I don't agree with ships operating individually, I would see a powerful crusier with 2 light frigates acting as close escorts being able to have a significant influence on a situation whether off the coast of Lebanon or Serria Leone. The situation where we have so few hull we are using RFA on there own. A improved River clase OPV would have been more support off Iran and against the pirate menace. I don't agree you all the 8000t to handle PAAMS, Aegis seems to fit into 6000t ships, the extra size would enable the the radar to go higher. You don't accept the leadership int he RN can do any wrong it's all the politicans for not provided enough money. With thre Danish concept (the whole ship only cost £100m) although built to commerical standards would give an officer instant access to vehicles without waiting for an assault ship. BTW the Bays are another poor design so expensive even the MOD considered cancelling, everyone that is in the market has brought more flexible designs....why no through deck....OK I accept there would have been a risk the CVF would not have been built....but .another export for Spain to Australia
RN ships operate on their own all around the world, in the Caribbean they offer hurricane disaster relief and chase drug smugglers, you want to send a squadron there to do that? What about a light frigate without a helicopter? That would make that deployment utterly pointless, a helicopter is one of the most important systems on board a modern naval vessel.
The T45 is the size it is for a reason, on Aegis ships radars are mounted just under half the height that the Sampson is mounted on a T45, as you say size allows you to mount radars higher. The T45 has a beam of 21.2m verses an Arleigh Burke's 18, this is to provide stability for that high radar mast, lower radars means Aegis can fit on a smaller ship. An Absalon displaces about 6600 tonnes full load, how much of that is taken up by the double hanger and flex deck? because that's what you are suggesting adding to a T45.
Commercial standards isn't the only reason why Absalons were built cheap; large sections of their hull were built in cheap Eastern European shipyards, if you want to maintain a ship building infrastructure then clearly this is unacceptable and the UK shipbuilding infrastructure has been running on minimum capacity for a long time, the last time they had a decent sized order was with the Type 23s and as a result they came in pretty cheap.
Who said I can't accept the RN can't do anything wrong? I don't recall saying that anywhere.
If the Bays are a poor design then blame the Dutch and Spanish after all its based on the Rotterdam/Galicea classes of LPD, so its already a fairly successful design. The RN didn't want a Through deck design, probably for the same reason the Dutch and Spanish didn't, or the very same reason that the US Navy is building San Antonoios as well as Tarawaras, they are for different purposes. The Spanish have built a through deck design - the Juan Carlos 1 is a "Strategic projection vessel" - a capital ship built to operate alongside the Galicea class of LPDs. The Chilean Navy recently announced it is also buying a vessel belonging to the same family of designs that the Bay owes its lineage to.
Incidentally I would certainly of thought it a sensible idea for the Albion class to of been built with a hanger deck, but the decision was taken to delete it to save money, the RN had after all recently completed Ocean and had 3 Invincible class still in commission, not to mention lots of space available on its larger auxillaries for helicopters.
How could the politicans give the RN 12 when they cost c1.2bn each if they cost 600m as per the Spanish ships, you would have export potential.
The £1.2b you list as the cost of a T45 is completely and utterly misleading, they only cost that much when development costs for PAAMS are included, and since that money has now been paid, if the Government order another one tomorrow it would cost somewhere in the region of £600 - £700m, this is the officially recognised unit cost.
I would sell all the Type 23s while we can get a good price for them, as Fisher said when challenged about disposing of relatively new Pre-Dreadnoughts to finance new construction, they are "to weak to fight to slow to run away"
The Pre-Dreadnoughts that Fisher was talking about were obsolete, even then he still found a use for them during the Dardanelles campaign and they were sent there to precisely because they were expendable. Today the Type 23 still has its uses, we wouldn't want to send T45s or your hypothetical cruiser design off chasing drug smugglers that would be massively overkill.
If the MOD sold them it would be cuts not to make way for replacements.
