Originally Posted by
sandiego89
A quality air-wing that can provide fighter, strike, AEW, ASW, anti-surface, refueling, COD, jamming, etc. with aircraft with adequate range and payload (CATOBAR) is tremendously valuable (and very expensive). While the F-35B will be much more capable than the Sea Harrier/Harrier, there is obviously a tradeoff with going to STOVL carriers and aircraft, with the inability to have fixed wing AEW as arguably the biggest loss.
Arguably, the failure of the A12 and CSA programmes have had a similar effect on the CTOL (CATOBAR is a made-up interweb term) CVW. Good thing the SuperBug had the growth potential to replace the Prowler or it could have been worse. Likewise, had E2 ever gone out of production for a sustained period, that might have caused a few issues too.....