[StarSlayer]

Point still stands.  Why isn't the U.S. building lots of smaller carriers instead of the ones we build now?

Steam (from nuclear power) catapults

[Colonol Dekker]

If you make something smaller, you limit it's self sufficiency and the operational range not to mention the amount of power it can project.
 
Also if you divide a vessel by three you triple the amount of admin staff needed, logistical resupply runs needed. And command staff turnover.
 
I suppose they're both right choices. But they're both compromises as well. 

[SpardaSon21]

U.S. carriers have just gotten bigger and bigger since they were introduced.  From Wikipedia, it says the Gerald R. Ford is 112,000 short tons (100,000 long tons or 224,000,000 pounds) and is 1,092 feet long.  The Essex-class of carriers used in WWII were only 872 feet long and 27,200 long tons (27,600 short tons).

[General Battuta]

Yeah but the aircraft flying off of them have gotten much larger and heavier.

Same with the stuff they're carrying.

I completely fail to see how this is relevant to any point being made, though.

[StarSlayer]

I probably should cut in right now and say so far as available Diaspora non canon designs the Pacifica types which will be the largest class deployed in the First Cylon War will probably be about the same tonnage as a Mercury.  The Taurus class, which will be part of the same program that built the Mercury class battlestars and Thanatos dreadstars will at most be a quarter to third again as large as a Merc, and the majority of that tonnage will be taken up by heavier armor, essentially just a beefed up Merc.  Both of these classes are limitedly deployed flagships numbering in the low single digits. 

If you wish to continue arguing the plausibility of four plus kilometer Gigantistars power to ya; but this store won't be selling any.

[newman]

U.S. carriers have just gotten bigger and bigger since they were introduced.  From Wikipedia, it says the Gerald R. Ford is 112,000 short tons (100,000 long tons or 224,000,000 pounds) and is 1,092 feet long.  The Essex-class of carriers used in WWII were only 872 feet long and 27,200 long tons (27,600 short tons).

We're hardly talking about the same thing here, the analogy doesn't work so well - a 300m long carrier can't really be compared to a ship "4 times the size of a mercury class" - as the mercury class is iirc almost 2 km long. See, a Nimitz class carrier is 332.8 m long. The upcoming Gerald Ford class will be almost the same length, sources on the net say 333 m so that's pretty much that. The old Yorktown class carriers were some 250m long. Keep in mind that the ww2 carrier classes like the Lexington, Yorktown and Essex had to operate with much smaller aircraft. An F-4U Corsair was about 10m long - roughly the size of a Viper. Planes like the recently retired f-14 or the f/a-18 super hornet are nearly double the length of a corsair. They also move somewhat faster which is a factor when you're landing
So, does the US have the technology and resources to build much larger carriers? Sure. Can they build a 500m long one? Hell yes, they had 250m long ones before ww2 began.. So why don't they?
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying large ships aren't useful. But at some point going bigger stops making sense - and battlestars 4 times the size of a Mercury class would have crossed that line a long time ago.
Extremely large miles long starships can be pretty cool in a fitting sci-fi. Heck I'm sure we all love the Executor from SW.. but BSG is a different type of sci-fi, needs less fairytale in it

[SpardaSon21]

I wasn't arguing at all for anything larger than 2km in length, especially anything "4 times the size of a Mercury", I was primarily trying to say that a 2km long ship can carry more and do more than a 500m ship.

[newman]

That was never in question The whole debate was spawned when somebody wanted a battlestar that was 4 times the size of a mercury class. Again, I never meant that large ships are useless - only that there is such a thing as a ridiculously shaped ship that stops making sense after reaching a certain size. I can live with mercury class or star destroyer sized vessels just fine..

[Colonol Dekker]

Before I even see it or hear more details, the Taurus is my new favourite as, i'm a Taurus

[FraktuRe]

I'd say the lower crew capacity of a Battlestar compared to our ships is that despite the huge size of the ship, very little of it is used by/for crew. The ship has HUGEEEEEEEE storage for water/fuel, the engines take up a third or so of the ship. The ships themselves probably require a smaller crew because the humans have been building starships for some centuries, if not millennia. I'd say they're pretty damn good at it. Case in point: No ship in the show ever lost it's gravity, no matter how much damage she took.

[Snagger]

As Newman said, the USN carriers only grew because the size of the aircraft aboard them grew.  they are still made as small as possible to do the job.  Compare them with the RN or USMC carriers, and you'll see the point - those carriers are much smaller, and as a consequence can only carry a small compliment of VSTOL aircraft, which have limited capabilities because of the VSTOL requirements.

Making ships larger than they need to be is folly, not just because of the expense and difficulty in manufacture, and not just because you are reducing the tactical and strategic flexibility of the number oof crew, smaller embarked craft and armaments fitted by not being able to split the unit, but they become impossible to manouever - the linear speeds involved in a rotational movement become enormous, and the ships an crew simply would not cope with it.  Look at how the Galactica manouevers on exiting the Ragnar storm to present its armed side to the Basestars; it's just not concievable that a 1-mile ship weighing millions of tons could pitch, yaw or roll that fast without breaking up.  Now imagine a much bigger ship - it'd be a sitting duck.

[Colonol Dekker]

Oil tankers have to start applying the brakes days in advance.
 
True story.