Naval Historywith Dr. Alex

Q&A · 34:22-35:44

Malta, Midway, and the later CVA-01 design

The Malta class is treated as Britain's wartime counterpart to Midway, while CVA-01 belongs to a later technological generation.

Aircraft CarriersCarrier DesignCVA-01Malta Class Aircraft CarriersMidway Class Aircraft Carriers
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Question

Would the Malta class or CVA-01 have been better than the Midway class?

Short answer

Malta would have been a broadly equivalent wartime counterpart with different priorities, while the later CVA-01 should have offered important advances.

Notes

The answer presents Malta and Midway as different national expressions of late-war carrier thinking freed from treaty limits. Midway placed relatively more emphasis on air-group size, while Malta placed more weight on survivability. Neither is described as simply superior to the other. CVA-01 should have surpassed them in important respects because it was a substantially later design rather than a direct wartime contemporary.