S41
An American gentleman once pointed out that (in his view) the United States uses AV-8B equipped amphibious ships in a similar fashion to the way it used its smaller carriers (eg the
Essex class) during the Cold War (and they can embark up to twenty Harriers to act as a light (sic) carrier). In other words, it gives the US an option short of sending a CVN, and of course more ships with a fixed wing capability is useful. As such, it offers Washington a degree of political dexterity. Consider the deployment of USS
Kearsarge during operations in Libya last year.
Additionally, the reason the USMC wanted the Harrier back in the 70s was that it provided them with firepower only a short flying time from the shore, making up for the loss of the six inch and eight inch gun cruisers that provided naval gunfire support during the Cold War conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
Both arguments seem sound to me, and relevant today to a future of (relatively) small scale, littoral engagements.
Not so long ago one of the aviation magazines had a feature about the STOVL strike force. Apart from noting that the USMC intends to be able to run the AV-8B until 2025 or beyond (partly due to the spares source from the UK GR9s), and that sixteen of the UK Harriers are being kept intact, it made the point that they are very useful, and busy. I wonder what their views are on the UK's decision to axe Harrier, and to throw away our carrier capability?
I wonder what they make of the F-35B being dropped in favour of the F-35C, then chosen again, without (thus far) a rethink of the planning to develop the skillsets needed for future. Given the real possibility of conflicts this decade, what will they think of having to provide air cover for UK forces?
Another US gentleman suggested that part of the reason for the switch back to F-35B might be political, whilst I do not believe that to be the case, does it not strengthen to Marines' hands? In which case maybe they could help us out, embarking Harriers aboard
Illustrious/
QE, perhaps even lending us a few aircraft, as I suggested
here.
If we assume that F-35B survives, and that HM Government will not change its mind again, then these are the issues that need to be thought about, as do operations that might take place in the (very) near future. These were the points I tried to make in
post 1664, but my words were misinterpreted and provoked a single engine vs two engine top trumps session. Yet the issues of future skills and current (ie this decade) capabilities remain.
Perhaps dithering politicians who will not commit to a decision and join the dots up are the problem, as cornish-stormrider suggests.
