An American nuclear carrier has far greater personnel demands than the conventionally powered Queen Elizabeth class, whose ships require fewer than eight hundred sailors each in this comparison. Britain has nuclear-support arrangements for submarines but no equivalent surface-ship maintenance system for its own carriers. Some large British dry docks can accommodate allied nuclear vessels, and the French carrier Charles de Gaulle has used one. Those facilities are not used continuously for nuclear surface ships and do not amount to support for two domestically operated nuclear carriers. Fifty-year-old hulls would also need work to keep them in service.
Notable Point · 21:45-22:56
Allied dry docks are not a nuclear-carrier support system
A dock large enough to receive an allied nuclear ship does not give a navy the people, facilities, and routine experience needed to operate its own nuclear surface fleet.