[Jim Noble]

What’s the plan to replace aircraft carriers lost in combat?

We made 53 carriers in 1943. It now takes nine years to make one.

[Roman_War_Criminal]

Americans were a different breed of people back then.

Different work ethic.
Different religious upbringing.
Different respect for work and family.

And yes...

Different racial and culturally.
Sorry, that does matter.

[central_va]

With modern damage control I doubt any of our CVNs would actaully ever be sunk. The question is how fast can they be repaired?

[hopespringseternal]

It’s the same across the board for any defense related acquisition. The defense industry lobbies and outright bribes congress to keep defense procurement a convoluted mess.

The result is everything takes forever because defense contractors know that as long as they don’t deliver the cash keeps rolling in.

And the rare program that does get cancelled just means the money goes to another program.

Occasionally a program breaks the mold and delivers in a reasonable time frame, but that is a rare exception.

[kiryandil]

[ealgeone]

While we did build 53 carriers the bulk of those were escort carriers carrying around 30 or so planes. They had limited speed of around 19 knots.

IIRC we built 26 of the Essex class fleet carriers during the war.