Both classes were designed in 1934 within the treaty and technical conditions of their day. The comparison frames them as their navies' first carriers conceived from the outset for fleet aviation, rather than as adapted hulls. That shared starting point makes the ships a useful controlled comparison: Britain and the United States were addressing the same new type of fleet unit at almost the same moment. Their differing answers therefore reveal strategic and institutional priorities rather than a simple gap between an old conversion and a newer purpose-built ship.
Chapter · 0:23-1:19
Ark Royal and Yorktown as purpose-built fleet carriers
Ark Royal and the Yorktown class show how the 1930s moved fleet carriers from conversions toward designs planned around aviation from the keel up.