Royal Navy experiments during the 1920s and 1930s helped define how much aviation capacity and supporting machinery a useful light carrier required. By 1939, Reginald Henderson had brought greater direction to the competing development programs, though he died before seeing the results. The 4.5-inch destroyer weapon and the 5.25-inch cruiser and capital-ship weapon show how overlapping projects developed in parallel. The 4.5-inch gun then proved more effective against many cruisers than its designers had expected. This long development effort produced the practical light fleet carrier used in wartime.
Notable Point · 36:02-38:21
The interwar development behind light fleet carriers
The successful wartime light-carrier program rested on years of Royal Navy experimentation and on Reginald Henderson's effort to focus competing interwar projects.