Talk:Essex-class aircraft carrier

Deepity Alert
"In fact, to the skilled observer, no two ships of the class looked exactly the same."

Which is surprising why? Take the Nimitz Class... even those that are generally built to the same specification (which have changed at least twice, creating "subclasses") will have differences like the bow numbers on the flight deck, different awards shown on the sides of the superstructure and so on... it does not take much to not look "exactly" the same. One visual cue would be enough and with the painting habits of the Navy those are usually fast to come by even on "clone" like sibling ships. I'd suggest a rewording to something like "a skilled observer can identify the ships through these differences in design and equipment" which makes a lot more sense.--62.143.205.13 (talk) 00:59, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Flight Deck Length
In the infobox under "General characteristics (all stats as built)" where length is listed, the following is given: 862 ft (262.7 m) (short-bow) flight deck; 844 ft (257.3 m) (long-bow) flight deck So my question is, how does extending the length of the ship decrease the length of the flight deck or Was this simply typed in the incorrect order? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:98a:4202:2ff0:8982:9790:4c96:f4ef  (talk) 02:12, 12 July 2021 (UTC)


 * The long bow ships had an extra 40mm mount on the forecastle deck. To improve the firing arc, the flight deck was cut back, hence the 844ft on a long bow ship. This proved unsatisfactory for air operations and the flight deck in the long bow ships were restored at various times to 862ft. Norman Friedman. DML UK (talk) 13:29, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Ordered Feb 1940?
Is there any proof for that? In Feb 1940 the unused carrier tonnage authorized by congress was only 20,000t. so it would have been illegal to built an essex class carrier.

according to https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/research-guides/shipbuilding-contracts/index-to-vol-23.html the contract was awarded no earlier than July — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.181.83.240 (talk) 00:29, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The orders for the first 4 Essex class (CV-9, CV-10, CV-11, CV-12) were made on 3 July 1940. Originally, The Essex Class was based on a single hull planned in 1939 for FY 41. With the Two Ocean Navy Act of 14 June 1940, a large expansion in the Navy authorised 3 more units. Norman Freidman DML UK (talk) 13:34, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Namesake column in Ship list
In addition to list the preceeding ship of the same name- can we list the namesake of the first ship with the name. Wfoj3 (talk) 00:23, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Why no section on World War II service?
It's nice to know that Essex-class carriers recovered spacecraft during the 1960s; the article does not explain why Yorktown-class carriers could not have done this, the most glorious role of Essex-class carriers, according to the article as presently written. Very disappointing to someone who makes a quick visit from reading or watching a video on WWII, and wants to know the basics. In particular, USN took very little offensive action for 13 months from 1942.10 to 1943.11. Does this relate to the availability of Essex-class carriers? At the end of the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (1942.10), with the sinking of Hornet, the US Navy no longer had any operational aircraft carriers in the Pacific (Saratoga & Enterprise needed repairs, the others were all on the bottom). When USN recommenced offensive action in 1943.11 at the Battle of Tarawa and the Battle of Makin, only escort carriers were deployed (5 and 3, respectively). Apparently, Essex-class carriers first saw action during Operation Hailstone (1944.02.17-18). The articles on simultaneous Battle of Kwajalein and Battle of Eniwetok are nonspecific about carriers. How many Essex-class carriers participated in the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot? Did they enable it? Was there a good marriage of Hellcats and Essex-class? A section on WWII service, covering most of these topics, would be fascinating. Maybe even steal the show from Essex-class awesome technical ability to use a crane to recover capsules from the waves. Or did they use something else? The article does not say--it's only about the glory, not the how-to-do. Vagabond nanoda (talk) 02:28, 5 October 2023 (UTC)