`Nimitz-class carrier weight creep`

250 tons/year weight gain across the class from the early 1960s through 2000, used to motivate the structural lightweighting program.

In any case, in the early eighties the Navy was trying to do waffle-membrane construction of the superstructures. They've got to be light, so they were using high-strength sheet-metal steel and making something that looked like a cross-section of corrugated cardboard in steel, to replace the lightweight aluminum structures. It's a serious problem for ships in general. Does anyone know what an aircraft carrier gains per year in weight? 250 tons a year. If you plot the Nimitz-class carriers from the early sixties all the way up through 2000 or so, they gained 250 tons a year. And most of it's up top.