Would the poor tonnage efficiency of carrier conversions make Admiral-class conversions inferior to ships such as Ark Royal or Lexington?
Short answerConversions are less efficient, but he argues that the much larger Admiral hulls would still provide substantial aircraft capacity and replace smaller converted carriers.
NotesA viewer contrasts converted carriers with the greater tonnage efficiency of purpose-built Ark Royal and the Lexington conversions. The answer accepts that conversion is inefficient in principle but argues that hull size changes the fleet comparison. The later Admiral hulls would be much larger than Lexington and, in this counterfactual, would replace Courageous, Glorious, and Furious rather than compete with an ideal purpose-built design. Conversion efficiency, total air-group capacity, and the ships actually available are separate procurement questions.