Frederic Madden's large interwar carrier-force plans

Frederic Madden considered carrier forces numbering at least thirty-three hulls and possibly forty-eight as his air-group assumptions expanded. His planning aimed at generating several formations comparable to a Home Fleet rather than adding a token aviation arm. As commander of the largest fleet and later First Sea Lord, he was unusually well placed to judge what the Navy could advocate politically and industrially. The plans do not prove Parliament would fund every hull, but they demonstrate that senior British thinking was not confined to the ships publicly ordered before Washington. A later source discussion also shows why the tables must be read with their surrounding text, since headings inherited from earlier drafts can obscure whether an aircraft total applies to one carrier or a wider force.