"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
thlink.net
"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
thlink.net...

USN A-6s and A-7s were busy beating up on targets around Benghazi
while
the
F-111s were hitting Tripoli.

Basically, it came down to numbers of suitable aircraft. The plan
called for precision night attack, which meant either A-6s or
F-111s. With two carriers, there were only 20 A-6s in the region,
but 32 were needed to strike all the planned targets in one go. So
the Air Force was recruited
to
fly the rest of the strikes.

It took the Air Force 57 aircraft (half of them tankers) to hit
roughly
the
same number of targets as 26 Navy aircraft.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/el_dorado_canyon.htm


According to the site you referenced, it appears it took the Air
Force 18 aircraft to hit roughly the same number of targets as 26
Navy aircraft. You're counting all USAF aircraft, including airborne
spares, but just the USN strike aircraft. The site goes on to say
that more than 110 Navy aircraft may have been involved.

Yes, I did an odd count there.

But many of these USN aircraft (the CAP fighters, for example) were
effectively supporting both missions, so the count is still reasonably
close.



Today, many of the factors that restricted the Lybia strikes are no
longer factors. A single carrier could put up at least 40 aircraft
qualified for night proecision strike today; two carriers could
easily cover both the Benghazi and Tripoli target sets without Air
Force augmentation, even excluding the possible use of Tomahawks
against some or all of these targets.


Today you could do it with two B-2s and tanker support.

Yes, I guess you could. Of course, you'd need to provide fighter protection
(just in case) and SEAD (ditto). And those aren't flying in from CONUS.

Not to mention the value of the carriers in performing one other major
mission near Libya; the Gulf of Sidra Freedom of Navigation exercises.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)