[Just1689]

It's also relavant because there is a huge debate in defence community right now.

On the one hand you have many saying that the aircraft carrier might go the way if the battleship - more and more redundant in a world with landbase anti ship missile systems.

On the other hand there are some saying that ships will envolve to meet the threat.

[mrfusion]

In that debate what’s the suggested alternative to the carrier?

[openasocket]

There isn't a one-size-fits-all replacement, though there are a couple of ideas. The USMC has their expeditionary advanced bases concept which is certainly an option. The idea is to leverage the fact that the F-35B can take off and land on improvised runways, like a parking lot or a flat grassy strip somewhere. You have a flight of F-35Bs and maintain 3-4 of these improvised bases, each meant to only support a couple planes. And every few days you pack up one of these bases and move them to another spot. Since you're always moving your opponent has to continuously search for these bases, and even if they find one and destroy it, they've only destroyed some supplies and maybe 1 or 2 planes that happened to be on the ground at that base at the time. And locating these bases will be difficult since they will be small, and there's a continuous CAP looking to shoot down surveillance aircraft, as well as SAM batteries. The big question is if they will be able to transport enough fuel, munitions, and spare parts to these bases to support them, and if the F-35Bs will be reliable enough. It also requires that you have friendly territory, or at least secured territory, to operate from. In the case of a Sino-American war, I believe the idea is to use islands in the Philippines, or Japan. This has some info on how it could work: https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/expeditionary-advanced-mar...

That isn't really a replacement for a carrier, though, more of a supplement.