You see these declarations drive me nuts. I am a fan of carriers, we should have them and I would prefer a scenario where we kept the ones we have. But exaggerting the truth, presenting the ignorant public with some phantom, scare-mongering scenario does little to help the case.

They have not presented a good, water tight case for why Britain needs carriers.

Personally I think we need carriers as they make the best platforms for carrying decent numbers of ASuW and ASW helicopters and for providing your task group with air defence.

In that sense the Falkland Islands is a good illustration of what happens if you operate your task group within range of enemy strike aircraft, but it also IMO illustrates the flaw with keeping the Harriers and Royal Ark, as the advent of targeting pods and modern LGB’s mean that the tactics the Argentina’s used in the Falklands, if adopted by say Iran with their home build modified Tiger’s, would be significantly more effective against a RN task group, and with the death of Sea Harrier we would really be relying on T45 for our air defence so it makes little sense to keep the remaining Harriers simply for the CAS role, which if need be can be covered in part by the Apaches.

The main problem is loss of institutional expertise, and the moment they moved to CATOBAR it was always going to be hard to regenerate carrier operations, even if they kept Ark Royal and the Harriers, as they would have significant numbers of new skills to learn and acquire to be able to use the Cat and Traps.

He also made the point in light of if Argentina seized the islands, it makes any retaking impractical. Yes 4 Typhoons and Garrison for deterrance, Ark Royal as the follow-up, if needed.

I also think he is right, but not for the same reasons. The Govn/MOD is right that we probably don’t need carrier air for the next 10 years. The decision and associated reports does send out the wrong message – it is clear the Cameron and Clegg would have done away with the carriers if able, they are only keeping them because they have been “lumbered” with them (at least Labour got one thing right;) )

I think the Government made it clear they wanted to keep one carrier, and all the options they studied included advanced aircraft, I think the reality is they were no longer convinced by carrier strike. You have to wonder what they would have done if election was called when Gordon Brown first came into power and if LibCon coalition came into power then. I suspect they would have postponed the carrier decision again and spent millions on an option study before ordering two tweaked versions of the CVF’s.

Of course it does not help the debate when you get stories like this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8121882/Scrapping-flagship-carrier-makes-no-sense.html

It is another attempt to justify carrier strike as is, you have retired senior Naval officers claiming that the Falklands is in jeopardy because we have scrapped Ark Royal and the Harriers. Never mind the fact that should Argentina have the ability to get past the guard ship (and the other naval elements), take the MPA and wipe out the garrison, shoot down the 4 Typhoons, and do so in a way that precludes us deploying reinforcements (i.e. a massive surprise attack) then we have a snow’s chance in hell seizing the islands back as by the time we send our task force down they will have placed a decent number of fighters on the island and be able to overwhelm the Harriers with their limited A2A capabilities, and the task forces only real chance will be the T45’s.

Of course the article also ignores the fact that Argentina would need about a decade to regenerate their abilities to take the Falklands, as they need to invest heavily in newer fighters (if they can get hold of ex-UAE Mirage 2000’s, ex-French Super Entendard’s it would be a good start, if they buy 20 – 30 Rafale’s then they are sorted), more helicopters (both utility and attack) and new amphibious assault ships, and vastly improve their ASW capabilities, at least this is the impression I have got from every recent discussion on the Falkland Islands.

While I understand that is the official position (based on the intergovermental MoU signed for the development work) do you really think that if the UK does not buy any F-35’s and another country (say Israel) says it will buy significant numbers if it gets a work share that the agreement will stand?

I could not find an official source for when Dassault expected to finishing building Rafales, but given that they plan to replace the Super Entendard by 2015 for example it is not unreasonable that under current plans that construction would be finished 2015ish, and then you would have a year or so before UK order was placed if any such order was forthcoming. In that sort of situation it is unreasonable for Dassault to sit around waiting for the UK.

I suspect this is a very stupid question

Is there any margin/possibility that the FAA might be able to lease the Super Entendard’s (say from 2015) as they are near the end of their service lives in French usage and then operate them in training role of the CdG to help maintain flying skills before QE comes into service?

Future developments, how about developing a new maritime patrol aircraft between us from scratch, like the Atlantic was supposed to have been in the 1960s.

The cynical part of me wonders if that is why we cancelled MRA4 – to cooperate with France on a new MPA (I can see a French lead, with BAE being the systems integrator) with the aim of reduced operating costs and the opportunity to get export sales.

Is it usual to let maintenance contracts a decade before you expect the carriers to come into service? When I read the article, I assumed that a) the contracts are likely to be let soon, b) that the MoD was favouring a French yard and that c) the reasons for points a and b where political. However the only reason I can imagine that they would agree to French yards handling the maintenance is if it is part of the price we are paying for closer defence ties with France, and it would also explain the timing.

Presumably, for future joint projects they are going to have to be more like 55% UK and 45% France (or 45% UK and 55% France), it terms of funding, if we are going to avoid any situation in 50:50 splits where both sides insist on leading the project and the friction over the issues causes a rift.