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Sealord Your excellent account of what would have happened based on real life history is as usual highly accurate, but isnt one of the points of this site to play around a bit with things that did not happen. I chose 1957 because the RN did not give up planning a large ship fleet and the Nuclear Submarine had not yet shown its potential as a weapons system. By 1966 there was no doubt that the SSN was a capital ship. Even in real life the RN looked at procuring about 4 -5 cruiser or helicopter carrying ships. It also explored hybrid missile/helicopter ships, something yet to be covered in any depth in books but alluded to in Wettern, Grove and Friedman. The big cruiser platform offered anti-air defence, shore bombardment capability as well as anti-Sverdlow capacity. It was an excellent vessel to replace the carriers with, probably on a one for one basis. The long range missiles needed for this role already existed in the US either in reality or as projects. The UK was well able to develop similar systems. In the absence of carrier aviation it would be a fun way to go.Alternate history should allow some playing around with reality, otherwise one might as well stick to what actually happened.
Sealord
Your excellent account of what would have happened based on real life history is as usual highly accurate, but isnt one of the points of this site to play around a bit with things that did not happen.
I chose 1957 because the RN did not give up planning a large ship fleet and the Nuclear Submarine had not yet shown its potential as a weapons system. By 1966 there was no doubt that the SSN was a capital ship.
Even in real life the RN looked at procuring about 4 -5 cruiser or helicopter carrying ships. It also explored hybrid missile/helicopter ships, something yet to be covered in any depth in books but alluded to in Wettern, Grove and Friedman.
The big cruiser platform offered anti-air defence, shore bombardment capability as well as anti-Sverdlow capacity. It was an excellent vessel to replace the carriers with, probably on a one for one basis. The long range missiles needed for this role already existed in the US either in reality or as projects. The UK was well able to develop similar systems. In the absence of carrier aviation it would be a fun way to go.
Alternate history should allow some playing around with reality, otherwise one might as well stick to what actually happened.
