To the people arguing that we won't have enough:
We're working towards what you might refer to as a FLEET CARRIER design. The US and Japanese Imperial Navies deployed HANDFULS of these in WWII. Two of the three biggest navies on the planet, and they deployed handfuls apiece. We don't need this carrier to be anything other than Very Expensive, if even. Even a National Effort fleet carrier would be extremely useful. Because it could launch every plane we have.
To the people arguing that big guns are better:
The Cannalans have every advantage over us. If we make a 12-inch (300mm) gunned copy of the
Dreadnought they'll just make a 13.5 inch gunned copy of the
Orion class and we'll be behind again. We can't overtake their big-guns-big-ships combat capabilities in a useful amount of time.
To the singular person who suggested battlecarriers:
You think it's a good idea to put what is, essentially, a floating high-explosives storage bunker within gun range of hostile warships? Think about it for TWO SECONDS!!! An aircraft carrier tasked for antiship warfare is loaded with high explosives on the hangar deck! There are torpedoes, planes, aviation fuel, bombs, heaven forbid rockets, AND NOW YOU WANT TO ADD LARGE-CALIBER SHELLS TO THE MIX!!!! You are ASKING, no, BEGGING for a completely average hit (Not even a lucky hit) to light the hangar deck on fire, detonate the munitions, detonate the large-caliber shells and propellant, and we'll be losing the dumb things left and right.
To those who think we need escorts: Not really, in fact. We don't need anything other than a better destroyer, which can be addressed once we are certain in our ability to hold the Cannalan's main naval forces back. Once we can appropriately scramble aircraft from this carrier, we de-complex jet engines. Next turn, if we hammer out our radar in the design and revise a radio into a jammer, we could cripple the Cannalans for a turn.
(6) UFS-CV-40 'Tiger Star', Pattern A: evictedSaint, Andrea, Piratejoe, Powder Miner, GUNINANRUNIN, Madman198237
(0) UFS-CV-40 'Tiger Star', Pattern K: CatamaranCat
(6) B3 'Compensator' 300mm Coastal Gun/Naval Cannon: Kashyyk, khan boyzitbig, Taricus, strongpoint, Nav, 10ebbor10
(4) UFS-CV-40 Zheleznogorod B: Kot, Mulisa, Azzuro, NUKE9.13
(1) UFS-CC-40 Pattern F "Cavalier": Baffler