 Force A could not hope to defeat it in a surface action, a view echoed by Greene and Massignani in 2003.By the time that the Italian battleships had been ordered back, the convoy and escorts lacked the ammunition to continue and seven long-range Beaufighters had been lost, depriving Vigorous of air cover while beyond the reach of short-range fighters.Communications had been inadequate, with some signals taking too long to arrive but Playfair wrote that without airfields in the west of Cyrenaica, even quick and accurate reports would not have compensated.