davejb
You determine the requirement, then decide how to fulfill it, anything else is complete nonsense
You have clearly never had the misfortune to work in certain corridors of MB. Whether we like it or not a lot (if not all) of our procurement decisions have a huge political input (far bigger than the requirement input) and once the spotlight is off Afg, and we are all scrabbling around for an even smaller pot of cash, there will be certain phrases required in 'the design spec' to
ensure a project gets through the
PR process. One of those will be 'carrier capable'.
Madness it may be (and not being kipper fleet I do not know for sure all the roles that were carried out by the MR2 and not spoken about) but I have had the misfortune to work in MB and see first hand political input over rule requirement and common sense.
This thread is about British future MPA. IMHO it will be carrier capable. Whether it is flown by the FAA, the RAF or a mix of both who knows. Yes, it will probably be less capable but the government of the day will be able to say they have restored the role of MPA and justified the decision not to axe the carriers in the SDSR .... and the really sad thing is Joe Public will buy the spin hook, line and sinker .... and the military will just get on and make do.