Just looked up the official facts and figures for Argus as listed in the 'Royal Navy Handbook' the definitive MOD guide (so it says on the cover):
length 175.1m,
beam 30.4m,
draught 8.1m,
displacement 28,081 tonnes,
machinery: 2-shaft deisel engines, 17MW, 1 bow thruster,
speed 18 knots,
complement 115 +137 RN aircrew,
Military lift 138 x 4 ton vehicles in place of aircraft
Aircraft five spot flight deck for helicopters, STOVL capacity
the vessel is fitted with it's own air traffic control centre, the flight deck is made of 5ft thick concrete (to restore stability of original container ship design) and is two thirds of the ships length. Armament is limited to two 30mm mounts on the after island and four 7.62mm GPMG mounts.
The 115 civillian crew could be replaced in wartime by 230+ naval personnel in addition to the 137 aircrew already embarked
Oh, and I posted some pics of Argus in the 'British Military pic Thread' a couple of days ago if anyone's interested...
In my opinion, a converted container ship brought up to a similar standard to RFA Argus (though perhaps one with an aft superstructure, as most container ships have anyway) would provide a major boost to relatively small navies with large ocean patrol areas and a small number of escorts, eg South Africa. An Argus style conversion can be carried out for less than the cost of a frigate (approx £100million) and allows a large number of helicopters to be taken far beyond their normal land based patrol areas for ASW, SAR, anti piracy patrol, economic policing and AEW, actual air group mix as required. Being a merchant ship to start with the running costs of such a vessel would be much less than a full carrier and manning requirements would not stretch a small navy too much, but would provide a capability increase far beyond that which another frigate could bring.