Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdcad!amdcad!military From: marco@email.ncsc.navy.mil (Barbarisi) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Why the C in CV... Message-ID: <1991May24.030148.8661@amd.com> Date: 23 May 91 23:13:06 GMT Sender: military@amd.com Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Lines: 23 Approved: military@amd.com From: Barbarisi I am not sure whether or not this has been pointed out, but the "C" in US aircraft carrier designations (CV, CVA, CVN, etc...) comes from the fact that early production carriers were converted battlecruisers. Namely, the original Yorktown and Lexington were designed to be battlecruisers. Under that famous treaty signed in the 1920's (Washington Treaty? Burlington Treaty?), the signatory powers agreed to limit the number of large gun-toting warships in their arsenals. At the time, the Lexington and the Yorktwon were partially completed; presumably the plan was to designate them CB or CH or something. Due to the treaty, they could not be completed as battlecruisers. Due to a (glaring in hindsight) loophole in the treaty, they could be built as aircraft carriers and so they were finished as such. Thus their designation was changed to CV - Cruiser, aViation (the logical choice - CA - was already in use, but as every one knows, there is logic, illogic, and then there is US Navy logic :-). Marco Barbarisi marco@email.ncsc.navy.mil