Unrestricted carriers versus global fleet numbers

Essex was the carrier the United States could build quickly at the wartime scale it needed, while Midway was the larger carrier it would have preferred without older treaty limits. Malta performs a comparable British role as an unrestricted ideal rather than an American copy. The Royal Navy faced an additional numbers problem because its carriers had to cover many stations around the world. A handful of very large ships could not meet every commitment, helping explain repeated British attempts to obtain more carriers through lighter designs. Carrier size therefore became a force-structure tradeoff among individual capability, production, and global presence.