Originally Posted by
tdracer
Much has been made over the years regarding the armored flight decks on the British carriers vs. the unarmored flight decks on the Essex class carriers. At least according to an exhibit on the Intrepid in NYC, the lack of armor was an conscious design trade off - an armored flight deck would have impacted the hangar deck area and would have sharply reduced the max number of aircraft the carrier could handle. Instead, the hangar deck was armored (to protect the guts of the ship) - accepting the potential damage risk in order to carry many more aircraft.
While a few Essex class carriers suffered horrific battle damage, I don't think any were sunk.
Oh this was separate from the armoured flight decks, it was protection of the petrol and ammunition stowage from shock and fire. I think this is the video where he goes into detail
. Of course the Essex class were a generation later than the Illustrious which were still designed to stay within the Washington and London treaty constraints so not really comparing apples with apples.