I can't help but feel that the use of these new carriers has been misunderstood.
It strikes me that the powers that be see them not as weapon systems, but simply as a way of transporting attack aircraft to a combat zone, where they can go ashore an operate as bomb trucks / flying artillery from FOBs close up to the ground forces. Much as the original 1960's concept of using the original Harrier in Scandinavia or Germany
In which case all discussion re tanking / surveilance / AWACS becomes irrelevant as that will be provided by long-range land based assets - or by the USA...
I don't believe those carriers will ever be put in harms way - except for an initial approach to disembark their aircraft. If they were ever intended to do more they would have been provided with a transmission that provided a decent turn of speed. As it is they're not much more than oversized aircraft garages. We don't have enough maritime protection assets to defend them anyway, especially in a littoral environment, and no-one now seems to believe the F-35 (of any type) is going to be an effective air defence platform, so that if used as a "real" carrier they would be sitting ducks.
Face iit, all those carriers will be are oversized floating aircraft garages used solely as a way of moving the aircraft from point A to point B without worrying about tanking. When they get to point B, they'll be going ashore
Last edited by Milo Minderbinder; 12th May 2012 at 14:52.