uk 75 said:
Geoff
I know that I am usually guilty of hindsight but although I cannot prove it, the arguments I put forward above were those I used back in 1997 to colleagues. I remain unapologetic.
As you know I am a great fan of CVA 01 and would love to have seen a proper catapult carrier force back in the RN. However, given that the F18 was the only really suitable off the shelf candidate one had to ask then as now what a single F18 carrying UK carrier really brought to the party when the US had at least 8 or more of the beasts at sea. Then as now I thought that a developed Ocean/Invincible similar to the Italian Cavour could be built as a class of three or two and give the RN a range of useful options with the ships and the existing Harrier force. JSF always looked odd to me, a kind of ugly P1154! Developing the Harrier with US Marines and the Italian (even Indian) navies seemed more reasonable given the level of threat out there.
The hindsight is reference the escorts as the escort force was still relatively stable till the last Govt started slicing away at it without replacements rending it now somewhat imbalanced, the force should have been nearer to 30 rather than the 19 we have now.
As to the carriers we simply wouldn't have got a CATOBAR carrier supported by the other armed forces then, yes F-18 was an off the shelf solution but i think they would have opted for a Navalised Typhoon and the RAF saw that as threat to its planned 232 Typhoons as one of the Later Tranches would have gone to the Navy rather than the RAF.
You need to remember back in 98 the CVS were still on station off the Balkens providing air support, there the air threat and SAM threat was still credible (we lost a SHAR to a SAM !), we basically discovered then that we needed a better aircraft and much larger and more capable carriers for them to fly off so we could maintain station and air cover for a longer period of time. The CVS needed frequent port visits to recharge (i had a mate on 849 at the time and he had a great few years of sea duty).
The smaller cavour style ships whilst able to operate 20 Harriers are still limited and 30+ appears to be the optomum airgroup needed to maintain round the clock operations, the smaller carriers can only do this for a short period of time, so it would mean either running two light carriers and their associated costs or 1 more efficent larger carrier.
Thats the choice we had and it was the right one, the trouble was the actions of Iraq and Afghanistan, screwed up the options for change plan we were working towards, the RN and the RAF paid the price to keep the Army in the field, although both did highlight our shortcoming in Carrier capability and air power as the RAF couldn't get there with its combat aircraft and the RN aircraft were not fit for the hot or high operations.
