A typical deployment of one 65,000t vessel outside UK territorial waters would include an embarked air wing of 12 short take-off and vertical landing F-35Bs.
Wars can have a bad way of showing up quickly, in the here and not days from now.
For any deployment.
The Boy Scouts have it right: “Be prepared.”
A 6$,000 ton vessel deploying with 12 faulty, short-ranged strike aircraft that have a horrific cost-per-flying hour.
No on-board tanking or proper fixed-wing AWACs.
And if this kind of “force” was sunk outright, quickly, as an object lesson by an aggressor, what would the UK do?
Not much, because they are now officially, a hollow force.
And, the UK taxpayer is getting taken to the cleaners.
As always, best to make buying decisions when looking at a complete go-to-war product. Every potential F-35 customer / partner won’t have intelligent buying-power knowledge until 2019-2020 at the earliest.
