Britain needs a full-spectrum capability blue water navy because it is an island nation that depends on the security of the seas for its survival and livelihood, that is why we need carriers. Given that oil production in the Falklands is scheduled to begin in earnest once these carriers are ready duty, they are needed to help deter Argie aggression for a start.
Admittedly, it would have been better if they had cats and traps, but they are designed to be able to be converted into that configuration in the future if the future demands it.
I do wonder however, if carriers won’t be made redundant against all but the most pisspot of coastal nations though now that the Chinese have invented the ‘carrier killer’ DF-21D ballistic missile. Given that Chinese and Argies have been forming military links lately, it is probably only a matter of time before the PRC sells them these killer missiles and would make it virtually impossible for even a Ford Class carrier group to retake the islands.
Yes...the phantom DF-21D.
It is a dangerous proposition...but to date it has been a system principally on paper, and with some videos of launchers being towed around and put into place as if though deployed.
We cannot take anything for granted, but I do know this. They have never done a full-up, live fire test of the DF-21D system against a manuevering target at sea. They have shown us some photos of holes in the desert against static targets outlined to look like a carrier deck.
Big woop.
Such an actual, operating weapon system would be a very many many live tests.
Hitting a US carrier 1,000 miles and more at sea is not an easy proposition in the least. Extremely complicated.
1st, they must acquire the location, speed and heading of the carrier. In peace time this is hard enough on the open sea...in war time, when they are operating in a non-emitting or limited emitting manner, it will be extremely difficult. Their surveillance, satellite, and sub-surface assets have to be looking in the right places and the US Navy will make that very difficult.
Then they have to communicate this info to the targeting and firing system for the missiles. Again, a very complicated and involved system, particularly in a war time environment.
Then they fire the missile and we will be looking for and in all probablity see the plume of that launch.
It then takes (depending on distance) another 10-20 minutes to arrive where the carrier hadd been observed. In that time the US carrier (if they located it properly to begin with) will have moved anywhere from 10-17 miles...in any direction. So the warhead has to re-acquire the carrier once it re-enters the atmosphere.
It will have to do this in a very high EW environment, where the US will have all sorts of passive ghosts and shadows out to keep it from acquiring the carrier, and all sorts of active measures aimed at scrambling is electronic brains.
If it has overshot the carrier (IOW, if the carrier has sailed toward the missile firing location), the missile will have a very, very difficult time manuevering back on its own track at ballistic speeds to hit the carrier.
Finally, if they accomplish ALL of that...then they are charging into the teeth of the most sophisticated, most capable anti-missile system on earth. Where the AEGIS system aboard cruisers and destroyers will be protecting thecarrier, including against ballistic missiles.
And we have conducted many, many live fire tests against all of those types of targets...and done so successfully.
If the warhead survived that gauntlet, then it has to get past the carrier’s own defense zone of ESSM missiles, RAM missiles, and Phalanx CIWS...and which with the Ford carriers will soon include laser and/or Rail Gun defenses.
Now, when you consider the monumental tasks involved in ALL of that, and then add to that that they have never tested those missiles, much less the entire system with all of its C4ISR components against a manuevering target at sea...
I vry confidantly call the DF-21D a Sun Tsu deception program that is meant to get the US Navy to avoid using its most capable strength against the Chiense.
Sadly, with the likes of some of the planners and admirals that people like the Obama Administration have puit in place...it is working.