Some comments on your comments on my comments.
1) So make sure it’s covered by land based AD or by the Spams. And if the only purpose of the carrier is to defend the carrier group, then why send it anyway?
2) OK, when has it been done? When has a carrier with GR7s embarked been able to provide sufficient round the clock AD cover for a significant period? When has a carrier with SHar and GR7 embarked been able to generate a meaningful A-G sortie rate?
3) SEAD. Canberra replacement. ASRAAM for GR7. ASRAAM for GR4. ASRAAM for Jag. IDM and RAIDS all round. More frigates. More destroyers. A rifle that works. Global Hawk. Tankers. More C-17s.
4) I think that F-14/AIM-54 and F/A-18/AIM-120 ‘trump’ SHar and AIM-120. Or how about AV-8B+/AIM-120? Or Rafale/Mica?
5) You SHar enthusiasts keep harping back to the Falklands. Just because Cavalry proved useful on a couple of occasions in 1939-45 doesn’t mean that thye Brits were wrong to replace horses with tanks in the Great War. In 1982, we were still prepared to pay to be able to do some limited things autonomously. Now we are not. With the defence assumptions as they are there is no funding for autonomous adventures.
And even in 1982 the Falklands were a unique case – nowhere else in the world is quite so remote from neighbouring bases, and they would have been defendable had we had the sense to build a runway there and station fighters on it.
6) I have spoken to several Flag rank USN officers who are less than convinced as to the utility of carriers, and to many who think that anything smaller than Nimitz, and especially anything not powered by the mighty atom is a complete waste of time.
7) We can’t do everything. Rarely needed, inefficient capabilities are the ones to cut.
8) I think the RN thinks that it could quickly man an expanded force.
9) Sierra Leone. Where the only weapon available was aircraft noise, and where a squadron of Jags at the Azores was held back from Dakar. Good example! Again. Don’t argue with me. The politicians have decided (and the Chiefs Of Staff presumably concur) that there is no longer a need to tool up for autonomous ops. Even if there were, I’d want decent SEAD and recce (which are needed each and every time) before I spent billions on some grey elephant.
10) Yes Turkey rings a bell. They said no and so we couldn’t go to war against Saddam, could we? Nothing happened, did it? They didn’t just use bases in other neighbouring states instead, did they? All those FJs in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi, and Oman were a figment of my imagination.......
11) The loss of skills. Weren’t the SHar pilots leaving in droves anyway, and at such a rate that manning two of what the Navy jokingly call squadrons (they’re flights, aren’t they?) was becoming problematic. How many of the ******s would have been left for JSF anyway? In any event, there will be enough AD experienced blokes in light blue suits to pass on the skills to the next generation (if the new carriers aren’t cancelled), while the remaining FCs and Warfare Officers will presumably get some training with land based assets.
All of these pro-Sea Harrier arguments sound too much like a gang of desparate train spotters arguing for the retention of steam trains, in case Russia mounted a blockade which would cut us off from supplies of diesel. The Cold War is over, the Cavalry don’t still use horses.
Besides which, don't the RN already have Trident? (A Strategic nuclear deterrent whose raison d'etre was to guarantee being able to overcome Moscow's ABM defences? A Cold War relic, which is of questionable value today?)
Isn't one ridiculously expensive (but my how impressive) hangover from a bygone era enough for the Admirals?