Hi UK 75
I am afraid I can't contribute any details regarding the designs of the 1960s commando carriers, in fact I would be delighted to see any myself!
I think your comments are very apposite regarding the utility of good attack carriers to NATO. Also they are essential for the UK maintaining a balanced naval capability, which for someone like myself who remembers listening to the news each day of the warships and auxiliaries of the RN being bombed on a daily basis during the Falklands War, is very VERY desirable.
There were certainly severe issues with manpower and funding but I don't think we should overestimate the scale of the resources needed to run a two or three carriers in comparison with the global resources of the MOD. Two carriers would take 5000 to 6500 (assuming two Ark equivalents or two CV 01s manned at any time) crew to man them. In the late 70s the RN had about 68,000 men. If the carriers are the at the core of the fleet then they draw manpower to them and the rest of the fleet will be built around them. Their existence would have made the later Leanders seem a little manpower intensive at 260 men and the Type 22 could hardly have proceeded with a similar manpower requirement. The Kortenaer for example had a crew of 176. Assuming the RN escorts for the 70s/80s were designed to similar lean manning requirements then 40/50 such escorts would easily recover a carriers worth of men.
Also it is easy to forget what proportion of the carrier crew were air group. Historically the RN in loosing the carriers lost 800, 801, 890, 893 and 899 Squadrons. They managed to keep 809 and 892 for most of the 70s and the RAF stood up 43 and 206 squadrons for maritime operations. There is no justification for the RAF landlocking maritime aviation if there are new carriers so the RAF will bear more of the brunt of the concentration on European defence, wth global air power being the job of the carriers with intermittent deployment. In this alt history the RAF are hit in the way that the Navy was in the real one. With a somewhat reduced defence vote they speak at cabinet with a quieter voice and the CVBGs carrier the bulk of UK air contributions to two gulf wars, Bosnia, Kossovo and Sierra Leone. Todays view of the reavent utility of naval air would therefore be very different.
I have without a doubt simplified this hugely and I am sure there are some assumptions that can be challenged, but I don't think its is so floored as to be completely impossible.
