Aethulwulf-san, I think your point is very important and good. But, those of the others, as well.
Aethulwulf wrote:The RN has stated the intention that a carrier will deploy with 2 x T45 and 2 x T23/26 (plus Tide, FSS, and possibly associated SSN and allied ships). Deployments with fewer escorts will only be into low threat areas, and even then this would limit the ability of the group to be rapidly re-deployed to emerging situations and not allow the UK carrier group to take on the tasks of US carrier groups.
Why not?
UK CVTF in peace time will be associated with Dutch, French, or other NATO escorts. War time is war time. I do not think CVTF will every time have "2 x T45 and 2 x T23/26".
For example, I can see QNLZ deploys with "1 x T45 and 1 x T23/26", associated with a frigate from Europe, and meet the Persian gulf standing escort (another T26) and another USN DDG to form an escort flotilla made up of 5 escorts: 1 T45, 1 Burk DDG, 2 T26 and another allied frigate. I see no big problem here.
The RN has stated the intention that one carrier will be either deployed or at very high readiness. The other carrier will be at high readiness (20 or 30 days notice to move). This will require all 6 T45s and 6 T23/26:
2 x T45 and 2 x T23/26 at R0 to R3 for the lead carrier
2 x T45 and 2 x T23/26 at R4 or R5 for the second carrier
2 x T45 and 2 x T23/26 at medium or low readiness (training or refit).
The remaining 2 x T23/26 will be taken up by TAPS.
When T45's number was cut from 8 tp 6, HMG plan was to keep 5 T45 at high readiness with 6 hulls. Similarly, HMG is saying 2 CVFs will be both always at high readiness, which I think is possible only for several years.
In other words, I think even if RN plans "2 x T45 and 2 x T23/26" escort flotilla, assigning "4 x T45 and 4 x T23/26" for the 2 carriers will be fine enough.
This will leave us with at least "2 T45 and 2 T23/26" left, in addition to T31es.
What are these tasks that would require the world's best ASW frigate? If war fighting against top tier opponents, what would a single T26 ship offer? And if not war fighting against top tier opponents, why not use a T31?
If we see how RN is using T23ASW and T23GP, I think that is the answer. No difference to T26. Not always going to ASW high-threat area. Also not always to low threat area. There are variety of tasks.
The idea of using the T31 as a ASW carrier escort is ludicrous. The carrier group will be a prime target. Its escorts must over-match the threats. To meet this requirement, what you end up with is something almost exactly like a T26 and certainly not anything significantly less expensive.
I partly agree here. But, in many cases, the threat is NOT high. If we take a glance on the past USN operations, it is evident. Also note a CVF with 15 Merlin (9 for ASW) is a world-class ASW asset by herself.
I do agree "more T26" is a good option than "T26 and T31 mixed fleet", but
small ASW oriented ships, or even small GP oriented ships (current T31e) both has its own rationale. So, even though my favorite is "2 more T26" not 5 T31e, discussions on T31e or ASW small vessels is not meaningless. You could maybe remove everything non-ASW from the T26 to make a pure ASW escort. But the experience of the RN over the last 70 years is ships are almost never used in combat as originally intended by the designers. Narrow, single role ships have been shown to be a false economy.
This is a good rationale to accept "less than 19 escorts" and just build "2 more T26" not 5 T31e.