But the hours long refueling (done at slow speed) makes the CV even more vulnerable.
Our Carriers are refueled once every 8 years or so. Rather than every 8 days or so. The refueling time interferes with the carriers mission to be on site and ready at all times.
We also do not have the fleet oilers that we used to. (14 T-AO’s, 2 AOE’s, 1 T-AOT. There are some in the reserve (mothballed) fleet).
Plus all that space for fuel oil is now usable for other purposes (Jet fuel as the other Freeper pointed out)
From a strategic and economic sense, nuclear powered CVN are here to stay.
In case you didn’t know the CVN slows down during unrep operations. It doesn’t go blasting off by itself when the rest of the CVBG is unreping for fuel.
Yeah that reactor is great in peacetime but when the DCA wants squids to slosh around in radioactive water after a major hit see what happens. Mass disobeying of orders are going to happen. Who would do that?