The Wat Makut was to have been a two ship class, but the second ship was cancelled. The Khmer Navy just could not afford to pay for it. The two Loethai class were under construction and received priority. Aircraft carriers were still an unknown quantity in war. The Commonwealth forces showed just how good aircraft carriers could be with the attack on Taranto Harbour in 1940. Suddenly the battleship did not look so good. Six months later the Bismarck was crippled by air launched torpedoes, then eventually finished off with torpedoes from a cruiser. I do have 20/20 hindsight, but I like to play nice too. A lot of my fictional Empires I make very rich so I can build whatever I can dream up. With Khmer the country is not wealthy and the Navy has to fight for every cent it gets.
The Wat Makut had its design based on the previous Hierax class and the modern Commonwealth aircraft carriers. Even though it was slightly shorter than the Hierax the internal layout was better and aircraft complement increased slightly. The only change to the standard armament was the replacement of the 25mm/1920 model cannons with the 25mm/1938 model based on the Oerlikon cannon. The aircraft aboard, from completion, were the L298 and D520. They were split into 3 x L298 attack squadrons (usually split two bomber, and one divebomber), 2 x D520 escort the bomber squadrons. The last 16 aircraft were split with 10 x D520 as part of the Fleet CAP aircraft and the other 6 L298 as ASW aircraft and recon aircraft.
WW2 - yet to be determined.
