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I think the intention was that Hermes would indeed have her own sqn of Phantoms for air defence, directly replacing the Sea Vixens. She already carried a sqn of Buccaneer S2s for the strike role so although her overall strike capability would be less than the other carriers, it would still be formidable. She would though have been seen as a stopgap until one of CVA-01s two sisters was commissioned (Denis Healy himself said that the number of carriers in the program never fell below three, as this was seen than as now as the minimum number needed to guarantee one forward deployed at all times). Victorious would have been more difficult to convert for Phantoms unless a waist cat was fitted so besides Eagle and Ark Royal only Hermes was a candidate. Also remember that when she began her 1964-66 refit and certainly when that refit was being planned 63-64 the RN had five ctol carriers + 2 LPH and was still hoping to get four CVAs (down from the original five planned in 1962), and although the Phantom was in the frame for the Vixen replacement full data of the F-4s launch and deck landing characteristics were probably not known to the RN at the time. Based on available data for the F-4B, operating from Hermes seemed a reasonable proposition albeit with some restrictions, which were acceptable if the aircraft was limited to air defence operations.

MDP78 wrote:

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Seems not completely impossible that Hermes could have operated in a light strike/fleet air defence role in a limited capacity then?

Further to the above, could we have scaled down the CVA-01 project to something appoximating to Clemenceau and continued flying F4s and S2s albeit with fewer aircraft that Ark Royal/Eagle or CVA-01 were capable of?

Why would you want to reduce the size of the carrier? Cost and size for CVs are not directly linked, but size and capability are. This is why the CVFs are as large as they are for a relatively small air group. Ship steel is still cheap and air is free, whereas engines, radars, weapons and communication suites are very expensive. Nowadays an air defence missile system with Aster 15 is actually more expensive than the steel for the whole of a CVF. A carrier's primary weapon system is her aircraft, and that capability increases exponentially with size. Also with increased size, habitability for crew goes up as crew number requirements are based on the needs of the ship and air group, not necessarilty just it's displacement. Modern automation reduces overall manpower requirements too. Hence the crew for a CVF isn't proportionally larger than that of an Invincible.

As a simple thought excercise, if all the components of HMS Hermes post 66 (my favourite incarnation of the ship) eg engines, radars, comms, weapons, flight deck equipment (cats and wires etc) were installed in a hull of 40,000 to 50,000 tons instead of the actual hull of 28,000tons, the resulting carrier wouldn't be much more expensive to buy, ie for a ship nearly twice the size it would only be in the region of ten per cent more more expensive, but it would be more than twice as capable. The problem historically is that this equation is 'beyond the ken' of most politicians to grasp, hence the association of size with cost, and also larger hulls tend to 'attract' more weapons and sensors to 'fill up' the extra volume. Resisting that temptation is a matter of discipline for the designers and the Navy buying the ship. The US Spruance class DDs are a good illustration, criticised for being relatively lightly armed for their size, they were nonetheless excellent ASW escorts with good habitability and excellent potential for modernisation, and relatively inexpensive.