The Queen Elizabeth class offers a capable compromise in this assessment, while its deployments expose the long decline in British escort numbers. More capable individual ships still face improving threats and must cover several places at once. A proposed carrier group would contain four anti-submarine frigates, three area-air-defence destroyers, fleet auxiliaries, and probably a nuclear attack submarine. Its strength depends on how those layers work together. The Type 45 order fell from twelve ships to nine and then six, shrinking the planned escort force even as Britain committed to two large carriers.
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The escort shortage around the carriers
Declining destroyer and frigate numbers leave carrier groups short of escorts, despite the growing capability of individual ships.