Why don't aircraft carriers get bigger?

[@PauxloE]

Also, if you make the ship too big, it won't fit through the Suez canal anymore. (Current ones already don't fit the Panama canal.)

[@808Efe]

just make the canal thiccer

[@grindersandgears3445]

Was going to mention that myself.

[@potatoraider7320]

new panamax can already fit container ships larger than nimitz. Its dimension is 366m Length, 49m beam, and 15m draft

[@vxrdrummer]

My point exactly. Even the Iowas were the size they were so they could get through Panama.

[@stephanepoirier5582]

Thank you.

[@DJAYPAZ]

My two cents worth. The US has a number of Amphibious assault ships which are smaller than aircraft carriers but can perform some it's functions / duties. Recently the addition of the naval version of the F35 to the fleet of amphibious assault ships has increased their capability significantly. There are many sources of information describing what these "smaller carriers" are capable of. The Wasp-class amphibious assault ships are the latest version of this class, weighing in at around 50,000 tons. Half that of the full size carriers and much cheaper of course. Having a fleet of these provides a country (not only the US) with increased flexibility for military and humanitarian operations. in particular the support for aircraft like the Osprey and other rotary aircraft further increases their capability. The video mentions size being an issue in terms of port access and maintenance. The smaller size of amphibious assault ships enables them to travel to places that the larger carriers might not be able to access. Plus the support for amphibious landing craft is also another very useful capability these LHA have. The current US fleet size of LHA is 9 plus another under construction. (It may have already been launched). So in effect the US has a second fleet of aircraft carriers. While obviously not the same as full size carriers, this 2nd fleet probably removes the need for larger carriers and to a certain extent enlarging the fleet beyond 10 of the big boys. Thanks for the interesting video, a pleasure to watch. Thumbs up.

[@Riomojo]

Yeah

[@dwyderdom]

You can't really replace the super carriers with the LHAs because the f-35Bs onboard them don't have the same capabilities like the super hornets on the large carriers , the vtol aircraft on the LHAs have limited fuel and payload capacity compaired to the F-18s on the super carriers and are in much smaller numbers

[@trash4cash454]

@@dwyderdom but this ships can really help the fleet (but not replace, yes)

[@DJAYPAZ]

@@dwyderdom Yes, the LHA are not a replacement for super carriers. They each perform different roles. Importantly they can operate in tandem providing greater overall capabilities to the fleet.

[@radnaamunkh-orgil3402]

@@dwyderdom I agree with your point and am going to extend it one step further. Because the LHA’s are smaller they also carry less fuel and munitions for their aircraft. This is problem is further exacerbated by the LHA carrying marines and the supplies they need as well as boats and landing craft inside. This means that they cannot sustain their aircraft for long. I remember reading that the navy found the operational endurance of F-35Bs on LHAs too short and unsatisfactory. Unfortunately I can’t provide a citation, but I’m sure you can find it.

[@A7OM1CS]

you can answer the question in the title in one phrase: dont put all your eggs into one basket. WW2 taught us this lesson well. Also, with new carriers being similar in layout/size it simplifies training to a degree so that sailors from one ship can be easily transferred to another if the need arises.

[@dannowak6468]

Correct. If you build them too big, they become national treasures that cannot be risked in combat.

[@A7OM1CS]

@@dannowak6468 Imperial Japan enters the chat

[@nadrewod999]

For multiple portions of WW2, the number of US aircraft carriers in the Pacific could be counted on 1 hand, with USS Enterprise being one of the few carriers to survive the entire war. Meanwhile, the entire reason why many history fans are fascinated by the Bismarck and the Yamamoto is because those gigantic ships were thought to be big enough to change the course of the war in whichever battle they actually fought, but that same huge size also caused both metal behemoths to be relatively slow and have a high rate of fuel consumption, eventually leading to their demise against smaller nimbler ships/planes. It's better for the US to create a larger fleet with smaller specialized carriers than to try policing the entire globe with a small fleet of mega-carriers, since the bigger ships would also be bigger targets.

[@laff__8821]

@@dannowak6468 ww1 dreadnoughts be like

[@Casey093]

What would you do with a thousand planes in one spot?

[@billdubya9626]

The bottom line is carriers are not longer because they just don’t need to be. Anyone who’s seen Dry Dock 12 at Newport News Shipbuilding understands building a giant super carrier is completely feasible. The only real reason is the global infrastructure (mainly piers) could not handle them. The maneuverability would an engineering challenge to meet the requirements, but is also feasible.

[@Rob_F8F]

Same as with building airliners bugger than the A380. Sure it can be done, but the airports would be able to support it.

[@stampdatazz]

That drydock can fit 2 carriers in it, just being near that dry dock is amazing and realizing that these monsters need a dock that big will boggle a mind that doesn’t know

[@SweeturKraut]

I live in Newport News and can vouch for those comments, that facility is huge.

[@dreamingflurry2729]

Some larger naval bases can't handle the existing ones! I was in Britain a few years ago when a US-Carrier-Group made a port call in Portsmouth (I was at the museum, looking at the ships they have there - including Nelson's Victory and the HMS Warrior)...the escorts could enter the harbor just fine (in this case I got to see an Arleigh-Burke-Class Destroyer), the carrier had to stay out (it'll probably run aground in the Solent)

[@seanrea550]

The only real thing that a longer flight deck would provide is to allow for aircraft with longer takeoff demands which are also what catapults are ment to shorten.

[@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344]

There is a significant element that you left out of the discussion and that is efficient air group operations. That is the primary reason that Aircraft Carriers have not grown in size. They would need to become much wider to expand air operations in order to accommodate more simultaneous take offs and landings. Longer is not the issue with air group size. This became noted as a problem with the Lexington and Saratoga converted battlecruisers before WWII and thus the Yorktown class was smaller. The Shinano of the Japanese navy was not a fleet carrier for similar reasons, being a converted Yamato class battleship. The largest air group size has been pegged at about 100 for a long time now. Again, this is because of the ability to launch and recover planes. A larger carrier could hold more stores and reserve planes, but then you run into all the budget and logistics issues that you brought up.

[@ChronicAndIronic]

Also a MUCH bigger target. Dispersion is key, that’s why we switched to cruisers instead of battleships and eventually only destroyers as the main line of ships

[@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344]

@@ChronicAndIronic Actually it was airpower. Battleships were extremely expensive and their guns had marginal usage compared to missiles. Their best value at the end of WWII was anti-air platforms. The US battleships had simply ridiculous amounts of AA guns. So, what was the point of building such massive gun platforms?

[@ChronicAndIronic]

@@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344 that and more importantly Anti Ship missles. A small destroyer could carry a few missies that could take out a much more expensive battleship, especially when harpoon missles came around

[@nikolatasev4948]

Interesting, and it makes sense. Do you think electromagnetic catapults and auxiliary elevators could increase the launch rate enough that the optimal air group would increase?

[@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344]

@@nikolatasev4948 Maybe. The launch rate can be improved, but it is not clear that the recovery rate is. If you think about Midway (as an example), it is recovery that got the Japanese carriers sunk.

[@mac2626]

The USS GERALD R. FORD cost $13.4 billion and if you build bigger it becomes an asset, that no nation can afford to lose.

[@Qureas]

This is also why the british and germans were so reluctant to engage in fleet battles during WW1 and 2 since it could mean the loss of incredibly valuable warships that was hard to replace. One bad fight and you lose the entire war at sea.

[@ArchOfWinter]

Yeah, Japan's Yamato battleship was nicknamed Hotel Yamato by its crew because they are always in port and was never used its special design to its advantage.

[@michaelmappin4425]

Mostly because of development costs. Follow on carriers in that class will cost less.

[@EarlJohn61]

And when an asset becomes something that you can't afford to lose, it becomes a liability... In Naval terms, your thinking switches from "how can we use this to perform our mission" to "how do we protect this ship" a radical change of attitude.

[@DennisMerwood-xk8wp]

@@EarlJohn61 And half the Hardware on the USS GERALD R. FORD still does not work as advertised. Its a giant Xmas turkey.

[@DocWolph]

Currently the thinking is that Aircraft Carriers are being pushed back by ever further reaching shore defense systems by rival nations. While at once a Giant AC might be a bad idea to fill the role of current Super carriers, ironically a Giant Carrier would be able to field aircraft that have more range to target while staying well out of range of enemy weapons. This however is more or less a moot point as it is believed that the NGAD and FA-XX 6th gen fighters will have greater fuel efficiency and thus range. A bigger ship could field bigger further flying aircraft, but at the same time may not be needed in the years needed to draw on up develop, and then build it. So I just talked myself out of my own argument. Never mind.

[@lunaticbz3594]

Your musings reminded me of the issue with dreadnoughts. Once dreadnoughts came out they were the kings of the sea all other fighting ships were basically obsolete. Many nations invested a fortune into the building of larger dry docks, shipyards and building fleets of them.. By the time many of them came into service and were ready to fight, they were obsolete themselves. A giant carrier sounds awesome, but whether it be useful or not in a battle 2 decades from now, is a really open question. If its 2 superpowers going at it, I mean why wouldn't the other side be willing to use a nuke? The political fall out from a tactical nuke over the ocean is probably worth it to take out one of these ships.

[@patrickweaver1105]

Range hasn't been an issue for decades. That's what aerial tankers are for. The problem is draft. Bigger ships are heavier and require deeper harbors and channels. As it is there are a limited number of deepwater ports that can handle a carrier.

[@country_flyboy]

Here is the thing that gives aircraft carriers the edge: they can move. Airbases on land, once found, are sitting ducks that can only feasibly rely on SAM sites and CIWS to deter any attacks. Aircraft carriers offer similar capabilities as their land counterparts, but can move to wherever they are needed the most. This makes them harder to detect, target, and effectively attack. Even if they are detected, by the time an attack plan is drawn up, ordered, and started, they have already moved from the location where they were spotted. They also come equipped with their own defenses, and are almost always escorted by a strike force that is equipped with additional air and sea defenses. Aircraft carriers also add operational flexibility in that it can provide air operations in places where land based aircraft cannot be deployed in a timely or feasible manner, such as in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic oceans.

[@whirledpeaz5758]

Thus you have hit upon the entire conundrum of designing such things, foresight or lack of it

[@protorhinocerator142]

I have respect for someone who can talk themselves out of their own argument. It shows the ability to learn fast and not get married to bad ideas.

[@davidr6338]

You didn't mention that there are always ships in retrofit, so if you reduce numbers it means even less numbers at sea. 5 supercarriers would be at sea while there would be 2 or 3 laid up due to routine maintenance alone, not to mention any other possible failures that systems can suffer over time.

[@dianapennepacker6854]

They usually upgrade systems too during the process. Let's hope we don't lose an other ship at their home dock. I just learned about it and was like WTF.

[@MrSheckstr]

Agreed , CURRENTLY the US navy has a policy of 11 carriers. Sounds like a lot, until you realize that off those 11 you are going to have 1 in Drydock (say Bremerton) for refurbishment and upgrade servicing , another in Drydock (say in Portsmouth) for mid life refueling and servicing of its radioactive powerplants) and you’re down to 9 …. Now let’s put a third down in Pensacola Florida for flight training and your down to Only 8, but you can’t keep all 8 of those out all the time. If your LUCKY you can have a carrier ready to relieve every carrier going off station. So at any given time you might only have FOUR carriers on force projections missions and that’s what Nimitz/Ford Class carrier are designed for, for protecting force to the OTHER side of the ocean, something you really CANT do with any other carrier class afloat. with the exception of the Charles De Gaul NO carrier out there can put into the air an AWACs plane like the Hawkeye, so all those other carriers are dependent on Land launched AWACs To a lesser extent all those other carriers face similar limitations to airborne refueling and ASW operations. While you can do ASW from helicopters off of almost any floating platform helicopters are limited in range and payload and magnetic detection sweeps, with their only advantage over fixed wing is their dipping sonars. The hard part is ASW off a helicopter is harder on the crew because pilots have to be both pilots and sonar operators at the same time , then again even the US navy doesn’t use carrier based fixed wing ASW with a crew of more than two anymore. To make logistics more efficient they use Hornets instead of the four seat S3s In the end building a 5/4 Ford Class just isn’t feasible. That’s why God created escort carriers and pick up truck trailers, for when one isn’t enough and 2 is too much

[@matthews1082]

Why build one Giant 400K ton Carrier when you could have 4x 100K ton carriers - much more flexible tactically and far less vulnerable.

[@dtly50]

And cheaper in terms of maintenance and technology requirements.

[@legiran9564]

And another thing. Workshops to repair damaged airplanes. The required floorspace for airplane repair facilities of a 30,000 carrier is as large as a 100,000 ton carrier. So if you shrink a carrier to smaller economic sizes you actually lose strike capabilities because the repair workshops don't become smaller and your ship gets to carry less aircraft. The repair workshop floorspaces will only shrink when your airplanes shrink. This is one of the main factor why Britain ditched the 22,000 ton Invincibles and went straight to the 65,000 ton Queen Elizabeths.

[@trash4cash454]

That's interesting opinion

[@danielmocsny5066]

The rise of strike drones and kamikaze drones might help. Uncrewed platforms tend to be physically smaller than crewed platforms. Kamikaze drones don't need repair facilities because they don't usually return to base. Even a small ship could carry hundreds of them, as they aren't much larger than individual munitions. But kamikaze drones wouldn't be useful for show-of-force operations where you want to reassure friends and intimidate adversaries by flying your crewed aircraft around. The main job of an aircraft carrier is to be a symbol. Having to actually fight with them means the primary goal of deterrence failed.

[@blech71]

I’m sure someone else or many have noted that a holdover from the Iowa’s limitations on size was the safe passage through small areas like the Panama Canal. That width of the canal drove quite a bit of decision making back then and followed on in other designs regardless of class.

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

Panama Canal is for me the main arguement. Unless there will be a better/broader canal, these ships will stay at their current length and width. Right?

[@glennwheeler984]

Plus, Panamax (the maximum size ship that traverse the Panama Canal) is 366 m Length, 120,000 T Displacement.

[@Nirad-jt7en]

That is the exact reason the US carriers are the size they are. They need to be able to pass through the Panama, and Suez Canals. If they were too large they would have to travel around the southern end of South American or Africa. This would and days if not weeks to travel where time is of the essence.

[@joriss5]

@@Nirad-jt7en The aircraft carriers are way, way too large for the older Panama Canal locks (that limited the length to 294m and the width to 32m). The new, larger locks weren't planned when USS Nimitz (not event talking about Forrestal) was designed. Anyway the aircraft carriers don't fit in the newer, larger locks of the Panam Canal either. Their deck is much too wide.

[@scarecrow108productions7]

2:29 Oh man, Horizon should really do a video about the Seawise Giant. That thing is a Monster of the Supertanker Fleet.

[@IMAN7THRYLOS]

Super Carriers risk becoming a liability. Rival nations have developed balistic, super sonic and hyper sonic anti ship missiles. They could even try a saturation attack. One successful hit against a carrier, is enough it cause enough damage to force it out of the battle. It is unlikely that it will sink or destroy it. But very likely it may hinder it from performing carrier operations. My guess is that more, smaller and cheaper carrier vessels will be built to mitigate such risks.

[@gotanon9659]

Most of the threats you mentioned would first have to demonstrate that there actually capable of doing there job consistently.

[@IMAN7THRYLOS]

@@gotanon9659 I hope that this time never comes.

[@CheapSushi]

But these carriers have the same liability.

[@M33f3r]

With drones it’s likely the swarm tactics will become much more common

[@danielmocsny5066]

@@M33f3r - Drones might also mean there is less need for large ships. Aircraft carriers are large because crewed aircraft tend to be large. Kamikaze drones can be hardly larger than individual munitions and even small ships could carry and launch hundreds of them. By having no need to return to base, kamikaze drones have their entire flight range available as their operational radius. But since kamikaze drones are generally single-use, they are less useful for peacetime tasks such as patrolling and show of force. But it's easy to imagine that drones could erode the justification for large ships, both by the threat from hostile drone swarms, and by increasing the range of missions smaller ships can perform. Given the high cost of a single flight by a modern manned military aircraft, you might be able to fly an equivalent mission with a cheap single-use drone. Small drone ships could act as drone carriers, pushing closer to hostile shore defenses before launching their own airborne drones, and be considered expendable.

[@dustycarrier4413]

Another large issue with the deployment of larger aircraft carriers is that fact that carriers are not able to be used as standing positions in any prolonged operation, and thus the need for aerial supremacy in any prolonged engagement that would demand the feature set of a giant carrier vs the current carriers would be far better served by the capture, construction, or otherwise establishment of an actual airbase on or near the operating area. This task is likely something the carriers would be employed to do in the first place as well. The fact is, at a certain point in a conflict, you need an airstrip on land. Aircraft carriers simply cannot perform all the functions of a fully-fledged airbase, least of which because they are a fighting unit themselves.

[@danielmocsny5066]

Certainly during WWII in the Pacific Theater the job of the carrier was first to sink or drive off the enemy's carriers, and then to provide air support for invasions to capture islands and establish air bases. Air bases on land can't be sunk and can support continuous operations as long as they can be resupplied. In contrast, a single bomb could damage an aircraft carrier enough to put it out of action for months. The goal when invading an island was always to capture and secure, or if necessary build, your own air base as soon as possible, so the invasion force could provide its own air support and establish air dominance over the surrounding ocean, thus freeing the fleet carriers for other operations. It's hard to imagine what a modern war against a peer or near-peer adversary looks like, since the USA hasn't fought one of those in 77 years. Ever since, the US Navy has only fought in asymmetric conflicts where it could generally operate its carriers with impunity against adversaries who couldn't threaten them.

[@gmsniperx3623]

Let us be honest though. A huge aircraft carrier sound sand looks really cool besides all the limitations.

[@TheWizardGamez]

I’ve seen concepts for literal floating airbases. Like it’s just a landing strip. For the use of near/at coast before a proper in country airstrip can be constructed. Although with modern AtoA refueling it’s become useless. The only upside being less air fatigue

[@danielmocsny5066]

Crew fatigue won't be an issue when crewed aircraft get replaced by drones.

[@turtlboi2217]

Many comments mention reason why aircraft carriers have not gotten bigger but my main reason is construction time because it already takes a very long time to build an aircraft carrier and it cost a bunch of money the size increase as mentioned in the video would cost a massive fortune and would take up to half a decade to develop and build the ship

[@rangerhawk]

It comes down the cost to operate. A tanker is a money maker, not a money drain. And like others have mentioned they have to fit through the Panama and Suez Canals

[@CountingStars333]

Money? The us navy would never care lol. Seen their budget?

[@MotoroidARFC]

USN carriers since USS Midway don't go through the Panama Canal. They're too big.

[@rangerhawk]

@@MotoroidARFC Oh ok, I didn't know that.

[@mmasque2052]

The biggest practical concern for ship size is being able to get places as quickly as possible. The bigger the ship, the more power necessary to move it. Also, locks in the Panama and Suez Canals are a set size and would require a very impractical amount of reconstruction to make any larger. So, ships need to be able to fit in these locks or spend several more days or longer to take the long way around. Cruise ships can be larger primarily because they generally have fixed areas of operation. A ship that just sails from Florida or elsewhere into the Caribbean doesn’t have to worry about fitting through a lock. Cruise ships that do traverse the canals and locks won’t be as large.

[@joriss5]

The power-to-weight ratio needed to push a ship at a given speed decreases when it's length increases. So a theoretical megacarrier with twice the mass and twice the power would be a little faster...

[@danielmocsny5066]

The Suez Canal is entirely at sea level and has no locks, but your point remains because the physical dimensions of the canal and the bridge over it determine the maximum size of a ship that can transit the canal ("Suezmax" - see the Wikipedia article for interesting details on the factors that determine maximum ship size there. As the Suez Canal has no locks, it doesn't have an obvious limitation on ship length, but longer ships have a greater risk of running aground and blocking the canal, as happened to the 399.9m ship Ever Given).

[@joriss5]

No aircraft carrier is able to use the Panama Canal. Their deck is simply too wide to fit between the lock walls.

[@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis]

@@joriss5I would have to look that one up. I would be surprised if no aircraft carriers could fit, although I’m sure there are some that do not.

[@joriss5]

@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis I mean no full-size CATOBAR aircraft carrier. Surely some if not all of "VTOL-carriers" fit, they have a much smaller deck.

[@chrisblake4198]

In terms of the USA, a mega carrier system would give up the primary advantage the US relies on its fleets to provide- interoperability and force projection. US carriers are used to provide a mobile endpoint for a worldwide network. Ships that can go fewer places are less valuable in such a system. The US Navy doesn't need carriers that can take everything with them, they have the transit systems in place to resupply a battle group continuously. Lastly, its relatively easy for the USA to swap out one carrier battle group for another in the event of damage or troop fatigue. Even if an enemy manages to do significant damage to a force, it can be replaced with little slowdown in operations, because the crews and pilots all know the same systems. A megacarrier would be like the Rebels taking out a Death Star, a huge setback for the enemy much harder to recover from.

[@vxrdrummer]

The power/speed curve is crazy. On a Type 42 Destroyer, we could get around 25 knots using one Gas Turbine at 25000shp. To get the extra 5 to 8 knots, we needed another 25000shp from the other engine. To go any faster than 33, we would have needed another engine again and maybe more. Arleigh Burkes can go 35+, but need 4 large Sprint type Gas Turbines kicking out 90 plus megawatts to do it. I dread to think what you would have to add to onto an existing carrier, or a indeed a bigger one to get the speed you wanted. I know the Hull form and all that jazz would be designed and the reactors and steam turbines would be added to suite the need, but it would be some big power. Maybe they would be better as Integrated Electric Propulsion using alternators driven from steam turbines, and then distributed to the ship and the prop motors.

[@danielmocsny5066]

Yes, fluid drag tends to increase with the cube of speed, so you need eight times the power to go twice as fast. The same issue applies to human powered vehicles such as rowing shells on water (where fluid drag dominates) and bicycles on level roads (where air drag dominates). If you exercise on a Concept2 rowing ergometer you can see how you have to increase your power output in watts by a scary amount to gain just a little more speed. For example the standard for elite women rowers is 2000m in about 7 minutes, just to get a tryout with a national team, which requires an average output of about 300W. The elite men have to do it in about 6 minutes which requires about 480W. I can't even do that for one stroke LOL.

[@protorhinocerator142]

A giganto-carrier would be nuclear. Whatever power it needs, the nuclear power plants can provide. Ford class carriers can maintain over 30 knots indefinitely.

[@dworkina.9015]

@@danielmocsny5066 A "flying catamaran" type design would reduce resistance by partial surfacing at increased speed.

[@xTheUnderscorex]

The US had plans drawn up during WW2 for a colossal aircraft carrier, called Project Habakkuk, which would have been made largely from pykrete, a mix of ice and wood-pulp. The largest proposal was 1,200 metres long with a 180 metre beam, displacing 2.2 million tons. It's an open question whether it was ever really viable, let alone worthwhile, but it definitely deserves a mention when discussing supersized aircraft carriers.

[@DavidRLentz]

The Last several dozen aircraft carriers were/are over 250 feet abeam--far wider than the Panama Canal locks of 110 feet.

[@Choukai_Chan]

The US Navy actually found out that operation over 100 aircraft from a single vessel is way to demanding for their own air-ops and crew. When did they find this out you ask? As early as World War 2. The then most modern carriers of the Midway-Class could carry ( I believe) around 110-120 Airframes on board. Even tho this was possible they most of the time only set sail with around 80 aircraft on deck for the already mentioned reasons.

[@Smarterthanasocialist]

Excellent video, I really enjoyed your common sense approach that is easily understood by folks. I learned and was entertained, thanks.

[@grahambaldwin9801]

The same reason container ships don't get bigger. They all have to dock somewhere.

[@swagni2159]

Thumbnail: Why are Carriers so small? Intro: Aircraft Carriers are the flagship of the fleet, they are huge. Nice!

[@andrewsmactips]

I don’t think cruise ships and tankers are doing twenty knots; more like fourteen to fifteen.

[@FighterAceee94]

They're not doing 20kt anymore because of pollution regulations. It's called slow steaming

[@skenzyme81]

Cunard's Queen Mary 2 can exceed 30 knots. We did 27 knots for a day once to catch up to our schedule after rescuing a yachtsman.

[@navyreviewer]

Full economy. Top end speed is *very* expensive on a conventional ship. For example the South Dakota class battleship had 130,000 horsepower and could do 28kts. The follow on Iowa class jumped to 212,000 horsepower and for it was only 5 knots faster. That doesn't make sense on a civilian ship.

[@riotintheair]

@@skenzyme81 Queen Mary 2 is only 4/5 the displacement of a US carrier - she's an 80K ton ship as opposed to a 100K ton ship.

[@Phantom-bh5ru]

except they CAN. infact the larger the ship the faster they can go.

[@Dark78Sabre]

Some of the points that you make are not really correct. Having served 2 tours each on the USS Enterprise and the USS Harry S Truman I can tell you that that the primary reason that US Aircraft Carriers don't get much larger is that they don't need to. You alluded to the carriers going faster than 30 knots. That is true but that's because the design specifications of the US carrier dictate that it needs a minimum of 30 knots of windspeed to get the aircraft up to takeoff speed. If there isn't any wind then we have to make our own. If there is then we normally launch aircraft at lower speeds. The next point that you made was the types of aircraft. An F-18 will land and takeoff the same from a Nimitz class or a Ford class because the arresting gear is designed to decelerate a certain amount of weight in a certain distance. The size of the ship has nothing to do with that. Likewise the catapults are designed to accelerate a certain amount of mass at a certain rate to achieve a given force at the end. Again the size of the ship has nothing to do with that. The main factors that affect how large our aircraft carriers will be is primarily 2 things: A) Airwing organization. If we increase the size of our airwings then we'd need a bigger mobile airport. Right now the composition we have provides enough weapons platforms and support craft for any basic mission. B) Powerplant requirements. Larger power requirements require larger generators. Larger main engines to push heavier ships require larger reactors and support systems. Which would require a larger hull to hold it all. So unless mission or organizational parameters dictate that more jets be in each airwing than aircraft carriers won't be getting any bigger. Because the entire purpose of the carrier is to launch and recover aircraft.

[@kennethferland5579]

I think their is a good argument for more OECD nations getting the big 100Kton size Carriers vs the smaller 40-60kt ones they currently use. But they would need to be willing to have them manufactured overseas as part of a bulk purchase in order to make them cost effective. Currently all these medium sized ships get built as expensive singles or pairs and have much less economy of scale.

[@macicoinc9363]

Bulk purchase and super carrier can not be stated together, nor can economies of scale. When you say overseas, do you mean the US or a developing country? The only countries in OECD that could potentially even field one super carrier are the UK, Japan (if they changed to an offensive military), and France. It would essentially require almost two years of their yearly equipment procurement (for their whole military, not just their navies), just to purchase one each. If they did so, it would then eat up 10% of their support budgets (for their entire military, not just their navies) from then until the carriers were decommissioned in 50 years. That isn't even taking into account that none of them have the required planes (tack on another 10 billion to the price tag, minimum), equipment, personnel, infrastructure, or experience with a super carrier. They would also need the required ships, equipment, and logistics for the accompanying carrier group that defends the carrier. Unless these countries tripled their current military budgets, it would be infeasible for them to field a super carrier, let alone field one effectively. Even if they somehow managed to do this, the fact is that one carrier is basically useless for true power projection because the carrier will have to go through routine maintenance every 3-4 years that lasts up to 9 months, large scale refitting half-way through its service life, along with having to spend months refueling the reactors every 7-11. Better hope your enemy doesn't declare war while your one carrier is out of duty. These three countries wouldn't be to hurt by this, because they would all likely be allied together, along with the US. However, this isn't optimal due to cross-military cooperation overheads, and a foreign carrier having priority for supporting it's own military's operations.

[@protorhinocerator142]

@@macicoinc9363 UK, Japan, and France don't need to patrol the entire globe to secure the global economy. The USA does. And two or three carriers are mostly useless because of planned maintenance cycles. They would need to mimic the US Navy's commitment or join forces and have a combined 10 at sea. This is awfully expensive not only initially but for long-term operations.

[@macicoinc9363]

@@protorhinocerator142 Exactly, not to mention they would run into logistics and strategic problems with having to integrate drastically different procedures together when creating a coherent force. It makes no sense for them to do any of this because the US is already doing it for free.

[@whirledpeaz5758]

A major size limitation is the capacity of the locks of Suez and Panama canals. Commercial ships are designed to operated on only one Ocean on a set route, eliminating the need to use these canals.

[@danielmocsny5066]

The Suez Canal has no locks because it is entirely at sea level, but it has other limitations on ship size so there is a Suezmax standard.

[@budisutanto5987]

1. Bigger target, more vulnerable 2. access to port & canal 3. Hypersonic plane, support for carrier, wherever in the world, in minutes.

[@mikmik9034]

I would think at the start, 1) the ship has to fit through the Panama & Suez Canals, 2) They have to be affordable, 3) More is better than a few, 4) Too big would be expensive to maintain, OR lose.

[@Zorro9129]

The U.S. is already extremely dominant in naval hegemony and even the military industrial complex finds it difficult to justify a further expansion. If the U.S. had a naval rival then truly giant supercarriers might be justified.

[@thundercactus]

The reason you have 10 carriers is so you can have 3 of them at sea at any one time. Sounds ridiculous, but look at nations with fewer aircraft carriers: HMS Prince of Wales had a prop coupling issue, and Britain just took 50% of it's carrier fleet out for repairs. The Admiral Kuznetsov has been in refit for almost 5 years now. By the time it's ready to be deployed, the crew will be green again, further raising the risk of maintenance failures. You can't always foresee major mechanical failures, but you can at least foresee maintenance periods and refits. So while 3 carriers are on deployment, 3 can be in refit, and 1 can be on standby training crews. It's sort of the same reason you have more than one crew for a ship. You can maintain a higher pace of deployments and readiness if you have more crews to a ship. Expensive, but effective.

[@jameslecka8085]

Y'all missed the point altogether. A CV is a warship, a capital warship. It's primary reason to exist is to defeat a peer or superior enemy. 60 A/c is about the practical limit for an ALPHA strike because of launch (4 at a time) then recovery (1 at a time) then re-arm/refuel. You want to clear the deck when the enemy attacks, so 5 minutes (or rather more in practice). Recovery, in theory, 1 per 15 sec, = 15 minutes. This does not allow for "bolters", and damaged aircraft. Watch the speed that an Essex launched. Compare to the speed the current CV launches. To be really useful, two planes at a time, the width of the landing space would need to be like 3 times, though the launch cycle improves from 4 to 6. Of course, we have not considered the elevators, which are another limit, as is moving the planes around in the hanger deck, or additional ammo hoists. And much more dangerous to operate (admittedly a peacetime concern).

[@Steve_Farwalker]

Perhaps one of the most logical explanations ever.

[@gregvassilakos]

All US nuclear aircraft carriers have been built at Newport News Shipbuilding. Drydock 12 is used for new construction and could accommodate an aircraft carrier that is significantly longer and wider than the Ford Class. Refueling and overhaul are performed in Drydocks 10 and 11, and those could not accommodate a larger aircraft carrier.

[@michaelmappin4425]

NNSY drydock can fit Nimitz class. Very tight though.

[@Chris.Davies]

If you create a Hyper-Carrier, you also create a Hyper-Target.

[@sabgab]

The only immediate aircraft change would be the ability to actually land a C-130 on the deck for resupply. Yes, C-130's have already landed on the Nimitz class, just not loaded. ALL of the current aircraft would be usable, just in higher numbers. The landing and take off areas would be further apart actually making it safer for those operations. I agree that facilities would be the real problem. Docks for building, maintaining, and visiting would be issues that are all solvable in time. As for power to move such a vessel, well the Ford class carrier have smaller and more powerful reactors meaning each boat only needs 2 instead of 4 like the older Nimitz class, simply adding two more new reactors to the boat would fix that.

[@awmperry]

7:40 “At the moment, the base of their air groups are the F/A-18 jets, ship-based versions of the fifth-generation F-35C fighters.” This is inaccurate. The F/A-18E/F Super Hornets used by the USN are 4th-gen fighters drawing a lineage back to 1978, and are *not* related to (indeed, are gradually being superseded by) the F-35C. The C is in fact in itself a carrier-capable version of the F-35; the F-35B is the STOVL version for ski jump carriers, while the USN use the CATOBAR-capable F-35C version. Other than that, I enjoyed your analysis and conclusions; it just doesn’t make sense to concentrate such a lot of money and capacity in a single vehicle.

[@threestrikesmarxman9095]

He's not saying that the F/A-18s are ship-based versions of the F-35C. He's listing them as two separate things in a list, though the accent makes it a bit difficult to understand.

[@awmperry]

I'm happy to chalk it up to linguistic error, but as read, it's a definite equivalence. (Besides, the F-35C *is* the carrier variant.)

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

What do you mean, "if the shipyards were modernized"? They are modernized--not having space to build the imaginary super-carrier of your dreams is entirely aside from the point. No one wants a carrier that big, or they'd build it. You also seem to think that our carriers can't protect themselves, that CIWS barely counts as defense. Try standing next to one, while it shoots a missile down. They're seriously impressive, and they aren't the ship's only defense. You sound like just another armchair warrior type, who talks about things he has no experience with. We don't need larger carriers. Even with the fleet as it stands this moment, we still have far more naval power than any one other nation can even dream of having...and the plan is for more ships.

[@Weirdo_on_yt724]

✨✨

[@王一慧-s8r]

Very well written English. Rational voice of killing system. Cold and mechanic.

[@anastasijajelic3298]

You forgot to say that aircraft carriers are slowly became obsolete and risky to use in many areas.

[@gtwfan52]

The world's canals limit the size of all ships. Also, warships are, by definition, targets. Smaller targets are harder to hit.

[@danielmocsny5066]

And for a given mass, smaller targets are more numerous, making it harder to hit all of them.

[@Gushe002]

I'd like to refute your point on the value proposition of an aircraft carrier. It is an open system that has intrinsic value (along with extrinsic, of course). It's really the intrinsic attributes that gives the aircraft carrier value. Sure, it costs money to operate, however, the mere existence of this ship with it's capabilities can be (and is) a huge deterrent to rival nations. Personally, I think the intrinsic value of the aircraft carrier is so high (especially nuclear powered ones), that it's very difficult to pin a specific number to it. They are a huge benefit to nations that have these types of weapons at the ready. Also, with the advent of drone aircraft (gen 6 fighters are rumored to be optionally un-manned) and a shrinking military budget, it's not necessary to increase the size of these ships. Present and future weapons will need to contend with weaponized supply chain, as well as regular/irregular military forces. That said, a smaller/more intelligent aircraft carrier that uses renewable energy as a weapon and fuel would be the most desirable.

[@Chris.Davies]

We don't have any aircraft carriers. We got some choppers, and some Orions, and um... yeah, that's about it. I don't think New Zealand wants an aircraft carrier either. Or to see one in an NZ port. Or even in our territorial waters, thanks!

[@flyerkiller5073]

Interesting, that the Ford class is almost identical to the Nimitz. The design is frozen

[@Horizoneng]

Yes, in fact, the're changing most of the internal systems, but the size is not a problem for the future carries as we can see

[@flyerkiller5073]

@@Horizoneng And why it changed so much after the WWII?

[@Horizoneng]

@@flyerkiller5073 I guess, this is a resault of the transition of aviation from piston to jet engines. Speeds are higher and decks have to be larger

[@gloccry2184]

@@flyerkiller5073 Angled flight decks also became much more prevalent. Introduction of jet aircraft required much larger hanger sizes to carry comparative compliments. For example, take the transition from bi-plane aircraft to mono-plane designs, this significantly decreased the total fighter carrying capacity. Same thing happened with the jets.

[@spartangoku7610]

Well, the reactors have 3 times the output. Not to mention the catapults aren’t steam powered anymore. They go on some magnetic levitation tech.

[@theewatchfuleyeseesyou]

My only complaint is the budget part. The B21 costs 700 million per unit and the US intends to buy 100 of them. 12 and even 20 billion really isn't that much in terms of the US economy.

[@paulbeaney4901]

Simply put, there is a size in which you get diminishing returns for your money. Not to mention, if you only have the money for 200 thousand tones of construction. Would you build a super ship of your max tonnage? When you can get 2 ships that are almost as capable without sacrificing mission objectives, with the added benefit of being able to be in 2 places at once instead of 1.

[@danielmocsny5066]

Or one place all the time instead of zero when your one ship is in port for maintenance. No ship can remain at sea indefinitely. If you have two ships, you can schedule the maintenance for one while the other is on mission. This also uses your port facilities more efficiently since you don't need a larger staff at the port which is idle half the time when your single huge ship is away on mission.

[@paulbeaney4901]

@@danielmocsny5066 i did consider putting that in. But it was already getting long for a comment 🤣.

[@meyatetana2973]

So never seen Gerald Ford have ya? :P seriously though isn't there a maximium for ships due to stress of spanning two crests of waves? like it breaks ships apart dont' they? or is that only for wooden ships LOL

[@Fizwalker]

The size of an aircraft carrier is determined by the aircraft carried and the ability for the ship to control its onboard compliment. This is why the capacity of an aircraft carrier has not changed since WWII while the ships have gotten to their current size. If or when naval aircraft need more room to be operated efficiently, we will see aircraft carriers get bigger. Near the end of WWII the USN introduced the Midway class of carrier-- First US carrier with an armored flight deck-- which could house nearly 150 aircraft. However, it was found that these carriers couldn't effectively operate all of the aircraft on board. So operational aircraft have remained at around 100 aircraft. If aircraft had remained being powered by piston engines, aircraft carriers would have remained the size of the Midways..... But Jets became the primary form of propulsion and they needed more room. This requirement dictated the increase in size of USN aircraft carriers. This is why USN aircraft carriers are the way they are.

[@geneard639]

1. Bigger means more money. 2. Bigger means a larger effective target. 3. Deck limitations, you have 4 catapults heaving aircraft off every 30 seconds, that shuts down for 1 aircraft to land at a time every 3 minutes. That, is the limiting issue. If you launch 60 fixed wing aircraft it takes 30 minutes to launch them all but it takes 180 minutes to land them all, and that is if everything goes perfectly. It never ever goes perfectly, which is why we have a tanker orbiting the ship to feed the hungry.

[@TheOtherSteel]

Carriers are already: 1 - Enormous targets. 2 - Incredibly expensive ships with incredibly expensive aircraft groups. Modern US aircraft carriers carry fewer aircraft than in the 1980s. but of course they cost far more. In modern combat exercises, US aircraft carriers have been repeatedly taken out by submarines. (Let's pray that does not happen in a real conflict.) ------------ Royal Caribbean's Oasis class ships are over 200,000 GWT.

[@dukeofgibbon4043]

In addition to the Ford and Nimitz supercarriers, there are 9 Wasp and America class helicopter carriers. They compare in size to the carriers operated by every other nation on earth.

[@matthewhuszarik4173]

Carriers can do 35+ knots. Cruise ships and tankers can’t come close. The larger the carrier the more eggs you have in one basket. If you lose that basket it is hard to compensate. It would be easy to build it larger, but there aren’t any overriding needs and many detriments.

[@notthefbi8707]

Big thing = good target If your aircraft can take off and land on it and you are happy with the amount of planes on it. Don't make it bigger. It will only make it harder to fit it in a harbor or Panama/Suez canal.

[@threestrikesmarxman9095]

No modern US aircraft carrier can fit through the Panama Canal since the _Essex_ class. The _Midway_ class were the first carriers to not be able to transit the Panama Canal.

[@cocodojo]

Carriers have always been only as large as they needed to be, any bigger than that and you have more problems to contend with.

[@Veldtian1]

It all boils down to CAG average combat speeds. The carrier must be 50km away from it's last known location so the incoming fire isn't worth sh*t.

[@NuclearBomb-ow4zf]

Bigger ships are harder to maneuver and make for bigger targets for missiles and enemy weaponry

[@LeonAust]

A well equipped Sea Control carrier could temporarily supplement a supercarrier, id imagine something like 24 x F-35B, 12 x MH-60R Seahawks for ASW-ASUW-Utility, Develop an EV-22 Osprey AWACs and use 4 or 5 per ship, 4 x V-22 Osprey COD-Utility-CSAR, 4 x MH-60S Seahawk for Utility-Plane Guard.

[@randomstories7609]

No modern port can accommodate bigger carriers, no engine is powerful enough to make them fast, let alone agile.

[@shamrock3957]

Having actually been on a US super-Carrier (USS Abraham Lincoln) small is not the term I would use to describe it. Comparing them to super-tankers or Cargo ships is flawed, the ships have very different purposes. Cargo Ships and Tankers are required to be so large to transport massive amounts of cargo for economical reasons, the things are slow and not very maneuverable don't need to be maneuverable either. They're designed to get the most amount of goods from point A to point B in as few as trips as possible. Carriers are required to be able to take evasive maneuvers. Plus Carriers are very active places having to balance fueling, arming, and launching of fighters their decks are choreographed chaos; too big and efficiency goes down, to small effectiveness of the airwing goes down. Nimitz and Ford Class Carriers are the record holders at sea in the MILITARY category while falling to certain ships in the civilian categories.

[@paulvancraeynest6444]

How about the Panama and Suez canal? A bigger ship could possibly not fit through the canal

[@danielmocsny5066]

The Essex class was the last class of US fleet carriers that could fit through the Panama Canal, and that was before many of them got angled flight decks in the 1950s. And although the Panama Canal got a set of new larger locks, the Nimitz class still can't fit through because the flight decks are too wide. The Suez Canal is entirely at sea level and has no locks, allowing much larger "Suezmax" ships to fit through, but even that is not infinite. The US Navy partly compensates for the Panama Canal bottleneck by usually maintaining separate Atlantic and Pacific fleets - i.e. they try not to send ships around the bottom of South America more than they need to. But sometimes there is no avoiding it.

[@bubliestheeart]

You don't even need carriers to be that big at this point, as advnaces in fighters make runway length much less important

[@firewars7636]

As you said, developments in VTOL fighters and such mean that the only real need for such length is for landing transports and AEW aircraft, such as the E-2 Hawkeye. I think Japan has developed carriers that don't even have a runway, relying fully on VTOL capabilities.

[@CheapSushi]

@@firewars7636 Problem is VTOL aircraft don't have the same range and don't have the same carrying capacity (weapons load). The US is specifically upgrading aircraft for longer ranges now because it does not want to get into the missile range of China to defend Taiwan. No, they won't be parking the carriers right next to Japan or in-between China and Japan. Japan's Navy doesn't have that luxury since they're literally right there already. But the US isn't going to risk the assets the same as Japan.

[@esotericcommonsense6366]

You'd have to completely redesign the propulsion plant and reactor. It's not something you can just upscale by 2x. Not to mention nukes already have a personnel retention problem.

[@denisl2760]

Gee, I wonder why... maybe because they can easily make twice as much money for a quarter of the hours worked in the civilian sector? 12+ hour days, 7 days a week, a few months without an off day, and they wonder why there's a retention problem lol.

[@adamwright9741]

That was a fun premise!

[@TonboIV]

Not currently a factor, but might be important in the future: combat UAVs. Of course, we have armed UAVs already, but they're designed for limited roles, and everyone seems pretty hesitant about replacing full on fighter jets with UAVs, but without a pilot and all the stuff you need to safely carry a pilot, and with much lower survivability requirements for an unmanned vehicle, it's probably possible to get full size fighter jet capability in a significantly smaller plane, which can then operate off a smaller ship. For a second tier navy (or really, for anyone who isn't the USN), that could be a game changer. Imagine a fleet of ships the size of helicopter carriers, but with the offensive punch of a supercarrier. Even if it doesn't go that far, just the ability to spread an air wing around multiple smaller ships without compromising aircraft performance as much could be enough to get a lot more countries into the carrier club. The advantage there might just be so huge that some smaller navy that can't afford supercarriers will roll the dice on the idea. Even the USN is getting noticeably nervous about the survival of its supercarriers in a modern war with faster, longer range missiles and armed UAVs and UUVs and AIP submarines and all these other new threats. They may just find themselves stuck between accepting smaller ships with greatly reduced capabilities, or going unmanned in order to keep similar capability via smaller, more numerous ships.

[@gotanon9659]

Except that drones could not come close to the capabilities of manned fighters nevermind the fact that the moment you try to hang heavier weapons off of it you basically nullify its ability to take off from smaller ships. And on top of that drones have an atrocious safety record so if any smaller navy tries to operate drones in the same manner as supercarriers there going to lose a quarter to half of their drone fleet in peacetime ops alone. And most of those threats you mentioned can easily be countered by proper tactics. Except for the AIP Subs which is an irrelevent threat.

[@MotoroidARFC]

There's also the fact that the more capable an aircraft is, the more expensive it is. That applies to unmanned aircraft too. To make one as capable as an F35C will make it as expensive as a manned aircraft and then you'll be back to the same risk assessments only it will involve lots of money which will influence how many you have.

[@TonboIV]

@@gotanon9659 Current drones can't replace manned fighters, but there's nothing fundamentally preventing them from being improved to have similar or superior capabilities. It's definitely a problem that would need a LOT of software development, but there's no reason to think it can't be done. Of course the vehicle has to be big enough to carry the weapons, and the sensors and countermeasures and fuel and so forth, but not having the pilot and all the stuff associated with keeping him alive and and comfortable is a significant savings. If missiles could be "countered by proper tactics" no-one would buy missiles because they'd be a waste of money. There are ways to survive in a high threat environment, but all of them have costs (and I don't mean in terms of money, though it certainly does cost money). How much those costs are, and how much they will impact the ability of a carrier to do its job is an open question, but I believe that the USN is right to be concerned. I'm not saying that supercarriers will become dramatically less useful. I'm saying that they might.

[@TonboIV]

@@MotoroidARFC No, it definitely would be cheaper, simply because it isn't carrying a pilot. A pilot needs a cockpit, and a whole bunch of equipment for life-support, comfort, safety, emergencies, control, instrumentation, etc. All put together, it's a lot of weight and bulk. A computer doing the same job is a whole lot simpler, smaller and lighter, and that has knock on effects throughout the aircraft. An unmanned aircraft is also a little more expendable. No-one's going to want to lose a high performance drone, but at the same time, if it has a major failure behind enemy lines, you can just self-destruct it and you don't have to worry about rescuing a pilot, so it probably would be a net benefit to scale back margins of safety and redundancy to some degree, which also has benefits for cost and performance. Just gut intuition, but I don't think a 30% weight savings is unrealistic for an unmanned aircraft of otherwise similar capability.

[@MotoroidARFC]

@@TonboIV the Global Hawk is about $131 million fly away cost while a Super Hornet is about 66, the Lightning C about 94. And this is just surveillance. So yes, a UAV can get more expensive than a manned aircraft. It really depends on how much capability you want and how many you can afford with that capability.

[@manilajohn0182]

Why don't aircraft carriers get bigger? 1. Larger size= larger target- both on radar and to protect; 2. Larger size= larger mass which requires greater power to move through water at the required speed- which requires a larger propulsion plant- which occupies more space in the new hull; 3. Larger size= larger dockyards for construction, larger manpower force required to build the ship in the same amount of time as the smaller predecessor; 4. Larger size equals larger draft which requires dredging of channels to accommodate the ship; 5. They're already large enough to perform the tasks required in any minor conflict involving a non- nuclear power. Any conflict involving nuclear- armed powers will either end quickly (within approximately two weeks) via diplomatic intervention and a cease- fire, or will escalate into a nuclear exchange. In the former case, larger carriers aren't currently required; in the latter case, their life expectancy once nuclear weapons are used is approximately 24 hours at the outside, so their increased size won't save them. Carriers will only slowly increase in size as carrier- borne aircraft increase in both size and launch weights- requiring a larger ship to carry the same number of aircraft.

The aircraft carrier is a dinosaur. The future lies in small ships with drones and missiles.

[@ArchOfWinter]

I can see navies moving towards even smaller carrier with advances of VTOL capable fighters. Cheaper, but more number of small nimble mini-carriers that host 4-8 fighters may be a way to go in the future to overwhelm hostile anti-ship defenses.

[@protorhinocerator142]

4-8 fighters seems like a waste of time. I'm sure there's some sweet spot where you get a much smaller and cheaper carrier with a proper number of aircraft? Maybe 20? I don't know.

[@graypudding3005]

VTOL also isn’t a perfect solution, often VTOL aircraft cannot take off with a full armament and fuel tank. For example Ospreys often get refueled soon after taking off vertically so they can have a full tank.

[@trash4cash454]

Aircraft carriers have lost their relevance in our time, after the advent of high-precision long-range missiles!

[@charlesrichardson8635]

Except that those missiles have to survive long-range, counter-missile fire from the Aegis support ships. Plus the Navy is aware of hyper-velocity missiles with Mach 17 glide bodies near the end of the development cycle which is why rail gun development has been shut down.

[@frankgaleon5124]

An aircraft carrier as a concept in the 21st century may be questioned. With modern military technology, it could be destroyed, and jeopardizing such an expensive ship with a huge crew is very dangerous. The US Navy will soon have to look for other ways to ensure its superiority.

[@whyjnot420]

Perhaps, but at the same time it is not as if carriers were ever indestructible. Nor is it the case that only large carriers have a place in the modern USN (e.g. amphibious assault ships can preform some of what constitutes carrier operations). Since naval aviation is unlikely to go away or be relegated to the sidelines anytime soon, perhaps all that is needed is a couple of smaller carrier designs meant to compliment the big supercarriers in a manner not unlike how light carriers supported their big brothers, the fleet carriers and how there were inexpensive escort carriers for use when you didn't need to keep up with the fleet. caveat: The examples of light and escort carriers from the past is simply to reference that they complimented the big carriers of the day. Not the actual ways in which they did it.

[@DJAYPAZ]

@@whyjnot420 It’s an interesting topic. Clearly anti ship missiles have become a bigger threat to aircraft carriers and other ships of course. Force projection is one of the aircraft carriers primary roles. Longer standoff distances are an obvious first step in reduce the risk of a missile strike. Anti missile defences will need to be improved significantly to enable the super carriers to operate with a low risk of being hit per se. What form the improved defences will be in the future is unclear. The publicly available information indicates that anti missile defences are developing rapidly. Systems like “iron dome” can seen intercepting relatively slow missiles. Sea skimming anti ship missile are a more difficult weapon to detect. Other technologies such as laser weapons can be used to disrupt a missiles optical targeting and ECM to interfere with radar guidance. The super carriers of course operate within a fleet and use a layered defence strategy. New weapons and strategies are probably already being developed. These are things that will be kept highly confidential.

[@whyjnot420]

@@DJAYPAZ On that last note about layered defense: This is an aspect many do not consider (or blatantly ignore for the sake of being a doomsayer). Many who consider it do not understand. Many who understand it underestimate it. Far too many people utterly fail to realize that if the supercarrier itself is directly threatened by something, by anything really, A LOT has to have happened. Another aspect (a bad day scenerio) that people do not really think of, is that even if a portion of a carrier battle group is sunk including the carrier. It means there are even more ships to add to another group. Since it is unlikely that a majority of a carriers escorts would be sunk unless we are talking a nuclear strike, and at that point there is a hell of a lot more on peoples plates. As for new strategies. You can really say "not so much" here. New operational and tactical doctrine yes, not so much when it comes to strategy. Not without a major shift in focus and types of ships being developed/deployed. One last aspect I think a huge portion of people either fail to consider or only partially consider, is the fact that the US is not on a war footing atm. Not on a war footing, but has the fleet it does. If this is a peacetime navy, a wartime USN by modern standards is straight up nightmare fuel for anyone that wants to fight it. It seems to me that so much of what you hear is a peacetime USN vs a wartime somebody else. And you never hear people talking about what the current navy would be doing as the nation fully gears up for wartime production. You would need a straight up sucker punch and several at that. A single Pearl Harbor style attack simply will not do today what it did back in 1941, even if it does catch a full fleet at anchor just like the IJN did. The worst case scenario I can think of, that is non-nuclear and is not full of wishful thinking, would be that the US could get forced into a situation where it has to act in a manner like it did the first half of 1942. Not that Pearl Harbor would repeat itself, but that the US could be forced into fighting a delaying action with limited offensive actions taken while the nation moves to a war footing. The real question for me is how the US (in terms of ramping up) and USN in particular (in terms of waging war) would fare in such a situation. Which of course does depend on who the enemy is and what their objectives are. Which is a matter for another time, but this is where I wish a lot of people would focus their conjecture. Simply put, if the US can keep its coasts secure and the conflict doesn't go nuclear, not many countries would have a hope of winning a fight against the US. (people say that the US lacks commitment and while this has been true at times, cannot be further from the truth other times, especially those times when the actual population of the US has felt like they were directly attacked) fun fact: way back in the 1860s at the beginning of the civil war, the USN was in a sorry state of affairs. By 1865 and the end of the war it had grown to be, in terms of commissioned warships, larger than the Royal Navy (similar to how the PRC and its "Peoples Liberation Army Navy" (no lie, that is its name) is atm relative to the USN, except the USN did in 4ish years what it took the CCP a few decades to do, along with adding innovation and not just playing catchup). Before the Anglo-German dreadnought race the US was the 2nd most powerful navy after the Brits (even after the Germans had taken over as #2, that was only in terms of battle power, not things like strategically important bases and whatnot, which are very important to waging actual war and not just slugging it out with the guy next door). And anyone who compares US hegemony on the seas after WW2 to that of the Royal Navy after the Napoleonic Wars, needs to take a closer look at the relative balances of power in this two periods. Now today it might take more time to fully engage the US into a wartime position than it did in the late 30s, but a US that does take such position is not someone I want to piss off. fun fact 2: If you average it out, during WW2 the US commissioned around 4-5 warships per week for the entire duration of the war. Obviously it was slower at first and ramped up, but that is the average. And does not include USNS ships (think hospital ships and other non-combatant types) or anything else like the USCG, only full up USN commissioned warships. As someone more clever than I said: A destroyer a day keeps the Japanese at the bottom of the bay.

[@jg5001]

In wartime, an aircraft carrier never sails alone. The US Navy has a few layers of Air Defense systems, i.e. with the Aegis as a long range ballistic missile interception system. The Navy also works alongside Army's THAAD for increase in Air Defense redundancy.

[@SoldierofGodAki]

Bigger doesn't mean stronger...👍

[@jiminyhopkins]

Excellent video Sky!

[@williambuchanan77]

If an aircraft carrier is too big it would need more defense measures and be way too expensive to build and maintain through its service. I think future aircraft carriers will be build with cost in mind and aircraft that are specifically designed to operate from them. Eventually aircraft will normally have such long range they may not even need an aircraft carrier.

[@orellaminx3530]

TL:DW: Because they have to be able to fit through the major canals, but also because no other nation can yet field an air craft carrier of equal size and capabilities. They do not need to get bigger, yet.

[@raymidway624]

Bigger the target, the easiest it is to hit

[@redemissarium]

because 3 aircraft carrier that carry 80 aircraft each give more strategic option than 1 carrier that carry 250 aircraft. Also, dont put all eggs in one basket. If 1 of 3 carrier disabled there still 2 fully operational. If 1 250-aircraft megacarrier disabled some battle will lack air cover

[@CheapSushi]

The US military is LEGALLY required to have 11 main aircraft carriers, so if they had to build a bigger one, they'd still have 11.

[@cesaravegah3787]

Besides the Suez and Panama canal exolanations there is also the fact the when combat machines are too large it become way risky and difficult to operate, actually I think that supercarrries are way too bigg and vulnerable, with technology improvements like magnetic catapults and planes with better power to weigh ratios smaller ships could be just as powerful and certainly More practical.

[@kirkbolas4985]

Consider too, from a tactical standpoint, 500 meter+ carrier is a much bigger target than the carriers of today.

[@dalestoner2928]

Speed is another factor. Bigger the more power needed.

[@kxlf05]

“At the moment, the base of their air groups are the F/A-18 jets, ship-based versions of the 5th generation F-35C fighters” Nonsense (probably AI) F/A-18s are a 4th gen twin engine multi-role, F-35C’s are 5th gen single engine fighter, a generation apart.

[@PwnEveryBody]

A gripe of mine with videos like these is how rarely they consider cases outside of funding and politics. Those are absolutely valid and fair points, but I'm far more interested in the theoretical limits of things for worldbuilding purposes, and current economic and political limits are only tangentially related to that at the very best. I'd love a section where you assume unlimited funding and resources for building and maintaining both the ships themselves and all related infrastructure, and then explain how size isn't everything. One important point is to never put all your eggs into one basket, which you do mention, but with an unlimited budget, that's not a factor. Why not consider how, after a certain point, there'd be no point making the ships even larger? Carriers with the ability to receive large cargo planes might certainly be a boon, but after that, what more would size provide? Larger planes? There are plenty of limitations on plane size, and as the planes get bigger, various factors may coincide to make it far more useful to just launch them from bases on land, even if the closest base is on the other side of the planet, or even to just not have planes that large. I'd be very interested in knowing where that limit would be. What about more planes? After a certain point, the amount of resources necessary to increase hangar space might exceed the resources necessary to just build two smaller carriers with the same combined capacity. If the desired supercarrier should also have a minimum runway length then there are likely also points where both runway length and total capacity could be achieved with a group of smaller carriers. That's not to mention the increased operational flexibility. Where are those points? Many other specifications likely have such points. There are also physical limitations. Flying animals can only be so large before the weight of their wings and related muscles would outpace the lift they could possibly generate. Similar limitations must surely exist for ships in terms of size and number of propellers, size and weight of engine and related components, and perhaps even thrust to drag ratio. There's also structural integrity to consider. Perhaps there's a size where the structure itself would require such reinforcement that it would either buckle or sink. That may tie in with engine size and weight. To give an example of what I'm talking about, a navy with access to carriers has no use for battleships, even with an unlimited budget, as the carriers can launch naval bombers with far greater range and accuracy than any gun could ever achieve, and the bombers are also useful for much more, to say nothing of whatever other types of plane carriers can launch. There's not even any point to mounting big guns on carriers, because all the space required for those big guns would be far more useful as extra hangar space. Even with an unlimited budget, any resources one might spend on a battleship would be far better spent on a carrier. I want that kind of analysis for carrier size.

[@ewanlee6337]

The money problem might not be as large as you think, if they got long enough that they can launch regular airforce jets. that would mean they don’t need a separate plane development program and so save them a lot of money.

[@lordsherifftakari4127]

another item of note regarding building a gigantic Mega Carrier. aside from the infrastructure needed to build, house and maintain it. once somebody builds one, everybody else will either want their own as well or devise means to neutralize the Mega Carrier's influence. from WW2 onward, Carriers increased in size incrementally. roughly 20-25kt per step. the next iteration could possibly jump by 40-50kt given modern shipbuilding technology assuming we still need carriers at that point. a large ship is easy to track from orbit so potential enemies will know where it is and can sort out where it's going. awful hard to hide a half a million Tons of Airport in the middle of the open ocean. not to say that plans haven't been drawn up for a Mega Carrier. they just haven't been given serious consideration.

[@thelogicmatrix]

If I'm not wrong the argument for speed is wrong, larger ships actually move faster than smaller ships at crusing speed or something (I vaguely remember this from a shipping video, and the purposes of crusing ships are no longer speed like they were int he old days they move the speed that are most energy efficient.

[@danielmocsny5066]

Yes, before aircraft could routinely fly across oceans, cruise ships were the fastest way across so speed was a selling point. Today cruise ships rarely cater to business travelers so speed is no longer an issue. A typical modern cruise ship carries enough on-board amusement to occupy the passengers who aren't in a hurry to get somewhere anyway.

[@protorhinocerator142]

@@danielmocsny5066 You mean cruise liners. The Titanic was built for speed. Carnival cruise ships are not. They are built for comfort and getting there "eventually".

[@Raygun9000]

Would it be feasible to build an aircraft carrier that could be used as a container ship during peace time? The absolute ton of crew quarters would be tricky to repurpose....

[@HB-C_U_L8R]

One thing that wasn't mentioned is that because of the width of the flight deck, the only dry dock in the world that could build a carrier larger than the Enterprise (CVN-65) is in South Korea.

[@hixc2069]

Sometimes big doesn't usually means better example Yamato, musashi, shinano even Bismarck

[@nemo6686]

You missed a crucial factor about aircraft launches: it's best to sail into the wind. Thus, the wind-speed is added to the vessel's speed to calculate the air-speed over the wings, increasing the importance of speed _and_ manoeuvrability.

[@phil20_20]

🤔 The Ford class doesn't fit the old Panamax dimensions. It has to go through the new canal section.

[@2IDSGT]

The Nimitz-class was actually meant to carry larger aircraft than it does today.

[@mariebcfhs9491]

That is because aircraft carriers have their blood in cruisers and not battleships. Cruisers weren't known for being massive.

[@zijie-he]

You need to double the size of the flight deck to increase the efficiency of taking off aircraft and triple the size to increase the efficiency of landing.

[@michaelmappin4425]

I'd be interested to hear your thought process on this. Are you suggesting that there would be more than 4 catapults? How would a bigger landing area help to clear landing aircraft to make a ready deck?

[@danielmocsny5066]

@@michaelmappin4425 - One possibility would be to have two or more angled flight decks in parallel for landing. But you'd need enough room between them to clear the landed aircraft, and probably a separate elevator for each one to avoid having to taxi landed aircraft across the other landing lanes. Presumably all the landing lanes would be behind the aircraft carrier's island. I'm not saying this would be practical, but I don't see how else you'd increase the landing capacity on a supersized carrier. Carriers of any size so far seem to have only one place to land aircraft, so landing seems to be the main bottleneck. There's only one place to land on a Nimitz but four catapults for launching. Another problem is that landing attempts can fail and an aircraft must bolter and come around for another attempt, thus delaying everybody in the landing pattern. But having two or more landing lanes might help if an aircraft has an emergency and needs to land in the net. You'd still have other lane(s) open while the deck crew peels the stricken bird out of the net, which presumably takes longer than a normal landing.

[@Abadox20]

One thing you missed in your video is canal limitation. A huge tanker sized aircraft carrier might be able to cross the Suez Canal, but will definitely not be able to cross the Panama Canal (a must for the US navy) or other small canals making unnecessary long journeys instead and slowing deployments by weeks losing precious time.

[@FxTR22]

remind me again of "balanced budget" and the us dept growing each year. What is it now? 13 trillions?

[@Reepicheep-1]

'Can 5 giant replace 10 Fords?' No. _Because:_ we don't have all 10 in service at any time. Normal US practice with current load is 3 'on duty', 3 or so training for duty (new crew, learning new tech etc.), and 3 off duty getting repaired, maintained. Then #10 is getting a major modernization overhaul and maybe refuling. This number is barely manageable in a mostly-at-peace world; we had Dozens of carriers at sea during WW2.

[@Ey_SmoKrac]

counterargument: it will look cool