Should Argentine special forces succeed in damaging the Typhoons, apart from being prosecuted for malicious damage what will they have achieved?

Replacements could be flown in within hours as the airbase itself will remain operational.

Also all the odds and sods about who sighted the islands first or who had a settlement or a claim there a hundred and fifty plus years ago are utterly irrelevant given that there is a long standing population on the islands. The history of the origins of a population, regardless of their origins, has no relevance to their democratic right to self determination.

Speaking as a Brit I would have nothing against the Rafale in RN service, its an excellent aircraft and involves no technical risk as it already comes in a naval variant. Should the F35 fail or become just too expensive then its the obvious alternative.

I have nop problem with joking about history and past conflicts, until you start to take it seriously – then you look a little like either a teenage boy or a fool.

A Uk constructed CVF for France could be a good industrial offset and would benefit France in supplying the excuse for the second carrier that they need. It would be possible to swap some of the Rafale electronics for those in the Typhoon to create some commonality with the UK supply chain. That or run the RN fleet in conjunction with the MN (possibly with a joint Hawkey force too).

Four carriers, three with a common supply chain, and near identicalair groups would be the ideal core of any future European naval force.

What to call them, well they could be Tempest as a match to the Typhoon or how about Venom, the last figher the RN and MN had in common I believe.

As far as I am aware the GT generators are in the sponsons under the Islands, so if replaced by reactors and all tehplumbing and shielding the ship might develop a quite remarkable list!

I believe when the il press went balistin in the 70s the RN designers did a comparison study for a coal powered Type 45. The outcome was that it was a lot more practical to build a palnt on shore to turn the coal into oil then use that in the ships. The same is almost certainly true for CVF. Better by far for the MOD to buy some farm land and grow enough crops for sufficient biodiesel too keep one carrier iperational at a time, as planned, than to embark in expesnive high tech and risky alterations to a then older ship.

In addition the RAF appear to use Bamburgh Castle as a way-point or turning-point for the Otterburn range during exercises, meaning that screaming low flying jets are a frequent accompaniment to a visit to the castle, as many documentary film crews have found to their cost.

The politicians always get the blame, which is fair in part but surely not the whole truth. The senior service officers seem to have been disconnected from the economic reality in the projects that they specified. At a time of economic pressure TSR2 and CVA01 were madly ambitious.

If more reasonable projects were specified then they would stand a real chance. To keep carrier aviation as viable the the RN needs to drop the love affair with the F4, wonderful aircraft though it is, it is utterly unsuited to the carriers that existed. Also the UK was still buying Sea Vixen in the mid 60s, so scrapping them in 72 was an insane waste.

Separating the carrier build from the purchase of the aircraft would also have helped. One other thing to remember is that although the 70s were also economically poor Britain did spend quite a lot on defence and shipbuilding in articular then. Also if a way can be found to avoid the horror of the Nimrod AEW then a rather large sum of money for investment in aerospace projects would be freed up.

Whilst the RAF has played a significant role in the decline of the FAA fixed wing capability in the last 40 years, they are not the sole culprits.

Look at the RN’s own record. They never formed a 3rd frontline Sea Harrier squadron when they had 3 carriers operational. Nor did they fully fund the Sea Harrier mark two. No new wing and no new engine and inlet. Crucially they did not develop the air to ground capability that would have allowed them to demonstrate their value again and again in the 90s conflicts. They then passed them over to the RAF, as part of Joint Force Harrier, to get the cost off their books. In doing this they must have known that the RAF would take the first opportunity to scrap them and not invest in them.

In the last 20 years the RN have invested billions and billions in surface ships, submarines, amphibious warfare and ASW and virtually nothing on fixed wing. They had a capability and credibility, post Falklands, that they could and should have built on. Had they done this and demonstrated clear value for money, capability and power projection then they could have made an argument for a share in the funding available for fixed wing aviation, particularly after the end of the Cold War when expeditionary capability became increasingly important. Instead they left this to the RAF alone who signed up for a vast number of Typhoons.

Why did this happen well I would assume that the Navy in this time must have become increasingly dominated by surface ship and submarine officers due to the very small number of fixed wing pilots compared to the general officer core. Going from several carrier air groups in the 60s to the equivalent of less that one RAF squadron by the 80s.

I think this may go a long way to explain why the RN post Falklands has a mixed to poor record in the development of fixed wing aviation. It also does not bode well for the future. With a return to operating large carriers the best solution would have been for a rejuvenation of RN carrier air groups at the expense of RAF units but the RN fixed wing may have already past the point of no return and be beyond the point where it can compete for funding and capability. The RAF can simply point out that they RN have about as much competence to run JSF squadrons than they have to operate submarines.

I hope this is wrong but I fear its not.

Traditionally the UK has disliked the idea of large standing forces within the UK, relying on a powerful Navy to defend the home islands and project power abroad. In the 20th century this changed with the fear of war in Western Europe and the inception of aerial warfare and the fear of the bomber. The RAF was created to defend the UK against this threat.

Today the idea of a war between the western European powers is absurd and the threat to the UK from direct air attack has never seemed more remote. However the legacy of the 20th century is that the RAF has grown very strong and dominates UK air policy and spending and the once substantial naval fast jet force has been reduced to a token presence within the RAF structure. In the 21st century it would make sence to go back to having a strong Navy, expeditionary capability and a weaker air force. It is hard to see how this could happen though as the RAF is too politically powerful to allow a restructuring that would see a third to a half or even more of the fast jets being run by the Navy. Also the purchasing policy from the 90s based on the Eurofighter, a land only product, won’t allow it either. So at a time when the UK should be rebuilding its naval air capability we are instead building an airforce that would be perfectly placed for a war against Belgium or Holland. A war that however uncertain the future is in general we can guarantee won’t happen.

With regard to the escort numbers I was under the impression that it was more the other way around. David Owen and Sir Michael Le Fanu used the NATO anti-submarine role to argue against a substantial cut in escort numbers that was the logical result of dropping the East of Suez role. In 64 the RN had only some 28 escorts in European waters.

Also if you look at some of the escorts in commission as late as 79 such as two Salisbury class, a Whitby and a Blackwood. No helicopter capability and the longest range AS weapon either Limbo or the Squid mortars. I doubt this was the best use of resources possible.

This is not to say that I think that CV01 was the right ship at the right time. It was far too ambition. But the carrier crisis did not I think result in the best possible use of future resources either.