It’s a common misconcepion that the two-crewed ballistic missile submarines only have to switch crews and load up on food and other consumables before heading back out to sea.

The month long refit and turnover between patrols is fairly intensive. When I got out, both crews would work around the clock 7 days a week during that time. It was easily an 80 to 100 hour work week for everyone involved. The escape trunks usually get pulled out making 20 foot gaping holes in the hull.

All sorts of equipment gets unbolted/cut out and replaced. Painting and corrosion prevention is a never-ending task. The stuff growing on the outside of the hull has to be scraped off periodically as well. Too much to list goes on in that short period.

Aircraft carriers are not really suited to serve as submarine tenders either. As Terry Bryant pointed out, they are pretty well maxed out with equipment to take care of the aircraft and other ship’s systems. They really don’t have room to add the equipment necessary to even do a 90 day stores (food) load-out for a submarine bobbing out in the middle of the ocean.

I would venture to say that if a US submarine were to become disabled on the surface in the middle of the ocean, the only assistance a carrier would provide, would be security and enemy surveillance while smaller ships tended to rescuing the crippled submarine.