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Old 4th Dec 2012, 18:50
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eaglemmoomin
 
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Italy definately are though they cut the number to 90 odd and (at the Italian airforces urging (I think) cut the number of F35B eg the one the Italian Navy want for their carriers). Spain, right now it's difficult to say either way as they've just mothballed a carrier leaving them with a single LHD the intention was to purchase F35B for them (but I don't know if F35B would have been compatible with the mothballed carrier anyway) but who knows, it depends on when their Harriers start dropping I guess.

Japan have two 'helicopter destroyers' already and added an additional two more 20,000 ton vessels so maybe maybe not, I just think it's interesting that the two existing ones are 8000 tons in displacement smaller.

I think the other thing to remember is that the UK has 7 AWACS aircraft and will have 12 A330 based tankers we have three or four MARS tankers on the way and then a solid stores variant of MARS to come as well along with Crowsnest (which at this rate will be late as ASAC goes out of service in 2016 and work has not started on the replacement (apart from studies and trials done by Thales/Westlands and Lockheed) combine that with T26 and T45 and the Astutes taken as a whole I think we will have a pretty useful force. Certainly in our own back yard anyway.

SDSR would have left us with a part time carrier force anyway with the ability to surge RAF jets onto the single carrier being a lot more remote with a carrier unavailable for large portions of the year and then aircraft 'owned' by another service with pilots requiring a greater level of training burden and time to be able to land and takeoff.

I actually think accepting some range and weight tradeoff that what we've ended up with isn't a worse capability at all in actual practical terms.
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