The proposed carriers were meant to relieve Victorious, Ark Royal, Hermes, and Eagle as the inherited postwar fleet aged. Ark Royal and Eagle belonged to the Audacious class, Hermes to the Centaur class, and Victorious was an Illustrious-class carrier rebuilt at great expense after World War II. Replacing them with one four-ship class promised a more coherent force. The plan initially envisaged two batches of two ships, before political decisions reduced the class from four to three, then two, and finally cancelled it in the 1966 Defence White Paper. CVA-01 was a force-replacement programme tied to the Type 82 escort project.
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Replacing Britain’s postwar carrier force
CVA-01 began as a plan to replace four very different Royal Navy carriers with a new four-ship class.