Perhaps I could offer some thoughts that might help this thread.
One of the main things any carrier borne air group has to do is to react to changing circumstances. These will change as the ship changes its' position, as events change around it (and its task group) and as the opponent does their thing. If you look at almost any air group on larger carriers, you would see a variety of roles and capabilities. And beyond that, air groups are often 'tailored' or adapted to meet the needs of a deployment. Even on smaller carriers like the 'Invincible' class, the ability of aircraft to launch in a 'swing role' configuration gave them the ability (albeit limited) to offer a range of capabilities to the theatre commanders at short notice.
So, I'd suggest that any deployed F-35B wing will be required to carry out a range of jobs as the circumstances demand. I'd suggest that the obvious ones would be offensive strike missions, counter-air missions, either over the fleet or over the strike battle space, and what us old guys would call 'reconnaissance' - finding out what's going on further out from the fleet. It won't be 'only strike' or 'only CAP'. These are 'just an old retired guy's suggestions, probably couched in the wrong terminology. I apologise for that. I hope I don't come across as a 'True Believer'.
It's worth repeating that no carrier has been successfully attacked, damaged or sunk since WW2. One reason is that using Air to Surface (Air to Sea?) missiles is not that straightforward when you have to find the damn thing first. Then you meed a missile that can get a lock on a moving target. Getting through the outer defences of a modern Task Group isn't exactly a walk in the park either. Those destroyer have some very serious missiles. I'm not saying for one moment that it can't be done, or it won't be done. But whichever way you look at it hitting a land base has to be easier. Yes, I know, you can launch from bases that are (hopefully) well out of harms' way (darn those longer range missiles, eh?)- but then you end up burning hundreds of hours flight time to get limited time over target. Might work politically (seen to be 'contributing' etc.) but militarily not so effective. getting closer to the target without the need for Host Nation Support (which has, time and time again, been denied ) has to be a plus, in my view. The original SDR98 is still available on line. It's not the worst bit of reasoning I've seen.( But then, I'm probably just a 'True Believer').
One final thing. Carriers are not floating airfields. Yes, I know even some senior dark blue types use the phrase, but it's not true, accurate, or useful. Generating 'air power' from a deck (whatever the size) in bad weather, at night, demands a particular skill set, a fully worked up ship, and aviators with a particular set of attitudes and assumptions, plus a grim determination to make it work. Fortunately, the UK has a good track record of doing that.
Best Regards as ever to the new wave of naval aviators, of all uniform colours and all aircraft types -
Engines