Engines
Are people still denying that 15 Harriers based around 10 miles off the coast (and moved close up to Misrata, or another area of interest) could not provide a greater density of CAS cover than 15 land based aircraft operating from around 300 plus miles away
Possibly so. But 15 ac (or FE at R to give them the correct title) was more than the entire Harrier force structure (and I'm including crews and engineers here) was 'funded' for (and therefore capable of). Just because they had 50 ac at Witt/Cott does not mean they have spares / deployment kits / crews / engineers etc to deploy 50. And even if they could have mustered 15 how long could they maintain that for - 6 months maximum I would suggest. Then what? As it now seems this Libya jaunt is going to be more than 'non-enduring' we would be stuffed. And if they could provide 15 on a permanent basis why didn't they do that in AFG where (as we keep getting told) there is never enough CAS assets available????