A while back when I thought I might have the time and energy to develop a campaign, I was intending on basing it around the development of a smaller, faster GTVA fleet.
Shrike is absolutely right that SMALL carriers don't work. One or two fighter wings aren't worth supporting anywhere. Four is probably the absolute minimum, and six is better. In terms of effeciency, larger carriers do give you the most fighter power for a given size ship. However, this isn't nessecarily an effecient warship. The Hecate is a perfect example. Its great at bringing lots of fighters to a battlefield, but thats all it can do. It's also very ineffecient if you don't NEED that many fighters. The English and Russian carriers are good examples of a more modest philosophy. The Russian ship especially is considerably smaller than the Nimitz, carries about 1/4th of its crew complement, but unlike the Nimitz has its own very capable air defense and anti-ship systems. Like the Hecate, the Nimitz absolutely depends on a fleet of support vessels to defend it, since it can't really defend itself. The Kiev, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of operating all by itself, and works very well indeed with a small support fleet of 2-5 frigates and destroyers. A Nimitz, by comparison, never goes anywhere without at least a couple dozen attendant air-defense cruisers, anti-submarine frigates, and assorted escorts. A Nimitz/Hecate is great if you know that any battle you get into is going to be a big one. The modern Navy is beginning to face the problem that a Nimitz battlegroup is way more than most situations require, and a much larger commitment of resources than is nessecary most of the time.
The GTVA is facing a similar problem in a post-Capella environment. The battles against the shivans, especially the utter failure of the Colossus, demonstrate that size and firepower aren't the answer. The ships that performed most effectively, like the Aeolus, Deimos, and Orion, were ships that had a good mix of offensive and defensive firepower, and could get where they needed to be quickly. Even in FS2 fleet battles, you get a lot more advantage from being in the right place (ie: behind the Sathanas) than you do from being huge and tough.
After Capella, the primary concern is no longer pitched fleet battles against huge shivan forces, but becomes focused around exploration and patrol of GTVA space. The current GTVA fleet structure is designed well for large battles, but an Orion is a bit unwieldy for dealing with pirate incursions or trying to track down shivan remnants. The GTVA has also lost a pretty significant part of its fleet, so they're going to be needing new carriers anyway. The Hecates are much like a Nimitz. They're the hot stuff for carrying lots of fighters, but they need a lot of escorts. The Orions are more independant, but very old.
The ideal solution, IMHO, is something much like we've been discussing. A ship somewhat larger than the Deimos, in the 1-1.3km range, with a good turn of speed, excellent fighter defenses, and six wings of fighters or so (2 Perseus, 2 Herc II, 2 Artemis, for example). LRB Green, if anything, for anti-cap work. Stay at a distance and let your fighters and escorts do the work. One of these carriers, a Deimos or two, and a couple of Aeolus cruisers would be a very formidible task force, capable of dealing with threats up to single destroyers, without requiring the kind of manpower or material commitment that an Orion or especially a Hecate would.
