American and Japanese Naval Designer discovered the pure power of air armada’s amassed in the skies, especially against naval targets; the Carriers at the beginning of the war, could only carry 30-50 planes… The US Essex Carrier was a devestating naval introduction, fielding a maximum of 100 planes, capable of wrecking havoc on enemy fleets. The Japanese also developed a conversion system, in which they took Battlecruisers and “flat topped” them with a flight deck, giving most of them a maximum carrying capacity of 90 planes… 3 Boxes, Americans and Japanese start with 1?
some of this is not accurate. Those hybrid jap CV/BB had a capacity of 8 float planes and like 15 divebombers… the float planes were the only ones that could be retrieved to the ship and were carrierd by crane back onto the catapult. They only had 2 of these, plus they converted another from what i believe was a seaplane carrier
The front line CV’s from japan ( the best say 10 carriers) had a capacity of 74-91 planes the second tier had a capacity of from about 55-70 planes. The light carriers had like 25-45 planes.
Japan and USA as well as UK’s carriers after 1944 all had large plane capacity. The essex class was fast as well.
I would consider the Shinano to be the best for Japan, but that was in 1944. You could consider the Akagi/ kaga to be front line super carriers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Shinano