Designing a carrier fleet to survive Treasury cuts

The proposed fleet protects four Malta-class strike carriers by retaining older ships that can absorb successive budget cuts. Clarke initially favours retiring the straight-deck Audacious ships to preserve the Centaurs for the Royal Marines. Drachinifel prefers retiring all four Centaurs because that would remove four maintenance and training commitments and probably save more personnel than retiring two Audacious carriers. Under that approach, the straight-deck Audacious ships take over amphibious assault and command duties. The angled-deck pair can then fill the aircraft-support role, preserving a capability whose usefulness is illustrated by Unicorn's long postwar service. A later cut retires the straight-deck ships and moves the angled-deck carriers into helicopter assault work. This would reduce the fleet to six flight decks while retaining the Malta strike core, with fewer but more capable amphibious ships.