Jets & Planes but no UAV's here.

[Suhiir]

Frankly I have to wonder about several of his comments and conclusions.

"The Air Marshal does not appear to understand that the decks of U.S. Navy and US Marine Corps carriers are up to 4 inches thick - whereas our new carrier decks are less than 1 inch thick - and even with its superior deck thickness, the USS Wasp F35B STOVL embarkation demonstrated a need for deck reinforcement."
Since when does the USMC operate any ships at all? The US Army has ships, I thing even the USAF has a few. And 4 inch thick flight decks? Not on anything built post WW II.

"May I draw your attention to the statements given by your witnesses concerning air defence of the carriers without the Crow’s Nest or any other AEW capability. Contrary to your witnesses statements our Daring class destroyers cannot provide long range early warning of threats approaching at very low level such as sea skimming missiles and their launch platforms. The destroyers have a horizon-limited detection range against low level incoming threats of approximately 23 nautical miles which is insufficient to provide adequate reaction time against a missile attack."
Since when do picket ships operate directly on top of what they are protecting? The picket is likely to be 15-20 NM from the carrier giveing the carrier apx. twice as much reaction time.

Amidst much obfuscation, your witnesses endeavoured to persuade your Committee that the choice of the F35B STOVL aircraft for our new carriers is driven by the need to attain an early ‘initial operating capability’ at reasonable cost. It is quite extraordinary therefore that neither Members of your Committee nor any of the witnesses raised the issue of the far more cost and operationally effective options for our carrier air groups – the F18 Super Hornet, Super Growler and Hawkeye aircraft:
I don't believe the flight deck on the Queen Elizabeth is large enough to handle any of the above aircraft.

So perhaps you'll excuse me if I take everything in there with a large dose of salt.