A land airfield can add runways, hangars, and stores if more land is available, but it only covers the area within aircraft range and still needs fuel, ammunition, maintenance, and defenses. A damaged runway may be repaired quickly, while destroyed fuel farms or ammunition stores can keep the base unusable much longer. A fleet carrier supplies organic air defense and strike power while moving with the fleet, at much greater cost. The tender occupies a different niche: it can shift between sheltered sites and establish patrol coverage without constructing permanent bases everywhere. Interwar procurement arguments favored the apparently cheaper certainty of fixed facilities, even when that left Britain with little flexibility after the strategic map changed.
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Choosing between an airfield, carrier, and tender
Airfields offer capacity, carriers deliver mobile combat aviation, and tenders provide relocatable coverage where permanent infrastructure is uncertain or unaffordable.