pushmar wrote:Haven't notices if this has been posted before; has anyone considered how a small LAC-carrier would be for a merchant escort? Holds perhaps 30 LACs. Military grade impellers and compensators. Identifiable as a military unit, not a Q-ship. A few modern Manticoran LACs could probably take on a Solly destroyer; 10 possibly a Solly light cruiser. Until the Sollies modernize, this would help them keep the League off their merchant fleet.
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During WWII the US and UK both built small carriers because they needed the platforms and converting a merchant cargo ship or oiler hull into an expedient aircraft carrier provided that. After the war, almost all the CVE's (Combustible / Vulnerable / Expendable) were retired with indecent haste. I believe the only one still in service after 1950 was the USS Cabot which had been transferred to Spain as the Dedaldo.
In short, SEM and the GA have no pressing need to build "down-sized" capital ships. The small carrier, in the Honorverse, as in ours, is significantly less capable than a large-deck carrier.
As convoy escort, either more Rolands (Mk16 DD's and CL's) or Wolfhound DD's and Avalon CL's (non-Mk16) would be effective, either with external Mk23 pods or as Hale Soule demonstrated with tractored LAC's (altho Ganny L had tractored FF's).
-- Stewart