"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
thlink.net...

USN A-6s and A-7s were busy beating up on targets around Benghazi while
the
F-111s were hitting Tripoli.

Basically, it came down to numbers of suitable aircraft. The plan called
for precision night attack, which meant either A-6s or F-111s. With two
carriers, there were only 20 A-6s in the region, but 32 were needed to
strike all the planned targets in one go. So the Air Force was recruited
to
fly the rest of the strikes.

It took the Air Force 57 aircraft (half of them tankers) to hit roughly
the
same number of targets as 26 Navy aircraft.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/el_dorado_canyon.htm


According to the site you referenced, it appears it took the Air Force 18
aircraft to hit roughly the same number of targets as 26 Navy aircraft.
You're counting all USAF aircraft, including airborne spares, but just the
USN strike aircraft. The site goes on to say that more than 110 Navy
aircraft may have been involved.



Today, many of the factors that restricted the Lybia strikes are no longer
factors. A single carrier could put up at least 40 aircraft qualified for
night proecision strike today; two carriers could easily cover both the
Benghazi and Tripoli target sets without Air Force augmentation, even
excluding the possible use of Tomahawks against some or all of these
targets.


Today you could do it with two B-2s and tanker support.