Battleships/Carriers

[shiznit]

Why has the Royal Navy never built any of these on the same scale as the American, Japanese and German Navy's?

[Scylax]

The Royal Navy certainly had many battleships of
formidable size which since Tudor times dominated
the 7 seas. Their number and size ensured that
'Britain ruled the waves' for centuries. Germany tried to emulate Britain's firepower at sea but never quite made
the grade.

Eventually, battleships became outdated . The worlds
largest battleship, the Japanese 'Yamato' was sunk by
aircraft, and air power became the order of the day.

Today the RN still has fleet and escort carriers, but the
USN has the largest nulear-powered carriers, and the
UK does not compete. Why should we ?

[gollysailor]

The battleship Vanguard and the aircraft carrier Ark Royal represented the largest of their types which could safely navigate to/from our Naval Dockyards. Size matters!!!

[Mr Chipps]

Money for one reason, but why do we need any ships of that size? We've hardly got the aircraft to fill it and we are a lot nearer to the recognised theatres of conflict than the Yanks are.
The new D class carriers will be about a quarter the size of USS Nimitz I believe and they will be huge compared to the Ark Royal. Plenty for our needs.