Originally Posted by
SLXOwft
Bing, I agree the trunking and machinery separation were the main reason but other advantages have been argued for. More optimal postion for both navigation and FLYCO, separation of the radars reducing mutual interference and blindspots, command and control redundancy i.e. the ship could remain operational following the loss of one island without resorting to operating from below the flightdeck. I agree this has to be set against loss of deckspace on a CVN.
To be honest I suspect all the other benefits are just post-hoc justifications once they'd decided they wanted two separate paths for the trunking. Certainly from my brief time on CVS it seems madness not to be able to step from the bridge to FLYCO and vice-versa.