Mr Boffin,
Sorry I wasn't clear - in effect I was scratching around for some work to keep the yards busy until the 2013-14 of T26 start. No, I don't think £400m each for tankers would be great value, but if the real cost is £150m, then you could have 6 and 4 or 5 T45s for the same cash, then so be it.
My point is simply if the TOBA set the quantum of cash to be spent on warships, then could we have done better than buying the QEs in view of the actual fleet in 2020? Seems to me that the answer is probably yes.
S41