Shipbucket

Consider: A Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier has a crew of 3,200, and the airwing accounts for another 2,400 or so for around 65 aircraft (Wikipedia claims the ship could carry 130 Superhornets, or up to 90 aircraft of mixed varieties). If you're running 90 aircraft, your airwing is going to have around 3100. for 120, somewhere around 4800. Plus, consider the workload on the crews manning the flight deck flying off 90 or 120 aircraft. you'd probably increase the ship's company up to 4,500 or so to accommodate additional flight deck and mechanical crews to sustain the force, so for each carrier you're looking at a ship's company of between 4,000 and 4,500 and an airwing between 3,200 and 4800, for a total crew strength of 7,200 to 9,300. With those numbers, you could operate two smaller ships.

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I'm not sure (maybe someone more knowledgeable on this issue should voice an opinion), but I wouldn't expect too much. Whole launch procedure is composed of several elements, some of which have little or even nothing to do with performance of the catapult itself: plane has to be moved to the catapult, positioned properly on it and attached, final check up has to be done and so on. So I think that while some time could be gained, it wouldn't be a change by an order of magnitude.

I'm only going to hit on a small number of posts here because Eswube and Colo have hit the high points. Actually the problem with Habbakuk is that it keeps all of the expensive metal parts of a ship (engines & electronics), while adding more expensive parts like GIANT A/C units to keep the thing frozen. I'm going to quote a friend quoting me on another forum. We were talking about aircraft engines vs. aircraft as a measure of industrial production, but the point is still valid: H-45 was a joke that dates from the last two decades while the other three you list had their initial design work done prior to the point where the dominance of the aircraft carrier over the battleship was shown. In that context, the idea of a large, powerful battleship makes sense. That the first was never laid down, the second had both ships sunk, and that the third was scrapped doesn't change the fact that in 1940-1941, having these ships was a logical outcome of the existing strategic paradigm .
Nuclear power lets you run longer and faster than a conventional plant, and it also lets you use almost all of your liquid fuel storage space for aviation fuel, which improves operational tempo and time between replenishment. You still have to replenish other consumables, but you would anyway. This is also a reason why a lot of small carriers don't equal a large one - as well as the duplication of electronics (the smaller ones just don't have the capacity for stores, even proportional to their displacement, of a larger carrier).
No, not without breaking the necks of the pilots. You can do this with steam cats also - it was one of the many problems that Charlie Big Nose (R91 Charles de Gaulle) had in her design stage.

Yep, it's mostly because that's the most that a single small team can manage the operations of, combined with the landing rates noted before.

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<Staff Hat On>
Because there is no art, I'm kicking this to the General Discussion part of the board.
<Staff Hat Off>

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The Nimitz class is old, you should be looking at the General. R. Ford and possible future improvements to carrier design to cut crew numbers. Look at the QE class with just 1,600 crew which is one of the most modern carriers. I think my crew number of 4,500 is more "realistic" than 7,200. Most likely it would be between the two.

I think the Iowa's were the best battleships ever made or planned, followed by the Lion class. I can of course see why countries wanted to build there huge ships, but they would have been slower than the Iowa's and Lion class which would have meant them controlling the engagement. The only one of the huge ships that would have stood a chance was the Montana class because of it's firepower.

Well in the case of the newer small US reactors nuclear power is better. But if your the French with one carrier I am not so sure nuclear power is the best idea.
In the case of my dream carrier nuclear power is needed to have a all nuclear power fleet which can go none stop at full speed without having to worry about the escorts, replenishment ships and minesweepers because they are nuclear powered and can keep up.

So what is the major gain from EMALS then?

They can launch heavier planes because unlike steam cats they provide the same amount of acceleration along their entire length.
This also makes them a whole lot easier to control and as an added bonus it puts less strain on the airframes which means the can fly for longer.

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Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

Gerald R. Ford. He was a President, not a General (and a Navy Veteran). the article I found states a crew reduction of "several hundred" vs. Nimitz class, but that's likely for Ship's Company, not for the CVAW. And QE class carrier is a much smaller ship than either Nimitz or Ford, with a CVAW around half or 1/3 of the 90-120 aircraft mentioned earlier.

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The South Dakotas are often recognized as the pinnacle of battleship development. They were more efficient to operate than the Iowas (from everything I've read). The Iowas were kept in service because they were more comfortable... and probably because Harry Truman was from Missouri.
You unsurprisingly make no mention of shipboard electronics (and the American and British with their enormous advantages) or fire control mechanisms. These, rather than "speed" or "more armor", will win a fight. Only the USN battleships had the ability to blindfire their main battery guns. Radar-controlled gunfire is an enormous advantage (more so than "firepower" - whatever that means).
Nuclear powered minesweepers, escorts, and frigates don't exist for a reason... my uneducated guess is that it's cheaper to make conventionally powered ships than to make "small nuclear reactors" for a bunch of small combatants.

Anyway, you seem to have a video game-level knowledge of warship design and tactics... which is fine, but please, do yourself a favor and listen to some of the experts here first.

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