The counterfactual program calls for roughly two dozen merchant-style tenders built between 1934 and 1939, potentially with Dominion participation. Their limited hull size, machinery, and speed would probably make them unsuitable for conversion into aircraft carriers. Their greater value would lie in sustaining the yards, component suppliers, machine tools, and skilled workers needed for aviation-support ships. Sustained interwar sloop orders provide a counterfactual comparison: keeping turbine production active could prevent later bottlenecks in related ship types. The same cumulative logic applies to early attrition: losses among fully trained prewar crews are disproportionately difficult to replace and can weaken later force expansion.
Notable Point · 1:37:08-1:39:52
How tender construction could expand wartime shipbuilding capacity
A modest peacetime tender program would create workshops, suppliers, and skilled labor that could later support aviation-ship construction even if the tender hulls themselves could not become carriers.