[Mass Combat] PLAUSIBLE army diversity in settings

[downer]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That's only true insofar as you draw a sharp line between naval aviation and sea warfare, or if you read far too much into the shortage of recent serious naval warfare. Carriers are the premiere weapons of sea warfare, because for a multitude of reasons airplanes are much better strike and recon assets than shipboard weapons and sensors can be.

Of course, if you don't need to annihilate an enemy navy you can also use them to project air superiority in support of land operations. They're good for that too.

My point was simply, that if you don't need to get close to your enemy, but only need to break anything he extends in your direction, you don't need a carrier. In WWII, the US had all their carriers commited in the Pacific, but where quite capable of keeping U-boats under threat in the Atlantic from land bases, coordinating their efforts with small surface units. The same strategy is feasible against larger targets. You only need a carrier if you have to take your air power elsewhere. And that is not self-evidently necessary for naval warfare, but it is for aerial warfare across oceans.