Design Doom: How This Imperial Japanese Aircraft Carrier Sunk So Easily
Yet by 1942, Japan began to realize that it needed aircraft carriers more than battleships. Naval warfare was now ruled by these floating airfields, and Japan had lost its four best at the Battle of Midway. The orders came down to convert Shinano into an aircraft carrier such as the world had never seen. At 69,000 tons, it was the double the tonnage of the Essex-class carriers that won the Pacific War for America, and would remain the largest until the advent of nuclear-powered carriers in the early 1960s. Its main deck, already sheathed in armor up to 7.5 inches thick, became the hangar dec...
Source: nationalinterest.org