Ark Royal as a strike carrier

Ark Royal was not unarmoured, although her protection differed from the Illustrious class. Her flight deck served as a strength deck and substantial steel construction made her a robust ship built to continue working after damage. Two hangars supported the strike-carrier role and allowed the lower hangar to function as a maintenance space. Those qualities made her useful for distant deployment alongside Unicorn without turning her into a carrier designed specifically for the Pacific. A possible East Indies station would have kept that strike-and-repair pairing near the Far East without making an overtly provocative forward deployment.