High-speed steaming aged carrier machinery even when the hull escaped serious battle damage. Repeated acceleration for flight operations made a carrier's duty cycle closer to a destroyer's than a battleship's. The rough comparison puts carrier wear near six peacetime years for each wartime year, leaving the Illustrious class with perhaps half a decade of useful steaming after 1945. Victorious's worn engines therefore fit the wartime operating pattern, and their condition had already prompted repeated reports before the reconstruction exposed how much work was needed.
Notable Point · 1:04:55-1:07:09
Why wartime carrier machinery wore out so quickly
Repeated high-speed flight operations gave aircraft carriers destroyer-like machinery wear, leaving the Illustrious class with little economical postwar life.