Crowsnest
So no mention of Crowsnest yet. (Hammond -> New Airborne Carrier based early warning) Guess this is baggers for Merlin??
Also a bit obvious, but I assume forumites do realise QEC are replacing Ocean LPH and Ark? So when SDSR said 12 F35 (was C now B) it was not because of aircraft buy budget alone, but because of an expected mixed deck. (F35, Junglie Merlin, AS Merlin, Wildcat, and now I guess Crowsnest ????? ) Think this position creates a broad number of assumptions that influence comment here!
1) USN no longer looks at this as lightening their carrier strike load - hence really not sure they care as much as they did
2) Lots of sea time now. Can't see them leaving Pompey without 12 shiny F35s aboard
3) Ignoring how to land and take off, these 12 aircraft need to do a lot. CAP, CAS, Maritime strike ........ Think the training load will be a bit higher then land based deep strike. As I assume and hope 12 will be in the minority of F35's, I think too busy to go to sea won't fly, so to speak! Only stopper would be another Afghan. Unless the current state is extended I really can't see anyone wanting to get involved anytime soon in a repeat anywhere.
4) Following on from 3), anything we do get involved in will much more likely to be in the littoral areas, launched from QEC
5) Agree to the concern about putting these in harms way, but how else do you do the LPH role? BTW US strike groups use 3 escorts and an SSN. Think that can be done. The gap is AEW (Crowsnest) and # of F35s available. Ooops :-)