
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