Heavy bombers and carrier groups met different needs

Could Britain have chosen heavy bombers instead of a carrier battle group?

The two capabilities were complementary: heavy bombers provided strategic reach, while carriers offered mobile global presence and intervention power.

Britain had separate uses for two forms of long-range power. Heavy bombers served strategic-deterrent and independent-strike purposes, while carrier groups supplied mobile presence and intervention options. The bomber requirement remained especially important until ballistic-missile submarines assumed the nuclear-deterrent role. A long-lived workhorse bomber can also retain conventional value, with the B-52 offered as the comparison. The Falklands provides a later example of what a carrier force can do beyond the reach of a bomber force.