Poiuytrewq wrote:would also agree with that but I would nervous about pushing to replace Agrus with an Ocean type replacement. I think in this political climate it would be too risky for PoW. I would suggest waiting until a 35,000t to 45,000t LPH that is capable of around 25+ knots can be justified
@ArmChairCivvy, are you proposing replacing the 2 Albions with 2 UK built San Antonio's and the 3 Bay's with a simpler version along the lines of the LSD Flight iia? [I did answer this at the time, Sept 25th, but the weak point was that my answer entailed a singleton - not as for deployment, but as for support over its life] Hence, my thoughts are, in no particular order, that
1. OpFor (the likely one) has not shown much respect for the rules of war
2. Having a single PCRS is thus not a good idea
3. Need to have large enough ships that can be configured with high-enough level of facilities "containerised" for roll on and off
We have got, out to mid 30s
- 2 Albions, rotated (or not?)
- 3 Bays, make their permanent allocation as: 1
Amph (RM Coy, with vehicles); 1
MCM (mothership, going forward different from today's being a mobile jetty, off which to load support); 1 for packing the
Port Augmentation/ Bare Port establishing capability, as per TD
=> gives you a close to a Cdo (in their boots) from an Albion; one Coy (at least) with their vehicles from one (at least) Bay... and 2 Coys (not necessarily RM) off a carrier, vertically inserted, within 6 hrs
So, the pared down San Antonio (in 1 copy, for starters) would solve
- the (P)CRS problem ... a "P" has been made to disappear before, as
we know
- by creating the potentially available space, for the alternative solution
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)