The Royal Navy’s proposed 2 new aircraft carriers are said to be vulnerable to cuts and its cost have risen by £1 billion to £5 billion.

But can we really believe that these cost will stop there?  The new Daring class destroyers (light cruisers really) with a total tonnage between the 6 ships of 40,000t are projected at £6 billion.

The total tonnage of the new aircraft carriers is about 120,000t.

Even allowing for differences such as radars and missiles – do these sums really add up?  And this is on the assumption that these carriers do not in fact have a catapult launcher.  The next generation of American aircraft carrier, of some 100,000t, is speculated to be $11 billion.

My betting is that as a Nation even if we can afford the carriers we will not be able to afford the planes to fly off them.