UK about to scrap the HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark?

 via UKDJ

Grant Shapps has been tipped to retire two assault ships to deal with a shortage ocrews, it has been reported.

It is understood that the defence secretary aims to retire both HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark from active service ten years before their planned out-of-service dates.

In the words of her operators, the Royal Navy, the role of the HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion, is to ‘deliver the punch of the Royal Marines ashore by air and by sea, with boats from the landing dock in the belly of the ship and by assault helicopter from the two-spot flight deck’.

The LPDs can carry 256 troops, with their vehicles and combat supplies, and this can be swollen up to 405 troops. The ships act as the afloat command platform for the Royal Navy’s Amphibious Task Force and Landing Force Commanders when embarked.

Here 

The lust for two big aircraft carriers destroyed the Royal Navy.  Two aircraft carriers and the F-35 smashed them.  They just couldn't afford them but arrogance pushed them into the buy anyway.

The British armed forces are about to shrink.

What will remain is a question but the once "punch above their weight" force is no more.