Most were small Escort Carriers
Dreams versus reality and practicality! There are many that think it was a mistake for Germany to build its ‘Pocket Battleships’ like the Bismark and her sisters. If the same resources had been put into the U-Boat fleet, Britain might have been starved into submission.
Ditto, and even worse, with the IJN supers, the Yamato-class Battleships. Japan’s chronic metal shortage became a cause of war when FDR embargoed scrap-metal and other resource purchases in the late 1930s. If, instead, the IJN had gone to added carriers and smaller ‘gun’ ships AND an aggressive sub force of their own, they would have gotten a better force. We, of the Allied Nations, should be happy that autocrats can see such ‘shiny objects’ as these being so attractive!
Of course, our own USN was very divided over Battleship vs Carrier in the pre-war era. The fact that Pearl Harbor left the Carriers to be the strong arm in the vast Pacific for those early years, made the transition to the predominant air-power an easier move than if that rivalry stayed hot!
Most were small Escort Carriers