HH
Why do you think that a carrier will need escorting, but an LPH (replacing
Ocean) will not? Will the enemy not want to attack her?
By replacement what do you mean? Another 20 000 tonne ship or a larger vessel, not unlike the Americans ones at 40 000 tonnes or so, roughly the size of FS
Charles De Gaulle? The US amphibious flat tops all operate AV-8B moving to F-35B. A 20 000 ship is not half the cost of a 40 000 tonne one, nor a third of the cost of a 60 000 tonne one. The manning costs will be similar.
This might interest you:
Why Smaller Carriers would be a bad idea for the Royal Navy
Lastly, the critical tasks for the surface fleet (and SSNs) are supporting Continuous At Sea Deterrence,
Kipion in the Gulf, and providing a task group capability. For the last few years that has been LPH/LPD based, soon it will return to being carrier based.