Atlantic Conveyor's aircraft-ferry role and wartime loss

Hermes and Invincible sailed with as many aircraft as their limited space and engineering support could accommodate, yet the task force still needed reinforcements. Flying Tornadoes or Harriers from Ascension to provide sustained fleet air defense was not practical despite the available airfield and tankers. Atlantic Conveyor was adapted as an austere aircraft ferry rather than a true carrier. Aircraft could use her deck, and one Sea Harrier could be kept ready against a shadowing aircraft, but she lacked the facilities for a normal cycle of sustained combat operations. The arrangement echoed the CAM-ship principle: a civilian platform offered an urgently needed but sharply limited aviation capability. That improvisation fits the wider Cold War pattern in which proxy wars erupted away from the single theater planners expected. Atlantic Conveyor was needed because the planned carrier force did not have enough capacity for an unexpected independent campaign.