Admiral John Byng wrote:
I don't think the RN needs more amphibious ships, it already has enough of those, but it needs an aircraft carrier capable of securing and maintaining local air superiority. It has been missing ever since Ark Royal was retired.
There are no plans to buy Super Hornets, if the F-35 is cancelled the carriers will probably be sold or at best one will be kept as a helicopter carrier. The present UK government never wanted the QEs and would be happy to get rid of them.
Well,
I don't think that RN has enough amphibious capacities and at least it is one of the most needed capacities they need in my opinion ... looking on possible scenarios. To maintain local air superiority from sea against an enemy which has a note able Airforce is even very hard if not impossible by a single QE class with full F-35 load in my opinion ... therefore a super carrier as USN has is minimum necessary but even then hard without any further air support from sea or land. On the other hand, the amphibious capacities of RN are very low again, let's take a closer look on them:
01) HMS Illustrious (R06)Left over and only hold because HMS Ocean needs a major refitting. It is planned that Illustrious will retire when Ocean is back in full service after refitting. Without Harriers, she serves only as helicopter carrier.
02) HMS Ocean (L12)A pure helicopter carrier with 4 LCVP and limited possibility to carry maybe F-35 too if necessary. After Illustrious has retired, the only "carrier" before QE class get's into service
03) HMS Albion (L14) and HMS Bulwark (L15)2 LPD's but only 1 of them is in service, the other one is "extended readiness"
That's it ... nothing else and any USN ARG or even Chinese landing force are more powerful as that.
@ Haijun watcherAs far as I learned, the Typhoon is not able to start / land on a carrier because the structure is too weak for the power which gets on the cell ... as well the landing gear is far to weak for this. I had same thoughts about a Typhoon but I had to learn from aircraft experts - what I'm not !!! - that a Typhoon is not possible as written.