August 17, 2019
Nuclear Weapons on Aircraft Carriers? Why the U.S. Navy Said "No Way"
Nuclear reactors in the engine room, nuclear weapons on deck?
by Sebastien Roblin
It turned out that plenty of wars were liable to be fought without resorting to weapons of mass destruction.​
In the wake of the mushroom clouds that blossomed over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it swiftly dawned on political and military leaders across the globe that warfare between superpowers would never again be the same. But what exactly were the implications of nuclear weapons when it came to planning military force structure?
In the United States, it was assumed that nuclear weapons would be widely employed in future conflicts, rendering conventional land armies and fleets at sea irrelevant. The newly formed Air Force particularly argued that carrier task forces and armored divisions were practically obsolete when (ostensibly) just a few air-dropped nuclear bombs could annihilate them in one fell swoop.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/nuclear-weapons-aircraft-carriers-why-us-navy-said-no-way-73866
