aircraft carriers and wooden decks
Branek
had steel decked carriers while the IJN and USN went w/wooden decks.
I'm guessing the reason for the wooden decks was to reduce weight above
the waterline? Were the wooden decks varnished or were they painted? Did
they have some sort of non-stick coating applied? Were wooden decks easier
to repair if damaged? What exactly were the reasons for the wooden decks?
What kind of wood did they use for the decks?
Why are wooden decked aircraft carriers completely out of favor now? Are
aircraft too heavy and landing speeds too fast for wood decks? Are wood
decked carriers more maintenance intensive?
Lloyd Olson
news:_vulj.354$R84...@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
believe WW2 era ships had air conditioning, so the large flat surface of an
air craft carrier would absorb a lot of heat below the flight deck and if
made of metal would probably be unbearable.
David Thornley
Branek <barron...@nospamsbcglobal.net> wrote:
>I've been reading Ballantines Aircraft Carriers book and noticed that the UK
>had steel decked carriers while the IJN and USN went w/wooden decks.
>
>I'm guessing the reason for the wooden decks was to reduce weight above
>the waterline?
Probably not; the decks were steel under the wood.
Were the wooden decks varnished or were they painted?
US decks were treated with a stain similar to Deck Blue paint.
Did
>they have some sort of non-stick coating applied? Were wooden decks easier
>to repair if damaged? What exactly were the reasons for the wooden decks?
Aircraft operations. The US and Japanese thought aircraft would
operate better on wooden decks, and steel would be unsatisfactory.
The first US steel flight deck was on one of the training "carriers"
in the Great Lakes. (Actually, they were ships with flight decks,
and had no facilities for handling aircraft. They were used
to practice carrier landings and take-offs.)
>Why are wooden decked aircraft carriers completely out of favor now?
They turned out not to be necessary. If aircraft work well on steel,
why have the wood?
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Rich Rostrom
>I've been reading Ballantines Aircraft Carriers book and noticed that the UK
>had steel decked carriers while the IJN and USN went w/wooden decks.
>
>I'm guessing the reason for the wooden decks was to reduce weight above
>the waterline?
It reduced the center of gravity, and it
simplified construction.
The British did not adopt steel flight
decks until the ILLUSTRIOUS class, in
which the flight deck was also the armored
deck. The British made this change because
they thought their carriers would have to
operate in near-coast waters, under heavy
land based air attack, and thus would need
to be resistant to damage.
--
| Decapitation is, in most instances, associated |
| with a decline in IQ. |
| |
| -- Professor Raymond Tallis |
R Leonard
Not teak, Douglas Fir from the Great Pacific North West. Teak comes
from places, before the war, a long ways away and impractical to ship
much less store in the quantities needed. Once the war started for
the US in Dec 1941, those same areas were under the control of the
Japanese, making teak a little hard for anyone to get. Think of 13 or
14 Essex class CVs that saw action, the 9 Independence class CVLs, and
about 110 CVEs (RN and USN), not to mention pre-war Ranger, 2
Lexington class, 3 Yorktown class, and Wasp, all with wood flight
decks and the Japanese controlling teak producing areas of the world.
Douglas Fir has the right amount of "give" for landing aircraft and a
low splinter in the event of damage.
>I don't believe WW2 era ships had air conditioning,
Nope, US CVs and CVLs had air conditioning, Ranger did, Yorktown class
did, Wasp did, Essex class did, Independence class, too, and, I am
fairly certain, so did Lexington class. Not so sure about CVEs,
without looking it up, but I would not be surprised to find the were
as well, at least some of them like Sangamon class and, maybe,
Casablanca class.
>so the large flat surface of an air craft carrier would absorb a lot of
>heat below the flight deck and if made of metal would probably be
>unbearable.
There was thin steel below the wood flight deck. Below that was the
hangar deck, which on US carriers was the main deck and the armored
deck and semi-open to the elements with roll up doors that were rarely
closed except for heavy seas. This allowed air to freely circulate
and while in the tropics certainly warm, but not unbearble,
considering air conditioned spaces were available. Open air hangar
decks permitted US carriers to do what the Japanese and the British
could not, warm up engines on the hangar deck and bring the planes up
to the flight deck ready for launch. Shaved a lot of time off
operations cycles.
Rich
Blackadder XVII
The USN (General Board) in the 1920s were toying with the idea of having
steel for the decks. But they were under restrictions due to the Washington
and London Naval Treaties which limited the size of the carriers (33,000tons
maximum size) as well as the numbers (by national tonnage limits).
The problem with having a steel deck was that it increased the weight of the
carrier (thus causing friction with the naval treaties) as well as limiting
the number of planes the carrier could carry.
See the differences between the Zuikaku and the Taiho - both similar
displacments - but the latter, an older carrier, not having an armored deck
could carry more planes.
So owing to the political restrictions at the time, not to mention the
expense, the need for a powerful engine etc.. , the USN believed it was just
too impractical.
Michael Emrys
R Leonard at rlspa...@verizon.net wrote on 1/22/08 10:16 PM:
> ...roll up doors that were rarely closed except for heavy seas.
And at night, I presume.
Michael
R Leonard
Yes, Michael, of course. Pretty dumb of me not to consider darkening
ship. Thanks for catching it.
Rich
Capt John
> R Leonard at rlspams...@verizon.net wrote on 1/22/08 10:16 PM:
>
> > ...roll up doors that were rarely closed except for heavy seas.
>
> And at night, I presume.
>
> Michael
I have an old friend who's father was on a carrier in WWII. Many years
ago we had asked him why they used wood, his response was for
repairability. If they had an accident, or crash, they just pulled up
the damaged or burnt wood and replaced it, apparently, with enough
men, something they had plenty of, they could replace large areas
quickly. He said the problem with steel plates (his dad was a retired
NYC fireman) was during fires. If steel plates got hot enough from a
fire, and you hit them with water to put the fire out, they would
warp, and that would require a lot of effort to repair. On modern
carriers, with jet powered aircraft, the hot engine exhaust gasses
would be too much for wood to handle. Just imagine a Harrier taking
off or landing vertically on a wood deck, the whole deck, and plane,
would go up in flames.
Nigel
wrote:
>
>I have an old friend who's father was on a carrier in WWII. Many years
>ago we had asked him why they used wood, his response was for
>repairability. If they had an accident, or crash, they just pulled up
>the damaged or burnt wood and replaced it, apparently, with enough
>men, something they had plenty of, they could replace large areas
>quickly.
However if the damge penetrated through the flight deck then the
consequences to the hanger space underneath would be severe and then
it was a dockyard job for repairs. Witness the frequency of time
spent in dock by USN carriers after kamikaze hits. RN carriers took
less damage from comparable hits and could resume operations sooner.
My grandfather was a shipwright on HMS Illustrious and his main
recollection of repairs in the Far East war was mixing concrete to
flatten out dents in the flight deck.
>He said the problem with steel plates (his dad was a retired
>NYC fireman) was during fires. If steel plates got hot enough from a
>fire, and you hit them with water to put the fire out, they would
>warp, and that would require a lot of effort to repair.
Agreed, grandfather had pictures of the Lusty's deck after it returned
from the Pacific and not only was it badly warped but the forces
passed from the deck to the entire hull. When it finally went for
repairs boy did it need them!
Nigel
replace SPAMHATER with n and t*sc*li with totalise
doug...@aol.com
> "Branek" <barronbra...@nospamsbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:_vulj.354>
>
>From the excellent article at http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm:
"US designers treated the entire flight deck, hangar deck and island
assemblies as superstructure. The strength deck was the hangar deck
and this is where they put the armor. The plusses of this
configuration are that it carries the heavy weight of armor low,
making stability problems less dreadful, permits a very light deck
structure that's easy to repair and allows a long flight deck that
makes operating aircraft easy. That light structure also initiates
bombs, hopefully ensuring that damage is confined above the armor
deck. The big negative is that it means the hangar deck is
essentially unprotected.
British design practice with the Illustrious and Implacable classes
was to armor the flight deck, making the flight deck the strength
deck. The plusses here are that if the armor holds, bombs can be kept
out of the ship completely. The negatives are that the size of lifts
is restricted, stability problems are hellish and the airgroup
capacity is comparatively small.
The US went the way it did because they had plenty of aircraft, used
deck parks and envisaged launching mass strikes. They were able to
base carrier defense on having fighters. The British were hobbled by
the RAF that allocated few resources to the FAA, so the carriers had
few and obsolete fighters. They had to build their carriers to take
damage.
In fact, the British designs failed. Off Okinawa, the resistance of
the British carriers seemed impressive but in reality the damage they
took was severe. Having the hangar inside the hull girder made the
hull structure weak and the ships were deformed by comparatively minor
damage. Note how quickly nearly all the armored carriers were
scrapped postwar - surveys showed they had irreparable hull damage.
In contrast, the Essex's, which suffered much more severe damage,
lasted for decades."
Branek
news:4796d0cd$0$17825$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
I wonder how much tonnage they saved w/the wood decks? I suppose the
framework supporting the wood deck could be made less massive and heavy
as well right?
It would be interesting to read more about how the wooden decks were
constructed.
nik Simpson
>
>
> In fact, the British designs failed. Off Okinawa, the resistance of
> the British carriers seemed impressive but in reality the damage they
> took was severe. Having the hangar inside the hull girder made the
> hull structure weak and the ships were deformed by comparatively minor
> damage. Note how quickly nearly all the armored carriers were
> scrapped postwar - surveys showed they had irreparable hull damage.
> In contrast, the Essex's, which suffered much more severe damage,
> lasted for decades."
>
Illustrious after the war was not entirely down to damage from Kamikaze
attacks. For Illustrious it was cumulative damage from a very busy
career where she took damage on several occasions that would probably
have sunk an Essex. For the Implacable class, some of it was damage
(particularly in the case of Implacable) but also down to the
arrangement of hangars inside the armored box which substantially
reduced the air complement with later generations of large jet powered
aircraft that couldn't fit in the hangars. Then of course, there was the
fact that the UK was largely broke at the end of WW2 and operating the
new Ark Royal and Eagle along with light fleets and the rebuilt
Victorious made keeping the Implacable around just to expensive to justify.
--
Nik Simpson
.
L2007
news:0u4fp3d6m82bt9mfp...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:05:02 -0500, Capt John <jsca...@parker.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>I have an old friend who's father was on a carrier in WWII. Many years
>>ago we had asked him why they used wood, his response was for
>>repairability. If they had an accident, or crash, they just pulled up
>>the damaged or burnt wood and replaced it, apparently, with enough
>>men, something they had plenty of, they could replace large areas
>>quickly.
>
> However if the damge penetrated through the flight deck then the
> consequences to the hanger space underneath would be severe and then
> it was a dockyard job for repairs. Witness the frequency of time
> spent in dock by USN carriers after kamikaze hits. RN carriers took
> less damage from comparable hits and could resume operations sooner.
> My grandfather was a shipwright on HMS Illustrious and his main
> recollection of repairs in the Far East war was mixing concrete to
> flatten out dents in the flight deck.
A USN liaison officer on HMS Formidable off Okinawa was reported as saying
"When a kamikaze hits a US carrier, it's six months repair in Pearl. In a
Limey carrier, it's 'sweepers, man your brooms'.
Cubdriver
see that the floor is in fact a wooden carrier deck.
Blue skies! -- Dan Ford
Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942
new from HarperCollins www.FlyingTigersBook.com
George
What compartments of Essex Class were air conditioned? Enlisted crew
quarters were not. On Yorktown CV-10, the only air conditioning we had
in the sleeping quarters was a fan that was carried down from the radar
workshop every night and hung from a bunk chain.
L2007
news:b11cf326-7d4a-4ba4...@i29g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> The US went the way it did because they had plenty of aircraft, used
> deck parks and envisaged launching mass strikes. They were able to
> base carrier defense on having fighters. The British were hobbled by
> the RAF that allocated few resources to the FAA, so the carriers had
> few and obsolete fighters. They had to build their carriers to take
> damage.
>
> In fact, the British designs failed. Off Okinawa, the resistance of
> the British carriers seemed impressive but in reality the damage they
> took was severe.
The ships never failed they were in service and never taken out while in
action. Remember, these carriers were throw-away ships. The UK finished WW2
with over 50 flat tops.
As been mentioned the British designed their carriers to operate nearer land
and expected them to take punishment. The British role for carriers was not
of forward attacking but of supporting the heavy battleships, so
reconnaissance, torpedo bombers, and the likes. The British Carriers also
would not be far from a friendly port as the British Empire was so large, so
no need for large carriers to be away for extended tours.
The US idea was to have large carriers that it mainly operated far away from
home, and to operate in the vast Pacific. They were to be used in an
attacking role and needed to be large to take larger and longer range
planes. The US also designed carrier planes to suit. The US didn't seem to
put much weight on an enemy getting too close to their carriers, assuming
longer range planes would keep the enemy at bay. When the British adopted
the US view of carriers being used for attack, US planes had to be used as
the British had not developed planes for such roles - although the British
did perfect the troublesome US Corsair which was effectively rejected by the
USN.
The British perfected the carrier and developed just about everything in
carrier systems in its evolution:
armoured flight decks
angled flight decks,
the ski-jump deck,
the steam catapult
practical vertical take-off jet aircraft - the Harrier.
mirror landing systems
the first through decks
the first purpose built carrier
hurricane bows.
..and a few more I haven't thought of
Michael Emrys
R Leonard at rlspa...@verizon.net wrote on 1/23/08 11:04 AM:
> Pretty dumb of me not to consider darkening ship.
Don't feel bad. The list of things that slip my mind would be a long one
indeed.
Michael
Michael Emrys
at removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom wrote on 1/23/08 7:31
PM:
> ...the British did perfect the troublesome US Corsair which was effectively
> rejected by the USN.
Perhaps you could share with us precisely what the British did to "perfect
the troublesome US Corsair"? And while you are at it, could you clarify what
you mean by "which was effectively rejected by the USN"?
While the USN was dubious about some of the first version of the plane's
characteristics in relation to operating off aircraft carriers, preferring
the F6F Hellcat for that, it never cancelled production of the plane.
Testing and development continued, albeit at a somewhat slower pace, and
from early 1943 it was operating from land bases. In the first instance, it
was given to the Marine Corps, who were successful with it, but it was also
provided to a few select Navy squadrons, such as the justly famed VF-17. It
was VF-17 in fact that did a lot of the testing and development work hand in
hand with Chance Vought and demonstrated that it could be operated off of
carriers just fine. So the USN did not reject the plane. They did put its
shipboard use on the back burner until the Kamikaze threat showed that the
on-board fighter squadrons needed a plane with higher performance than the
Hellcat provided.
Michael
David Thornley
nik Simpson <ni...@knology.net> wrote:
>attacks. For Illustrious it was cumulative damage from a very busy
>career where she took damage on several occasions that would probably
>have sunk an Essex.
Like when? The Yorktowns and their Essex follow-ons were very
tough ships.
For the Implacable class, some of it was damage
>(particularly in the case of Implacable) but also down to the
>arrangement of hangars inside the armored box which substantially
>reduced the air complement with later generations of large jet powered
>aircraft that couldn't fit in the hangars.
It was worse than that - they couldn't operate Corsairs. They
had to make do with Fireflies and Seafires, neither of which were
particularly good carrier fighters. (The Fireflies because of
performance, and the Seafires because of durability and endurance
issues.)
David Thornley
L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
><doug...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:b11cf326-7d4a-4ba4...@i29g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
>> the British carriers seemed impressive but in reality the damage they
>> took was severe.
>
>The ships never failed they were in service and never taken out while in
>action.
They were in pretty bad physical shape at the end of the war. The
end of the war hid several things that were coming apart, like
British fleet logistics.
Remember, these carriers were throw-away ships. The UK finished WW2
>with over 50 flat tops.
>
Most of which were US-built escort carriers.
>As been mentioned the British designed their carriers to operate nearer land
>and expected them to take punishment.
What they were built for was resisting dive bombers and potentially
level bombers (the difficulty level bombers would have in hitting
maneuvering ships was not appreciated when those things were designed).
What they weren't built for was resisting a first-rate naval air force,
which would include torpedo bombers.
The British role for carriers was not
>of forward attacking but of supporting the heavy battleships, so
>reconnaissance, torpedo bombers, and the likes.
If this is true, it was a serious mistake. The US and Japanese
had designed their carriers as support vessels, but they were
very usable in full-scale carrier warfare.
The British Carriers also
>would not be far from a friendly port as the British Empire was so large, so
>no need for large carriers to be away for extended tours.
>
This of course failed miserably in 1945, when the Pacific Fleet had
great difficulty in operating in Japanese waters.
Not to mention the British did build larger carriers than the US
until the Essex class showed up. The Yorktown class, the standard
before the Essexes, was about 10% smaller than Ark Royal or the
armored-deck carriers.
>The US idea was to have large carriers that it mainly operated far away from
>home, and to operate in the vast Pacific. They were to be used in an
>attacking role and needed to be large to take larger and longer range
>planes.
The US idea was to have carriers designed primarily to operate aircraft.
The single-minded pursuit of rapid aircraft operations turned out to
be a good idea.
The US also designed carrier planes to suit. The US didn't seem to
>put much weight on an enemy getting too close to their carriers, assuming
>longer range planes would keep the enemy at bay.
The US had shorter-ranged planes than the Japanese. What the US
relied on was numbers of aircraft, both from large air groups and
from speed of turning them around and getting them back up.
What was supposed to keep the enemy at bay was the fighters.
When the British adopted
>the US view of carriers being used for attack, US planes had to be used as
>the British had not developed planes for such roles
Actually, the British developed planes in the same categories as
the US. The US planes were better through the end of the war,
although aircraft like the Sea Fury started appearing shortly
thereafter.
- although the British
>did perfect the troublesome US Corsair which was effectively rejected by the
>USN.
>
Wrong, of course.
>The British perfected the carrier and developed just about everything in
>carrier systems in its evolution:
>
"Perfected" the carrier would seem to imply that there was a perfect
carrier that the British first built, and that just isn't the case.
Alternatively, it would imply that the British were the first to
build truly first-rate carriers, which also isn't the case; no
British carriers built in WWII were the equal of the Yorktown class.
>armoured flight decks
Rejected by the US as cutting into aircraft capacity and operations too
much. The Midway class was large enough to get away with it.
>angled flight decks,
>the ski-jump deck,
Postwar.
>the steam catapult
Not as useful in WWII as later.
>practical vertical take-off jet aircraft - the Harrier.
>mirror landing systems
Postwar.
>the first through decks
>the first purpose built carrier
WWI.
>hurricane bows.
Not so much an innovation as a more practical design for the North
Atlantic.
The innovations you've listed are generally before and after WWII.
WWII was something of a low point for British carriers. (Of course,
Britain currently doesn't have much in the way of carriers, but
this is expected to change next decade.)
Bill Shatzer
Air conditioning wasn't added to the Essex class carriers until the
1950s when it was added as a part of a modernization program.
The process covered several years and the last of the Essex class
carriers still in the active fleet didn't receive the upgrade until the
late '50s.
Cheers,
cr...@earthlink.net
> to repair if damaged?
What was involved in repairing a wooden deck after severe damage? How
did they repair the huge bomb craters/holes?
Did they keep large stores of lumber and sheet metal below decks?
Craig
Bruce Burden
:
:> ...the British did perfect the troublesome US Corsair which was effectively
:> rejected by the USN.
:
: Perhaps you could share with us precisely what the British did to "perfect
: the troublesome US Corsair"? And while you are at it, could you clarify what
: you mean by "which was effectively rejected by the USN"?
The FAA developed the landing system I believe that the USN uses
today - rather than a straight approach, which was impractical in
the F4U due to the cockpit position relative to the engine, the FAA
developed the "curved" approach, where the pilot would always keep
the carrier in sight via a descending left turn, at least, until the
final bit when they were committed, or the attempt had been waved off.
:
: While the USN was dubious about some of the first version of the plane's
: characteristics in relation to operating off aircraft carriers, preferring
: the F6F Hellcat for that, it never cancelled production of the plane.
No, it gave the plane to the Marines instead. However, had
Grumman been able to produce more F6F, or the Marines provided
a different airplane, I suspect the USN WOULD have cancelled the
F4U, given it's relatively small (by comparison to other US designs)
production total, due mainly to the inverted gull wing.
:
: Testing and development continued, albeit at a somewhat slower pace, and
: from early 1943 it was operating from land bases. In the first instance, it
: was given to the Marine Corps, who were successful with it, but it was also
: provided to a few select Navy squadrons, such as the justly famed VF-17. It
: was VF-17 in fact that did a lot of the testing and development work hand in
: hand with Chance Vought and demonstrated that it could be operated off of
: carriers just fine.
By that, I believe you mean that CV had (mostly) tamed the pogo
characteristics of the F4U-1 series, but they did not solve the
approach problems. Nor did they need to, since the FAA had solved
that problem for the USN.
:
: So the USN did not reject the plane. They did put its
: shipboard use on the back burner until the Kamikaze threat showed that the
: on-board fighter squadrons needed a plane with higher performance than the
: Hellcat provided.
The USN did not 'reject' the F4U, but they were in no hurry
to embrace it, either, until circumstances made the quirks of the
F4U less of an issue that its strengths. The USN was probably
quite happy that things worked out for them, but I can't say that
the USN planned that outcome from the get go.
Of course, the Hellcat never earned the nickname 'ensign
eliminator', either. :-)
Bruce
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I like bad!" Bruce Burden Austin, TX.
- Thuganlitha
The Power and the Prophet
Robert Don Hughes
Geoffrey Sinclair
news:36092346-5860-441f...@t1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
> On Jan 22, 8:46 pm, "Lloyd Olson" <l...@ssbilliards.com> wrote:
>>
>> Teak was used a lot.
>
> Not teak, Douglas Fir from the Great Pacific North West. Teak comes
> from places, before the war, a long ways away and impractical to ship
> much less store in the quantities needed. Once the war started for
> the US in Dec 1941, those same areas were under the control of the
> Japanese, making teak a little hard for anyone to get.
One side story, there was quite a saga when trying to move the "Sleeping
Beauties", basically submersible metal canoes, for the second commando
raid on Singapore, from England to the Far East.
Ultimately they had to be moved as deck cargo on HMS Howe, "whose
captain was furious at the way in which they tore up his nice new teak
decking while being loaded."
Some teak around but not a lot, in any case the US had plenty of forests.
> Think of 13 or
> 14 Essex class CVs that saw action, the 9 Independence class CVLs, and
> about 110 CVEs (RN and USN), not to mention pre-war Ranger, 2
> Lexington class, 3 Yorktown class, and Wasp, all with wood flight
> decks and the Japanese controlling teak producing areas of the world.
I thought Lexington and Saratoga had steel flight decks? Along with
enclosed hangars, also the flight deck was the strength deck. USN
fleet carriers from Ranger to Essex were wooden decked with open
hangers, as were the Independence and Saipan classes. The Midways
were armoured steel decks with open hangars, the CVE's wooden
decks with closed hangars.
Certainly making the hangar and flight deck superstructure their
overall weight could be kept down, allowing a bigger hangar
and flight deck.
The RN went with enclosed hangars and steel flight decks. Only the
cancelled post war Malta class was to have open hangars.
> Douglas Fir has the right amount of "give" for landing aircraft and a
> low splinter in the event of damage.
Do you know how many other timbers were tried? How important
was the "give"?
>>I don't believe WW2 era ships had air conditioning,
>
> Nope, US CVs and CVLs had air conditioning, Ranger did, Yorktown
> class did, Wasp did, Essex class did, Independence class, too, and, I
> am fairly certain, so did Lexington class. Not so sure about CVEs,
> without looking it up, but I would not be surprised to find the were
> as well, at least some of them like Sangamon class and, maybe,
> Casablanca class.
I presume this is ships that had some air conditioned spaces in them,
rather than the ship being air conditioned. Certainly the aircrew areas
had priority for some cooling when in the tropics given the air was
much cooler at altitude and the aircrew had to dress for it.
As for the entire ship, or at least a substantial part of it, I thought the
USN started this with the Des Moines class heavy cruisers, which
arrived post war. The Salem had a steam jet system, the Newport
News a compressor/direct expansion system, with Des Moines
having no air conditioning. Comparisons were then done.
Results showed the advantages of the cooling and in any case the
need to cope with radioactive fallout dictated major changes in
ship's ventilation.
>>so the large flat surface of an air craft carrier would absorb a lot of
>>heat below the flight deck and if made of metal would probably be
>>unbearable.
>
> There was thin steel below the wood flight deck. Below that was the
> hangar deck, which on US carriers was the main deck and the armored
> deck and semi-open to the elements with roll up doors that were rarely
> closed except for heavy seas.
I understand that the wood had a heat advantage in the tropics, one
experiment on a British aircraft carrier noted you could not fry an egg
on the flight deck but you could lightly cook it over a period of a few
minutes.
> This allowed air to freely circulate
> and while in the tropics certainly warm, but not unbearble,
> considering air conditioned spaces were available.
It sounds like there were more cool refuges than just the air crew
ready rooms. Is there a list of what rooms were cooled?
> Open air hangar
> decks permitted US carriers to do what the Japanese and the British
> could not, warm up engines on the hangar deck and bring the planes up
> to the flight deck ready for launch. Shaved a lot of time off
> operations cycles.
Plus the USN allowed shorter times between each take off and landing,
with the flight deck crews trained accordingly.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
Geoffrey Sinclair
> I've been reading Ballantines Aircraft Carriers book and noticed that the
> UK
> had steel decked carriers while the IJN and USN went w/wooden decks.
Basically correct, there are always the exceptions.
By the way separate out the Illustrious class which had armoured
steel flight decks, from the other RN carriers which had steel decks.
Similar for the armoured flight decks of the IJN Taiho and the USN
Midway class.
There is wood (on a steel frame and steel underneath), there is steel
and there is armoured steel, as a way of thinking of it.
> I'm guessing the reason for the wooden decks was to reduce weight above
> the waterline?
Weight was an issue, though a basic steel flight deck does not have to
be that much heavier than wood on a steel frame. You need a larger
volume of wood for the same strength. The wood certainly helped keep
the ship cooler, one of the reasons the battleships had wooden decks.
Large steel structures need to worry more about thermal expansion, a
flight deck is well placed to absorb lots of heat.
The main weight savings were in treating the hangar and flight
deck as superstructure, not the composition of the flight deck
itself.
> Were the wooden decks varnished or were they painted?
Painted, especially in wartime.
> Did they have some sort of non-stick coating applied?
Not that I know of.
> Were wooden decks easier to repair if damaged?
The short answer is "it depends", on the damage and its cause, fire
could warp steel but wood could be burnt and fuel the fire.
Generally speaking lighter structures are easier to repair but do
not do much to limit damage. So the ship is more likely to be
knocked out but spend less time in dockyard hands under repair.
> What exactly were the reasons for the wooden decks?
Several, steel and wood had both good and bad points, as others
have pointed out.
> What kind of wood did they use for the decks?
> Why are wooden decked aircraft carriers completely out of favor now? Are
> aircraft too heavy and landing speeds too fast for wood decks?
Your reasons are basically correct. The modern aircraft now require
a much stronger deck and resistance to strong high temperature air
flows. The F-14A came in at 40,000 pounds empty and, in theory,
could take off weighing 74,000 pounds. The F6F weighed in at
9,200 pounds and had a gross weight of 15,400 pounds.
> Are wood decked carriers more maintenance intensive?
Unknown.
L2007
news:C3BD4F4A.11F14%em...@olypen.com...
> in article 4797fac4$0$47134$892e...@authen.yellow.readfreenews.net, L2007
> at removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom wrote on 1/23/08 7:31
> PM:
>
>> ...the British did perfect the troublesome US Corsair which was
>> effectively
>> rejected by the USN.
>
> Perhaps you could share with us precisely
> what the British did to "perfect
> the troublesome US Corsair"? And while you
> are at it, could you clarify what
> you mean by "which was effectively rejected
> by the USN"?
The first US carrier trials were done in September 1942 revealing many
problems: poor viewing, swings on landing, bouncing undercarriage, engine
oil leaks obscuring the windshield and stalling problems. 14 pilots were
killed in training; stalling was a big problem having the nickname "Hog".
The USN naturally preferred Hellcats. So, the British got 2 Corsairs for
each Hellcat as the USN didn't want Corsairs.
When Corsairs were taken to the Pacific it was moved to land bases, flown by
US Marines, in the Solomons, they were considered so dangerous on carriers.
IT was fine in the air, but a "hog" to land and take off, especially on a
deck. Only in 1944 were Corsairs reluctantly taken on USN carriers because
of the immediate Kamikaze threat and the Corsair was the only plane
available in numbers.
The USN kept the plane on the carrier list, although considered too
dangerous
for the average pilot. Lack of availability was not the reason for the USN
to keep Corsairs off their carriers. It was just a poor plane to fly off
carriers.
The RN operated Corsairs off carriers before the USN. The USN did not use
Corsairs from carriers in numbers until 1945. They were fine enough when
land based from 1943 onward by the US Marines. The RN used a few Corsairs
from 1943 onwards.
The RN developed a landing routine for the Corsair, which the USN adopted.
The RN assessed the plane and identified the design problems and worked with
Vought to iron the problems out with British aviation engineers suggesting
improvements to some of the wing design, which were taken up. Only when the
RN got the plane acceptable did the USN start to use it in any numbers.
L2007
news:13pg78u...@corp.supernews.com...
> the Seafires because of durability and endurance
> issues.)
The Seafire was an adapted land based plane. The undercarriage was not
suitable for pitching carriers.
nik Simpson
> In article <3fc9$4797ce62$18d62c2d$23...@KNOLOGY.NET>,
> nik Simpson <ni...@knology.net> wrote:
>
>> attacks. For Illustrious it was cumulative damage from a very busy
>> career where she took damage on several occasions that would probably
>> have sunk an Essex.
>
> Like when? The Yorktowns and their Essex follow-ons were very
> tough ships.
I'm thinking in particular of 10 January 1941, struck by 8 bombs from
Luftwaffe & Italian airforce (including at least one 1000KG bomb that
pierced the flight deck and exploded internally). She suffered very
extensive damage and casualties extensive damage and barely made it
back to Malta where she became a tourist attraction for visiting
Luftwaffe pilots who succeeded in hitting her again. Repairs took the
over a year (in Malta, Alex, and the US), she recommissioned in May '42.
Can you come up with an Essex class taking similar punishment and living
to tell the tale?
>
> For the Implacable class, some of it was damage
>> (particularly in the case of Implacable) but also down to the
>> arrangement of hangars inside the armored box which substantially
>> reduced the air complement with later generations of large jet powered
>> aircraft that couldn't fit in the hangars.
>
> It was worse than that - they couldn't operate Corsairs. They
> had to make do with Fireflies and Seafires, neither of which were
> particularly good carrier fighters. (The Fireflies because of
> performance, and the Seafires because of durability and endurance
> issues.)
Which reinforces my point about the problem being in the design, rather
than unrepairable battle damage.
--
Nik Simpson
.
Branek
The UK operated Tanks (the Firefly) from their carriers during WW2?
That stands as a first in not only naval aviation but aviation in general!
I'll bet landing a derivative of the Sherman tank must have put a hell
of a load on the flight deck.
Andrew Clark
> The US went the way it did because they had plenty of aircraft, used
> deck parks and envisaged launching mass strikes. They were able to
> base carrier defense on having fighters.
And by being free from Treaty restrictions when they built most of their
carriers. Any discussion of comparative US and British carrier design
practice which does not refer to Treaty restrictions is useless.
> The British were hobbled by
> the RAF that allocated few resources to the FAA, so the carriers had
> few and obsolete fighters.
And by building their carriers subject to Treaty restrictions. The fact that
the FAA was relatively poorly funded compared to the RAF was an issue for a
short period in the late 1930s: it is thus a mistake to ascribe too much
weight to this factor.
> They had to build their carriers to take
> damage.
The British designed their carriers pre-war on the assumption that they
would on occasion operate in coastal waters and thus be exposed to a very
heavy weight of air attack by land-based bombers carrying relatively heavy
bombs. That sort of scenario, in which one or two heavy bomb hit is
inevitable regardless of the size of the air group, argues strongly for
armoured hangers and decks, because otherwise the carrier is going to be
sunk or mission-killed for a very long time whenever it goes out of the open
ocean - which is most of the area in which the RN would operate against
Germany or Italy.
The US built carriers in the mid war for an oceanic battle between
relatively small numbers of carrier bombers carrying relatively light bombs,
where air groups stood a fair chance of holding off the rival air groups
altogether and where a stray hit by a smaller bomb would not cause immense
damage. Low levels of armour and large unprotected hangars suited that
scenario.
> In fact, the British designs failed.
By the same argument, so did the US ones, because when the carriers moved
into the zone not anticipated by designers - ie a very heavy weight of air
attack by land-based bombers carrying relatively heavy bombs - a single
kamikaze or bomb hit was a mission-kill and a dockyard repair.
> Off Okinawa, the resistance of
> the British carriers seemed impressive but in reality the damage they
> took was severe. Having the hangar inside the hull girder made the
> hull structure weak and the ships were deformed by comparatively minor
> damage.
The British carriers remained in service and continued to operate aircraft
regardless of this structural damage: they may have suffered a reduced
service life but they were not mission-killed. That's a rather better option
than a long post-war service life but a major mission kill during the
present war.
>Note how quickly nearly all the armored carriers were
> scrapped postwar - surveys showed they had irreparable hull damage.
The carriers were not irreparable per se: they were more expensive to repair
than the British wanted to spend given (a) that the carriers were of an
obsolete design, (b) the British had newer designs under construction and
(c) general financial stringency post-war.
> In contrast, the Essex's, which suffered much more severe damage,
> lasted for decades."
They were largely re-built to do so, however.
Michael Emrys
barron...@nospamsbcglobal.net wrote on 1/24/08 12:25 PM:
> The UK operated Tanks (the Firefly) from their carriers during WW2?
:-)
I believe David is referring to the Fairy Firely. You can see a picture of
one here:
http://www.patricksaviation.com/photos/Kriss22/21223/
Michael
Michael Emrys
at removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom wrote on 1/24/08 11:29
AM:
> The RN developed a landing routine for the Corsair, which the USN adopted.
> The RN assessed the plane and identified the design problems and worked with
> Vought to iron the problems out with British aviation engineers suggesting
> improvements to some of the wing design, which were taken up.
I don't know where you get your information from, but I would suggest that
you expand your reading list. On this topic for instance, you might consult
_The Jolly Rogers_ by Tom Blackburn, in which he describes how all those
things were done by his squadron, VF-17, a USN unit you will please note.
Michael
Mark Sieving
> "David Thornley" <thorn...@visi.com> wrote in message
>
> news:13pg78u...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article <3fc9$4797ce62$18d62c2d$23...@KNOLOGY.NET>,
> > nik Simpson <ni...@knology.net> wrote:
>
> >>attacks. For Illustrious it was cumulative damage from a very busy
> >>career where she took damage on several occasions that would probably
> >>have sunk an Essex.
>
> > Like when? The Yorktowns and their Essex follow-ons were very
> > tough ships.
>
> > For the Implacable class, some of it was damage
> >>(particularly in the case of Implacable) but also down to the
> >>arrangement of hangars inside the armored box which substantially
> >>reduced the air complement with later generations of large jet powered
> >>aircraft that couldn't fit in the hangars.
>
> > It was worse than that - they couldn't operate Corsairs. They
> > had to make do with Fireflies and Seafires, neither of which were
> > particularly good carrier fighters. (The Fireflies because of
> > performance, and the Seafires because of durability and endurance
> > issues.)
>
> > --
> > David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
> > da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
> >http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/| O-
>
> The UK operated Tanks (the Firefly) from their carriers during WW2?
That would be the Fairey Firefly, a two seat fighter-bomber.
Actually, not a bad plane, but more in the strike-reconnaisance role.
It wasn't an interceptor.
Robert Sveinson
> at removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom wrote on 1/23/08 7:31
> PM:
>
>> ...the British did perfect the troublesome US Corsair which was
>> effectively
>> rejected by the USN.
>
> Perhaps you could share with us precisely what the British did to "perfect
> the troublesome US Corsair"? And while you are at it, could you clarify
> what
> you mean by "which was effectively rejected by the USN"?
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/F4U.html
Unfortunately, the new Corsair experienced a plethora of teething problems
that delayed its approval for US carriers for almost a year and a half. When
landing, her wings did not stall evenly at low speeds (not good on a carrier
fighter), vision from the rear set ribbed "green house" canopy was poor, and
the "oleo" landing gear struts were too stiff, causing the "Hog," as she was
affectionately known to her pilots, to bounce like a tennis ball on a hard
landing. The Navy felt these challenges would be too much for the
inexperienced new pilots then flooding into the fleet, so the Corsair was
not certified for carrier duty, in favor of the more docile, but slower,
Grumman F6F Hell Cat. The F4U was instead relegated to Pacific island based
Marine and Navy squadrons, as well as for substantial deliveries to the
Royal Navy
In 1943-44,the Brits were the first to successfully base the Corsair on
carriers, developing an innovative curving landing approach, and the USN's
VF-17 "The Jolly Rogers" flew the new & improved Hogs off the Bunker Hill,
paving the way for US Navy to finally approve carrier ops. Once back on
board, the F4U Corsair was extremely successful. By the end of WWII, the F4U
had replaced the Grumman F6F as the USN's number one shipboard fighter and
she went on to perform with distinction through the Korean War, and for the
French in Indochina
Bruce Burden
: "Branek" <barron...@nospamsbcglobal.net> wrote in message
:
:> Are wood decked carriers more maintenance intensive?
:
: Unknown.
:
Not an issue. There were plenty of sailors to perform
deck maintenance between sorties. :-)
Rich Rostrom
>The Midways were armoured steel decks with open hangars,
>the CVE's wooden decks with closed hangars.
The CVEs had metal decks.
In his war memoir, RAdm Dan Gallery
describes the decks of GUADALCANAL
"oil-canning" as the ship flexed
under wave action, and making
considerable noise.
--
| Decapitation is, in most instances, associated |
| with a decline in IQ. |
| |
| -- Professor Raymond Tallis |
Nigel
wrote:
Are you claiming all the credit for these changes on behalf of VF-17
or as is more likely to be the case that the changes made in
production by CV were down to a combination of sources of which the
FAA was one and VF-17 (and the USN in general another)?
I also believe that VF-17 was land based in the Solomons for quite a
while as well, having been off loaded from the Bunker Hill due to the
preference of the USN for the Hellcat.
Nigel
replace SPAMHATER with n and t*sc*li with totalise
Andrew Robert Breen
>> had to make do with Fireflies and Seafires, neither of which were
>> particularly good carrier fighters. (The Fireflies because of
>> performance, and the Seafires because of durability and endurance
>> issues.)
>
Consider the Fairey Firefly, and be enlightened..
--
Andy Breen ~ Not speaking on behalf of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting
money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
(David Thornley) wrote:
> What was supposed to keep the enemy at bay was the fighters.
The important thing about RN carriers was that they would have to
operate in the North Sea and the Med in range of land based air. That
meant however many planes they could carry they would still be
outnumbered by an enemy. US carriers were intended for the Pacific and
the North Atlantic where enemy land based air would not be a factor and
it would be possible to carry more aircraft than the enemy.
Ken Young
Bill Shatzer
> "Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
>>The Midways were armoured steel decks with open hangars,
>>the CVE's wooden decks with closed hangars.
> The CVEs had metal decks.
"Decks" certainly but not the flight deck.
Flight decks on CVEs were wood.
Here's a photo of USS Bogue. The flight deck planks are clearly visiable.
http://www.paolopizzi.com/paolopizzi/reviews/tbf-1c/subhunters.jpg
> In his war memoir, RAdm Dan Gallery
> describes the decks of GUADALCANAL
> "oil-canning" as the ship flexed
> under wave action, and making
> considerable noise.
There are several decks below the flight deck - I suspect that it is
those decks he was referring to.
Cheers,
Justin
>
>The USN kept the plane on the carrier list, although considered too
>dangerous
>for the average pilot. Lack of availability was not the reason for the USN
>to keep Corsairs off their carriers. It was just a poor plane to fly off
>carriers.
You are certainly right about the RN operating Corsairs from carriers
earlier than the USN, but availability was indeed the reason Corsairs
were not operating from USN fleet carriers in numbers in 1944. The
F4U was carrier certified in April, 1944, but was in such demand as
the backbone of Marine aviation that it was not assigned for carrier
use unit late in the year. There was not a big demand for Corsairs in
the fleet in 1944, as the Hellcat was very effective, easier to fly,
and 3/5 the cost of the Corsair. As operations moved closer to Japan,
the carrier admirals began to request Corsairs because of their
versatility as fighter-bombers and their higher performance, which
made them better able to take on high-altitude Japanese recon planes.
--Justin
Justin
<acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
><doug...@aol.com> wrote
>
>> The US went the way it did because they had plenty of aircraft, used
>> deck parks and envisaged launching mass strikes. They were able to
>> base carrier defense on having fighters.
>
>And by being free from Treaty restrictions when they built most of their
>carriers. Any discussion of comparative US and British carrier design
>practice which does not refer to Treaty restrictions is useless.
How so? The Yorktowns were treaty-limited, but carried half-again more
aircraft than Ark Royal on a comparable displacement. And the Essexes,
though laid down after the treaty had expired, were authorized by the
Vinson-Trammell act, which adopted treaty limits. The designs that
became the Essex class were based on a very treaty-like spec of 26,000
tons. The Midways were the first real post-treaty designs, but didn't
make it into the fighting.
>
>And by building their carriers subject to Treaty restrictions. The fact that
>the FAA was relatively poorly funded compared to the RAF was an issue for a
>short period in the late 1930s: it is thus a mistake to ascribe too much
>weight to this factor.
The main problem was that the RN had some built-in limits that were
hard to overcome. The early-generation carriers were on the small
side but sufficient enough that they weren't replaced in the lean
inter-war years. And there was no post-WW1 capital ship to convert to
a big carrier like the Lexingtons, Akagi or Kaga. Smaller carriers
meant small air groups, small air groups meant smaller procurements,
which meant less money for R&D, and also led to compromised,
multi-purpose a/c designs. The concentration of flying experience in
the RAF certainly had some effect, too, making aviation somewhat of a
false career step in the RN, and leaving the FAA with very few
experienced advocates in the upper ranks.
>
>The US built carriers in the mid war for an oceanic battle between
>relatively small numbers of carrier bombers carrying relatively light bombs,
>where air groups stood a fair chance of holding off the rival air groups
>altogether and where a stray hit by a smaller bomb would not cause immense
>damage. Low levels of armour and large unprotected hangars suited that
>scenario.
US doctrine was based around finding the enemy carrier first and
striking it, hard, as quickly as possible. Peacetime exercises
indicated that the carrier that got the drop on the enemy would likely
survive, and one that didn't probably would not, no matter the fighter
cover. This was the basis for the open hangar decks, the permanent
deck parks, the fast deck cycles, and the big dive bomber ("scout")
complements.
On the subject of land-based air, I would point out that US carriers
were under attack by land-based bombers as early as February 1942, and
many times thereafter.
>> In fact, the British designs failed.
>
>By the same argument, so did the US ones, because when the carriers moved
>into the zone not anticipated by designers - ie a very heavy weight of air
>attack by land-based bombers carrying relatively heavy bombs - a single
>kamikaze or bomb hit was a mission-kill and a dockyard repair.
>
As I've mentioned when we've done this before, the British carrier
virtues in 1945 are apparent only because they could operate freely
under US air dominance, which was won by the fast carrier forces with
their wooden decks and open hangars. For the Pacific war, it is
obvious that the USN made overwhelmingly good choices in its carrier
designs and doctrines. The number of bombs that decided the Battle of
Midway is such that smaller USN air groups could well have changed the
course of the war. The British carriers would have absolutely no
chance of standing up to the IJN carrier force in 1942.
This is not to denigrate the RN carriers in any way, they did great
things with what they had and were good for their role in the Home and
Med fleets. And they had very sophisticated and effective fighter
direction, which was pretty clearly better than the USN's even in
1945.
--Justin
Michael Emrys
SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk wrote on 1/25/08 10:54 AM:
> Are you claiming all the credit for these changes on behalf of VF-17 or as is
> more likely to be the case that the changes made in production by CV were down
> to a combination of sources of which the FAA was one and VF-17 (and the USN
> in general another)?
Actually what I am claiming is that the physical modifications to the
aircraft were done in conjunction with testing by the USN. Operational
changes, such as the curved approach to landing may well have been
discovered independently by both services.
> I also believe that VF-17 was land based in the Solomons for quite a while as
> well, having been off loaded from the Bunker Hill due to the preference of the
> USN for the Hellcat.
This is so. They were perfectly comfortable operating off carriers, however,
as was amply proven on 11 Nov. 1943, when VF-17 provided CAP over the
carriers Essex, Bunker Hill, and Indepence while those carriers employed
their own fighters to escort a strike on Rabaul. They flew out from their
base on New Georgia, performed their mission, made perfect landings aboard
the carriers, and had lunch while their planes were being serviced. They
then resumed their mission, which included 18.5 kills and 7 damaged enemy
warplanes, and returned to base.
Michael
David Thornley
nik Simpson <ni...@knology.net> wrote:
>David Thornley wrote:
>> In article <3fc9$4797ce62$18d62c2d$23...@KNOLOGY.NET>,
>> nik Simpson <ni...@knology.net> wrote:
>>
>>> attacks. For Illustrious it was cumulative damage from a very busy
>>> career where she took damage on several occasions that would probably
>>> have sunk an Essex.
>>
>> Like when? The Yorktowns and their Essex follow-ons were very
>> tough ships.
>
>I'm thinking in particular of 10 January 1941, struck by 8 bombs from
>Luftwaffe & Italian airforce (including at least one 1000KG bomb that
>pierced the flight deck and exploded internally).
That was the only time Illustrious took damage that looks to me like
it might have sunk a Yorktown or Essex, so "several" seems doubtful
to me.
Of course, with a USN aircraft complement, she might have taken
considerably less damage.
>Can you come up with an Essex class taking similar punishment and living
>to tell the tale?
>>
The problem here is defining "similar". US carriers were not normally
subjected to bombing attacks without having either torpedo or
kamikaze attacks. There's also a problem with "living"; Yorktown
took a lot of damage at Midway, and Hornet at Santa Cruz, and
still appeared survivable, until the Japanese hit them with follow-up
attacks.
Essex-class carriers came after the heyday of the Japanese carrier
air forces, and tended not to face good torpedo bombing. They were
hit a lot by kamikazes late in the war.
There is no exact counterpart to the Victorious attack; the closest
I've found in the Pacific was what happened to Shokaku in (IIRC)
the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, and that was fewer and
overall lighter bombs.
L2007
news:C3C02831.125AE%em...@olypen.com...
> in article meakp351hlpjt1ac1...@4ax.com, Nigel at
> SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk wrote on 1/25/08 10:54 AM:
>
>> Are you claiming all the credit for these changes on behalf of VF-17 or
>> as is
>> more likely to be the case that the changes made in production by CV were
>> down
>> to a combination of sources of which the FAA was one and VF-17 (and the
>> USN
>> in general another)?
>
> Actually what I am claiming is that the physical modifications to the
> aircraft were done in conjunction with testing by the USN. Operational
> changes, such as the curved approach to landing may well have been
> discovered independently by both services.
The RN after testing suggested improvement to the plane to the makers. Only
for the RN it is doubtful if any Corsairs at all would have been used by the
USN.
>> I also believe that VF-17 was land
>> based in the Solomons for quite a while as
>> well, having been off loaded from the
>> Bunker Hill due to the preference of the
>> USN for the Hellcat.
>
> This is so. They were perfectly comfortable
> operating off carriers,
The USN were not comfortable with the plane at all. Not until the RN
developed a landing routine and the physical design problems sorted. The
planes until sorted were being dumped on the RN and US marines.
L2007
news:srkkp39bjapsu6bfc...@4ax.com...
> On the subject of land-based air, I would
> point out that US carriers were under
> attack by land-based bombers as early
> as February 1942, and many times thereafter.
And they were sunk in numbers too being outside their oceanic design
operation.
> the British carrier virtues in 1945 are
> apparent only because they could operate freely
> under US air dominance,
The UK Pacific fleet was six strong and held 81 planes on certain carriers
by deck parking They defended themselves in air and ASW. The reliance on
the US was in logistics which the US partly supplied.
This thread has explained the differences in design approach of the US and
UK carriers and why designs were adopted. . When the US carriers were
outside their intended operational environment they were vulnerable, whereas
the UK carriers in general were not. All carriers in the UK Pacific fleet
were active and operational all though despite enemy attacks. They were
successful as they were operating in an environment in which they were
designed for - close to land.
Andrew Clark
AC>>Any discussion of comparative US and British carrier design
AC >>practice which does not refer to Treaty restrictions is useless.
>
> How so?
Because the Treaty decisively affected policy-making, and so not even
mentioning it in a discussion about relative design philosophies renders
that discussion pointless and useless. That's the OP's failing, not yours,
of course.
> The Yorktowns were treaty-limited, but carried half-again more
> aircraft than Ark Royal on a comparable displacement. And the Essexes,
> though laid down after the treaty had expired, were authorized by the
> Vinson-Trammell act, which adopted treaty limits. The designs that
> became the Essex class were based on a very treaty-like spec of 26,000
> tons. The Midways were the first real post-treaty designs, but didn't
> make it into the fighting.
I didn't say *how* the Treaty affected relative design philosophies, merely
that ignoring the Treaty makes any discussion futile. Neither did I say that
Treaty restrictions were the sole reason for the different designs adopted;
both sides reacted to a complex mix of reasons and predictions of which the
Treaty is one.
> The main problem was that the RN had some built-in limits that were
> hard to overcome. The early-generation carriers were on the small
> side but sufficient enough that they weren't replaced in the lean
> inter-war years.
But the need to replace them had been identified.
> And there was no post-WW1 capital ship to convert to
> a big carrier like the Lexingtons, Akagi or Kaga. Smaller carriers
> meant small air groups, small air groups meant smaller procurements,
> which meant less money for R&D, and also led to compromised,
> multi-purpose a/c designs. The concentration of flying experience in
> the RAF certainly had some effect, too, making aviation somewhat of a
> false career step in the RN, and leaving the FAA with very few
> experienced advocates in the upper ranks.
Yes, but again these factors were understood within the FAA and RN. The
RN/FAA pre-WW2 wanted to design and build the big armoured carriers and
large air groups which they clearly saw as the way forward, but there was
not the political will to do so, any more than there was the political will
to keep tank design and doctrine up to date or develop a large strategic
bomber.
It is a mistake to focus purely on what was done and forget what was wished
and planned for. If the British carriers designed and in some cases laid
down in the early war had ever been completed during WW2, this debate would
have a very different form.
> US doctrine was based around finding the enemy carrier first and
> striking it, hard, as quickly as possible.
That of course assumes that the carrier is fighting another carrier in
oceanic waters. Striking a land-based airforce from a carrier is a whole
different ball-game, with pre-emptive strikes almost impossible to achieve
due to the larger number of air fields and facilities available.
And the USN never planned to fight a first-rate airforce backed by a
first-rate national infrastructure. The IJA and IJN was never going to be a
realistic long-term opponent for the US once the latter had developed its
power; the Luftwaffe was always going to be a stiff fight for the RN and FAA
whatever both sides did.
> On the subject of land-based air, I would point out that US carriers
> were under attack by land-based bombers as early as February 1942, and
> many times thereafter.
Not in anything like the numbers which the RN and FAA anticipated in
European operations. When did the USN ever face something like the Luftwaffe
in 1939-40?
> As I've mentioned when we've done this before, the British carrier
> virtues in 1945 are apparent only because they could operate freely
> under US air dominance, which was won by the fast carrier forces with
> their wooden decks and open hangars.
My point was made in response to the OP who inaccurately claimed the British
Treaty designs failed even in the circumstances for which they had been
designed. I've never argued that the British pre-war Treaty carrier designs
were the best ones to carry the war to Japan; the RN knew that as much as
anyone which is why the designed and laid down in WW2 a quite different
class of carrier similar to the US post-war Midway class. Thanks to the US
success (and King keeping the RN out of the Pacific for most of the war),
the RN never completed those carriers, but they certainly saw the need for
them.
The US carriers certainly decisively beat the IJN carrier forces in the
oceanic and island battles for which they had been designed. The British
pre-war Treaty carriers couldn't have won that victory so well if at all, as
the RN knew.
But the key issue for the inshore air battles of 1945 was that Japan by then
lacked the economic power (even if it had ever had it) to build a first-rate
land-based airforce to defend the Home Islands. That fact gave all the
Allied navies - US and British - a much easier ride when it came to closing
with the enemy coast. But the Us still suffered an unsustainable rate of
casualties when they moved out of their design envelope, whereas the British
carriers - who of course had never had their deficiencies in oceanic water
exposed - excelled within their design envelope.
> For the Pacific war, it is
> obvious that the USN made overwhelmingly good choices in its carrier
> designs and doctrines. The number of bombs that decided the Battle of
> Midway is such that smaller USN air groups could well have changed the
> course of the war. The British carriers would have absolutely no
> chance of standing up to the IJN carrier force in 1942.
I would tend to agree with all this. What I would disagree with is the
persistent habit of many posters of drawing petty nationalistic satisfaction
from them.
Dave Anderer
nik Simpson <ni...@knology.net> wrote:
> I'm thinking in particular of 10 January 1941, struck by 8 bombs from
> Luftwaffe & Italian airforce (including at least one 1000KG bomb that
> pierced the flight deck and exploded internally). She suffered very
> extensive damage and casualties extensive damage and barely made it
> back to Malta where she became a tourist attraction for visiting
> Luftwaffe pilots who succeeded in hitting her again. Repairs took the
> over a year (in Malta, Alex, and the US), she recommissioned in May '42.
> Can you come up with an Essex class taking similar punishment and living
> to tell the tale?
There is no particular reason an Essex (or even a smaller Yorktown)
should have fared worse. In many ways Illustrious was very lucky.
4 of the 8 'hits' were minor - a near miss, and bomb that exited the
ship without detonating, a bomb that went through the unarmored portion
of the flight deck, exited the ship and *then* exploded, and one that
was a peripheral hit (detonated on hitting a pom-pom).
3 of the 8 hits we on the after lift. Lifts were not armored - they
couldn't be, due to weight. Bad luck to get hit on a lift; good luck to
have multiple hits in the same place.
Only 1 of the 8 cited bombs hit on a part of the flight deck that was
armored - and it penetrated and exploded.
The British evidently had good DC, especially their attention to the
dangers of gas and fire. It took the US some time to catch up.
However, this incident doesn't demonstrate an inherent superiority of
the British approach, and most definitely shouldn't be used to argue
that the armored deck choice was significantly more correct.
Oh, and even though Illustrious survived, she was so badly damaged that
1 of her 3 shafts was removed and never replaced.
==
Some good write-ups on the closed-vs-open hanger issue:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm
L2007
> On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:29:10 -0500, "L2007" wrote:
>
>>
>> The USN kept the plane on the carrier
>> list, although considered too dangerous
>> for the average pilot. Lack of availability
>> was not the reason for the USN
>> to keep Corsairs off their carriers. It was
>> just a poor plane to fly off carriers.
>
> You are certainly right about the RN operating Corsairs from carriers
> earlier than the USN, but availability was indeed the reason Corsairs
> were not operating from USN fleet carriers in numbers in 1944.
The Corsair was not wanted by the USN until the RN sorted the plane out. The
RN had to sort it as they were being off loaded with them as the USN
naturally stayed with Wildcats and Hellcats because of the problems with the
Corsair. The USN off-loaded Corsairs to the RN and US Marines. Why should
the USN spend time and energy sorting a plane when they had adequate planes
which suited? So, it was largely ignored by the USN.
YMC
news:wrCdnf1Hcpp6fQXa...@giganews.com...
> <doug...@aol.com> wrote
>
>> The US went the way it did because they had plenty of aircraft, used
>> deck parks and envisaged launching mass strikes. They were able to
>> base carrier defense on having fighters.
>
> And by being free from Treaty restrictions when they built most of their
> carriers. Any discussion of comparative US and British carrier design
> practice which does not refer to Treaty restrictions is useless.
>
>> The British were hobbled by
>> the RAF that allocated few resources to the FAA, so the carriers had
>> few and obsolete fighters.
>
> And by building their carriers subject to Treaty restrictions. The fact
> that the FAA was relatively poorly funded compared to the RAF was an issue
> for a short period in the late 1930s: it is thus a mistake to ascribe too
> much weight to this factor.
Hello Andrew,
Which carriers are you referring to? The Langley, Lexington, Saratoga, and
the Yorktown class, Ranger, and the Wasp were all built to Treaty
restrictions.
The creation of deck parks and large air strikes were developed by the USN
in the 1920s too - and done in of all place - the small converted carrier
USS Langley, 10,000 tons.
The possession of a native integral and bureaucracy, the Bureau of Naval
Aviation, (of equal standing to the traditional naval bureaus) within the
USN played a major role in pushing forward the cause of naval aviation
within the service.
The British on the other hand- possessed the best and most superior naval
service in 1918. The RN air service was actually planning a daring massed
torpedo plan attack on the German Navy at harbor in 1918.
Some of the best aviator minds and officers were in the Royal Navy - but the
creation of the RAF in 1918 forced the RN to practically relinquish all of
its aviation staff to the RAF which had a totally different agenda of using
land based bombers to defeat the enemy, thereafter naval aviation in the
British military largely played second fiddle in the scheme of things.
Without this aviation advocate within the service, aviation in the Royal
Navy suffered accordingly.
It was a vicious circle; the relative poor quality of the British Naval Air
Arm caused Fleet commanders to underestimate naval aviation. Moreover,
without a strong air officer bureau, the British Navy lacked the internal
stimulus to aggressively promote aviation within the service. While the USN
was bonding its aviation with its fleet, the Admiralty fought with the Air
Ministry to regain control over its air arm. The British Navy, crippled by a
problematic relationship with the RAF and lacking a strong internal
bureaucracy dedicated to naval aviation, could not innovate and match the
Americans in the naval aviation race. The inter-departmental conflict was
mirrored between the British carrier captains and their "resident" RAF
pilots.
One of the reasons why the USN was able to make advances in naval aviation
was because they were all within the same service. USN Captains like Joseph
Reeves were able to force their aviators to push the boundaries further
because of this (and not without great cost to the pilots). The RN on the
other hand, had to demur to the stance of their RAF counterparts. If they
say it can't be done, it can't be done.
The RN compounded its problems by choosing to believe that there was no
quality gap. (See Roskill Vol 1, page, pp. 496-497.
For more information on the problems between the Admiralty and the RAF see
Stephen Roskill, Naval Policy between the Wars: Vol. 1, pp. 58, 190-2,
234-244, 259-60, 356-62, 467-497, and 517-543.
Naval Policy between the Wars. Vol I. The Period of Anglo-American
Antagonism, 1919-1929. by Stephen Roskill
Naval Policy between the Wars. Vol II. The Period of Reluctant Rearmament,
1929-1939. by Stephen Roskill
Luke McNamee, 'Aviation and the Navy', U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 49,
December 1923, p. 2073.
Of course, by the 1930s, the British realized that there was a problem - but
by then the damage had been done. The British assumed that carrier planes
could not compete against their land based counterparts - so they started
designing carriers that relied more upon their armor rather than their
planes for protection.
The million dollar hypothetical question thats on people's mind is what
would have happened if you replaced the Illustrious with a Yorktown class
carrier- esp on the attack on the 9 Jan 1941 where the armored flight deck
British carrier absorbed a staggering number of bomb hits and survived.
Would the USS carrier larger CAP have enabled it to destroy the Axis bombers
before they launched their strike? Or would its lighter construction have
caused it to fall to the enemy's bombs? See transcript below.
>From http://world.std.com/~ted7/Illus.htm
The Regia Aeronautica's inability to subdue Malta as an air and naval base
drew the first German involvement, when Fleigerkorps X moved into bases in
Sicily - no doubt a pleasant change in climate, having come from Norway!
Their role was to cover the movement of the first elements of the Afrika
Korps to North Africa, by establishing the aerial command over the central
Mediterranean their Allies could not. Their first raid was a small one on
Malta on 9 January 1941. The next day they were in action in force, and the
results were dramatic.
Illustrious was part of a convoy escort, along with the battleships Warspite
and Valiant and a screen of five destroyers, bound for Malta and Greece,
when the carrier was attacked at 12.20 by two Italian SM79 torpedo-bombers
north-west of Malta. Her four airborne Fulmars had been drawn down to sea
level by these, and had nearly exhausted their ammunition, when a force of
40 Ju87s plus a second group of Ju88s appeared on radar at 12.28.
Illustrious turned into the wind and launched four more fighters, which had
been due to relieve her CAP at 12.35 in any case, but too late; the Ju87s
began their attack at 12.38 from 12,000 feet without fighter opposition,
thirty concentrating on the carrier and ten attacking the two battleships.
Admiral Cunningham, watching the attack on Illustrious from Warspite, wrote
later:
"There was no doubt we were watching complete experts. We could not but
admire the skill and precision of it all. The attacks were pressed home to
point-blank range, and as they pulled out of their dives, some of them were
seen to fly along the flight deck of Illustrious below the level of her
funnel."
The action took six and a half minutes to inflict seven hits on the carrier,
plus a near-miss, which caused the following damage:
1.. Hit and destroyed the starboard S2 pom-pom, killing most of the crew;
2.. Penetrated the forward end of the flight deck and passed overboard,
exploding above the water. Caused extensive splinter damage to several
compartments and started a fire in one;
3.. Exploded in the after lift-well, 10-20 ft below the flight deck,
severely damaging the lift and destroying a Fulmar on the lift;
4.. Penetrated the armored flight deck and exploded just above the hangar
deck, damaging the forward lift and surrounding structure, and starting a
fire on the hangar deck. Several aircraft in the hangar deck were destroyed;
5.. Hit the after end of the after lift, adding to the damage of bomb #3;
6.. Penetrated a pom-pom platform, passed through the shipand went
overboard without detonating. A fire was started on two mess decks.
7.. Also hit the after lift, completing its destruction.
8.. A near-miss off the starboard side caused slight structural damage and
minor flooding.
nik Simpson
> In article <9c11e$4798c76c$18d62c2d$29...@KNOLOGY.NET>,
> nik Simpson <ni...@knology.net> wrote:
>> I'm thinking in particular of 10 January 1941, struck by 8 bombs from
>> Luftwaffe & Italian airforce (including at least one 1000KG bomb that
>> pierced the flight deck and exploded internally).
>
> That was the only time Illustrious took damage that looks to me like
> it might have sunk a Yorktown or Essex, so "several" seems doubtful
> to me.
I was referring to the class as a whole and using Illustriuos as an
example, Indomitable also got hit hard in the med (2x1000KG bombs IIRC)
and they also withstood Kamikaze hits better, at least in terms of
continuing to operate.
>
> Of course, with a USN aircraft complement, she might have taken
> considerably less damage.
>
Possibly, but the RN was facing different design needs and a dearth of
capable carrier aircraft when they were built. Don't get me wrong, I
think the Essex class were an overall better design, but the RN armoured
carriers did the job they were designed for very well, and proved very
hard to sink.
--
Nik Simpson
.
David Thornley
L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>
>The RN after testing suggested improvement to the plane to the makers. Only
>for the RN it is doubtful if any Corsairs at all would have been used by the
>USN.
>
USN would have used Corsairs in 1945 without the British experience.
>The USN were not comfortable with the plane at all. Not until the RN
>developed a landing routine and the physical design problems sorted. The
>planes until sorted were being dumped on the RN and US marines.
>
The USN was not comfortable with the plane at first, and neither was
anybody else. The USN worked towards carrier-qualifying it, but
there was no urgency.
David Thornley
<ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <13pg86v...@corp.supernews.com>, thor...@visi.com
>(David Thornley) wrote:
>
>> What was supposed to keep the enemy at bay was the fighters.
>
> The important thing about RN carriers was that they would have to
>operate in the North Sea and the Med in range of land based air. That
>meant however many planes they could carry they would still be
>outnumbered by an enemy.
Depends on the situation. Carriers with large air groups could
fight off large numbers of enemy bombers. Carriers could often
operate by surprise, and so the enemy might not be able to concentrate
force on them.
The issue here is that thick decks and heavy anti-aircraft were not
the answer. If they were, battleships would have been able to operate
in the face of enemy air superiority. If carriers traded away
fighter operation for more passive defenses, they would be
more vulnerable than battleships, perhaps more so than heavy
cruisers, which would have less anti-aircraft but fewer critical
spots.
US carriers were intended for the Pacific and
>the North Atlantic where enemy land based air would not be a factor and
>it would be possible to carry more aircraft than the enemy.
>
US carriers frequently operated within the range of enemy land-based
aircraft, and I'm not remembering any serious damage from land-based
air until 1944.
David Thornley
L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>
>And they were sunk in numbers too being outside their oceanic design
>operation.
>
Lexington was sunk by carrier aircraft and faulty damage control,
Yorktown was sunk by carrier aircraft and submarine attack,
Wasp was sunk by a submarine, Hornet by Japanese carrier aircraft,
and Princeton from land-based aircraft.
Certainly US carriers were not sunk in numbers by land-based
aircraft. Number, perhaps, but it's a low one.
>> the British carrier virtues in 1945 are
>> apparent only because they could operate freely
>> under US air dominance,
>
>The UK Pacific fleet was six strong and held 81 planes on certain carriers
>by deck parking They defended themselves in air and ASW. The reliance on
>the US was in logistics which the US partly supplied.
>
The Pacific Fleet was functionally a weak carrier task group, since
British carriers couldn't operate as many aircraft as US carriers.
The carriers that could have 81 aircraft aboard were few in number,
and couldn't operate Corsairs.
>This thread has explained the differences in design approach of the US and
>UK carriers and why designs were adopted. . When the US carriers were
>outside their intended operational environment they were vulnerable,
Not particularly. Precisely one US light or fleet carrier was sunk
by land-based aircraft. All others that were sunk were sunk by
Japanese torpedos, either delivered by carrier aircraft or submarines.
whereas
>the UK carriers in general were not.
Tell me, what was that flight deck supposed to do to stop torpedos?
I'd assume that "somewhere around Singapore" was in their intended
operational environment. Had they fought the Japanese carriers there,
they would have faced high-quality torpedo bombers, and would have
been ill-defended against them.
All carriers in the UK Pacific fleet
>were active and operational all though despite enemy attacks.
Nope. IIRC, Formidable had a serious aircraft-handling accident,
and was out for a while. Ships rotated in and out of the active
fleet.
They were
>successful as they were operating in an environment in which they were
>designed for - close to land.
>
They'd have been a lot more successful if they'd been good for more.
Pacific Fleet was tough, but lacked the ability to protect other
ships or to strike Japanese forces nearly as well as the US
carriers.
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>"Justin" <jnola...@yahoo.com> wrote
>
>> The Yorktowns were treaty-limited, but carried half-again more
>
>that ignoring the Treaty makes any discussion futile.
How so? I can certainly discuss the combat effectiveness of ships
without dealing with the Treaty.
>> hard to overcome. The early-generation carriers were on the small
>> side but sufficient enough that they weren't replaced in the lean
>> inter-war years.
>
>But the need to replace them had been identified.
>
The Treaty said they could. Carriers available or building before
the treaty was signed were subject to tonnage replacement at any
time. For the US and Japan, this meant Langley and Hosho
respectively (and Langley was converted out of being an aircraft
carrier in the 30s). For the British, this was everything except
Courageous, Glorious, and (later) Ark Royal.
The reason the RN still had Hermes, Eagle, Argus, and Furious
was due to British decisions.
>It is a mistake to focus purely on what was done and forget what was wished
>and planned for. If the British carriers designed and in some cases laid
>down in the early war had ever been completed during WW2, this debate would
>have a very different form.
>
If you're talking about the ones completed, nor not completed, postwar,
I fail to see what would be much difference. There wasn't much hope
of any Malta-class being completed during the war, and the class
before it (can't remember the name, completed IIRC as Hermes and
Ark Royal) was just a bigger and better Illustrious. They weren't
laid down in large numbers, either.
>> US doctrine was based around finding the enemy carrier first and
>> striking it, hard, as quickly as possible.
>
>That of course assumes that the carrier is fighting another carrier in
>oceanic waters.
Not necessarily. US carriers deliberately operated against Japanese
land bases.
Striking a land-based airforce from a carrier is a whole
>different ball-game, with pre-emptive strikes almost impossible to achieve
>due to the larger number of air fields and facilities available.
>
The USN managed quite well in late 1943 on, thank you. You just steam
in with a fairly large force, attack the main airfields by surprise,
and pound everything else.
>And the USN never planned to fight a first-rate airforce backed by a
>first-rate national infrastructure.
The RN never planned to fight a first rate naval air force.
The IJA and IJN was never going to be a
>realistic long-term opponent for the US once the latter had developed its
>power; the Luftwaffe was always going to be a stiff fight for the RN and FAA
>whatever both sides did.
>
The Luftwaffe wasn't a stiff fight. In 1940, the Luftwaffe had
minimal ability to attack ships. In 1941, they still didn't have
torpedo bombers. They eventually put Italian aerial torpedos
on He 111s.
British carriers were designed to resist bombers with bombs, not
torpedo bombers. Against a Japanese attack force with Kates,
the armored deck was just so much topweight, reducing stability
that would soon be urgently needed.
>> On the subject of land-based air, I would point out that US carriers
>> were under attack by land-based bombers as early as February 1942, and
>> many times thereafter.
>
>Not in anything like the numbers which the RN and FAA anticipated in
>European operations. When did the USN ever face something like the Luftwaffe
>in 1939-40?
>
After about 1943. Until 1944 or so, the Japanese were nowhere near
as incompetent as Luftwaffe pilots attacking ships in 1940 and 1941.
They did train dive bomber pilots for 1942, but still had no
torpedo bombers.
The British carriers look as good as they do because they faced
thoroughly inept opposition for most of their fighting, the Germans
before 1942 and the Japanese in 1945. Against a good naval air
force, like the US or Japanese, they would've been toast.
>My point was made in response to the OP who inaccurately claimed the British
>Treaty designs failed even in the circumstances for which they had been
>designed.
Which apparently doesn't include fighting the Japanese in the Indian
Ocean, since the best thing the British carriers were able to do against
the Japanese was evade battle, when that worked.
I've never argued that the British pre-war Treaty carrier designs
>were the best ones to carry the war to Japan;
Not in 1942, they sure weren't. If the US hadn't been in the war,
the Japanese would have been able to do as they liked in the Indian
Ocean, limited only by logistics.
the RN knew that as much as
>anyone which is why the designed and laid down in WW2 a quite different
>class of carrier similar to the US post-war Midway class.
Oddly, with unarmored decks and open hangers.
>But the key issue for the inshore air battles of 1945 was that Japan by then
>lacked the economic power (even if it had ever had it) to build a first-rate
>land-based airforce to defend the Home Islands.
Right, not to mention the Allied (primarily US, but don't forge the
Aussies) successes earlier, that cut off Japanese oil supplies and
killed off wave after wave of Japanese pilots.
That fact gave all the
>Allied navies - US and British - a much easier ride when it came to closing
>with the enemy coast. But the Us still suffered an unsustainable rate of
>casualties when they moved out of their design envelope,
Really? What was unsustainable about it? US carriers hung around for
the Okinawa campaign, and the US Pacific Fleet was very powerful
afterwards.
whereas the British
>carriers - who of course had never had their deficiencies in oceanic water
>exposed - excelled within their design envelope.
>
"Excelled" is perhaps a bit much. They were very well-defended against
kamikazes, which is pretty much what the Japanese had left, but they
lacked the aircraft and operating ability to be as effective as
the US carrier forces.
>I would tend to agree with all this. What I would disagree with is the
>persistent habit of many posters of drawing petty nationalistic satisfaction
>from them.
>
I fail to see that avoiding petty nationalistic satisfaction requires
that we accord near-equal credit to both British and US forces when
it isn't due. My opinion is that the RN was on the wrong track with
their wartime carriers, and they achieved what successes they did
primarily against inferior ship-attack capabilities. You may
have a different opinion, but I do not like implications that
my opinions are due to chauvinism.
If I were to suggest that US and RN torpedos were each well-suited
for their respective roles, would you consider it for a moment,
or would you (more correctly) burst into derisive laughter?
Saying bad things about US torpedos is hardly a mark of anti-Americanism,
and calling British torpedos superb is hardly an indication of
British chauvinism.
Why is it unmutual to think that US carriers might flat out have
been better than their British counterparts?
Christopher Manteuffel
> I'm thinking in particular of 10 January 1941, struck by 8 bombs from
> Luftwaffe & Italian airforce (including at least one 1000KG bomb that
> pierced the flight deck and exploded internally).
Why did Illustrious get hit by so many bombs? Because her entire CAP
was on the deck to chase TWO Italian torpedo bombers[1]. Why was her
entire CAP suckered down to the deck to chase off *two* planes?
Because she carried less than half of the airplanes that a Yorktown
would. Because of that, she was much more likely to get hit, hard,
than a Yorktown was. More fighters would have allowed Lusty to keep
some fighters up high to bother the Fleigerkorps X Stuka's.
Chris Manteuffel
[1]: Richard Hough, _The Longest Battle_
Branek
news:12012635...@leri.aber.ac.uk...
I was mostly kidding. Sorry.
R Leonard
> The RN after testing suggested improvement to the plane to the makers. Only
> for the RN it is doubtful if any Corsairs at all would have been used by the
> USN.
You mean like the right wing leading edge spoiler installed to prevent
low speed stall instability? The same one developed by Lt Butch
Davenport of VF-17? Or the modifications to the landing gear oleo to
reduce the "bounce"? The same modiifications worked out by the Vought
folks AND Davenport? All done BEFORE VF-17 deployed to the Pacific?
You mean those improvements?
I know of one USN fighter pilot, an F4F ace from the early days who
told me that the common approach used with the F4U was an obvious
solution to anyone who knew what he was doing. He figured it out all
by himself the first time he landed an F4U aboard a carrier.
Same gent was fighter training officer at ComFAirWest for about a
year, from September 1943 to November 1944. He said most of the
problems with the F4U were the result of poor technique, that once you
understood the performance envelope there should not have been any
problems. The biggest headache they had was breaking land based F4U
pilots, especially of the USMC variety, of some very bad landing
habits.
If you were to get off the RN saving the F4U kick, and looked into the
deployment of F4Us on US carriers you would see that the same types,
the F4U-1A, F4U-1D, FG-1, and FG-1D, were being deployed on carriers
as you seem to think were unsat aircraft.
And for that matter, serving right along side the early F6F squadrons
on carriers were USN night fighter detachments flying, yep, that's
right. F4U's, the -2's.
And "Jumpin Joe" Clifton's VF-12 poised and ready to deploy aboard
Saratoga . . . their bitter disappointment at being ordered to switch
to F6Fs. Bob Dose told me that he always thought they would have
cleaned up had they take F4Us instead of F6Fs.
The F4U-1 with the bird cage canopy had a visibility problem. It also
had a problem with leaking oil on the rocker arms. The visibility
problem was fixed as much as it cold be with an improved canopy and
raising the pilot seat. The oil problem was fixed by fairing over the
cowl. Davenport fixed the stall problem and together with the Vought
gang fixed the ole problem. Butch, by the way, had a degree in
aeronautical engineering, he knew what he was doing. Another early
proble was a weak casting the the tail hook which could cause it to
fail and result in a barrier crash, this was also resolved.
The other dog in the F4U house was the Brewster F3A. Looked like an
F4U, flew like an F4U and was considered to be a piece of junk. F3As
never went to combat, USN or USMC, they were confined to state side
training activities.
On poster mentioned, Mike, I believe, pointed out VF-17 flying CAP for
carriers striking Rabaul. They did indeed land aboard the carriers
for refuel and re-arm, not to mention some chow, and not a one of them
cracked up . . . after six weeks of operating from land. 23 landings
on two different carriers, no wave offs, no crashes. Hardly the result
one might expect reading your posts.
I'm afraid you may need to do a little more reading. May I suggest
the Oct 2004 Flight Journal. A nice little summary by Barrett
Tillman. Or maybe you might just want to pick up his book on the F4U.
Nigel
wrote:
>The USN was not comfortable with the plane at first, and neither was
>anybody else. The USN worked towards carrier-qualifying it, but
>there was no urgency.
whereas the FAA was desperate for a fighter with decent all round
performance i.e. endurance (which the Firefly had but not the Seafire)
and maneuverability (which the Seafire had but not the Firefly) not to
mention a good armament. So if there were going spare the FAA took
them even if landing them was not the easiest task to carry out.
L2007
> In article <479b0dbe$1$47150$892e...@authen.yellow.readfreenews.net>,
> L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>>
>>The RN after testing suggested improvement to the plane to the makers.
>>Only
>>for the RN it is doubtful if any Corsairs at all would have been used by
>>the
>>USN.
>>
> Got any actual backing for that? It seems very likely to me that the
> USN would have used Corsairs in 1945 without the British experience.
>
>>The USN were not comfortable with the plane at all. Not until the RN
>>developed a landing routine and the physical design problems sorted. The
>>planes until sorted were being dumped on the RN and US marines.
>>
> The USN was not comfortable with the plane at first, and neither was
> anybody else. The USN worked towards carrier-qualifying it, but
> there was no urgency.
The RN got it suitable for carrier operation rather than the USN who had
better things to do, having other suitable planes, and lose pilots flying
it, and trying to get it to work.
L2007
> In article <479b0dbf$0$47150$892e...@authen.yellow.readfreenews.net>,
> L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>>
>>And they were sunk in numbers too being outside their oceanic design
>>operation.
>>
> Of the five fleet and light fleet carriers sunk by the Japanese,
> Lexington was sunk by carrier aircraft and faulty damage control,
> Yorktown was sunk by carrier aircraft and submarine attack,
> Wasp was sunk by a submarine, Hornet by Japanese carrier aircraft,
> and Princeton from land-based aircraft.
There is also the damage US carrier sustained too, as the ship was out of
action.
>>> the British carrier virtues in 1945 are
>>> apparent only because they could operate freely
>>> under US air dominance,
>>
>>The UK Pacific fleet was six strong and held 81 planes on certain carriers
>>by deck parking They defended themselves in air and ASW. The reliance on
>>the US was in logistics which the US partly supplied.
>>
> The Pacific Fleet was functionally a weak carrier task group, since
> British carriers couldn't operate as many aircraft as US carriers.
> The carriers that could have 81 aircraft aboard were few in number,
> and couldn't operate Corsairs.
The Pacific fleet was a powerful force with carriers suited to the near land
roles allotted. It defended itself.
> Tell me, what was that flight deck
> supposed to do to stop torpedos?
No. Bombs from planes.
> All carriers in the UK Pacific fleet
>>were active and operational all though despite enemy attacks.
>
> Nope. IIRC, Formidable had a serious aircraft-handling accident,
> and was out for a while.
But not permanently out and continued. The attacks they suffered would
have put a US carrier until the wars end.
> They were
>>successful as they were operating in an environment in which they were
>>designed for - close to land.
>>
> They'd have been a lot more successful if they'd been good for more.
> Pacific Fleet was tough, but lacked the ability to protect other
> ships or to strike Japanese forces nearly as well as the US
> carriers.
The sturdy Pacific fleet was not lacking and fulfilled it role.
Geoffrey Sinclair
> On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:29:15 -0500, "Andrew Clark"
> <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>><doug...@aol.com> wrote
>>
>>> The US went the way it did because they had plenty of aircraft, used
>>> deck parks and envisaged launching mass strikes. They were able to
>>> base carrier defense on having fighters.
>>
>>And by being free from Treaty restrictions when they built most of their
>>carriers. Any discussion of comparative US and British carrier design
>>practice which does not refer to Treaty restrictions is useless.
>
> How so? The Yorktowns were treaty-limited, but carried half-again more
> aircraft than Ark Royal on a comparable displacement.
Sort of, the trouble here is the RN measured aircraft capacity on what
would fit into the hangars and the USN what would fit into the hangars
and on the flight deck. We also have the problem of the growth in
size of the aircraft themselves.
So Ark Royal was rated for 72 aircraft as built and operated 60 in wartime
as this was a comfortable number to stow. So it is clear the ship could
probably operate a closer number to that of the Yorktown, by adopting
deck parks, but on about 10% more displacement, 20 versus 22 thousand
tons. Another reason for the extra weight was the RN treated the hangar
like a magazine, with salt water sprays and fire curtains, and had more
stringent avgas storage standards, which added weight. The benefit was
no RN carrier burned in WWII, like some IJN and USN carriers did.
Victorious was rated for 36 aircraft, and operated 53 in 1945.
Illustrious some 52.
Yorktown as built was rated for around 90 aircraft. During her
inclining test in March 1938 Enterprise had 97 aircraft on board.
By 1941 this was down to 84. In 1941 she was carrying 37
spares basically triced up over her hangar, I am not sure of the
spares situation in 1938.
As rebuilt in 1943 Enterprise was around 10% heavier in the light
ship state and around 25% heavier full load, with an air group of
91 aircraft. This was basically the same as the air group of the
Essex as commissioned, which carried 9 spares in addition to
the 36 fighters, 37 dive bombers and 18 torpedo bombers.
In 1945 the typical Essex air group was 103 aircraft, 15 dive
bombers, 15 torpedo bombers with the rest being fighters.
Implacable and Indefatigable ended up displacing about the
same as an Essex class, they were rated for 54 aircraft under
the standard RN definition and operated 70 to 80 aircraft
in 1945. Their main problem, like all the Illustrious class, was
the avgas storage was predicated on the lower number of
aircraft being carried.
It should be pointed out while the extra aircraft capacity was
available for fighters the pre war USN air group had around 18
fighters on board, the rest were strike or utility aircraft. Do not
forget without radar fleet fighter defence was much less effective.
Interception of incoming strikes was hit and miss otherwise, even
with radios in the fighters. Hence the logic behind making the
carriers tougher.
One driver in the growth of the Essex class was the desire for an
extra fighter squadron on board.
> And the Essexes,
> though laid down after the treaty had expired, were authorized by the
> Vinson-Trammell act, which adopted treaty limits.
Correct.
> The designs that
> became the Essex class were based on a very treaty-like spec of 26,000
> tons.
The limits were both size of individual ships and size of the USN carrier
fleet. The individual ship limits were 23,000 tons, the USN carrier fleet
was 215,000 tons. Note these were the agreed limits at London in
1938, which did things like raise the maximum size of battleships to
45,000 tons, and the Japanese had long since walked out of the treaty
system.
In terms of the Essex class the original specification was for around the
same size as the Yorktown, because that was all the available "carrier
fleet" tonnage left after the decision to build the Hornet.
Ironically it was studies in providing deck protection that started to
push the tonnage up, and then the outbreak of WWII meant the
treaty limits lapsed. The first of the Essex class were laid down
in mid 1941, by which stage the first 3 Illustrious class were in service
and the final three were being modified to increase their air groups.
With the first of these, Indomitable, being commissioned in October
1941.
> The Midways were the first real post-treaty designs, but didn't
> make it into the fighting.
Agreed.
>>And by building their carriers subject to Treaty restrictions. The fact
>>that
>>the FAA was relatively poorly funded compared to the RAF was an issue for
>>a
>>short period in the late 1930s: it is thus a mistake to ascribe too much
>>weight to this factor.
>
> The main problem was that the RN had some built-in limits that were
> hard to overcome. The early-generation carriers were on the small
> side but sufficient enough that they weren't replaced in the lean
> inter-war years.
Argus was a converted merchant ship and came in at 14,500 tons
and Hermes came in at 10,850 tons the rest were around 22,000
tons, hence the treaty tonnage limit.
The built in limits were that while technically the RN was perfectly
entitled to replace Argus, Hermes, Furious and Eagle under the
"experimental ship" treaty rules (that is 4 of the 6 carriers), the
money was lacking and it made more sense to run the different
carriers in peacetime to accumulate the experience on how to use
them and what were the best designs. Ark Royal was the result
and Argus was supposed to be scrapped when Ark Royal was
commissioned.
Things like not using arrester hooks or fight deck barriers slowed
down RN carrier aircraft operations development.
> And there was no post-WW1 capital ship to convert to
> a big carrier like the Lexingtons, Akagi or Kaga.
Actually technically there were, the group of 4 unnamed battleships that
began construction in 1921 but were suspended a month after the
contracts were let. Think of something looking like Nelson and Rodney
but 50% larger. It would have been an interesting situation if the RN
had tried to complete two of these as carriers under the "do not waste
building hulls" provisions of the original treaty.
So yes, in reality the RN did not have any big hulls under construction, but
did have the Courageous and Glorious, which made much better carriers
than large light cruisers.
> Smaller carriers
> meant small air groups, small air groups meant smaller procurements,
> which meant less money for R&D, and also led to compromised,
> multi-purpose a/c designs.
The RN carriers were actually bigger, on average, than the USN
carriers in the 1920's and 30's, once you eliminate the Lexington
and Saratoga, since Furious, Eagle, Glorious, Courageous were all
over 20,000 tons, Hermes (10,850) and Argus (14.500), which
were the first flat decked carrier and the first carrier built as such
were the RN exceptions. The USN had the Lexington class,
the Ranger (14,500 tons) the Yorktowns (20,000 tons) and the
Wasp at 14,700 tons.
The RN was moving to larger air groups with Ark Royal, but
then went backwards on the assumption the main enemies would
be Germany and Italy.
Which are the multipurpose designs you are thinking of? The
RN had a succession of torpedo bombers and fighters, and
only came up with a dive bomber in the late 1930's.
>The concentration of flying experience in
> the RAF certainly had some effect, too, making aviation somewhat of a
> false career step in the RN, and leaving the FAA with very few
> experienced advocates in the upper ranks.
That was the key, most navy men who knew how to fly went to
the RAF, meaning over the next 20 years there was a shortage
of navy men who were qualified aviators.
The usual inter service squabbles in peace time made a navy man
learning to fly something that looks like a non optimum career choice.
>>The US built carriers in the mid war for an oceanic battle between
>>relatively small numbers of carrier bombers carrying relatively light
>>bombs,
>>where air groups stood a fair chance of holding off the rival air groups
>>altogether and where a stray hit by a smaller bomb would not cause immense
>>damage. Low levels of armour and large unprotected hangars suited that
>>scenario.
>
> US doctrine was based around finding the enemy carrier first and
> striking it, hard, as quickly as possible. Peacetime exercises
> indicated that the carrier that got the drop on the enemy would likely
> survive, and one that didn't probably would not, no matter the fighter
> cover. This was the basis for the open hangar decks, the permanent
> deck parks, the fast deck cycles, and the big dive bomber ("scout")
> complements.
Correct.
> On the subject of land-based air, I would point out that US carriers
> were under attack by land-based bombers as early as February 1942, and
> many times thereafter.
However the nature of the Pacific war meant they were never
expected to encounter the sort of bomber numbers the RN
assumed were possible if facing the Luftwaffe, at least until
the end of 1943 when the raids on Rabaul finally convinced
the USN that the carriers could fight land based airpower
successfully. Until then the doctrine was to minimise such
fights.
The fundamental reality was from early 1943 onwards to the
arrival of the Kamikazes USN warships had major immunity
from Japanese aircraft, thanks to the lowering of IJN pilot
skills.
>>> In fact, the British designs failed.
>>
>>By the same argument, so did the US ones, because when the carriers moved
>>into the zone not anticipated by designers - ie a very heavy weight of
>>air
>>attack by land-based bombers carrying relatively heavy bombs - a single
>>kamikaze or bomb hit was a mission-kill and a dockyard repair.
>>
>
> As I've mentioned when we've done this before, the British carrier
> virtues in 1945 are apparent only because they could operate freely
> under US air dominance, which was won by the fast carrier forces with
> their wooden decks and open hangars.
This is over stating the case, the RN force could defend itself, like the
USN could, the RN force had roughly the number of aircraft being
operated as the USN carriers had at Midway. The Illustrious virtues
were passive, the armour.
The need for greater naval airpower in 1945 was the result of the
Japanese having significant land based airpower and a more effective
anti ship weapon, the Kamikaze, and the RN carrier's armour was
well placed to minimise Kamikaze impacts.
To put things around the other way, how well could the USN carriers
have survived in 1941/42 without the concepts learnt from the RAF
of ground controlled interception? The need for self sealing fuel tanks?
How much of US carriers freedom to operate in that time period
does this account for?
The allies helped each other for mutual benefit.
> For the Pacific war, it is
> obvious that the USN made overwhelmingly good choices in its carrier
> designs and doctrines.
Yes. And the new technology like radar made the choices even better.
>The number of bombs that decided the Battle of
> Midway is such that smaller USN air groups could well have changed the
> course of the war.
About 12 bomb hits to sink 120,000 tons of carriers, and about
12 bomb hits to sink around 12,400 tons of heavy cruiser and
heavily damage another.
One of the reasons the RN carriers carried fewer aircraft per ton
was things like the hangar fire protections and stronger avgas
storage to reduce the chance of the ship self destructing after
taking a small amount of damage.
> The British carriers would have absolutely no
> chance of standing up to the IJN carrier force in 1942.
Given the main IJN carrier force did not have a chance to attack
the USN at Midway what makes you so sure the USN force there
would have survived an IJN strike, given the accuracy of the IJN
strikes that did hit?
Furthermore the RN problem in 1942 was the aircraft embarked.
The Swordfish as a strike aircraft had no chance by daylight, it
would need radar guided strikes at night.
In 1942 the force that entered the Indian Ocean was 5 IJN
fleet carriers plus a light fleet carrier in support versus 2 RN
fleet and the Hermes, which did not have any aircraft embarked.
At Midway it was 4 IJN versus 3 USN + Midway.
And what would have happened if Yamamoto's pursuit orders
had reached Zuikaku at Coral Sea early enough to find Yorktown
again?
> This is not to denigrate the RN carriers in any way, they did great
> things with what they had and were good for their role in the Home and
> Med fleets. And they had very sophisticated and effective fighter
> direction, which was pretty clearly better than the USN's even in
> 1945.
Simply put there are more factors at work than just one good and
one bad, it depends on the situation. The air sea war was evolving
so fast that even the superb Essex class were being considered
obsolescent in 1945, overloaded and cramped.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
David Thornley
nik Simpson <ni...@knology.net> wrote:
>David Thornley wrote:
>>
>> That was the only time Illustrious took damage that looks to me like
>> it might have sunk a Yorktown or Essex, so "several" seems doubtful
>> to me.
>
>I was referring to the class as a whole and using Illustriuos as an
>example, Indomitable also got hit hard in the med (2x1000KG bombs IIRC)
>and they also withstood Kamikaze hits better, at least in terms of
>continuing to operate.
>
carrier, so there is no evidence that the lighter kamikaze
attacks the British carriers lasted through would have sunk a US
fleet carrier.
Moreover, the British carriers were taking damage from kamikazes.
They had a habit of putting large depressions in the flight deck.
While that was quickly patched up, it was structural damage to the
ship. When a US carrier took flight deck damage, it wasn't structural.
As far as two 1000kg bombs, I don't think that would have sunk
a US fleet carrier. The Japanese used lighter bombs, but they also
used torpedos, which the Germans didn't until rather late in the war.
David Thornley
L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
>news:13pnt4q...@corp.supernews.com...
>>>
>
>action.
>
that bombing and continued to operate just fine after it?
British *and* US carriers were vulnerable to attacks.
>> The Pacific Fleet was functionally a weak carrier task group, since
>
>The Pacific fleet was a powerful force with carriers suited to the near land
>roles allotted. It defended itself.
>
A carrier group that can defend itself, and nothing else, is
useless. It has to be able to do other things as well.
To do that, it has to have aircraft. British carriers carried
a lot fewer aircraft than US carriers.
Nor was Pacific Fleet suited to the near-land role, lacking enough
aircraft to swiftly overwhelm serious opposition.
>> Tell me, what was that flight deck
>> supposed to do to stop torpedos?
>
>No. Bombs from planes.
>
Right.
In other words, against a good naval air force, the flight deck
was not all that useful.
The reason the British carriers appeared to do well at first was
that the Luftwaffe was a lousy anti-shipping force.
>> Nope. IIRC, Formidable had a serious aircraft-handling accident,
>> and was out for a while.
>
>But not permanently out and continued. The attacks they suffered would
>have put a US carrier until the wars end.
>
The US took more and heavier kamikaze attacks than the British, and
US carriers tended to go away for a few months and come back at worst.
The British carriers were much better at dealing with kamikazes and
continuing operations, but they were suffering structural damage from
them that was not being repaired.
>The sturdy Pacific fleet was not lacking and fulfilled it role.
>
Right. That role was secondary. The tough targets were reserved
for the more able US task forces.
L2007
> In article <479c6728$0$47145$892e...@authen.yellow.readfreenews.net>,
> L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
>>news:13pnt4q...@corp.supernews.com...
>>>>
>>> Of the five fleet and light fleet carriers sunk by the Japanese,
>>
>>There is also the damage US carrier sustained too, as the ship was out of
>>action.
>>
> And British carriers were never out of action? Illustrious shook off
> that bombing and continued to operate just fine after it?
>
> British *and* US carriers were vulnerable to attacks.
>
>>> The Pacific Fleet was functionally a weak carrier task group, since
>>
>>The Pacific fleet was a powerful force with carriers suited to the near
>>land
>>roles allotted. It defended itself.
>>
> A carrier group that can defend itself, and nothing else,
Three carriers held 81 planes and they could attack as well. It was
mentioned here that the US suppored the British. They never, only in
logistics.
> Nor was Pacific Fleet suited to the near-land role, lacking enough
> aircraft to swiftly overwhelm serious opposition.
It was. It was well suited to that role.
>>> Tell me, what was that flight deck
>>> supposed to do to stop torpedos?
>
>> No. Bombs from planes.
>>
> Right.
>
> In other words, against a good naval air force, the flight deck
> was not all that useful.
>
> The reason the British carriers appeared to do well at first was
> that the Luftwaffe was a lousy anti-shipping force.
They did well against the Japanese as well.
>>> Nope. IIRC, Formidable had a serious aircraft-handling accident,
>>> and was out for a while.
>>
>>But not permanently out and continued. The attacks they suffered would
>>have put a US carrier until the wars end.
>>
> The US took more and heavier kamikaze attacks than the British, and
> US carriers tended to go away for a few months and come back at worst.
It is well know the armoured Briotish carriers could take more damage.
> The British carriers were much better at dealing with kamikazes and
> continuing operations, but they were suffering structural damage from
> them that was not being repaired.
They completed their missions. What they were supposed to do.
>>The sturdy Pacific fleet was not lacking and fulfilled it role.
>>
> Right. That role was secondary. The tough targets were reserved
> for the more able US task forces.
The US carriers were unsuitable for the close to land operation the British
carriers undertook. Again, US carriers would have been out of action taking
the close in hits the UK carriers took. Re-read this thread much of what
you are on about has been addressed. You are like a stuck record. You have
to get it in your mind that the UK armoured deck carriers were much superior
in certain roles. The US carriers were out of their depth and highly
vulnerable in certain roles.
YMC
news:479c116d$0$9720
> Actually technically there were, the group of 4 unnamed battleships that
> began construction in 1921 but were suspended a month after the
> contracts were let. Think of something looking like Nelson and Rodney
> but 50% larger. It would have been an interesting situation if the RN
> had tried to complete two of these as carriers under the "do not waste
> building hulls" provisions of the original treaty.
OT, the USN in the late 1920s were assuming that the Nelson and Rodney were
going to be completed as hybrid battleship aircraft carriers- with the
wooden deck located in the stern of the ship. And I recall seeing an artist
impression in the USN journal of the hybrid ships. I don't know whether the
British actually seriously toyed with the idea though.
David Thornley
L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
>
>It was. It was well suited to that role.
>
>> that the Luftwaffe was a lousy anti-shipping force.
>
>They did well against the Japanese as well.
>
In 1942, the Japanese had a high-quality naval air force, while
in 1945 it had been nearly wiped out by US aircraft, with some Australians
(the Australians were not as prominent in the air as on the
ground) several times. Most of the good pilots were dead.
>> The US took more and heavier kamikaze attacks than the British, and
>> US carriers tended to go away for a few months and come back at worst.
>
>It is well know the armoured Briotish carriers could take more damage.
>
It is well known that they functioned much better after kamikaze
attacks.
It is doubtful that they were any better at resisting torpedo
damage. They may have been worse.
They were somewhat better at resisting bomb damage, but the
armored flight decks stopped surprisingly few bombs.
>> The British carriers were much better at dealing with kamikazes and
>> continuing operations, but they were suffering structural damage from
>> them that was not being repaired.
>
>They completed their missions. What they were supposed to do.
>
So did US carriers, for the most part. Sometimes they stayed
in action for a few days after a heavy attack.
>> Right. That role was secondary. The tough targets were reserved
>> for the more able US task forces.
>
>The US carriers were unsuitable for the close to land operation the British
>carriers undertook.
If they were unsuitable, why were they dealing tremendous damage to
the Japanese, while not having a carrier sunk?
Again, US carriers would have been out of action taking
>the close in hits the UK carriers took.
Which ones? The British carriers were much less vulnerable to
immediate kamikaze damage, but they were quite capable of being
damaged by bombs, just like the US carriers, and I have no evidence
that they were any better at resisting torpedo damage.
Re-read this thread much of what
>you are on about has been addressed.
By claims that are, in some cases, false. For example, some people
have said that the US carriers could not operate near land-based
air, and they did operate for months there. Some people have said
US carriers would be vulnerable to land-based air, but the only
actual sinking was USS Princeton in 1944. Some people seem to
completely disregard the possibility of torpedo attacks, for no
other reasons I can see other than (a) the Luftwaffe didn't do
them early in the war, and (b) it's irrelevant to the flight deck.
You are like a stuck record.
Um, look at the one-line ungrounded assertions in your post.
You have
>to get it in your mind that the UK armoured deck carriers were much superior
>in certain roles.
I will, provided somebody comes up with reasons for me to think that.
So far, nobody has.
The US carriers were out of their depth and highly
>vulnerable in certain roles.
>
The US carriers functioned well in all roles the British carriers
functioned in. US carriers faced land-based aircraft frequently,
and late in the war operated continuously against land-based air
for long periods of time.
In 1944 and thereafter, the US carrier task forces would go looking
for land-based aircraft, in order to destroy them. Before the
Leyte invasion, for example, Task Force 38 was deliberately
going near major Japanese air bases in order to attack them.
Whatever those "certain roles" are, they certainly don't include
operating near large concentrations of land-based aircraft, since
the US carriers were historically quite successful in those roles.
Similarly, Illustrious showed that British carriers were not
safe, at least singly, near large numbers of enemy dive bombers.
What would those roles be that the British carriers were so much
superior to the US carriers in? (I'm not counting "operating with
too few aircraft" as a role here.)
L2007
news:c52d776e-c783-4710...@v29g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
Operational decisions are pretty well irrelevant to the design and
survivability of a carrier.
Andrew Clark
> Depends on the situation. Carriers with large air groups could
> fight off large numbers of enemy bombers.
To be precise, carriers with larger air groups can fight off larger number
of bombers than carriers with smaller air groups.
But a first class land-based air force like the Luftwaffe (or even the Regia
Aeronautica, which never achieved first class status but might have done so)
can deploy so many planes over the coastal approaches that no carrier or
group of carriers could defeat the attacks. The entire 1945 USN carrier
fleet couldn't hold off the 1940 Luftwaffe in the North Sea, for example.
The USN fighting the a second class air force like the Japanese could
reasonably assume that a larger air group would be a reasonable defence for
the carrier. The RN could not do so.
> Carriers could often
> operate by surprise, and so the enemy might not be able to concentrate
> force on them.
In oceanic waters against an enemy without sophisticated air search and
radar, perhaps. Sending a carrier force into the Med or North Sea undetected
is a far different matter.
> The issue here is that thick decks and heavy anti-aircraft were not
> the answer.
Strawman, as you know perfectly well.
No-one has suggested they were *the* answer. The RN assumed on good grounds
that in European waters a leaker would always get through whatever the size
of the air group and concluded that in these circumstances deck armour,
armoured hangers and good AA would help prevent a mission-kill; the USN
assumed on good grounds that in oceanic waters against the IJN they could
stop leakers with a larger air group and compromised on armour and
blast-containment to maximise aircraft capacity.
> If they were, battleships would have been able to operate
> in the face of enemy air superiority.
The incredible wartime development of aircraft engine technology meant that
the bomber could always carry a bomb big enough to penetrate battleship
armour, contrary to the thinking in the 1920s and 30s when armour could
defeat the largest bomb likely to be dropped on a battleship. And there was
always the aerial torpedo, too, which had been recognised by the RN as early
as 1913 as a potential battleship killer.
> If carriers traded away
> fighter operation for more passive defenses, they would be
> more vulnerable than battleships, perhaps more so than heavy
> cruisers, which would have less anti-aircraft but fewer critical
> spots.
If carriers traded away armour and blast-containment for fighter operations
they would be vulnerable to any aircraft which managed to sneak past the
active defences. Carrier design is a compromise: both sides pre-war built
according to their needs and perceptions of risk within .
Without the Treaty, the RN would have built large armoured-deck carriers
like the US Midway class in the 1930s, reflecting a much better compromise
than was possible within Treaty limits.
> US carriers frequently operated within the range of enemy land-based
> aircraft, and I'm not remembering any serious damage from land-based
> air until 1944.
This is a wholly false comparison. US carriers in the Pacific fought
occasionally within range of small island garrison air forces made up,
usually, of no more than medium bombers. That situation is not to be
compared with the Luftwaffe in Europe in its heyday, and neither is the
surviving Japanese air force on the Home Islands in Japanese
Andrew Clark
> Despite numerous attempts, no kamikaze attack ever sank a US fleet
> carrier,
No, but one kamikaze hit was a hard mission kill requiring extensive
dockyard repair.
> so there is no evidence that the lighter kamikaze
> attacks the British carriers lasted through would have sunk a US
> fleet carrier.
No, but there is ample evidence that the Us carriers could not maintain
operations under heavy sustained kamikaze attack. And a WW2 carrier which
couldn't operate aircraft was just a big tin box.
> Moreover, the British carriers were taking damage from kamikazes.
> They had a habit of putting large depressions in the flight deck.
> While that was quickly patched up, it was structural damage to the
> ship. When a US carrier took flight deck damage, it wasn't structural.
As I have said before, in the middle of a battle and a war, possibly
reducing long-term service life but maintaining short-term operational
capability is a far better outcome for any weapons system than maintaining
long-term service life but immediately losing short-term operational
capability.
> As far as two 1000kg bombs, I don't think that would have sunk
> a US fleet carrier.
No, but it would have mission-killed it for a long time.
(snip)
L2007
>>The sturdy Pacific fleet was not lacking and fulfilled it role.
>>
> Right. That role was secondary. The tough targets were reserved
> for the more able US task forces.
The US fleet was not more capable, it was just larger. As the Russian would
say, "quality has a quality all of its own". Anglophobe King didn't want
the British in the Pacific at all.
At 18 flat tops it was a formibable force.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Pacific_Fleet
L2007
> In article <479d2f47$0$47125$892e...@authen.yellow.readfreenews.net>,
> L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
>>news:13pq6m9...@corp.supernews.com...
>>
>>It was. It was well suited to that role.
>>
>>> The reason the British carriers appeared to do well at first was
>>> that the Luftwaffe was a lousy anti-shipping force.
>>
>>They did well against the Japanese as well.
>>
> In 1945. Not in 1942. There's a difference there.
In 1942 six Japanese carriers entered the Indian ocean against 2 British and
another one without planes. The Japanese force was much larger and superior.
The British never had a fleet to fleet engagement with the Japanese.
How a British carrier force of six carriers, and planes as equal to the
Japanese would have performed against the Jap force is open to what if. The
British carriers were not designed for oceanic engagements of fleets of
carriers locking horns. I personally think they would have done well.
>>The US carriers were out of their depth and highly
>>vulnerable in certain roles.
>>
> The US carriers functioned well
> in all roles the British carriers
> functioned in.
see below.
> In 1944 and thereafter, the US carrier
> task forces would go looking for land-based
> aircraft, in order to destroy them.
Look at the big picture for once. You also have to take into account that
by 1944 allied carrier planes were much superior to Japanese planes, carrier
and land based, which was not the case in 1942. All things being pretty
equal US carriers operating close to land facing superior land based planes
would have taken a pounding. In WW2 land based planes were superior to
carrier planes, as they never suffered their constraints
US carriers were not come super carrier that operated well in all roles.
They clearly were not.
> Similarly, Illustrious showed that British carriers were not
> safe, at least singly, near large numbers of enemy dive bombers.
...but took damage which would have sunk a US a carrier.
> What would those roles be that the British carriers were so much
> superior to the US carriers in? (I'm not counting "operating with
> too few aircraft" as a role here.)
That has been explained by many posters on this thread. I advise you to read
the thread again.
nik Simpson
>
> OT, the USN in the late 1920s were assuming that the Nelson and Rodney were
> going to be completed as hybrid battleship aircraft carriers- with the
> wooden deck located in the stern of the ship. And I recall seeing an artist
> impression in the USN journal of the hybrid ships. I don't know whether the
> British actually seriously toyed with the idea though.
>
Raven & Roberts - "British Battleships of WW2" and D.K. Brown's "Nelson
to Vanguard" which are pretty much the reference sources on RN
battleship design in the period make no mention of a hybrid Nelson
design, so it sounds like pure USN speculation at the time. Perhaps they
were stumped by the design having all the turrets at the front.
--
Nik Simpson
.
Christopher Manteuffel
<acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
[Re: IJNAF bomber's]
> That situation is not to be
> compared with the Luftwaffe in Europe in its heyday
Yep. Because the IJNAF was much better than the Luftwaffe at anti-
shipping work. The IJNAF had aerial torpedo's, planes designed to
deliever them, and extensive training and experience at searching for,
finding, and then sinking enemy ships.
The Luftwaffe in no way compares to the IJNAF in any of those fields.
Chris Manteuffel
SilentOtto
>
> > Despite numerous attempts, no kamikaze attack ever sank a US fleet
> > carrier,
>
> No, but one kamikaze hit was a hard mission kill requiring extensive
> dockyard repair.
Assuming that the information on this page is accurate:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-042.htm
I think you're overstating "mission kill" a bit.
For example:
USS Enterprise CV-6
11 April 1945 - Hit by a Yokosuka "Judy" right aft, with its 500 kg
bomb exploding at the turn of the bilge near the after machinery
spaces, causing severe shock damage. An hour later, another "Judy"
near-missed near her starboard bow and its bomb went off close aboard,
causing some additional underwater damage. Five men were wounded from
these attacks and one man was blown overboard, but later rescued.
Enterprise continued with her flight duties, launching strikes on
Okinawa and islands in the Amami group for three more days before
being detached. She was repaired at Ulithi for sixteen days and was
off Okinawa once more on 6 May.
So, USS Enterprise was hit by two Kamikazi, she was able to stay on
station and continue operations for another three days.
I strongly suspect that she could have stayed on station longer had
the need been acute, as the damage was such that a relatively short
visit to a forward base for repairs was sufficient to put her back
into fighting trim.
Here's another:
Essex CV-9
25 November 1944: A kamikaze hit the port edge of her flight deck,
striking planes ready and fueled for takeoff, causing extensive damage
with 15 killed and 44 wounded. Thirty minutes later she was capable
of launching and landing planes. The damage was quickly repaired and
she was back with the 3d Fleet off Luzon supporting the occupation of
Mindoro during 14-16 December 1944.
Again, a hit by a Kamikazi, causing extensive damage, yet Essex was
launching and recovering planes in half and hour.
And another:
Intrepid CV-11
30 October 1944: A burning Kamikaze crashed into one of the carrier's
port gun tubs killing 10 men and wounding 6. Resumed flight
operations within hours.
There are more examples, but I think the point is clear.
U.S. Carriers could take hits from Kamikaze and be back in the fight
within minutes in some cases, or hours in others.
While it's clear that Kamakazi aircraft frequently did extensive
damage that required significant repair, it doesn't seem that the
damage they inflicted was so devistating that the carriers couldn't
put off repairs and stay on station until their immediate mission was
completed or another carrier was able to relieve them.
Bill Shatzer
> "David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>
>>Despite numerous attempts, no kamikaze attack ever sank a US fleet
>>carrier,
>
>
> No, but one kamikaze hit was a hard mission kill requiring extensive
> dockyard repair.
Certainly not invariably. Enterprise took a kamikaze hit (and a second
near miss) and continued in operation for three days. Repairs at Ulithi
took but 16 days.
Essex took a kamikaze on the flight deck and was launching and
recovering planes within a half an hour. Repairs took less than three
weeks.
Lexington (CV-16) took a kamikaze hit near its island and resumed normal
flight operations within 20 minutes. Repairs were completed at Ulithi
in less than four weeks.
Und so weiter.
Cheers,
Christopher Manteuffel
<removemebayremovemec...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
> Operational decisions are pretty well irrelevant to the design and
> survivability of a carrier.
Size of CAP is fairly directly related to size of airgroup. Size of
airgroup is one of the major design issues for an aircraft carrier.
Size of airgroup has to be factored into survivability of an aircraft
carrier because they are the primary means of defense for a carrier.
Chris Manteuffel
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>> Despite numerous attempts, no kamikaze attack ever sank a US fleet
>> carrier,
>
>No, but one kamikaze hit was a hard mission kill requiring extensive
>dockyard repair.
>
on a British carrier. The flight deck could not be completely
armored, after all.
In general, kamikaze hits on a US carrier were more serious
than on a British armoured-deck one, but it wasn't as cut-and-dried
a difference as it is sometimes presented.
>> so there is no evidence that the lighter kamikaze
>> attacks the British carriers lasted through would have sunk a US
>> fleet carrier.
>
>No, but there is ample evidence that the Us carriers could not maintain
>operations under heavy sustained kamikaze attack.
Okay, in that case you should be able to show at what period of time
heavy kamikaze attack stopped US carrier operations.
Individual ships were damaged, sometimes heavily damaged. That
happens sometimes under heavy sustained attack. The USN normally
fought off the attack, dealt with damage, and continued ops.
Feel free to provide a counterexample. I don't know of one, but
I'll be happy to check any you come up with.
>> As far as two 1000kg bombs, I don't think that would have sunk
>> a US fleet carrier.
>
>No, but it would have mission-killed it for a long time.
>
Maybe. On the other hand, a larger CAP might have prevented
the hits. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the details of
the attack.
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>> Depends on the situation. Carriers with large air groups could
>> fight off large numbers of enemy bombers.
>
>To be precise, carriers with larger air groups can fight off larger number
>of bombers than carriers with smaller air groups.
>
>But a first class land-based air force like the Luftwaffe
In this context, you mean third class, at best, at least through
1940. Maybe second class for another couple of years.
What makes you think the Luftwaffe was at all competent at ship
attack in 1940? What makes you think there can be a first-class
anti-shipping air force in WWII *without* *a* *torpedo* *bomber*.
Actually, we might consider the Germans to have arrived with guided
missiles, like the one that sank Roma. Do you think carrier armoured
decks would have worked well against them?
(or even the Regia
>Aeronautica, which never achieved first class status but might have done so)
Darn sight closer. They had torpedo bombers.
>can deploy so many planes over the coastal approaches that no carrier or
>group of carriers could defeat the attacks. The entire 1945 USN carrier
>fleet couldn't hold off the 1940 Luftwaffe in the North Sea, for example.
>
Assuming the Luftwaffe could hit a moving ship, of course, you're
still wrong.
The late 1945 US fleet had about two thousand aircraft. That's about
half the entire Luftwaffe of the period. Not all the Luftwaffe
aircraft would be useful against ships (not even when they trained
some pilots).
Moreover, ground bases do not move. It is possible to hit them
by surprise, or at least hit them before the Luftwaffe can move
large air forces into the area.
>The USN fighting the a second class air force like the Japanese could
>reasonably assume that a larger air group would be a reasonable defence for
>the carrier. The RN could not do so.
>
The "second class air force" sent a British battlecruiser and modern
battleship to the bottom quite effectively. The Germans weren't
doing nearly that impressively in the Med around Crete.
>In oceanic waters against an enemy without sophisticated air search and
>radar, perhaps. Sending a carrier force into the Med or North Sea undetected
>is a far different matter.
>
The Japanese had long-range aircraft, and plenty of incentive to
spot US carriers fast. It didn't seem to help them.
>> The issue here is that thick decks and heavy anti-aircraft were not
>> the answer.
>
>Strawman, as you know perfectly well.
>
No, not a strawman.
>No-one has suggested they were *the* answer. The RN assumed on good grounds
>that in European waters a leaker would always get through whatever the size
>of the air group and concluded that in these circumstances deck armour,
>armoured hangers and good AA would help prevent a mission-kill;
Which turned out to be wrong, once the Germans trained pilots to hit
aircraft. Good anti-aircraft reduces the effectiveness of attacks,
but not as much as friendly fighters. Since the deck armor cannot
cover the whole deck, in particular not the elevators, there will
be leakers. In addition, German bombs were known to go through
the armored deck and explode within.
Nor would the deck armor have been all that useful against a first-rate
naval air force. One that used *torpedo* *bombers*. It was useful
against an opponent incapable of making effective anti-shipping
strikes, but most things work against such opponents.
the USN
>assumed on good grounds that in oceanic waters against the IJN they could
>stop leakers with a larger air group and compromised on armour and
>blast-containment to maximise aircraft capacity.
>
The US could not, and did not, stop all leakers. In 1944, the
Japanese seriously damaged two US heavy cruisers when the US
carriers were operating against large quantities of land-based air.
>> If they were, battleships would have been able to operate
>> in the face of enemy air superiority.
>
>The incredible wartime development of aircraft engine technology meant that
>the bomber could always carry a bomb big enough to penetrate battleship
>armour, contrary to the thinking in the 1920s and 30s when armour could
>defeat the largest bomb likely to be dropped on a battleship. And there was
>always the aerial torpedo, too, which had been recognised by the RN as early
>as 1913 as a potential battleship killer.
>
Right.
To put this another way, the bomber could always carry a bomb big
enough to penetrate carrier armor, contrary to the thinking in the
late 1930s. And there was always the aerial torpedo, which the RN
had pioneered in, and apparently ignored when they designed their
carriers.
The best defense against torpedo bombers is lots of fighters, and
a good torpedo defense system, which the Yorktown class and larger
carriers had.
After all, there are always leakers, and the USN was well aware of
that.
>If carriers traded away armour and blast-containment for fighter operations
>they would be vulnerable to any aircraft which managed to sneak past the
>active defences.
On the other hand, trading fighter operations for armor, which the
British did, means that the armor is going to get a real workout.
And, of course, there will always be "leakers" hitting the elevators
or whatever.
Carrier design is a compromise: both sides pre-war built
>according to their needs and perceptions of risk within .
>
Right. What I'm saying is that, in this particular case, the
US was right and the British were wrong. As a pro-forma nod to
political correctness, which seems to be required here, I will
note the greater competence of the British at ASW.
>Without the Treaty, the RN would have built large armoured-deck carriers
>like the US Midway class in the 1930s, reflecting a much better compromise
>than was possible within Treaty limits.
>
What makes you think that?
The RN could have built modern, fast carriers, using the tonnage
of Argus, Hermes, Eagle, and Furious. The treaty clearly said that
they could be scrapped and the tonnage reused at will.
Instead, they built one carrier, Ark Royal, to get up to treaty
tonnage. (The best wartime carrier the British had, although
it had serious problems. Follow-up Ark Royals would have been
very good carriers.)
If the RN had had the resources to build carriers, they would
have replaced some of the old WWI relics.
>> US carriers frequently operated within the range of enemy land-based
>> aircraft, and I'm not remembering any serious damage from land-based
>> air until 1944.
>
>This is a wholly false comparison.
In what way?
US carriers in the Pacific fought
>occasionally within range of small island garrison air forces made up,
>usually, of no more than medium bombers.
Yup, and the British occasionally operated near German air forces.
BTW, anything bigger than a medium bomber was pretty much useless in
the ship-attack role, unless carrying guided weapons or doing something
like skip-bombing. Therefore, "no more than medium bombers" is a
strawman. It was the medium bombers (OK, heavy according to the
Japanese classification) that were dangerous.
Later on, the US fought considerably larger garrisons, by the way.
That situation is not to be
>compared with the Luftwaffe in Europe in its heyday,
Which heyday? The one before they learned how to bomb ships?
The one in which most of the Luftwaffe was either committed to
ground warfare against the Soviet Union? The one in which
most of what wasn't fighting the Soviets was desperately trying
to defend the homeland?
The Luftwaffe was never a great danger to Allied ships, by Japanese
standards.
and neither is the
>surviving Japanese air force on the Home Islands in Japanese
>
How about cleaning out Formosa and the Philippines? After some
time in 1943, the USN went where it wanted, and annihilated
opposition in its path, including all the concentrations of
land-based air Japan could put up.
And the Japanese did know how to attack ships.
David Thornley
L2007 <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
>>>
>> In 1945. Not in 1942. There's a difference there.
>
>In 1942 six Japanese carriers entered the Indian ocean against 2 British and
>another one without planes. The Japanese force was much larger and superior.
>The British never had a fleet to fleet engagement with the Japanese.
>
Japanese were concentrating theirs. At that time, the Japanese had
the most powerful carrier forces in the world. (What they lacked
was the ability to replace losses.)
>How a British carrier force of six carriers, and planes as equal to the
>Japanese would have performed against the Jap force is open to what if.
Certainly.
Consider that the British carriers had considerably fewer aircraft,
of worse performance. The Japanese were operating Zeros, Vals, and
Kates. The British, at that time, were using a lot of Fulmars
and Swordfish or Albacores.
Now, consider that the armored decks were worse than useless against
torpedo bombers.
The
>British carriers were not designed for oceanic engagements of fleets of
>carriers locking horns.
In other words, they weren't designed to be real carriers.
I personally think they would have done well.
>
Any actual reasons? Or just because you like the British?
If you think they would have done well, please explain why and
how.
Explain how the British are going to get biplane torpedo bombers
past the Zeros. Explain how Fulmars are supposed to stop Kates and
Vals escorted by Zeros.
>> In 1944 and thereafter, the US carrier
>> task forces would go looking for land-based
>> aircraft, in order to destroy them.
>
>Look at the big picture for once. You also have to take into account that
>by 1944 allied carrier planes were much superior to Japanese planes, carrier
>and land based, which was not the case in 1942.
The USN operated quite frequently against Japanese land-based aircraft
in 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945. Indeed, Nimitz was putting US carriers
into action against land-based aircraft for the sake of picking up
minor advantages in early 1942. I think he knew something you don't.
All things being pretty
>equal US carriers operating close to land facing superior land based planes
>would have taken a pounding.
All other things being equal, the side with inferior resources is at
a disadvantage, yes.
In WW2 land based planes were superior to
>carrier planes, as they never suffered their constraints
>
Not necessarily.
However, carriers, at least US ones, were superior airbases to most
of the ones on the ground. They were designed and optimized for
rapid aircraft operations, and could move between being sighted and
being attacked.
>US carriers were not come super carrier that operated well in all roles.
>They clearly were not.
>
In which case you will have no difficulty naming a role they did
not operate well in. Please back this up with some sort of historical
evidence.
>> Similarly, Illustrious showed that British carriers were not
>> safe, at least singly, near large numbers of enemy dive bombers.
>
>...but took damage which would have sunk a US a carrier.
>
That's been dealt with upthread.
One of the bombs hit Illustrious' armored deck. It penetrated. Now,
the armored deck might well have caused it to explode higher in the
ship, but that's not much benefit from a whole lot of topweight and
a big sacrifice in aircraft.
The other bombs either did not hit the deck, or hit the elevators,
which were unarmored.
Since the same bombs would have hit the same places in the different
carriers, and exploded about the same, why do you think a US carrier
would have been sunk?
>> What would those roles be that the British carriers were so much
>> superior to the US carriers in? (I'm not counting "operating with
>> too few aircraft" as a role here.)
>
>That has been explained by many posters on this thread. I advise you to read
>the thread again.
In which case, again, it should be no problem for you to name a role
that British carriers did well in, and which US carriers, facing
comparable opposition, did poorly in. Be sure to use references to
actual historical events.
I'm not holding my breath.
YMC
> But a first class land-based air force like the Luftwaffe (or even the
> Regia Aeronautica, which never achieved first class status but might have
> done so) can deploy so many planes over the coastal approaches that no
> carrier or group of carriers could defeat the attacks. The entire 1945 USN
> carrier fleet couldn't hold off the 1940 Luftwaffe in the North Sea, for
> example.
Hmm... that's an interesting hypothetical ! How many bombers, fighters and
divebombers could the Luftwaffe field in the North Sea in 1940? I'm assuming
its about post June 1940.
Could the ME109 have the range to escort their bombers to the target and
back? I don't recall ME109 operating over those waters in large number.
L2007
And if it fails, which they all do.......?
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
(David Thornley) wrote:
> Right. That role was secondary. The tough targets were reserved
> for the more able US task forces.
Interestingly enough the US war experience resulted in the Midway
class. This had an armoured hanger deck, belt armour proof against 8
inch fire and an armoured flight deck. It also had enclosed hangars.
The Midway was of course much bigger than any previous design.
Ken Young
Timothy J. Lee
Andrew Clark <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>is a far different matter.
Somehow, the Wasp (CV-7) managed to get in and out of the
Mediterranean without getting sunk, despite having almost
no armor at all.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Lee
Unsolicited bulk or commercial email is not welcome.
No warranty of any kind is provided with this message.
Rich Rostrom
>Andrew Clark <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>The entire 1945 USN carrier
>>fleet couldn't hold off the 1940 Luftwaffe in the North Sea, for example.
>>
>Assuming the Luftwaffe could hit a moving ship...
The Luftwaffe did sink Z.1 and Z.3, so they
_could_ hit a moving ship.
They also sank some non-friendly vessels.
Unfortunately my British destroyer reference
disappeared. But I have my French navy
reference, and it says they sank French
destroyers CHACAL, BISON, ORAGE, L'ADROIT,
and FOUDROYANT in 1940. BISON was sunk off
Norway, so one would think she was underway.
>of course, you're still wrong.
>
>The late 1945 US fleet had about two thousand aircraft.
The US Navy in July 1945 had in commission:
1 SARATOGA 90 a/c 90
1 ENTERPRISE 81 a/c 81
17 ESSEX 80 a/c ea 1,360
8 INDEPENDENCE 45 a/c ea 360
Total 1,891
plus
9 BOGUE 28 a/c ea 252
4 SANGAMON 30 a/c ea 120
1 PRINCE WILLIAM 28 a/c 28
45 CASABLANCA 28 a/c ea 1,260
10 COMMENCEMENT BAY 34 a/c ea 340
Total 2,000
So almost 4,000 a/c. Allow for battle damage
and refitting at the time, and the USN could
have massed 2,700 a/c.
The Luftwaffe had in early 1940 about 6,000 a/c.
But most of these were short-range Me 109
fighters, only about 400 were Ju 87 dive bombers,
and none were torpedo bombers.
--
| Decapitation is, in most instances, associated |
| with a decline in IQ. |
| |
| -- Professor Raymond Tallis |
Louis C
> But a first class land-based air force like the Luftwaffe (or even the Regia
> Aeronautica, which never achieved first class status but might have done so)
> can deploy so many planes over the coastal approaches that no carrier or
> group of carriers could defeat the attacks. The entire 1945 USN carrier
> fleet couldn't hold off the 1940 Luftwaffe in the North Sea, for example.
The 1945 USN fleet that pounded Japan would have survived in the North
Sea without a major problem against the 1940 Luftwaffe (I'm assuming
that the USN would be flying aircraft of comparable characteristics as
the German fighters, obviously not pitting Hellcats against Emils and
He 111's!). It had comparable amounts of fighters as the British
during the BoB, the same kind of fighter direction, and presented a
more vulnerable but moving target.
Also, the 1940 Luftwaffe just wasn't very good at hitting ships. It
made an impression against poorly-defended ships off Norway, or in
favorable conditions off Dunkirk but from that to hitting a full
integrated task force is an entirely different matter.
> The USN fighting the a second class air force like the Japanese could
> reasonably assume that a larger air group would be a reasonable defence for
> the carrier. The RN could not do so.
Note that as far as "second class" goes, Italy was behind Japan in
GDP, air force size, naval attack capable aircraft, industrial power,
population, everything. So there's little point counting it as a
potential first rate power with Japan being permanently stuck to
traveling in second class.
Further note, as has been pointed out by David before, that as far as
sinking ships went, the IJN was probably second to none in 1940/41.
> In oceanic waters against an enemy without sophisticated air search and
> radar, perhaps. Sending a carrier force into the Med or North Sea undetected
> is a far different matter.
The enemy may know that a carrier force has entered the Med, but
that's not the same as actually detecting it. I do seem to recall the
British carriers sneaking up to Taranto.
Note how Allied amphibious invasion convoys repeatedly surprised the
Germans as well, and they weren't even as fast as carriers would be.
This whole business of coastal vs oceanic waters has always sounded
weird to me. If the RN is sailing in range of a lot of land-based
aviation, then its ships are going to be sunk, no matter what kind of
armor they have. After all, *battleships* are barely survivable in
such an environment so a carrier would never be. It's impossible to
adequately armor all of a ship, only the most critical bits, and all
that armor does is cushion the blows and prevent the ship from
sinking. It doesn't really stop damage. If nothing else, Jutland had
taught everyone that.
Further note that "a leaker" is going to have to be awfully lucky to
sink a 20,000+ tons ship. Such big ships don't sink easily.
Finally, the Luftwaffe anti-shipping technique involved low-level
bombing attacks, with the bombs being released at very close range so
as to hit below the flotation line. I'm not sure how an armored deck
would help against this, in fact I'm pretty sure it wouldn't. The
alternative anti-warship technique was dive bombing, against which the
armored flight deck would provide insufficient protection.
I do agree that there was no "the answer", only compromises. It seems
clear, however, that the RN made the wrong call with the Illustrious.
Note that the RN *never* operated within range of large Luftwaffe
forces either, armored decks or not, so calling the USN experience
irrelevant sounds gratuitous. The USN sailed just as much into harm's
way, and probably more, as the RN.
LC
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
(David Thornley) wrote:
> In this context, you mean third class, at best, at least through
> 1940. Maybe second class for another couple of years.
When the armoured carriers were designed nobody knew how effective land
based air would be. Or come to that how effective cruisers would be. The
closed hangers with armour extended to the hangar deck were intended to
defend against cruisers as well.
> What makes you think there can be a first-class
> anti-shipping air force in WWII *without* *a* *torpedo* *bomber*.
The Germans had torpedo bombers in 1939. They may have been useless
flying boats with lousy torpedoes but they existed.
> The late 1945 US fleet had about two thousand aircraft.
The RN carriers were not designed in 1945. IIRC it was something like
1936. Whether or not it was a good decision for the RN to build armoured
carriers it was certainly thought out. By the way hangar size was
definitely a consideration in the ones retained post war. Hangar height
was important. The Implacable class could not operate the Corsair. It
was the increase in aircraft size as much as anything else that did them
in. Implacable did not suffer any damage and was still scrapped with the
rest.
The USN and the RN had different staff requirements, their carriers
were built to those.
Ken Young
Michele
news:479e6e01$0$13262$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
> "Andrew Clark" <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
>
>> But a first class land-based air force like the Luftwaffe (or even the
>> Regia Aeronautica, which never achieved first class status but might have
>> done so) can deploy so many planes over the coastal approaches that no
>> carrier or group of carriers could defeat the attacks. The entire 1945
>> USN carrier fleet couldn't hold off the 1940 Luftwaffe in the North Sea,
>> for example.
>
> Hmm... that's an interesting hypothetical ! How many bombers, fighters and
> divebombers could the Luftwaffe field in the North Sea in 1940? I'm
> assuming its about post June 1940.
>
That depends on whether they are trying to win the Battle of Britain or not,
at the same time, right?
In any case, with the historical Battle of Britain going on, they had the
I/JG 77 and the II/JG 77 in Stavanger, Trondheim and other Norwegian bases
(85 Bf 109s) plus the I/ZG 76 also in Stavanger (34 Bf 110s).
> Could the ME109 have the range to escort their bombers to the target and
> back? I don't recall ME109 operating over those waters in large number.
>
Of course not, the Bf 109 had maybe half the range of any late-war
carrier-based fighter, so the carriers can stay out of range.
But if the US aircraft are to support any landing operation, _they_ will
have to come within land-based fighters' range. And there they will be
slaughtered by sheer numbers in fighter-vs-fighter battles.
After which, the carriers become useless. On top of that, if their fighter
force has been seriously depleted in these unwise attacks, the Germans may
contemplate sending in Bf 110s or Ju 88 fighters as long-ranged escorts for
their bombers. I doubt the 1940 Luftwaffe can score a hit on a 1945 US task
force, even with a reduced CAP over it, but who knows.
Dave Smith
If Wikpedia can be believed, the Luftwaffe started of the BoB with 1,107 single
seat fighters, 357 two seat fighers, 1,300 bombers, 429 dive bombers along with
569 reconnaissance and 233 coastal aircraft. Given the short range of the Bf
109, especially in comparison to some of the American aircraft, it seems
unlikely that they would be able to escort them all the way. It comes down to
tactics. I think it can be agreed that the Aamerican victories at Midway and the
Coral Sea can be attributed to superior tactics and a heck of a lot of luck.
The Luftwaffe was able to all but close of the southern end of the North Sea in
the Channel and Straits of Dover in the early phases of the BoB. Things got so
bad that even escorted convoys could only try to pass at night, at which time
they fell prey to torpedoe boats instead of enemy bombers.
L2007
news:EeSdnVWAXqj...@pipex.net...
In short they adopted much the British design of carriers. The Midway was
bigger as they wanted a large compliment of planes.
L2007
>> The British carriers were not designed for
>> oceanic engagements of fleets of
>> carriers locking horns.
>
> In other words, they weren't designed to be real carriers.
They never flew boats off the decks.
>> I personally think they would have done well.
>
> Any actual reasons? Or just because you like the British?
The British would have taken the battleships along, whoch could have taken
out the odd carrier.
> If you think they would have done
> well, please explain why and
> how.
>
> Explain how the British are going to
> get biplane torpedo bombers
> past the Zeros.
I did say with equal planes.
>> Look at the big picture for once.
>> You also have to take into account that
>> by 1944 allied carrier planes were much
>> superior to Japanese planes, carrier
>> and land based, which was not the case in 1942.
>
> The USN operated quite frequently against
> Japanese land-based aircraft in 1942, 1943,
> 1944, and 1945. Indeed, Nimitz was putting US carriers
> into action against land-based aircraft for the sake of picking up
> minor advantages in early 1942. I think he knew something you don't.
But US carrier planes were not superior to Japanese land based planes in
1942. I don't think hey had he edge over the Japanese carrier based planes
either. 1945 was a different situation.
>> All things being pretty
>> equal US carriers operating close to land
>> facing superior land based planes
>> would have taken a pounding.
>
> All other things being equal, the side with inferior resources is at
> a disadvantage, yes.
US carriers in The Med would have sunk easily. No way they could have
survived what the UK carriers took.
>> In WW2 land based planes were superior to
>> carrier planes, as they never suffered their constraints
>>
> Not necessarily.
That was the case.
> However, carriers, at least US ones, were superior airbases to most
> of the ones on the ground. They were designed and optimized for
> rapid aircraft operations, and could move between being sighted and
> being attacked.
>
>>US carriers were not come super carrier that operated well in all roles.
>>They clearly were not.
>>
> In which case you will have no
> difficulty naming a role they did
> not operate well in.
Close to land. ..and if they did operate in say the Med, most would be at
the bottom. What saved them when operating close to land was that Japanese
planes were inferior and had not been updated since 1942, while Allied
planes surged ahead by the month,.
>>> Similarly, Illustrious showed that British carriers were not
>>> safe, at least singly, near large numbers of enemy dive bombers.
>>
>>...but took damage which would have sunk a US a carrier.
>>
> That's been dealt with upthread.
>
> One of the bombs hit Illustrious' armored deck.
> It penetrated.
It would have hit the hangar in a UD carrier and kaboom. No proper fire
curtains, etc down there. One burnt out in a fire as there was no fire
protection
> Since the same bombs would have hit the same places in the different
> carriers, and exploded about the same, why do you think a US carrier
> would have been sunk?
They were inferior in design for intensive direct attack. The means of
defence was to keep the enemy planes away from the carrier. If they got
through then the carrier was far more vulnerable than an armour carrier.
Very simple.
>>> What would those roles be that the British carriers were so much
>>> superior to the US carriers in? (I'm not counting "operating with
>>> too few aircraft" as a role here.)
>>
>>That has been explained by many posters on this thread. I advise you to
>>read
>>the thread again.
>
> In which case, again, it should be no problem for you to name a role
> that British carriers did well in, and which US carriers, facing
> comparable opposition, did poorly in.
US carriers did not take the sort of intensive pounding from land based
planes the UK carriers took in the Med - they would have been sunk. It is
that simple. Later US carriers did have armoured decks, etc, and adopted
the British designs...I wonder why.....
Duwop
> In article <CYmdncRqtMSdTADaRVny...@giganews.com>,Andrew Clark <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>The "second class air force" sent a British battlecruiser and modern
>battleship to the bottom quite effectively. The Germans weren't
>doing nearly that impressively in the Med around Crete.
Mr. Clark, if the Japanese were a second class anti ship air force,
who exactly was first class? And where would you rank England in 1941?
Rank these in 1941 and 1944 please:
England
Japan
Italy
USA
Germany
Christopher Manteuffel
<removemebayremovemec...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
> And if it fails, which they all do.......?
The concept is that of layered defense. Flight deck armor is no more
than a single layer of protection too. It too can be defeated, witness
the bomb that penetrated Illustrious' deck armor (and, as the three
bombs that struck the unarmored hanger demonstrate, each layer has
holes in it as well). Another layer is AA protection, both from the
carrier itself and its escorts. The final layer is damage control. It
is just that fighters are by far the most effective, powerful, and
useful layer of defense for an aircraft carrier. You can't judge the
survivability of any ship without examining every layer of defense.
Examining a single layer in isolation leads to misleading and false
conclusions.
Chris Manteuffel
Mark Sieving
> In article <479df3c0$0$47150$892e7...@authen.yellow.readfreenews.net>,L2007 <removemebayremovemec...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
> >"David Thornley" <thorn...@visi.com> wrote in message
> >news:13prl6v...@corp.supernews.com...
> >> Similarly, Illustrious showed that British carriers were not
> >> safe, at least singly, near large numbers of enemy dive bombers.
>
> >...but took damage which would have sunk a US a carrier.
>
> That's been dealt with upthread.
>
> One of the bombs hit Illustrious' armored deck. It penetrated. Now,
> the armored deck might well have caused it to explode higher in the
> ship, but that's not much benefit from a whole lot of topweight and
> a big sacrifice in aircraft.
I doubt that what I'm going to say is any news to the participants in
this discussion, but it might be useful to some lurkers.
* There's lots of talk about the British carriers having an armored
deck, and the implication that US carriers didn't. That's not quite
right. Both nation's carriers generally had armored decks. The
British carriers (after Ark Royal) had their armored deck at the
flight deck. US carriers had the armored deck below the hanger. The
advantage of the British armor is that it made it harder to put a hole
in the flight deck, and consequently cause damage on the hanger deck.
The advantage of the US armor was that it was carried lower, which
allowed better stability. Both provided about equal protection to the
ship's vitals. The armored flight deck didn't make the British
carriers harder to sink.
* Both US and British carriers were able to repair flight deck damage
pretty quickly, provided the elevators weren't hit. Both US and
British carriers could have problems if an elevator got stuck in a
down position, since that left a gaping hole right in the middle of
the flight deck.
* Armored decks were not impenetrable. The British Illustrious class
and the US Yorktown class were both designed, IIRC, to withstand 500
lb bombs. That was about the maximum capacity of dive bombers in the
1930s, but by 1942, 1000 lb or even larger bombs were not uncommon. A
1000 lb AP bomb is probably going to penetrate either a British or US
carrier.
* How much damage a bomb penetrating to the hanger deck would do
depended a lot on hanger operating procedures. If ordnance and avgas
were not properly handled, an explosion on the hanger deck could be
multiplied out of control. The Brtish were probably better in this
regard early, but by 1945 US procedures had improved a great deal.
* When the British carriers were designed, RN opinion was that
fighters could not stop a determined bomber attack, so they were not a
high priority. Without radar, that was probably true. The fighter
direction procedures that made CAP so effective late in the war did
not exist in 1940. Even US carriers, with their larger airgroups,
carried at most 18 fighters in 1940/41.
Robert Sveinson
news:479e7506$0$36326$742e...@news.sonic.net...
> In article <CYmdncRqtMS...@giganews.com>,
> Somehow, the Wasp (CV-7) managed to get in and out of the
> Mediterranean without getting sunk, despite having almost
> no armor at all.
Well *somehow* the USS Wasp was not attacked in the Mediteranean........
......was it?
Dave Anderer
"L2007" <removemebay...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
> US carriers in The Med would have sunk easily. No way they could have
> survived what the UK carriers took.
You keep asserting this as fact without providing any convincing
support. I'd like to hear what specific damage was resisted by design
elements of a UK carrier that would have sunk a similar-sized US carrier.
We've talked about Illustrious in detail. The evidence suggests to me
that she survived partly by good DC and partly by a fortunate
distribution of the hits (some of which were near misses and some of
which did not explode). The only hit that struck an armored section of
the flight deck *penetrated and exploded in the hangar*.
Are you in fact basing your assertion solely on Illustrious or are there
other cases we should consider?
> > One of the bombs hit Illustrious' armored deck.
> > It penetrated.
>
> It would have hit the hangar in a UD carrier and kaboom. No proper fire
> curtains, etc down there. One burnt out in a fire as there was no fire
> protection
In spite of the armor on the flight deck - and the operational costs
paid for the armor - that is *exactly* where it did explode on
Illustrious.
As for "no fire protection" - utter nonsense. British practice was more
concerned with the hazards of fire early in the war, but that had to do
more with operational practices than fundamental ship design.
A hit in the hangar didn't mean an automatic conflagration. And let's
not forget Formidable did a pretty through job of burning her hangar out
in '45.
YMC
> That depends on whether they are trying to win the Battle of Britain or
> not, at the same time, right?
> In any case, with the historical Battle of Britain going on, they had the
> I/JG 77 and the II/JG 77 in Stavanger, Trondheim and other Norwegian bases
> (85 Bf 109s) plus the I/ZG 76 also in Stavanger (34 Bf 110s).
Hmm, the OT claim made no need to win the Battle of Britain, Andrew made the
claim that the USN carriers (1945) "couldn't hold off" the Luftwaffe (1940)
in the North Sea. But that begs the question how many Luftwaffe bases were
in operation distance to the North Sea and how many aircraft the bases could
support etc..
David Thornley
Christopher Manteuffel <cman...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Jan 29, 12:57 am, "L2007"
><removemebayremovemec...@removemeeasy.removemecom> wrote:
>
>> And if it fails, which they all do.......?
>
>The concept is that of layered defense. Flight deck armor is no more
>than a single layer of protection too.
Not to mention that aircraft are also useful for ASW sweeps,
reducing the chance that the carrier will be attacked by submarines.
You'd think this is significant, considering what happened to
HMS Courageous, HMS Ark Royal, and HMS Eagle.
David Thornley
<ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <13pt4rs...@corp.supernews.com>, thor...@visi.com
>(David Thornley) wrote:
>
> When the armoured carriers were designed nobody knew how effective land
>based air would be. Or come to that how effective cruisers would be. The
>closed hangers with armour extended to the hangar deck were intended to
>defend against cruisers as well.
>
have guessed right, or it may be that they had a different set
of requirements. I'm not saying that the British were unreasonable
or stupid, but that they made a decision here that turned out
to be wrong.
It happens. This is much more like the US Army's decision that
tanks didn't need good anti-tank guns (yes, there were reasons
to think that; yes, they were not, in retrospect, good reasons)
than the Navy's torpedo debacle (which was wilful negligence,
and should have gotten people shot).
>> What makes you think there can be a first-class
>> anti-shipping air force in WWII *without* *a* *torpedo* *bomber*.
>
> The Germans had torpedo bombers in 1939. They may have been useless
>flying boats with lousy torpedoes but they existed.
>
Doesn't make them a first-class anti-shipping air force.