The T45s are as good an example as any, as to why you need the 3 to 1 rule to apply.
Following the problems with power generation and even with the work around partial solution, full availability has not been seen for many years. Hopefully the PIP will solve these problems, but it will not be until towards the end of the decade that all six will have received the upgrade.
Secondly the up-arming of the same six vessels is not scheduled to be complete until 2032/3 and the timescales are not short for this upgrade.
On top of this is normal routine maintenance.
Two are required for a CSG escort. So six are needed to provide those two. However, we have two carriers, so potentially need another two active at 30 days notice as well.
The problems with HMS Diamond on CSG21 also show the folly of insufficient numbers.
SW1 asks about the comparison with only two Carriers ? ……….. He is correct to a point, but perhaps not in the way he would have wished. Having only the two Carriers is a strategic mistake, which hopefully will not catch us out. A mistake it is though, none the less.
Politicians liked the “Peace Dividend”. It made things easy for them! However as I have consistently said ever since the Peace Dividend defence cuts were first mooted. The world was becoming a MORE dangerous place, not a LESS dangerous one.
Now our Politicians have to face up to the fact that they have “egg on their faces” and must put right the defence (and related) wrongs of the last 30+ years. Hopefully our defence “professionals” will be successful in convincing them of this.