What a false economy, the auditors have said that the C will be cheaper, the B is still having major issues and any money that's saved from getting the B will only be eaten up by designing some ridiculous, bespoke AEW capability to produce 6 aircraft at 1 billion a pop; Jesus, what a clusterf*ck.
How much will it cost to refit the carriers, in the future, to conventional ops, when we decide that catapult launched UAVs are a capability we can't live without?