Sylvester said:
I never said this was a light/escort carrier. Its a strike carrier, meant to go deep into enemy territory and hold down a prescense. Its small compared to the carriers of its era, less than half the length of Midway. The Cerberus had a good concept but really doesn't have enough fighters to combat a large threat.
And there was the TCS Eagle's escort carrier class, which dates from the end of the Kilrathi War and has room, if it has the same fighter capacity as either a Ranger-class or a Tarawa-style escort carrier, for between 40-50 fighters. From what I recall, even the jury-rigged Tarawa could do 247 kps, which makes her just about perfect for the 'strike' role, especially if you could have paired her with Plunkett-class cruisers and Murphy-class destroyers which would match her maximum speed. The main justification for the 'strike carrier' class seems to have been the theoretical ability to fight an action by itself without any escorts. Unfortunately, in the post-Kilrathi War world where plasma cannons now exist - especially during or after the Nephilim incursions where it was shown that enemy bombers could, without even using torpedoes, take out Confederation ships with ease (Red Manta, Skate-T, Devil Ray) - this is no longer a feasable concept, if it ever was. You're better off spending the money on a light carrier or two, as otherwise you've got a fleet carrier with a few more guns and a lot more resources invested in it... all of which can be lost by a few strikes to the bridge and engines.
Remember that the Midway was designed to be a 'floating starbase' - the nucleus of a task force in wartime, easier to defend and maintain than the equivalent number of ships. That defined mission helped define the requirements for it size, which is substantial. What you've described above is a fleet carrier, more of an update for the Concordia-class, with some of the ideas mixed in from the Bengal-class, than anything. The reason Confed moved away from these ships is because it's a lot more expensive to maintain a large carrier force of many fleet carriers, each with its own wing of fighters, than it is to send out several large megacarriers or supercarriers that all have three or four wings of fighters. Fewer capships to defend, fewer to maintain, but possessing equal strength in terms of their fighter wings to the pre-War fleet if not improving on it.
The Quick-Strike Cruisers of the Hades-class ships are an attempt to put in small, fast ships with enough fighter capability to carry out hit and run missions behind enemy lines, from what I see. Any surviving or new light or escort carriers would have similar mission profiles, on top of patrolling frontier sectors, as they're small enough to not be a horrific loss should one ship go down but large enough to be a credible threat to an enemy.
Therefore, I must ask this - what role do you have for the strike carrier in this reduced, post-War world? A Hades-class can be really fast for the small raids, a light or escort carrier group with one or two of the light or escort carriers and a few destroyers or cruisers could make for near-equivalent fighter strength and greater speed in raids or strike missions along with greater flexibility. For heavy strike missions, you've got the Vesuvius-class in the wings, or maybe a Midway-class ship's task force ready for fleet engagements. Also, in this world, a single carrier on a raiding mission by itself - the reason for the strike carrier - would easily get destroyed since the guns and torpedoes are far more lethal now than they were during the period the Bengals were designed and brought into play... and even then, they've apparently lost most of the Bengals by the End Run period, much less Fleet Action.