Oh no we don't
HH, you give us all a laugh, keep it up mate.
The Mistral Class is very good at what it does – but there are a lot better ships out there for that role. The RN do NOT need them, we have Ocean, which is not brilliant but okay for now. We also have the two LPD’s, again not very good but okay for now.
What we will have is two large carriers for the next 40 to 50 years.
Now if you don’t know what the value of having a large carrier is then … I feel for you. You clearly have not been paying attention.
The navy will operate what it has and what it will have despite the difficulties they may face. That’s what the services do. The QE2 is an asset that has been designed to be adaptable to accommodate future aircraft types. No-one knows what challenges the ship(s) will face in the future, but having the ships operating and the crews trained in a multitude of tasks (which the whole world need not know about) makes us all safer.
Mistral … pah!