Simple conversions and familiar merchant-derived hulls differed from escort carriers that became increasingly specialized. The Commencement Bay class retained T3 tanker ancestry but altered the form enough to lengthen the path to service. Those changes offered limited gains in speed or flight operations while the United States already had large numbers of escort carriers entering the fleet. A faster escort carrier also lacked an obvious mission that justified moving toward fleet-carrier complexity. Incremental improvement can undermine the cheap, rapid-production logic that created a ship type.
Notable Point · 59:31-1:01:00
When an escort carrier outgrows its merchant-hull logic
Late escort-carrier development is questioned when extra design work and construction time buy little improvement in speed or flight operations.