Keith Remadra, former chief advisor to the UNP Security Council on Clone affairs So now we know something about the cuts the HCS are going to suffer over the next 6 years. The HCS Navy have been the first to announce what they are going to do, and it is interesting that in the short term the Cloneworld fleet of the HCSN is going to end up quite a bit better off...
It was expected that the HCSN was going to abandon plans to establish blue water fleets on Austini 55 and Aquaworld and concentrate on Cloneworld. The primary mission of the navy is now to support the strategic deterrent and provide a means of fighting back against an invader. This is why there has been a lot of effort (and zarks) spent on aircraft carriers, stand-off weapons and in a few years ballistic missiles. Those missions have been protected.
Although Cloneworld will now not get its larger "future carriers" in the short term they will gain a significant amount of war potential. A helicopter carrier (which should enter service by the end of this year) will help support amphibious operations and release more space on the compact Cloneworld class carriers for fixed wing aviation. A third carrier (which is expected by 2114) should allow the navy to maintain a carrier at sea, have one in readiness and one in maintenance.
Aviation wise the HCSN on Cloneworld has also done well, nothing has been canceled, some F-40Ns will be retired a couple of years early but that is hardly a bad thing as they are pretty obsolete already. The navy will still get its F-45Ks and will have 3 carriers to fly them off. Their submarine arm is also untouched.
Therefore by 2120 the HCSN on Cloneworld will be able to deploy a serious amount of combat power to support, protect and supplement its key weapon (which of course will not be affected by any cuts) : the sea-launched CSM. Plans for blue water navies elsewhere are gone but the navy has managed to hang onto and protect its primary reason to exist.
