Carrier groups pull Type 42 and Type 23 numbers upward — What Happens if Australia, Canada & the UK go all in on the… at 2:03:51

Notes

Supporting a four-carrier fleet would require more escorts even if the wider fleet did not expand dramatically. Roughly sixteen Type 42s could provide two or three air-defence destroyers per carrier, with about eighteen Type 23s covering ASW protection and other commitments. Type 22s could then concentrate more on independent presence missions. Early Type 42 batches would not automatically gain later design changes because their procurement pre-dates the counterfactual decision, although later batches could evolve differently. A Sea Wolf addition is technically plausible if the carrier program creates enough demand, producing an escort that combines area and point defence. The carrier choice becomes a broader force-generation and escort-design problem.

Source

Video

What Happens if Australia, Canada & the UK go all in on the Invincibles in the 1970s? (Patreon Live)

Date

21 May 2026

Time

2:03:51-2:07:40

Kind

Chapter

Transcript passages

2:03:51-2:05:30Roughly sixteen Type 42s could provide two or three air-defence destroyers per carrier, with about eighteen Type 23s covering ASW protection and other commitments. Type 22s could then concentrate more on independent presence missions. A Sea Wolf addition is technically plausible if the carrier program creates enough demand, producing an escort that combines area and point defence.
2:05:39-2:07:40Early Type 42 batches would not automatically gain later design changes because their procurement pre-dates the counterfactual decision, although later batches could evolve differently. A Sea Wolf addition is technically plausible if the carrier program creates enough demand, producing an escort that combines area and point defence.