Also there really needs to be an effort to work with others on the new carrier design. Get the French, Italians, Australian's (assuming abandoning Melbourne replacement is butterflied) and maybe the Indians on board and you could both share and cut costs.
By itself the UK would likely build two carriers at most. However if the French buy two, Italy, Australia, India (and maybe Spain) buy one each that's at least seven and some savings by pooling info and mass production.
No one but France will buy or construct a CATOBAR carrier. The best the UK can do is to sell an Invincible (possibly Australia) or sell the Invincible's plans to Italy and Spain (but those ships will probably be striped down compared to the UK ones). None of those four nations need a CATOBAR carrier and they don't have the political will to pay for the extra cost.
You can try getting others involved, but it's invariably going to break down. The French will insist on nuclear power, while none of the other nations will want that (or be capable of operating a Nuke carrier). The Italians and Spanish will want a much smaller ship than the 55-70k ton supercarrier that the UK and France want. And Australia will probably still only be interested in the purchase of Invincible absent a clear threat in their region.
In the end, it's still going to be just two carriers getting built for the UK. Best to just design the thing from the start to British requirements and make it known that you're willing to sell a copy to friendly nations (i.e. France, Spain, Italy, Australia).
I think the RN will ask for two 70k ton CATOBAR carriers with F-14. The Exchequer (after being revived from the heart attack) will say no. It's simply too costly. While an 70k ton CATOBAR carrier is cheaper per ton, it's still 20 to 30% costlier than a 40-55k ton one overall. And that's before factoring the bigger air wing (which cost, at least, as much as the carrier), the bigger crew (3,000+ against 2,000 for the GdG, with the technology at the time), the extra equipment (an 70k CATOBAR carrier will probably have an extra steam catapult, plus some other stuff) and all the land infrastructure to reconstruct. In the end, the RN won't have anything bigger than a 55k ton CATOBAR carrier.
On the collaboration with the French, I agree, they will insist on nuclear power (*). But, even if there is not much collaboration in the end, France and the UK could group-buy some equipment to the US, like the steam catapults (two 75 meters per carrier meaning probably 8 total), the arrestor wires and the E-2C (4 to 6 by country). All those will limit the costs and maintain enough international cooperation that it limit the possibility to shut down or scale down the projects.
No chance - the French can just about afford a real carrier, nobody else can at this point. That means three hulls if you're lucky, possibly two.
France can pay for two hulls, they planned to before the end of the Cold War. If anything, in the 80's and 90's, France still have (slightly) more financial capacities than the UK.
I agree with you that the bare minimum for a CATOBAR carrier size is 45/50k tons. But don't forget that the French CdG was developed as a 40k ton, 40 F/A-18, no E-2 carrier. It's the later adding of E-2's that forced the number of Rafale to 32 max.
Yeah 18's or the Rafale. The Tomcat is a bit big for what we can build, very expensive and its also an older design. Absent the failed 90's upgrade (because I doubt this will butterfly the end of the cold war much) its rapidly heading towards obsolescence by 1995 so go with the more modern plane. Also while not as good a fighter the various marks of hornet and super hornet are effective attack planes killing two birds with one stone.
I agree, Tomcats are ridiculously expensive. But that's also likely to be what the RN wants to replace it's Phantoms. They've just gotten a very clear lesson on the importance of a fleet defense interceptor and will want the best. ITTL, I could actually see more -14Ds being procured by the USN and maybe the proposed Super Tomcat later on. So I could definitely see the Royal Navy's preferred option being Tomcats. What the treasury will actually pay for however is a whole other story. We might see them elect to overhaul their Phantom fleet instead and keep flying those for a longer period as a "cost saving measure."
I agree that the RN might want the F-14, but the treasury won't pay for anything bigger than the F/A-18. Don't forget that, even if the UK launch the new carrier project now, no new CATOBAR carrier will enter service before the middle of the 90's at the earliest, so an ITTL Rafale is possible.
Remember, this is before the split between Typhoon and Rafale - which was largely but not exclusively driven by the fact that the French wanted a carrier-capable aircraft.
If the RN want a carrier capable aircraft, then the Treasury are going to tell them that they need to share it with the RAF. That means either the RAF buy Tomcats as well (not ASB but very unlikely to be allowed - they wanted it instead of Tornado F.3 in OTL) or the UK stays on the Rafale track and the Germans, Italians, Spanish, etc. end up with a smaller aircraft looking rather like a cross between Gripen and F-16.
I agree that having 2 CATOBAR carriers won't suppress the RAF need for a long range, high altitude, bomber killer to fight over the North Sea and the GIUK gap. But I don't think they will buy the F-14 (too expensive and zero commonality with any other aircraft in UK's service). They will probably follow the OTL route with the Tornado ADV and then the Typhoon.
On the Rafale/Typhoon split, I will cite what I said many pages ago :
As I understand it, the Rafale/Typhoon split had at least four main reasons OTL.
First, their was important differences in what countries wanted as an aircraft. France wanted a light (to drive down cost) carrier-capable fighter-bomber (basically a F-18) because the Mirage 2000 was entering service in the French Air Force. While the UK (and to a lesser extend West Germany and Italy) wanted an heavy fighter (basically a F-15) capable of intercepting heavy bombers out at sea (for the UK) and participating in aerial superiority in central Europe (for the UK, West Germany and Italy) because the Tornado was entering service and filling fighter-bomber and strike role. I think the Spanish needs were closer to the French ones (they bought the F-18 in the 90's after all), but going alone with the French wouldn't gave as much say than with the Eurofighter.
Second, the french had a very different vision of the architecture of the aircraft and considered that the EAP's air inlets were too close to each other. For Dassault, the EAP and Typhoon are "no true bi-reactor" because one event in one could affect the other.
Third, France and Dassault wanted to protect their aeronautic industry, specially SNECMA (engines) which had been prop up since 1945 and had just catch up the US and UK in capabilities. Choosing a Rolls-Royce derivative for the motor would have meant the end of this policy and blocked SNECMA in the same league as the Germans and the Italians.
Fouth, France and Dassault wanted a clear repartitions of roles with a single company having the clear leadership and being the sole responsible before the countries in the consortium (mostly they wanted Dassault to be the leader), it's basically what it has been agreed for the next Franco-German aircraft. The others, on the other hand thought the responsibilities could be split on the basis of the number of aircraft ordered.
I might add a fifth point, the British, German and Italian had already worked together to develop the Tornado and they weren't very keen to give up some tasks to the French.
So I think the split is still coming, but :
The more I think of the problem, the more I tend to a two programs solution. Because the RAF needs don't change the UK will still participate to the Eurofighter program and leading it. But, the RN need a smaller naval fighter, so I find it possible that the UK take a secondary seat in the Rafale program (possibly bringing Spain in).
* : The nuclear propulsion means that the carrier have bigger storage of ammunition and aircraft fuel, which in turn reduce the number of sea resupply. With the Clemenceau's, the MN needed to stand down air operations for half a day every two days to resupply, with the CdG it's every four days.
