Just a few points of order.
The AEW asset on the new carriers will not be a Seaking ASAC.
It may be a Merlin ASAC, or even if the UK wins the lottery a V22, but Seaking will be loooong gone.
The RN Merlin, with all it's faults, is still unmatched at ASW. To call it substandard is just wrong. It should have so many other capabilities, but that is a different issue.
Yes, the new carriers are not being built properly, neither was Ocean. This has nothing to do with armour however.
That idea went out with the battleships. You cannot carry enough to protect against modern weapons. The issue is the structural strength and number of watertight compartments to deal with battle damage. Our CVS is made of thin metal now that won't stop a harsh comment let alone a bomb, but it is very structurally strong, unlike Ocean.
The idea that a carrier and it's escorts are vulnerable in the same way as the ships in '82 is just plain uneducated. Ships have moved on possibly even further than aircraft since '82 due to the painful lessons learned.
Would any of you seriously try to bomb/strafe a modern UK warship? Best of luck with that.
[/COLOR
Do you really imagine that Exocet/Harpoon/whatever would get through ASAC/T42/Seawolf/Phalanx/Goalkeeper as easy as in '82?
It could be done by swamping the defences,but not easy, and not by anybody we have any business fighting!
Even without AD, we are far better placed than you might think. I'm not saying we don't need AD, but we are not defenceless without it.
Our minehunters are, and have been for a long time, the gold standard. They can work perfectly adequatly, as they have done for a long time in the Persian Gulf.
A lot of work has been done about countering swarming boghammers etc, and while they are a threat, they are not the threat they once were due to training and countermeasures.
The DF-21 is another matter entirely, but no fighter is going to help us with that, though the T45 just might eventually.
DF-21 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia