More numerous but smaller treaty carriers

What if interwar navies built many 15,000- to 18,000-ton carriers?

They would gain more hulls for convoy and distributed tasks, but smaller hangars would sharply limit air groups as aircraft grew.

Three small carriers might fit within the displacement allotted to two larger ships, creating more decks for convoy protection and dispersed operations. The tradeoff is not proportional aircraft capacity: hangar volume limits the air group, and rapid growth in aircraft size can make a small carrier obsolete much sooner.