Everything You Wanted To Know About Hermes

Hopefully some time through the currency of this issue a final decision will be made on which type of carrier will bear the RAN ensign following the retirement of HMAS Melbourne. The smart money, and certainly the navy’s enthusiasm, points to the acquisition of HMS Hermes as an interim vessel until an Invincible class carrier is introduced into service in the early nineties.

At first glance, acquiring Hermes to replace Melbourne seems akin to divorcing a fifty-year-old spouse to marry a forty-year-old!

Certainly, the keels of both Melbourne and Hermes were laid down less than two years apart, back in the latter stages of World War II, but from there the similarity ends. Hermes has been at sea for about half as much time as Melbourne and is presently a state-of-the-art ship thanks to an extensive refit for her STOVL role during the late seventies.

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