Personally I am not interested in nitpicking over the exact meaning of CAS, but one thing only Harrier could do was maritime strike (by which I mean maritime based strike).
FB11
I hear what you're saying. However, I still think Harrier embarkations aboard
Illustrious and
Queen Elizabeth will be useful - good job that the US, Italy, and Spain still have them.
It does seem a bit incomplete that we have Chockheads training to work with jets at Culdrose, and a Naval Flying Standards Flight (Fixed Wing) at Yeovilton (who recently appeared in the BBC South West news programme
Spotlight - in a feature about an artist) but no jets! There must be limits to the number of personnel who can be sent on exchange, and helicopter operations will need flight deck crews.
Also, It still leaves the problem of lacking maritime strike (ie seaborne strike) capabilities though - particularly as SSN numbers dwindle and fall below the SDSR level later on this decade.
jamesdevice
There certainly does appear to have been a serious anti Harrier/anti FAA campaign within parts of the MOD. Some pages back I asked why things like the RNR/Harrier idea came to nothing - probably because: a) HMG wanted to sell all the aircraft, b) It would have appeared to look like a U turn, and c) It was only the RN that wanted it, and the First Sea Lord would be unlikely to be supported by the other Chiefs of Staff.
Ii is a truism that you only appreciate something after you have lost it - and then need it.
Since we seem to have taken a lot of trouble to give the US a good deal I wonder what, if anything, we are getting in return. Something to reduce the shortfall in maritime force projection capability? As the Telegraph
article says:
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We are currently negotiating the sale of Harrier assets to the US Government. It would therefore be inappropriate to comment on the future of the Harrier fleet at this time.”
Anyway - ignoring the last minute changes to SDSR the weekend before the announcement to Parliament, which led to the Harrier axe, the decision to go without carrier strike was based on assumptions made in October 2010 about what would happen this decade. Subsequent events have proved those assumptions wrong - within a year. This is going to be a dangerous decade, with a serious capability gap, even if we do
try to put a brave face on post SDSR.
“Launching attack helicopter strike operations from Ocean proved the ability of the task group to conduct maritime strike operations – both from submarines and now helicopter carriers.”
Hence my use of the term maritime strike.