Design and Construction
On 25 July 2007 the then Defence Secretary Des Browne, announced the £3.8bn order for the two new carriers. On 11 December 2008, Defence Secretary John Hutton announced that the two ships would enter service one or two years later than the originally planned dates of 2014 and 2016. The in-service date was further extended to 2020 in The Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010.
Construction of Queen Elizabeth began in 2009. Her assembly is taking place in the Firth of Forth at Rosyth Royal Dockyard. She will be built from nine blocks built in six UK shipyards; BAE Systems Surface Ships in Glasgow, Babcock at Appledore, Babcock at Rosyth, A&P Tyne in Hebburn, BAE at Portsmouth and Cammell Laird (flight decks) at Birkenhead. Two of the lower main blocks, together weighing more than 6,000 tonnes and forming part of the base of the ship, were assembled and joined into one piece on 30 June 2011. On the 28 October 2012 an 11,000-tonne section of the carrier began a lengthy journey around the south coast of England (to avoid bad weather) from the shipbuilding hall at Govan, to the Rosyth dockyard.
Number One dry dock at Rosyth has been modified to accommodate one Queen Elizabeth-class vessel at a time.
Read more about this topic: HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08)
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