There is a case for light carriers. There is not a case for building light carriers.
It is unlikely the United States will afford a force of 11 or more large aircraft carriers. Even if the Gerald R. Ford’s final cost does not exceed $15 billion, the follow-on CVNs will cost some $12 billion per ship. Four or five LHA/LHDs could be constructed for that amount.
That might be a good idea. Stealth planes and precision weapons make a smaller air wing with a lower sortie rate more significant. I've certainly addressed the question a number of times.
But would Congress really spend the same amount of money for 4 or 5 times as many light carriers? Or to save money would Congress say make do with twice as many smaller hulls?
And how many more escorts would be tied down protecting the more but smaller carriers? Won't that again concentrate too many resources defending still-expensive carriers rather than organizing surface action groups to go after the enemy directly? Won't that additional expense reduce the ratio of light to super carriers that could be built for the same resources?
I think light carriers make sense. But I think that building light carriers from the hull up makes no sense compared to the efficiency of big carriers:
I recently read that the Navy had studied medium carriers with 55 planes versus large carriers with 75 planes and found that the large ships and wings generated twice the sorties at a ship and plane cost only 13% more than the medium ships.
And interesting enough, even a wing of 55 planes on the large carrier generated 40% more sorties than the same wing on a medium carrier.
Light carriers make sense as a secondary use for amphibious warfare ships built for moving Marines. That is, two uses for one hull that is already built.
I seriously doubt we can have the same aviation capabilities with reduced vulnerability for the same price by building light carriers. But it might not make sense to build huge carriers in a sea control world.
