Through-deck cruisers proved both the value and limits of small carriers

Small carriers can provide aircraft for limited strikes and other local tasks, as the Falklands campaign demonstrated. The comparison gives one carrier eight Sea Harriers and twelve Sea Kings alongside another with twenty fighters. Useful local capability still depends on having enough aircraft to sustain the required operations. Through-deck cruisers allowed navies to project national presence and keep aircraft with their task groups, but their small air groups imposed limits on what those groups could undertake.