The May 1980 starting date makes carrier readiness a changing constraint throughout the campaign. HMS Hermes is available, while HMS Invincible is treated as a near-term option ahead of her scheduled July commissioning. HMS Bulwark can still provide helicopter lift despite engine damage. The former HMS Ark Royal has been offered for sale but has not yet gone for scrap, leaving a possible reactivation if sufficient money, personnel, and aircraft can be assembled. Her pilots and aircraft have dispersed, and a return around September appears more plausible than joining a fleet assembled in June. France might spare one Clemenceau-class carrier while retaining the other in the Mediterranean. The United States has thirteen frontline carriers distributed worldwide, with the training carrier USS Lexington potentially hunting surface raiders to release a modern carrier for the northern campaign. Selected mothballed ships offer further possibilities, but the newly launched USS Carl Vinson cannot be counted on soon. Moving forces takes weeks, so a campaign lasting into September remains plausible.
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Which carriers could actually fight in May 1980?
The 1980 date creates a mixed carrier force in which some ships are operational, some are training or amphibious platforms, and others are too newly launched or too deeply mothballed to count on.