OK, maybe its not a good idea to do without escorts, but I don’t think you need a high/low escort/capital ship mix. (capital ships=carriers and amphibious shipping).
I think a 50/50 mix would be much more useful in future operations.

As for better sortie rates on bigger carriers, no denying it, but the UK can never match US capabilities with only 2 carriers anyway. US operated day and night shifts over Afghanistan with at least 2 carriers. It is very unlikely the UK would have both carriers active for constant operations for extended periods. In fact if any threat emerged that needed the constant attention of a UK carrier, I think the weaknesses of the 2 carrier arguement would quickly come to light. (crew fatigue, maintenance, and training etc).

My biggest concern is that the UK is buying expensive eggs and putting them all in one basket!

Aurel

I disagree that the STOVL JSF will be a bad purchase. The US Navy and US Marines operated Tomcats, Hornets and Harriers far inland over Afghanistan and Iraq with the aid of land based tankers and AEW support.
STOVL JSF will have better performance than Hornet and Harrier and the move to lighter 500lb smart bombs will benefit too.

Anyone know what weapons and how many you could get in the bomb bay?

Jonesy

The role of escorts is to defend against air, surface and submarine threats.
All these roles are best done by aircraft, so I think it would be better to spend money on ships which operate useful numbers of aircraft.

Take the Type 45 Destroyer, we will spend £5.5 BILLION!! on 6 ships that can operate 1 Merlin each, will not be fitted with a long range gun and will not be equipped with a land attack missile.
It may have a state of the art anti-air warfare fit, but it will have to wait until it is attacked to use it. (and hope there’s not more than 48 targets.).

I’m not denying escorts aren’t needed for high threat environments, but they need to be far more useful for any other type of operation.

I’m not convinced CVF is the right program for the UK.
I think we should be building at least 4 enhanced Invincible/Ocean type vessels and cut back on expensive escorts to man/afford them.