British continuous carrier operations and American concentrated strikes

British carriers generally carried fewer aircraft than their American counterparts, limiting the size of a single concentrated strike. Their operating approach emphasized sustained fighter cover, reconnaissance, and repeated attacks. Mass night strikes offered another way to employ several British carriers together. A counterfactual force combining three British carriers with Saratoga would therefore bring different operating methods into the same fleet. Assessing its battle with Japanese carriers would require wargaming those differences as well as counting aircraft.