Why geography pushed Britain toward armoured carriers

Britain expected its carriers to operate either far from home infrastructure in the Far East or under unavoidable land-based air threat in the Mediterranean. In the Far East, damage control and repairability mattered because ships would be remote from the home industrial base. Metal structures were easier to repair and store in a humid overseas environment than wood. In the Mediterranean, Italian airfields made attack difficult to avoid. The Royal Navy's interwar threat hierarchy placed Japan first, Italy second, and rearming Germany as an emerging third concern. Because Italy sat across the route to the Far East, carrier survival in the Mediterranean was directly connected to reinforcing the theatre where Britain expected its largest naval threat.