Did small carriers push the Royal Navy toward narrower roles?

Was the Royal Navy's pivot toward narrower carrier duties caused by the small size of its ships?

Partly: smaller carriers lost capacity as aircraft grew, while Malta-sized ships could have sustained heavier strike and early-warning aircraft for much longer.

Smaller hulls contributed to the Royal Navy's later role choices because each generation of larger aircraft reduced the air group that could be embarked. In this counterfactual, Malta-class ships entering service around 1950 would still have been comparatively young when CVA-01 was debated in the 1960s. Their deck-edge lifts, large hangars, and displacement margin could have supported Phantoms, Buccaneers, and full-sized fixed-wing airborne early warning. Modernization might have removed obsolete centerline lifts and heavy gun positions while adding an angled deck and simplified arresting arrangement. Three or four such ships would have given Britain more scope to lead or reinforce NATO carrier forces in the Atlantic alongside French carriers. Retaining a broad air group preserves alliance roles and strategic choices that a smaller deck gradually loses.