Originally Posted by
Melchett01
How is the escort screen looking these days? How many are broken or deployed around the globe ‘projecting influence’ as a singleton ship? With the numbers we have and the numbers you are likely to need to provide an effective carrier escort, HMG will be faced with a problem of deciding whether it wants the Navy to project influence or protect the carriers. Doing both concurrently is no longer an option - if you want to do it effectively.
I'd certainly agree that the RN needs more escorts. Current plan is for a carrier in a high risk area to be escorted by 2X T45 and 2X T26/23. Based on how things are currently done, in most scenarios you can probably add a US and a French asset to that. With 19 UK escorts (albeit as Hula says we have a couple currently alongside doing harbour training) that should be readily possible, leaving a few available to be in other places. Getting the balance right requires easing escort numbers upwards, not binning the carriers (which are paid for and bring a lot to the table, however much some on here would disagree) so that we can deploy escorts around the world with little to escort.