Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, former head of the RAF, said: “Am I happy with the idea of cutting F-35s in the long-term ? No, I’m not, because it would undoubtedly leave us even shorter of frontline combat squadrons.”
However, Justin Bronk, a research fellow in combat air-power at the Royal United Services Institute, said that although a fleet of 70 F-35s would be “on the lower end of expectations”, it “makes sense”. At that number, the RAF would be able to keep 60 in service, with ten held back to replace any aircraft lost to attrition or age-related damage, he said.
Seventy is about half of what Britain planned to buy.
Uh, what about combat losses? The idea of gutting the rest of Britain's combat fleet to support two aircraft carriers seems like a bad decision to me. But at least that decision gave Britain a different sort of combat power.
Now Britain finds they sacrificed a surface navy for two carriers only to decide not to build the aircraft for them.
Now Britain has neither surface ships in any numbers nor the ability to sustain two carrier task forces in a war.
