You deliberately omitted
Enterprise (build: time 3y 8m) from your list.
Enterprise was built by Newport News immediately after
Ranger (~3y ) and before
America (~4y) and
John F Kennedy (~4y).
Enterprise was the first CVN and yet the build time was
shorter than that of conventional supercarriers following it.
You also ignore the fact that build times for
Nimitz and
Eisenhower are ~7 years but Stennis and
Truman don't exceed 5 years.
This is the larger picture that you are missing:
View attachment 126125
When Nimitz is laid down in 1968 USN has 9 supercarriers (4 Forrestal, 4 Kitty Hawk, 1 Enterprise) and 19 regular carriers (16 Essex, 3 Midway). When she enters service in 1975 there are only 6 regular carriers left in service and when Eisehnower enters service in 1977 only 2 are left -
Midway and Coral Sea. Why?
Composition of Forrestal-class (supercarrier) air wing in 1981 -
total: 86-92
- 24 F-4 or F-14
- 24 A-7
- 10-12 A-6E
- 4 KA-6D
- 4-6 EA-6B
- 4-6 E-2C
- 10 S-3A
- 6 SH-3G/H
MIdway-class carried 65-70 aircraft total. Modified Essex-class a similar amount.
Due to smaller size neither could operate F-14 or S-3 (ASW). Because minimum number of E-2 and EA-6 is 4 and ASW and SAR helicopters is 6 that leaves ~48 combat aircraft, typically 24 F-4 and 24 A-4 or A-7, or 10 A-6 with Midway class. Because of smaller size the efficiency of ratio generation was lower compared to that of supercarriers.
Rule of thumb: a supercarrier can generate twice as many sorties over twice as many days compared to regular carrier. This means that one supercarrier equals
two regular carriers at any time, and
four at duration.
But aircraft type also matters: Skyhawk had 4t payload and 900km max radius, A-7 had 6,5t payload and 900km max radius while A-6 had 1000km combat radius with max 8,5t payload significantly more with smaller payload. The ability to provide fleet protection with F-14 and AIM-54 was irreplaceable. F-4 wouldn't cut it. Supercarriers with A-6 and F-14 can operate at greater distances often remaining outside of physical range of enemy assets. Regular carriers weren't viable for high-threat scenarios.
Supercarriers were also designed for greater longevity compared to WW2 classes as 45-50 years was the intended service life. Forrestals and Kitty Hawks were retired earlier to make room for more capable CVNs.
The reason why CVNs take longer to build is because there is no need to build them faster. 12 CVNs is approximately the maximum number that USN can handle because every CVN requires an escort. Every Ford is entering service to match a retired Nimitz and construction
workload is optimised to that schedule.
There is nothing in the history of either USN or other navies indicating that building CVNs as soon as possible is the incorrect approach. All data points to the opposite conclusions:
- if you can build CVNs you should build CVNs
- if you can delay building carriers to be able to build CVNs instead of CVs you should do that
- retiring CVs in favour of CVNs is beneficial in the long term
There are specific numbers supporting these three statements, but they require more work than I'm willing to commit here.
EOT.
Moskva carried up to 18 helicopters but had no cruise missiles. Its contemporary Kresta I had P-5 missiles and a hangar for 1 Ka-25. Why would Moskva need so many helicopters if the purpose was OTH targeting?
Why would Kiev need 20 helicopters if it was to provide OTH for merely
eight P-500 on
Kiev,
Minsk and
Novorossiysk and
twelve on
Baku? Kirov has 24 P-700 and only 3 helicopters.
Japan uses its helicopter carriers for ASW but before Hyuga and Izumo JMSDF used Haruna (1973, 1974) and Shirane (1980, 1981) each with 3 ASW helicopters as neither had any anti-ship missiles, only ASROC.
EOT.
It's all very simple once you decide that instead of being
always right you should be
always on the right path.
