Originally Posted by Wrathmonk
Originally Posted by justanopinion
no waiting for steaming within range required
Granted. And when you have more than one you can afford to have them dotted all around the globe ready to react at a 'moments' notice. But when you have one it's very difficult to be in the right place at the right time particularly when
the Libyan thing seems to have popped up overnight
But it didn't pop up overnight, did it? Things had already kicked off in Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan and Egypt in January. A properly tooled-up carrier deployed to the Med as a contingency could have been 'acclimatising' off Libya by mid to late Feb.
Cameron proposed a No Fly Zone in the House of Commons on 28 Feb (
link). UNSCR 1973 was passed on 17 Mar (
link) and the carrier would have been ideally placed to assist NEO and whatever else necessary. Had nothing transpired, it could simply have melted away to continue monitoring events in North Africa/the Middle East while providing valuable intelligence.