Bismark
The RAFF need to smell the salt water and get real. Just like the mess they created with Joint Force Harrier and the refusal to believe that the Merlins would transfer to the RN, the world has changed since SDSR and embarked ops are the future.
Sorry to rise to the bait on a sunny afternoon, but I had to comment on this. Whatever the issues with JFH back in the day, the reality is that the (very small) FJ frontline in 2020 means that the Dave-B STOVL girls and boys will be the deep-strike role is theirs - and theirs alone. The question will be where will the training and ops be, and - just like JFH in Afghanistan - if the need is for JFD (Joint Force Dave) to go off and operate from land bases, then it will do so. If there's time, then JFD will spend more time on CVF.
What won't happen (because the number of aircraft is too small) is that JFD will spend lots of time afloat for as long as it's joint. There are too many useful things that will simply work better from a land base or against land ranges (Spade etc) - do we really think that CVF will spend 3 months at a time training in home waters with an embarked air group?
In principle, I'm a big fan of big deck "Carrier Enabled Power Projection" (in the current yuck-speak). But CEPP is a holistic concept, involving everything that is required to project power from carriers - sea-borne tankers, frigates, destroyers and submarines to protect the carrier, on board C3, a combination of on-board and off-board ISTAR - much more than the carrier and the jets.
So CEPP as a concept is much closer to the USN CVN Carrier Battle Group than to the USMC MEU - though naturally we're doing it on a shoestring, as ever. But the focus is on buying the kit, and building and then integrating these skills; which will need lots of time afloat with the jets, yes, but it will also require a great deal of equipment and capability that needs cats 'n' traps.... like E-2s, C-2s, AAR.
Worse, in going STOVL, the RN can't make the case for the jets and the squadrons to be spending lots of time afloat doing carrier landing practice getting this maritimeness thingy - as well as losing the things you need to make CEPP actually work.
I'd despair, but I've already done that.
S41