The critical issue is money, unfortunately Britain has too many capital projects coming together at the same time. CV's are not the issue, it's the spiralling costs and uncertainty of the F35B and other critical support assets that scares the number crunches (MASC, MARS, FSC, F35B), plus a v-expensive future SSBN. I'm convinced the UK will end up with at least one QE Carrier complete with a credible number of aircraft. A second remains a ?, simply because the UK can't afford to equip, escort and keep at sea two fully equipped strike carriers. The second will be either cancelled, end up as a glorified Commando/UCAV platform, held in reserve or sold off.
Whilst we bemoan a shrinking surface fleet you have to remember that the UK invests more in ISTAR than any other country in Europe (Predator, Reaper, Watchkeeper, Sentinel, Rivetjoint, GCHQ etc.), this will continue and I perceive the next SDR will demand even more money be spent funding such programmes at the expense of others. Big and heavy spear point assets will continue to be sacrificed to fund investment in ISTAR simply because good intelligence is worth a brigade of troops on the ground and can be used to mitigate the terrorist threat at home or abroad.
To be utterly frank in an age of asymmetrical warfare the average civvy will scratch his/her head as to why the UK needs the largest fleet of Typhoons (assuming Tranche 3) and the largest fleet of F35B's in Europe, particularly when the poor bloody infantry are perceived to be doing most of the fighting these days.
I'm convinced the UK can build a stretched ASTUTE capable of carrying a nuclear weapon system capable of deterring most rouge states. It may not be up there with Trident, but then again the Soviet Empire is long gone, Iran / NK can't strike the UK (as yet) and China ain't adopting an overtly aggressive and expansionist foreign policy. The real threat is some nutter detonating a N-Bomb in a major city, a 50bn nuclear deterrent is not going to prevent that happening.
The Lib-Dems are Euro obsessed, they would be happy if we kept one QE Class Carrier and tied its availability to that of our European allies (French and Italians). Thus saving jobs at the ship yards, boosting the UK's European standing, maintaining the ability to project and protect our ARG and save money. Work assigned to the PW could be diverted to FSC, or used to build a cheaper flat-top to replace Ocean
I think a stretched astute would be the logical way forward but I still think it needs to be Trident. You could have 6 missiles per boat, 3 could have the full pack of 10 warheads to deter a major power that may become agressive in the next 50 years , the other 3 could have a single variable yield warhead to deter the rogue state, then mix and match. Build 4 of them, mix and match the warhead numbers over time as the political system dictates.
Im not sure developing a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead is even viable in the sense of arms control, most cruise missile systems are limited by range, I can see building a nuclear cruise missile goes against world opinion more than halving a buy of a system we already use (albeit souped up E6).
Any state that buys a decent SAM system such as S300 would effectively have a good chance to cancel a cruise missile based deterrent, a major power Who wants to make mischief could just loan or sell a rogue state a decent SAM. In the same way Russia does with Iran in the will they-wont they sell them S300. Unless we put enough conventional cruise missiles in a package with the nuclear one to overwhelm the defences , it wouldnt be viable and therefore a waste of money.
Typhoon is a tricky one but the public really need to be educated in aircraft lifespans, the rest of the RAF fleet is quickly running out of hours so we will need something, and no one knows how much F35 is going to cost, that said some forward thinking 20 years ago would have helped and we would have a carier capable fighter.
Im not sure afghan type conflicts are the future, the sooner we get out the better, and I think the UK public may be less willing to commit to future conflicts of that type, despite what the army says, thats one benefit of a more balanced Parliament, we would be less likely to jump to US demands to join in any move against Iran.
I think the Libs will actually shoot them selves in the foot with the amnesty for illegals, and its our porous borders and lack of action that creates and easy operating environment for the would be terrorist.700,000 people hiding within a population of 60,000,000 is a disgrace. The idea that troops in afghanistan keeps the home front safe from terrorists is a farce, there may be other important reasons (eg propping up nuclear armed pakistan) but we are no safer thanks to the blood of our brave troops unfortunately, because there are still terrorists carrying out hostile reconnaisance across the UK as I type. Sacrificing proper high end warfighting ability for the anti terror agenda is a serious mistake.
The prospect of the nutter with an H bomb is real, but the cost of a proper border force, ID cards, holding cells for illegals, huge effort to deport illegals, minus the economic cost to the economy of their labour etc would cost more than 50 billion and will never politically happen, Trident might just deter the future sponsor of terror if not the martyr himself.
), one LPH (either Ocean or the other carrier), one in refit/reserve/working up. The RN intends to keep that going.