Malta Class: Once more the Royal Navy building for the After War? - Key Ships Series 5, Episode 2

The Malta class is often compared with the American Midways, but this opening separates a superficial resemblance from the Royal Navy's own design history.

Pre-war carrier studies began with an ideal design, then worked back to what treaty tonnage would permit.

A brief design-history detour explains why Tribal, Battle, and Daring-class destroyers repeatedly appear beside British carriers.

Malta and Midway represented unrestricted carrier ambitions, but Britain still had to balance ship size against a fleet spread across worldwide commitments.

Malta retained the ambition for four lifts, a very large hangar, a large air group, and protection, but adjusted the concept for aircraft that had grown during the war.

Admiral Purvis's Future Building Committee revived long-range fleet thinking by pairing experienced officers with earlier Henderson-era concepts.

Royal Navy studies treated deck-edge lifts as an aircraft-handling gain that had to be paid for in off-centre weight, ballast, and treaty displacement.

Ark Royal and the Illustrious family provide the design background for Malta's strong flight deck, expansion joint, twin islands, and armoured hangar deck.

Malta's unusually high hangar served two compatible purposes: fitting larger aircraft and giving crews room to maintain them from above.

Four shafts promised redundancy, while the difference between roughly 80 and 108 aircraft depended on whether conditions allowed extensive deck parking.

A proposed deck-edge-lift arrangement leads into a cautious counterfactual about completing the carriers only after British jet trials.

Treaties and production efficiency favoured repeated, adaptable designs; Malta represented a deliberate break toward a large post-war fleet carrier.

After Malta was cancelled in late 1945, the smaller Audacious carriers continued; the closing argument asks how several larger Maltas might have changed post-war carrier policy.

The possibility of 1947-48 completion is tied to the immense force assembly, training, and fighting expected in an invasion of Japan.