The British Navy in the Baltic

Abstract

government’s flip-flopping over the purchase of either the B (STOVL) or C (CATOBAR) version of the F35. The 2015 SDSR, ‘Britain’s voice in the world’, continues to envisage a global mission for the country’s armed forces, though the role of the carrier within that has changed. CVA-01’s cancellation was justified on the grounds that ‘intervention alone against a well-armed enemy... should no longer be a capability that Britain would retain’ (74), and while coalition warfare remains Britain’s preferred modus operandi, it is now perceived that its two new 65,000-ton Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers (due for commissioning in 2017 and 2020) have a role to play in that. With an increase of just 400 recruits, however, the heavy crew demands of the carriers will have a knock-on effect upon the fleet’s composition, its manpower and escort numbers, just as they would have four decades earlier. Yet now, as it was then, the carrier remains