Why don't aircraft carriers get bigger?

Modern aircraft carriers are the largest warships in the fleets of maritime countries. The largest of these are the flagships of the US NAVY, giants over 100,000 tons of displacement. Many people believe that the Nimitz and Ford class carriers are giants and record holders at sea. And this is a mistake.
In this video, we will try to study modern shipbuilding industry and understand why, having the ability to build truly huge ships, the NAVY prefers not to.

Thanks for watching!

[AOMCS]

you can answer the question in the title in one phrase: dont put all your eggs into one basket. WW2 taught us this lesson well. Also, with new carriers being similar in layout/size it simplifies training to a degree so that sailors from one ship can be easily transferred to another if the need arises.

[PauxloE]

Also, if you make the ship too big, it won't fit through the Suez canal anymore. (Current ones already don't fit the Panama canal.)

[DJAYPAZ]

My two cents worth. The US has a number of Amphibious assault ships which are smaller than aircraft carriers but can perform some it's functions / duties. Recently the addition of the naval version of the F35 to the fleet of amphibious assault ships has increased their capability significantly. There are many sources of information describing what these "smaller carriers" are capable of. The Wasp-class amphibious assault ships are the latest version of this class, weighing in at around 50, 000 tons. Half that of the full size carriers and much cheaper of course. Having a fleet of these provides a country (not only the US) with increased flexibility for military and humanitarian operations. in particular the support for aircraft like the Osprey and other rotary aircraft further increases their capability. The video mentions size being an issue in terms of port access and maintenance. The smaller size of amphibious assault ships enables them to travel to places that the larger carriers might not be able to access. Plus the support for amphibious landing craft is also another very useful capability these LHA have. The current US fleet size of LHA is 9 plus another under construction. (It may have already been launched). So in effect the US has a second fleet of aircraft carriers. While obviously not the same as full size carriers, this 2nd fleet probably removes the need for larger carriers and to a certain extent enlarging the fleet beyond 10 of the big boys. Thanks for the interesting video, a pleasure to watch. Thumbs up.

[billdubya]

The bottom line is carriers are not longer because they just don’t need to be. Anyone who’s seen Dry Dock 12 at Newport News Shipbuilding understands building a giant super carrier is completely feasible. The only real reason is the global infrastructure (mainly piers) could not handle them. The maneuverability would an engineering challenge to meet the requirements, but is also feasible.

[jimsackmanbusinesscoaching]

There is a significant element that you left out of the discussion and that is efficient air group operations. That is the primary reason that Aircraft Carriers have not grown in size. They would need to become much wider to expand air operations in order to accommodate more simultaneous take offs and landings. Longer is not the issue with air group size. This became noted as a problem with the Lexington and Saratoga converted battlecruisers before WWII and thus the Yorktown class was smaller. The Shinano of the Japanese navy was not a fleet carrier for similar reasons, being a converted Yamato class battleship. The largest air group size has been pegged at about 100 for a long time now. Again, this is because of the ability to launch and recover planes. A larger carrier could hold more stores and reserve planes, but then you run into all the budget and logistics issues that you brought up.

[mac]

The USS GERALD R. FORD cost $13.4 billion and if you build bigger it becomes an asset, that no nation can afford to lose.

[legiran]

And another thing. Workshops to repair damaged airplanes. The required floorspace for airplane repair facilities of a 30, 000 carrier is as large as a 100, 000 ton carrier.
So if you shrink a carrier to smaller economic sizes you actually lose strike capabilities because the repair workshops don't become smaller and your ship gets to carry less aircraft.
The repair workshop floorspaces will only shrink when your airplanes shrink.
This is one of the main factor why Britain ditched the 22, 000 ton Invincibles and went straight to the 65, 000 ton Queen Elizabeths.

[DocWolph]

Currently the thinking is that Aircraft Carriers are being pushed back by ever further reaching shore defense systems by rival nations. While at once a Giant AC might be a bad idea to fill the role of current Super carriers, ironically a Giant Carrier would be able to field aircraft that have more range to target while staying well out of range of enemy weapons. This however is more or less a moot point as it is believed that the NGAD and FA-XX 6th gen fighters will have greater fuel efficiency and thus range. A bigger ship could field bigger further flying aircraft, but at the same time may not be needed in the years needed to draw on up develop, and then build it.

So I just talked myself out of my own argument. Never mind.

[davidr]

You didn't mention that there are always ships in retrofit, so if you reduce numbers it means even less numbers at sea. 5 supercarriers would be at sea while there would be 2 or 3 laid up due to routine maintenance alone, not to mention any other possible failures that systems can suffer over time.

[matthews]

Why build one Giant 400K ton Carrier when you could have 4x 100K ton carriers - much more flexible tactically and far less vulnerable.

[DarkSabre]

Some of the points that you make are not really correct. Having served 2 tours each on the USS Enterprise and the USS Harry S Truman I can tell you that that the primary reason that US Aircraft Carriers don't get much larger is that they don't need to. You alluded to the carriers going faster than 30 knots. That is true but that's because the design specifications of the US carrier dictate that it needs a minimum of 30 knots of windspeed to get the aircraft up to takeoff speed. If there isn't any wind then we have to make our own. If there is then we normally launch aircraft at lower speeds.

The next point that you made was the types of aircraft. An F-18 will land and takeoff the same from a Nimitz class or a Ford class because the arresting gear is designed to decelerate a certain amount of weight in a certain distance. The size of the ship has nothing to do with that. Likewise the catapults are designed to accelerate a certain amount of mass at a certain rate to achieve a given force at the end. Again the size of the ship has nothing to do with that.

The main factors that affect how large our aircraft carriers will be is primarily 2 things:

A) Airwing organization. If we increase the size of our airwings then we'd need a bigger mobile airport. Right now the composition we have provides enough weapons platforms and support craft for any basic mission.

B) Powerplant requirements. Larger power requirements require larger generators. Larger main engines to push heavier ships require larger reactors and support systems. Which would require a larger hull to hold it all.

So unless mission or organizational parameters dictate that more jets be in each airwing than aircraft carriers won't be getting any bigger. Because the entire purpose of the carrier is to launch and recover aircraft.

[blech]

I’m sure someone else or many have noted that a holdover from the Iowa’s limitations on size was the safe passage through small areas like the Panama Canal. That width of the canal drove quite a bit of decision making back then and followed on in other designs regardless of class.

[gmsniperx]

Let us be honest though. A huge aircraft carrier sound sand looks really cool besides all the limitations.

[dustycarrier]

Another large issue with the deployment of larger aircraft carriers is that fact that carriers are not able to be used as standing positions in any prolonged operation, and thus the need for aerial supremacy in any prolonged engagement that would demand the feature set of a giant carrier vs the current carriers would be far better served by the capture, construction, or otherwise establishment of an actual airbase on or near the operating area. This task is likely something the carriers would be employed to do in the first place as well. The fact is, at a certain point in a conflict, you need an airstrip on land. Aircraft carriers simply cannot perform all the functions of a fully-fledged airbase, least of which because they are a fighting unit themselves.

[glennwheeler]

Plus, Panamax (the maximum size ship that traverse the Panama Canal) is 366 m Length, 120, 000 T Displacement.

[scarecrowproductions]

2:29
Oh man, Horizon should really do a video about the Seawise Giant. That thing is a Monster of the Supertanker Fleet.

[TheWizardGamez]

I’ve seen concepts for literal floating airbases. Like it’s just a landing strip. For the use of near/at coast before a proper in country airstrip can be constructed. Although with modern AtoA refueling it’s become useless. The only upside being less air fatigue

[IMANTHRYLOS]

Super Carriers risk becoming a liability. Rival nations have developed balistic, super sonic and hyper sonic anti ship missiles. They could even try a saturation attack. One successful hit against a carrier, is enough it cause enough damage to force it out of the battle. It is unlikely that it will sink or destroy it. But very likely it may hinder it from performing carrier operations. My guess is that more, smaller and cheaper carrier vessels will be built to mitigate such risks.

[turtlboi]

Many comments mention reason why aircraft carriers have not gotten bigger but my main reason is construction time because it already takes a very long time to build an aircraft carrier and it cost a bunch of money the size increase as mentioned in the video would cost a massive fortune and would take up to half a decade to develop and build the ship

[rangerhawk]

It comes down the cost to operate. A tanker is a money maker, not a money drain. And like others have mentioned they have to fit through the Panama and Suez Canals