The Lexington class brings the discussion back to the treaties. Its officially reported standard displacement sat exactly at the allowed conversion ceiling, a precision treated here with skepticism. In the context of the 1920s, the ships came closest to a contemporary supercarrier even though that category was not yet in normal use. Legal displacement figures, operational size, and later analytical labels do not always describe the same thing.
Notable Point · 1:06:29-1:08:05
Lexington complicates treaty-era carrier labels
The Lexington class shows why treaty figures and later carrier categories should not be treated as simple, perfectly comparable measurements.