Royal Navy Carrier Doctrine 1946 to 2020

[uk 75]

We have had much discussion about changes to the sorts of aircraft carrier deployed by the Royal Navy in the postwar years. Perhaps it is now time to change the doctrines that the Royal Navy adopted for their use.
The experts on this, Alertken and JFC Fuller have often contrbuted to other threads. But as far as I can remember, we have not devoted a thread to alternative doctrines.
One example of this was the reliance of the RN on deploying carriers "East of Suez" as opposed to using them for ASW and "trade protection" in the NATO area.
The Commando ships also owe their existence between 1956 and 1967 to "East of Suez".
The role of the carrier in "General War" (war with Russia and China) and the "broken backed war" that would follow the use of atomic bombs (itself rendered obsolete by the super weapons (hydrogen bombs)) was the discussion f the 1950s.
We have a lot of scope to see what defence policiea could have been. This is not an especially "political" theme as for most of the period (except 1964-70) carriers were not a party political issue.
This is a rather rambling intro, but I know there is lots of knowledge out there.

 

[zen]

The problem with trade protection is protection from what?
ASW carriers don't have much capacity or systems for supporting Air Defence. Fitting them for such means expanding them so it becomes a general purpose carrier and rapidly costs escalate.

Limited Air Defence against Fleet Shadowers might be possible at an affordable increase in the carrier's capacity.
But to extract full Air Defence would impose not just multiple TP carriers together, but attendant AAW Cruisers to handle control. Distribution down to Destroyers only increases the total force costs, resources used and personnel required. Even if individual units, (components of that force) are cheaper.
While larger more general purpose carriers are individually more expensive the force needed to deliver the effects is much less expensive due to efficiencies.

 

[SSgtC]

The problem with trade protection is protection from what?
ASW carriers don't have much capacity or systems for supporting Air Defence. Fitting them for such means expanding them so it becomes a general purpose carrier and rapidly costs escalate.

Limited Air Defence against Fleet Shadowers might be possible at an affordable increase in the carrier's capacity.
But to extract full Air Defence would impose not just multiple TP carriers together, but attendant AAW Cruisers to handle control. Distribution down to Destroyers only increases the total force costs, resources used and personnel required. Even if individual units, (components of that force) are cheaper.
While larger more general purpose carriers are individually more expensive the force needed to deliver the effects is much less expensive due to efficiencies.

This was the decision that the US came to as well. They eventually realized that single use ASW carriers were of limited utility in a conventional war with the USSR. Particularly once the Soviets began deploying long range bombers with anti ship missiles.