Shipbucket

My Hero!!

I wouldn't want to man that 20mm

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

Word. Also, those 20 mms need to be in tubs on the edge of the hovercraft, not in the middle of all those props. You've got almost no firing arc like this.

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Would you please not eat my gun...

Nice looking hovers.
You are right, the Channel vessels would have been used initially to transfer British and other NATO units and stores to the Continent. However, at this stage like other cross channel ferries they would have remained in their original colours and with their civilian crews.
As STUFT in either limited or NATO operations their role would have been to join the Interservices Hovercraft Unit and receive minewarfare kits (described by DK Brown in "Rebuilding the Royal Navy") in the case of the SRN(BHC) 4s or join other SRN5s in the case of smaller craft. The Mine vessels would probably have received a coat of grey paint like the trawlers taken up for the Falklands.

knut 75, welcome to this forum

Some answers to your questions;
The amphibious fleet consists of two Commando Carriers and three Fearless Class, in reality one would Fearless would probably be in refit at any one time. There may have been 3 Fearless planned in real-life and I thought, why not make a lengthened version just for fun!
The gun armament is one of Bill's ideas, basically the RN follows other navies of the time and begin to develop a series of automatic twin Bofors L/70 mounts. This is before Sea Cat, so in AU world Fearless would have been planned with an all-gun armament but two Sea Cat were added before completion, Intrepid had four Sea Cat as historical except for the addition of MRS-3 to give a better director capability over the forward arc at least. The second Mark of the AA twin is a GRP variant which is unmanned and lighter and equal to the Breda twin. I added two of these mounts to the third vessel as I think more gunpower would have been more useful for close-in and crossing targets than the reletively slow and inaccurate Sea Cat (which gain all-round MRS-3). I think in a Falklands scenario these ships might have performed slightly better at AA self-defence.
The Westminster is pure fantasy for us, but Rotodyne is too big for effective shipboard operation and Wessex is good but the thought of a mid-50s idea to disembark 40 troops and/or vehicles onto an enemy shore was just too much to ignore. As related elsewhere on this thread the Westminster was tactically too big and didn't last too long in this role.
Another point I'd like to add is that operating Harrier from the bigger third ship is also pure what-if fun. As far as I know it was never tried on Fearless or Intrepid in real-life but a bigger deck might have made it possible.
On hovercraft, I like the green camo but I agree grey is more likely (unless they are operated by the RAF!!!) and we have some minesweeper plans for the hovercraft too!

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Interwar RN Capital Ships
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Battleship grey if you prefer.I did look at the possibility of Seapeed and Hoverlloyd colours but in this scale its really beyond my scope.

Hood
Thank you for the explanations on the LPDs. I checked in Brown/Moore
and found that the Fearless class were based on the US Raleighs. As the
Raleighs were followed by the larger Anchorages, your third LPD fits. The
Anchorages received a small helicopter hangar as well. Harriers did get photographed
operating from the US ships so your Norway Harrier is reasonable.

I am going to pose some questions from my now extensive look at the excellent
drawings on this site, which really complement the Brown/Moore and Friedman books.

Carriers

Love your big 4 and the solution of using a BAC 583 Buc mix in the 70s. But why are
their service lives so short compared with actual ships? Also, wouldnt Hermes be okay
operating 583s and Bucs in the 70s?

Cruisers

As you have built the 4 missile cruisers, wouldnt these make excellent platforms
for Talos or a British equivalent in the 70s? Friedman indicates that the RN wanted
these ships to do that. Also the Countys could then operate the same missile from
their extensive aft positions, slaved to the big cruisers as Mountbatten suggested?
Much more fun than helicopter ships

Type 80 and Type 83

These ships seem much more cramped than their real equivalents. Love your Orange Nell,
but could it look better on a straightforward Leander-like the later Ikara and Exocet conversions.

The RN rejected a helo equipped Type 82 in favour of the Escort Cruiser with more helos. Did you look at this option? Your ship shows why they did

Bombhead

I think the hovercraft look excellent now. Don't worry about the commercial
schemes, otherwise you might have to start doing all the other STUFT the
RN uses!

The IHU had a number of BHC 7 hovercraft like the ones sold to Iran. There were
also some Vosper Thorneycroft vessels. These might offer more scope for armament
and colour variations in an AU, especially the BHC 7 which could take Exocet SSM and
Rarden cannon in some versions.

Knut 75

BHC 7 hovercraft with Exocet? I want to see this.

It's on the to do list