Top-end Ticonderoga and Virginia cruisers would stay with carrier groups, leaving older but still useful Belknaps for convoy air defense. Leanders supply numerous if aging hulls, while Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates add more modern escorts in useful numbers. Invincible-class carriers that survive the Norwegian reinforcement mission can bring helicopters and Sea Harriers to the convoys. British merchant conversion plans provide a route to still more flight decks, but aircraft and crews remain scarcer than hulls.
Chapter · 1:12:14-1:15:48
A plausible NATO convoy escort mixes carriers, cruisers, and frigates
Convoys could draw Invincible-class aviation, second-line Belknap cruisers, numerous frigates, and quickly converted merchant flight decks.