I am not trying to score points here, honestly, but am just curious.
A few yrs ago I was discussing the future of ship-borne aviation with an RN chap and the Apache issue was raised. Putting these on board, say, HMS Ocean would seem to provide a significant littoral CAS capabilty that we thought would be useful for the RM ... the suggestion being that, eventually, the type might be operated by the Fleet Air Arm. However, he was of the opinion that the version being procured would NOT be marinised. Of course, this would be extremely limiting from an RN perspective!
If the Apache were only going to operate between Wattisham, Yorkshire and Wiltshire, the apparent lack of marinisation would not be an issue.
Can anyone say whether this limitation is still in place?