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Post by cv10 on Aug 19, 2018 0:07:04 GMT -6
I had no recollection of any HMS Queen Victoria, gave it a quick google and nothing turned up, lo and behold now I find four ships with unimpressive (and one with disastrous) service history. None of them had particularly laudable service. The battleship HMS Victoria being sunk in a collision probably precluded any ship being named HMS Queen Victoria for a while. It's been my observation that the Royal Navy (and a lot of other navies) tend to be hesitant in reviving the names of ships that were previously lost due to accidents, negligence, or that had some other bad mark in their service. For example, it took the RN about 95 years for them be willing to revive the name HMS Hermione after the mutiny on the frigate in the 1790s. Plus, the loss of HMS Victoria was still in living memory for the RN: Jellicoe was an officer aboard her when she sank, and had to abandon ship while ill with a very high fever (he attributed his recovery to being dunked in the ocean).
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Post by director on Aug 19, 2018 8:43:15 GMT -6
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Post by tacweeb on Aug 19, 2018 8:53:41 GMT -6
Japan
Birds/Flying Creatures: Hosho, Ryujo, Soryu, Hiryu, Taiho Provinces: Kaga
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Post by ccip on Aug 22, 2018 2:26:29 GMT -6
Couple of thoughts I'd add: Consider how naming conventions evolve with the changes in prominence of various weapon systems - e.g.how submarines in US service went from numbers, to fish, to essentially taking over city/state names previously used by cruisers and battleships. So you could say that depending on how a navy evolves, what it considers a capital ship changes - and with it, so do the names. A carrier-heavy navy might well "take over" naming conventions of battleships if it considers the carrier its primary weapon, or it might give them very "pedestrian" names if it only considers them auxiliary vessels (as they were in many cases envisioned early on). So, it's tricky! I would lean towards the more "auxiliary" side, though, at least initially - the Japanese are a good example, because while their converted carriers kept the capital-ship names they had as battleships/cruisers, their purpose-built carrier names pretty clearly suggested their "lesser" status - naming ships after birds up to that point was pretty much restricted to auxiliary vessels and torpedo boats, and that's roughly where Japanese doctrine had originally placed their carriers (i.e. as auxiliary to the battle fleet). This was more or less the same elsewhere - purpose-built carriers prior to WWII seemed to inherit, at most, frigate-level naming conventions. With the exceptions of conversions from older capital ships that kept their names, it was until WWII that they began to get "true" capital-ship status and naming. And I'd be wary of setting up naming conventions in RTW that rely on the World Wars having happened, because that's inside the game's time frame. I don't know how the game will classify carriers, but one easy way to resolve this conundrum is to distinguish between auxiliary/escort carriers and true fleet carriers - and maybe to do something similar to how the evolution from B to BB goes in RTW right now, where until they gain certain tonnage, features and performance, carrier designs are classed as an auxiliary type and named as such, until a nation develops (or converts?) a carrier design that can't be considered anything other than a fleet carrier. That way, carriers will be "stuck" with auxiliary naming conventions until they actually become capital ships. Re: Soviet names That one is interesting, because with the Soviet navy, you can separate it into two periods - the "Revolutionary" naming conventions, mostly from the 1920s, and the more Soviet-national focused names of the Stalin and post-Stalin era. Early on, the tendency was to name ships after events, movements and figures of international revolutionary movements - this is where you got names like "Red October", "Paris Commune", or "Jacobin", "Decembrist", or "Marat" etc. These reflected the early Soviet, Trotskyist "global revolution" doctrine and basically picked up anything that was related to radical revolutionary movements worldwide, not just Russia, whether ideologically communist or not - all the way back to Spartacus' revolt and beyond, and including things like Englightenment-era science and humanitarianism. Some were just generic, too - things like "Red Ukraine", "People's Commissar", "Leninist Komsomol", "Solidarity of Workers", and other such generic titles and slogans. You need only to look at the colourful propaganda posters of the 1920s for some ideas, and they'd all essentially be fair game - the conventions were really loose at the time. But from the 30s onward, this was increasingly "purged" along with the Trotskyist and "old bolshevik" faction itself - Stalin saw this internationalist focus as a threat to the USSR's stability, and began to instead focus on "national heroes" - initially just events in the Soviet history and Soviet revolutionary figures whose reputations survived the purges, but through WWII expanded also to pre-revolutionary heroes and events that promoted a patriotic spirit, even if it meant "rehabilitating" certain names from Tsarist history. There were a number of deliberate name changes for units in the USSR, many during World War II (which reflected in general Stalin's tilt towards favouring a kind of Soviet nationalism that assumed traditional virtues of old Russia instead of revolting against them, while rejecting the foreign influences and thus largely getting rid of "foreign" references, especially to anything Western like the French revolution). Plus, of course, the more run-of-the mill stuff like cities and great battles, etc. - mainly from the WWII period. So it's pretty complicated, but given the game's time frame, I'd suggest that the Soviet name list start off with the "Revolutionary" names and then maybe towards the bottom of it, introduce some of the revised "nationalist"/Stalinist ones. It's probably easier to work with revolutionary names, though, since many of them are either generic, or are based on pre-1900 events and figures, which makes them a better fit for the game's time frame. [edit] Another really important aspect of Soviet naming to consider: During and after WWII, you see a trend of naming Soviet capital ships after cities (this still continues today) - however, this is not quite what it seems. In fact many names actually refer to WWII battles (which in Soviet history are usually named after their nearest cities), while there is also a special category of "Hero Cities", an honorary title awarded to a set of cities that especially distinguished themselves during World War II: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_City However, I would be VERY cautious adopting this as a naming convention for Soviet capital ships, especially from from the start - because it is closely tied not so much to the cities themselves, but specifically to World War II battles involving those cities. I mean, they're plausible names for game purposes and you could imagine they would be used for other reasons. But if it were my call, I would stick to "Revolutionary" names first, then Stalin-approved party figures and national heroes - and only then the "hero-cities". But you could also go the more generic (and politically-neutral route), and simply adopt a "softer" convention - just going with things like cities, Soviet republics, maybe some flashy iconic names like "Red October" - it'd be a much less colourful set of naming conventions, and quite plausible if less strictly historical.
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Post by aeson on Aug 22, 2018 18:51:19 GMT -6
What characteristics define a 'true' fleet carrier, though? Is it the speed and endurance to operate with the battle fleet, the ability to operate a large and powerful air group comprised of modern types, or both? Is it instead the intended or actual missions for which the carrier is used? Do relatively large, slow carriers like the British Eagle and the French Bearn count as fleet carriers, or are they somewhat large auxiliary/escort carriers? Is a ship similar to HMS Argus a fleet carrier, as would seem reasonable to call Argus when it was built, or is it an escort carrier as the many similar ships built 20+ years later were? There's a lot of variability in the characteristics of the proposed and actual carriers from the 1920s into the Second World War. Which ones are 'true' fleet carriers?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 22, 2018 19:18:51 GMT -6
Well, here is the standard definition - aircraft carrier designed to operate with the main fleet of a nation's navy. Now, there are some anomalies. After Midway, Ryujo was included in the Striking Fleet of the Main Japanese Fleet. But she was a little ship, with a 29 knot speed, and an airwing of 38 aircraft. Tonnage was only 12,732 tons: not the standard fleet carrier size when compared to the other Japanese fleet carriers. However, necessity is the mother of invention and the Japanese had to replace the four lost carriers. So, it became essentially a "fleet" carrier. The bottom line is, that a fleet carrier is whatever a nation considers the carrier to be, based on their sizes. Our Ranger, was only 17,858 tons fully loaded and carried an airwing of 86 aircraft. However, she could only make about 29 knots. She was never considered a fleet carriers by the Navy. Interesting. Find the size of the Ryujo and then compare that to the Ranger.
Now, let's develop an answer, what is a fleet carrier? Well, first, what country is building a fleet carrier, because non-maritime nations or nations that exist within a narrow or enclosed sea, do not realistically need large fleet carriers. The primary aviation force is land based. It is very dangerous for fragile weapons systems like the aircraft carrier to sail in enclosed or narrow seas, and littoral zones. That is an accepted fact by all. Ok, so you are a maritime nation, what size carrier do you need? Well, you probably will need a carrier capable of at least 29 knots to enable it to launch aircraft until you get steam catapults. Speed in this case, is vital. Air wing size is important. You will probably have to be able to launch at least thirty aircraft in one strike, with another strike ready in case of new information from your scouts. You will need scouts also, on the carrier although you could use battleship float planes but they have some strict limitations that prevent them from doing an adequate job. We can honestly say that we will need at least sixty aircraft in an air wing, the more you have the stronger your pulse of power will be when you find a target and launch. You will need a large hangar to support repairs and storage, although a deck load is a much better idea for loading ordnance and refueling. Your launch will be faster. You will need a deck that can carry at least two elevators, one forward and one amidships or aft. With all these requirements, and more, your carrier will have to have a wide beam which means it will be required to be long, to provide an adequate length to beam ratio for speed. After all this, it simply a matter of how much armor, what range( 10,000 miles is good), how much self defense weapons etc. Anyway, there you have my personal answer. What's yours?
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Post by aeson on Aug 22, 2018 20:09:55 GMT -6
Well, here is the standard definition - aircraft carrier designed to operate with the main fleet of a nation's navy. Now, there are some anomalies. After Midway, Ryujo was included in the Striking Fleet of the Main Japanese Fleet. But she was a little ship, with a 29 knot speed, and an airwing of 38 aircraft. Tonnage was only 12,732 tons: not the standard fleet carrier size when compare to other fleet carriers. However, necessity is the mother of invention and the Japanese had to replace the four lost carriers. So, it became essentially a "fleet" carrier. The bottom line is, that a fleet carrier is whatever a nation considers the carrier to be, based on their sizes. I do not consider displacement to be particularly relevant to the question of whether a carrier is a fleet carrier or an escort/auxiliary carrier. Speed, endurance, the size of the air wing, and the types of aircraft which can operate from the carrier's flight deck are far more important to the question of whether or not the carrier is suitable for fleet operations than is the carrier's displacement, though displacement bears a loose correlation to all these things. The Independence- and Saipan-class carriers are (light) fleet carriers despite being similar in size (displacement) and size (overall dimensions) to several of the escort or auxiliary carriers, for example. Functional catapults have existed for about as long as shipborne aviation, and many early ship- and carrier-borne aircraft could successfully take off from much shorter flight decks or at much lower speeds than the heavier, more capable aircraft of the Second World War. Depending on period, catapults might be necessary, but steam catapults specifically are not.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 22, 2018 20:20:53 GMT -6
Well, here is the standard definition - aircraft carrier designed to operate with the main fleet of a nation's navy. Now, there are some anomalies. After Midway, Ryujo was included in the Striking Fleet of the Main Japanese Fleet. But she was a little ship, with a 29 knot speed, and an airwing of 38 aircraft. Tonnage was only 12,732 tons: not the standard fleet carrier size when compare to other fleet carriers. However, necessity is the mother of invention and the Japanese had to replace the four lost carriers. So, it became essentially a "fleet" carrier. The bottom line is, that a fleet carrier is whatever a nation considers the carrier to be, based on their sizes. I do not consider displacement to be particularly relevant to the question of whether or not a carrier is a fleet carrier or an escort/auxiliary carrier. Speed, endurance, the size of the air wing, and the types of aircraft which can operate from the carrier's flight deck are far more important to the question of whether or not the carrier is suitable for fleet operations than is the carrier's displacement, though displacement bears a loose correlation to all these things. The Independence- and Saipan-class carriers are (light) fleet carriers despite being similar in size (displacement) and size (overall dimensions) to several of the escort or auxiliary carriers, for example. I would agree, except that all the characteristics that you want or need will end up establishing a particular displacement, whether standard or fully loaded. Displacement is just a result, not a specific characteristic unless in developing requirements, displacement is established at a particular level, then it is vital. It's up to the Board of Construction and Repair or any other type organization in a fleet. A carrier without an adequate flight deck both in length and width, is not going to be a useful tool in the fleet. All the necessary characteristics have to be balanced to arrive a suitable design for fleet operations and budgets. That's right, you have to stay within a budget.
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Post by aeson on Aug 22, 2018 20:38:29 GMT -6
I would agree, except that all the characteristics that you want or need will end up establishing a particular displacement, whether standard or fully loaded. Displacement is just a result, not a specific characteristic unless in developing requirements, displacement is established at a particular level, then it is vital. It's up to the Board of Construction and Repair or any other type organization in a fleet. A carrier without an adequate flight deck both in length and width, is not going to be a useful tool in the fleet. All the necessary characteristics have to be balanced to arrive a suitable design for fleet operations and budgets. That's right, you have to stay within a budget. Consider Commencement Bay CVE-105 and Independence CVL-22. These are approximately-contemporary ships which have about the same standard displacement - 10,900 tons for Commencement Bay and 10,662 tons for Independence - and similar dimensions. Both of these ships were capable of operating about the same number of aircraft (approximately 33). One of these ships - the 31-knot Independence - was more than 50% faster than the other - the 19-knot Commencement Bay - and as a result was capable of operating with fleet carriers like USS Enterprise. Is displacement a useful metric to distinguish between these two ships? No. In fact, if we categorized carriers only based on standard displacement, these two ships might be classed as the same type of carrier, or we might even see Commencement Bay classified as a more 'powerful' type of carrier than Independence, despite Independence being suitable for operations with fleet carriers such as Essex or Midway and Commencement Bay being incapable of operating with those vessels.
Displacement alone is not a useful metric for classifying ships. It does not correlate strongly enough to a ship's capabilities to be used as the sole metric for classification, even when considering only ships of the same general type ("aircraft carriers").
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 22, 2018 20:52:32 GMT -6
I would agree, except that all the characteristics that you want or need will end up establishing a particular displacement, whether standard or fully loaded. Displacement is just a result, not a specific characteristic unless in developing requirements, displacement is established at a particular level, then it is vital. It's up to the Board of Construction and Repair or any other type organization in a fleet. A carrier without an adequate flight deck both in length and width, is not going to be a useful tool in the fleet. All the necessary characteristics have to be balanced to arrive a suitable design for fleet operations and budgets. That's right, you have to stay within a budget. Consider Commencement Bay CVE-105 and Independence CVL-22. These are approximately-contemporary ships which have about the same standard displacement - 10,900 tons for Commencement Bay and 10,662 tons for Independence - and similar dimensions. Both of these ships were capable of operating about the same number of aircraft (approximately 33). One of these ships was more than 50% faster than the other and as a result was capable of operating with fleet carriers like USS Enterprise. Is displacement a useful metric to distinguish between these two ships? No. In fact, if we categorized carriers only based on standard displacement, these two ships might be classed as the same type of carrier, or we might even see Commencement Bay classified as a more 'powerful' type of carrier than Independence, despite Independence being suitable for operations with fleet carriers such as Essex or Midway and Commencement Bay being incapable of operating with those vessels.
Displacement alone is not a useful metric for classifying ships. It does not correlate strongly enough to a ship's capabilities to be used as the sole metric for classification, even when considering only ships of the same general type ("aircraft carriers").
Displacement is a result of the characteristics that you want in a carrier. All these characteristics contribute to displacement. If you examine the USS Yorktown, you will find that the Hull, fittings and equipment contribute about 31.9% of the weight and the miscellaneous weight which is the air wing and its equipment contributes about 32%, all most equal. As you increase the length, beam and draught of the ship, the Hull weight will increase. If I increase the length to 900 feet, beam to 120 feet then the Hull, fittings and Equipment rises to 40.1 %. There is no way to avoid this. Displacement is not a key metric, I agree. However, it has to be considered when comparison of ships is to be done. More weight means more power however, the increased length to beam will provide more speed with the same engine power. All of the characteristics and are related. There is no avoiding it.
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Post by aeson on Aug 22, 2018 22:00:25 GMT -6
Displacement is a result of the characteristics that you want in a carrier. All these characteristics contribute to displacement. If you examine the USS Yorktown, you will find that the Hull, fittings and equipment contribute about 31.9% of the weight and the miscellaneous weight which is the air wing and its equipment contributes about 32%, all most equal. As you increase the length, beam and draught of the ship, the Hull weight will increase. If I increase the length to 900 feet, beam to 120 feet then the Hull, fittings and Equipment rises to 40.1 %. There is no way to avoid this. Displacement is not a key metric, I agree. However, it has to be considered when comparison of ships is to be done. More weight means more power however, the increased length to beam will provide more speed with the same engine power. All of the characteristics and are related. There is no avoiding it. If I build myself a car that is roughly the same size and weight as a Ferrari but is driven by a lawnmower engine, do I have a Ferrari, or even a car with similar performance to a Ferrari?
Two ships of similar displacement can have significantly different capabilities - just compare the escort carriers of the Second World War to contemporary and prewar fleet and light carriers. That a carrier displaces 25,000 tons or whatever is not important when classifying that carrier. That the carrier is capable of operating 90 modern aircraft and steaming at 32.5 knots, however? That is important. The fact that displacement is loosely correlated to capability is irrelevant; displacement in and of itself is not a useful characteristic by which to classify a ship.
If displacement strongly correlated to capability, then yes, it could be a useful categorizing characteristic, but it doesn't correlate strongly to capability and instead we have slow escort carriers with small air groups like Bogue which are about the same displacement as fast fleet carriers with much larger air groups like Ranger, Wasp, and Soryu. There is certainly some minimum displacement below which a ship cannot have certain capabilities, and for a given set of capabilities there is a displacement above which it is arguably wasteful to build something which does not have better capabilities, but there is no range of displacements such that you can say that all ships within this range must have capabilities within some usefully-small range.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 22, 2018 22:16:37 GMT -6
Displacement is a result of the characteristics that you want in a carrier. All these characteristics contribute to displacement. If you examine the USS Yorktown, you will find that the Hull, fittings and equipment contribute about 31.9% of the weight and the miscellaneous weight which is the air wing and its equipment contributes about 32%, all most equal. As you increase the length, beam and draught of the ship, the Hull weight will increase. If I increase the length to 900 feet, beam to 120 feet then the Hull, fittings and Equipment rises to 40.1 %. There is no way to avoid this. Displacement is not a key metric, I agree. However, it has to be considered when comparison of ships is to be done. More weight means more power however, the increased length to beam will provide more speed with the same engine power. All of the characteristics and are related. There is no avoiding it. If I build myself a car that is roughly the same size and weight as a Ferrari but is driven by a lawnmower engine, do I have a Ferrari, or even a car with similar performance to a Ferrari?
Two ships of similar displacement can have significantly different capabilities - just compare the escort carriers of the Second World War to contemporary and prewar fleet and light carriers. That a carrier displaces 25,000 tons or whatever is not important when classifying that carrier. That the carrier is capable of operating 90 modern aircraft and steaming at 32.5 knots, however? That is important. The fact that displacement is loosely correlated to capability is irrelevant; displacement in and of itself is not a useful characteristic by which to classify a ship.
If displacement strongly correlated to capability, then yes, it could be a useful categorizing characteristic, but it doesn't correlate strongly to capability and instead we have slow escort carriers with small air groups like Bogue which are about the same displacement as fast fleet carriers with much larger air groups like Ranger, Wasp, and Soryu. There is certainly some minimum displacement below which a ship cannot have certain capabilities, and for a given set of capabilities there is a displacement above which it is arguably wasteful to build something which does not have better capabilities, but there is no range of displacements such that you can say that all ships within this range must have capabilities within some usefully-small range.
Displacement is not a gauge by which you judge a carrier, it is the speed of the carrier, the speed with which it can prepare and launch a full strike, air wing size and capability, hangar and repair capability. These are some of the basic characteristics with which to gauge one carrier against another. However, all these characteristics come with a price... that price is displacement and displacement has a direct correlation to engine power necessary for a particular speed requirement. You cannot avoid the effect of displacement on engine shaft horsepower. If you compare the USS Yorktown's shaft horsepower to the USS Essex, the Essex had 130,000 horsepower compared to the Yorktown's 120,000. However, she was only a half knot faster than the Yorktown, with a range of 20,000 miles versus the Yorktown's 12,500. The Essex had a displacement of 36,380 tons versus the Yorktown's 25,500 tons. It may not be a metric for capability, but it is something that has to be considered. BTW, both carriers had an air wing of about 90 aircraft, the same. It wasn't until the long hulls version of the Essex class that things changed, but not much.
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Post by aeson on Aug 22, 2018 23:40:36 GMT -6
You keep insisting that "displacement must be considered," but you have not articulated why it needs to be considered when classifying the aircraft carrier. Yes, it is loosely correlated to various metrics for capability ... but when you're classifying the type of carrier you have, you're already considering those metrics directly. What does including the displacement get you that the more directly relevant characteristics which you're already looking at for classifying the carrier do not?
More to the point, displacement has a very loose correlation to specific sets of capabilities - a specific set of capabilities may imply a given displacement, but that a ship is of a given displacement does not imply that it actually has that specific set of capabilities or even some similar set of capabilities. What does displacement tell me about a carrier that helps me classify it correctly? Essentially nothing, because it represents too many widely-differing sets of capabilities to be a useful classifying characteristic. A 25,000t carrier could be an oil tanker with a flight deck pasted on top, or it could be USS Yorktown CV-5. Which is it?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 22, 2018 23:46:58 GMT -6
You keep insisting that "displacement must be considered," but you have not articulated why it needs to be considered when classifying the aircraft carrier. Yes, it is loosely correlated to various metrics for capability ... but when you're classifying the type of carrier you have, you're already considering those metrics directly. What does including the displacement get you that the more directly relevant characteristics which you're already looking at for classifying the carrier do not?
More to the point, displacement has a very loose correlation to specific sets of capabilities - a specific set of capabilities may imply a given displacement, but that a ship is of a given displacement does not imply that it actually has that specific set of capabilities or even some similar set of capabilities. What does displacement tell me about a carrier that helps me classify it correctly? Essentially nothing, because it represents too many widely-differing sets of capabilities to be a useful classifying characteristic. A 25,000t carrier could be an oil tanker with a flight deck pasted on top, or it could be USS Yorktown CV-5. Which is it?
I will leave everyone with one simple question. If displacement is not a metric and has little correlation to capability, then why did the Washington Naval Treaty in Article IX specify that "No aircraft carrier exceeding 27,000 tons standard displacement shall be acquired by, or constructed by, for or within the jurisdiction of, any of the Contacting Powers. " I don't need an answer per se, I know the answer. But just consider why they specified a specific displacement? They never specified speed, air wing size, speed of launch, hangar size or anything. They just specified displacement. I don't think it was because it was just easier. The London Treaty followed up but never specified weight because it was a based on the Washington specifications. Anyway, consider my question. Nice discussion.
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Post by dorn on Aug 23, 2018 1:29:21 GMT -6
I think you were speaking about the same.
You design carrier, you have some request which this design need to met. With this criteria you get displacement on which it is possible to build carrier with all your needs.
So displacement is attribute of your needs. Of course you can start setting displacement, what you need and than start to saving weight by compromises about your needs.
We can look at USS Wasp. Was she fleet carrier? Yes. Was she used as first line fleet carrier. No. Why?
We can look at Furious, Courageous etc. Were they fleet carriers? Yes. Were they used as fleet carriers? Only at early stage of war? Why?
So everything is about attributes which carrier has. - power projection (strikes) - number of aircraft, effectivity of strikes, pilots, supplies - defensive capabilities - number of fighters, fighter direction, radar, underwater protection, armor protection, subdivision, passive fuel protection, active anti fire systems, DC parties
What is considered necessity for fleet carrier is speed. All nations consider need of at least 30 knots speed.
We can get back to the questions. Was USS Wasp fleet carrier and posses all of that with at least acceptable level? No, she had power projection, but her defensive capabilities were terrible. What about Furious, Courageous - they lack defensive capabilities and power projection was limited.
If we look at Yorktown and Essex class - they both have excellent possibility of power protection with some compromises with defensive capabilities, mainly passive (armor layout, subdivision) Ark Royal - quite similar to Yorktown and Essex class (lower of both power projection and defensive capabilities) Illustrious - lower power projection, excellent defensive capabilities Implacable - power projection slightly lower than Essex class, excellent defensive capabilities
What is not mentioned here is all the logistics the USN posses, procedures, supplies etc. at which USN was ahead and easy power projection which is not exactly link to design (procedures could be). This is the reason why in reality USN carriers were even better.
Now we can look at theatres of operations: Pacific - what did you need there? Both however most important is power projection so this is reason why Essex class is considered ultimate carrier of Pacific. Mediterranean - what did you need there? Power projection yes, but there you are almost non-stop under attack of land base aircraft so your defensive capabilities is even more important. If you are doing just mission hit and run you can may be live with accepting lower defensive capabilities (this is probably reason why Ark Royal was in west, not east of Mediterranean) however you need to protect your convoys your fleets and thus defensive capabilities is much more important and thus Indomitable (Illustrious) class of carrier works best till you get air superiority later in war.
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