Yep but way too hard to benchmark ship by ship and most of the differences probably wouldn’t matter than much. A 4,000 ton frigate is still just a 4,000 ton frigate and you can’t change things too much between them. The key tactical significance for the Falklands would be in naval gunfire support (NGS) and surface to air missile (SAM) capability.
For NGS US technology sourced RN ships are going to be sailing with a mix of Mk 42 and Mk 45 127mm L54s. While there is not much difference between a 4.5” and a 5” round the American turrets are generally better reliability wise than the Mk 8. The Mk 6 showed itself to be an amazing performer in Vietnam but that was in a three mount set up on a Daring class. It didn’t perform so well on the single mounts on the Type 12s and Countys.
For SAMs the RN would have a wider availability on ships of the RIM-66A/B (SM-1MR) with the Digital Tartar (Mk 74 FCS). Thanks to the space efficiency of the Mk 13 GMLS more RN ships would be able to carry it including the Type 21 class. The Type 22 with the Mk 13/Mk 74 instead of Sea Wolf would resemble the Australian DDL second iteration so would also ship a Mk 45 127mm gun.
The effect of this apart from the wider distribution of SAMs would be that the Argentines would lack a high level knowledge of the performance of RIM-66/Mk 74 because the USA would not sell it to them, unlike the UK and Sea Dart. So their aircraft would probably attack at higher altitudes making them more vulnerable. Would the RIM-66/Mk 74 perform as well against wave height fighters as Sea Wolf? Probably not but each ship would be shooting SM1s on one or two channels at these targets and it wouldn’t be pleasant for the incoming pilots.
Forget the Italians the US Navy designed a range of V/STOL capable “Sea Control Ships” during the early 1970s. One iteration of which later emerged being built in Spain as the Prince of Asturias. They also included Invincible sized ships able to fly 12-24 V/STOL fighters each.
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,7635.0
The key question here is would the USA build a V/STOL fighter as good as the Sea Harrier FRS.1? Since the NAA XFV-12 couldn’t even hover the likely aircraft would be the GD Model 200 backup. The US also required a V/STOL ‘sensor’ aircraft for supporting roles. Which is a great advantage over the RN’s approach to just use ASW helos. So the Sea Control Ship would also have V/STOL ASW, AEW and other aircraft to support the fighters.
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2140.0
Well perhaps not. I would imagine this scenario to be plausible would have to start back in post war austerity. Where the UK Government says no more weapons development we will just buy USA weapons from now on and spend the balance on civilian development. The Americans would probably be more than happy to have a captive market and their no.1 competitor removed. The UK could have become an equivalent of Japan in the 1970s in the 1950s freed of the cost burden of developing a full range of weapons and instead building consumer and industrial products (yes its bloody unlikely!).
Anyway in this case the RN would need to replace their angle deck, steam catapult Essex class ships by the early 1970s when their life expired. While the CVV was designed at this time and is implausible for this requirement it is not a unique ship. It is simply a conventional carrier sized to the Midway class and designed with available carrier technology – in its case that of the Nimitz class. You could do the same in the 1960s but using the technology of the Kitty Hawk class of super carrier. For our purposes it would be identical to the CVV and available in the early to mid 1970s to replace Essex class ships in the USN and RN.
But why would the UK build another attack carrier in the 1970s rather than a much cheaper sea control ship? Because the cost difference to the UK would not be so huge as they are not carrying the burden of developing a new carrier and a new air wing. So what scuppered CVA-01 and its aircraft would not necessarily sink its US equivalent built in the UK. Also the USA showed that despite a lot of early interest it was not willing to spend the money to develop a new VSTOL carrier and air wing while it had conventional carriers. Without the UK sourced Sea Harrier there is no western VSTOL carrier option for anyone.
