PN,
It leaves us wasting bandwidth discussing a "what if" scenario that will have no impact on the fate of the MRA4 fleet.
Oh, and by the way, the last time I was operating in the Straits of Hormuz region there was a small Japanese task force in the area!!!!
MM,
I would expect that a certain minimum number of MRA4s would be earmarked to stay in the UK for specific roles, e.g 24 SAR cover (probably at least 2 required), etc. In this case only having a fleet of 9 to start with (with one or two no doubt always in deep maintenance at any one time) probably leaves you with very few able to deploy at any time for overseas "influence gaining" purposes