Which is why the USN (overall) is significantly undergunned at the moment. Modern supercarrier fleet escort ships might do decently against Abyssals, but the actual carriers were sitting ducks.
Modern supercarriers aren't any more vulnerable to Abyssals than their WWII counterparts, except for lacking heavy AA armament to fire in direct defense of the ship- but then, they have
good escorts for that. In a carrier-to-carrier battle between the US's steel-hull fleet and Abyssals, with equal numbers of flattops on both sides, I'd bet on the US. But the numbers weren't equal, and the US at the start of the war had no good counter to Abyssal cruisers or battlecruisers.
I'd imagine that a modern USN carrier battle group would be able to hammer an Abyssal fleet about as well as one of its World War II carriers could have. But that's the key word:
one WWII carrier.
Historically, the US's heavy carrier strike fleets consisted of multiple large carriers. The First Air Fleet had six large carriers. The US at Midway had three. One carrier of that era didn't have the muscle to decisively win a battle against a heavy enemy fleet, even with every advantage. It'd get some shots in, and if its captain kept the range open it could get quite a lot of shots in. But there were limits.
And for the US starting the Abyssal War, the excessive reliance on things like radar that just plain aren't going to work very well against Abyssals would be a serious handicap. It would have taken time to realize they were playing by World War II rules, and to remember what those rules were... and time was in short supply.
Then, once surviving Abyssals made it in close (particularly at night, with the radar and other forms of detection the modern navy relies on being so badly nerfed)... The escorts would have a much harder time fending off Abyssal cruisers and destroyers that made it past the carrier's airstrikes.
I suspect that the US's early carrier losses were suffered to Abyssal cruisers, submarines, or possibly fleet carriers of their own. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they took a fair amount of tonnage with them, but... we only keep three carriers at sea in the world at any given time. That's it.
I can't remember if the USS Zumwalt has made an appearance, but a quick search doesn't seem to bring up any belbat hits. Her long range land attack projectiles would probably make even Jersey's eyes bug out. 50 meter accuracy at 100 nautical miles. I could see all the destroyer girls wanting to poke and prod at her hull and see her in action. Even the cruiser girls might want to pay her some attention, as size creep in the navy has led to Zumwalt class ships massing 14000 tons.
I'd bet on her punching like a heavily refitted Treaty cruiser. 8" gun armament, minimal to no armor for intense surface combat.
Really good antiaircraft capability.
And sure, the stealth is great, but only matters against the handful of Abyssals that even use surface-to-surface radar.
"Fish don't vote!"
Edit: That's actually the justification for the shift, per Rickover starting it with the 688 class.
To be fair, with heavy surface combatants dropping out of the line of battle, it makes sense to change things around a bit. Having the ballistic missile submarines named for states, and the attack subs named for cities, lets us continue the perfectly honorable USN tradition of naming ships for states and cities.
I do agree, though, that naming carriers for presidents is a bad practice. Especially since the policy is increasingly mutating into "every president gets a carrier," rather than focusing on presidents who somehow stand out from the crowd. It was one thing to name a carrier for Abraham Lincoln. It's another matter entirely to name one for Gerald R. Ford- and heck, I kind of
like Ford.
At this rate it's only a matter of time before they name a carrier after Richard Nixon or something.
