I can obviously tell why you’d want a dedicated aircraft from a not, but trying to wrap my head around why you’d for example in the royal navy (UK) frigates are slightly specialised for anti submarine warfare whilst destroyers are slightly specialised for anti air warfare, why not have a single dedicated escort?.
And to mention historically, why would you have smaller ships alongside battleships (for example destroyers and torpedo boats in the battle of Jutland) when the battleships have a dedicated armament to combat destroyers?
Sorry if this seems stupid, I’m just doing my best to understand 🙂
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Smaller ships need less stuff. Can work closer to the shore. But are worse in storms and probably dont have the supplies to stay out to sea as long.
In modern fleets smaller ships are meant to protect the larger ones. The carrier is the cornerstone of American naval fleets and each carrier is supposed to be escorted by multiple smaller ships to protect it. More ships means more anti aircraft radar and missiles missile interception abilities and more sonar to try and detect submarines.
For the most part that was how world war 2 navy was as well. You had destroyers far away from the carriers to act as spotters and early warning to the enemy being close.
As you got closer to the carrier more ships were there to defend it.
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