Panama Canal locks define the Tillman design envelope

Why could the Tillman battleships fit the Panama Canal when modern 110,000-ton American carriers cannot?

The Tillman studies were explicitly dimensioned for the canal locks, while the modern carriers were not designed to fit them.

A viewer compares the Tillman hulls with modern American carriers that cannot transit the original Panama Canal locks. The difference comes from design requirements rather than displacement alone. The Tillman studies were deliberately assigned the same lock-limited length, beam, and draft. Later 110,000-ton carriers were not designed to fit that envelope. Strategic infrastructure can therefore govern a warship's basic proportions.