Unrealized carrier designs reveal why navies wanted aircraft carriers before any operational record could blur the original requirement. Naval effectiveness cannot be reduced to one platform or function: reconnaissance, intelligence, escorts, command, and the ships that execute a plan form an interdependent system. In the Battle of the Atlantic, WRNS convoy war-gaming, Bletchley Park intelligence, routing decisions, commanders, and escort ships together created a working capability. Removing any one part weakens the whole without making another part uniquely decisive. The same systems view explains what a carrier contributes to a fleet.
Chapter · 1:48-6:36
What never-built carriers reveal about naval requirements
Never-built carrier projects isolate what navies hoped aviation would accomplish before operational experience complicated the picture.