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Post by noshurviverse on Mar 19, 2019 3:06:50 GMT -6
I had a stunning thought last night RTW doesn't calculate stabilityIt calculates weight but doesn't even look at stability. You can put the thickest armoured deck you want 50' above the water and the ship design AI won't even blink! Its on! We can build the armoured carriers the RN only dreamed of - 12" deck armour, 17'6" hangers on 2 levels, huge airgroups, the works, because RTW doesn't calculate stabilityOk, i might need to take a deep breath, but I think this is gonna be fun (and horrifically ahistorical) While obviously I can't say for certain, I wouldn't be surprised to see some calculation that addresses that. Perhaps something simple like deck armor only being allowed to make up a certain percentage of weight or some rule that states deck armor can't exceed belt some ratio. After all, I myself have thought of why I would both putting any belt armor on my carriers beyond the very early years of carrier operations.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 19, 2019 4:17:44 GMT -6
dornWhen reading the various articles on the armouredcarriers website I was immediately struck by the fact that it is not a scholarly work. The author does include many quotes, and is careful to correctly attribute them, but in his own writing he provides no citations whatsoever for the information he states. In a scholarly work every fact has a footnote attached which gives the source of that fact, making it relatively easy to confirm the authors claims, but armouredcarriers has none. I have taken the time to verify several of the authors claims, and most of the ones I checked seem to be correct, however some are contradicted by other sources and even by documents he has included in the site. In particular, the report of Commander Mitchell USN who was the USN liaison on HMS Victorious during her time with the US fleet clearly portrays a different picture than the sites authors portrayal of those events. Finally the section entitled "debunking slade and worths armoured carrier essays" is clearly partisan and twists facts and events to fit his needs. In particular his insistence on only comparing RN armoured carriers with USS Yorktown is fallacious. Yorktown was laid down in 1934, 5 years before the first armoured carrier HMS Illustrious, and also within treaty restrictions. Yorktown was designed to operate in a different threat environment and with a different doctrine and was not the ship that the USN wanted to go to war. The Yorktown class was designed as a 27,000 ton ship, which was scaled down to meet treaty limits. In many ways the Yorktown and Enterprise were test-beds and proof of concept ships, and were limited in tonnage due to the treaty; within its allocated tonnage limits the US could build 2 x 20,000 and 1 x 15,000 carriers - the author may as well have compared them to USS Wasp (laid down two years later in 1936). Even comparing the Illustrious class to the 5 year older Yorktown class the author struggles to show any great advantage in the RN ships. The final pair of armoured carriers were laid down in 1939. Treaty restrictions were no longer a concern, and yet GB decided to build two repeats of the earlier ships without taking advantage of the lack of restrictions. The ships were put on hold and then subjected to a massive redesign that raised their tonnage from 23,000 to 32,000 tons with the ships finally commissioning in 1944. The USS Essex was laid down in 1941 and commissioned in 1942 and grossed 30,800 tons. Both ships were designed (or redesigned) and built outside treaty restrictions, both ships were designed (or redesigned) to incorporate lessons learned in the first years of the war, both ships were of a comparable size. It seems to me that insisting on comparing the Implacable class with the Yorktown class is unreasonable. In my opinion any comparison between RN carriers and USN carriers is flawed because the ships were designed to operate under different doctrines in different theaters with different threat environments. The only direct comparison that can be made between the carriers of these two navies is to compare HMS Ark Royal (laid down 1935) with the Yorktown class. Drawing conclusions based on the BPF's performance in 1944 is dangerous because it ignores the preceding island hopping campaign that the USN had fought, and any honest evaluation of the ability of the RN armoured carriers to fight that campaign would have to conclude that they would fail. Their airgroups were too small, they had too short a range, they didn't carry enough avgas, they were reliant on support carriers for engineering support, their hangers were too short to accommodate modern aircraft - the list goes on and on. Conversely, the USN carriers would have failed to fight the campaigns that the RN carriers were designed for.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 19, 2019 4:21:21 GMT -6
I had a stunning thought last night RTW doesn't calculate stabilityIt calculates weight but doesn't even look at stability. You can put the thickest armoured deck you want 50' above the water and the ship design AI won't even blink! Its on! We can build the armoured carriers the RN only dreamed of - 12" deck armour, 17'6" hangers on 2 levels, huge airgroups, the works, because RTW doesn't calculate stabilityOk, i might need to take a deep breath, but I think this is gonna be fun (and horrifically ahistorical) While obviously I can't say for certain, I wouldn't be surprised to see some calculation that addresses that. Perhaps something simple like deck armor only being allowed to make up a certain percentage of weight or some rule that states deck armor can't exceed belt some ratio. After all, I myself have thought of why I would both putting any belt armor on my carriers beyond the very early years of carrier operations. I am sure there will be a limit to how much deck armour you can apply but it will be just that, a fixed limit of some kind. That is easy to change in a mod, whereas an algorithm that calculated stability would be impossible to mod around.
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Post by dorn on Mar 19, 2019 4:58:59 GMT -6
dorn When reading the various articles on the armouredcarriers website I was immediately struck by the fact that it is not a scholarly work. The author does include many quotes, and is careful to correctly attribute them, but in his own writing he provides no citations whatsoever for the information he states. In a scholarly work every fact has a footnote attached which gives the source of that fact, making it relatively easy to confirm the authors claims, but armouredcarriers has none. I have taken the time to verify several of the authors claims, and most of the ones I checked seem to be correct, however some are contradicted by other sources and even by documents he has included in the site. In particular, the report of Commander Mitchell USN who was the USN liaison on HMS Victorious during her time with the US fleet clearly portrays a different picture than the sites authors portrayal of those events. Finally the section entitled "debunking slade and worths armoured carrier essays" is clearly partisan and twists facts and events to fit his needs. In particular his insistence on only comparing RN armoured carriers with USS Yorktown is fallacious. Yorktown was laid down in 1934, 5 years before the first armoured carrier HMS Illustrious, and also within treaty restrictions. Yorktown was designed to operate in a different threat environment and with a different doctrine and was not the ship that the USN wanted to go to war. The Yorktown class was designed as a 27,000 ton ship, which was scaled down to meet treaty limits. In many ways the Yorktown and Enterprise were test-beds and proof of concept ships, and were limited in tonnage due to the treaty; within its allocated tonnage limits the US could build 2 x 20,000 and 1 x 15,000 carriers - the author may as well have compared them to USS Wasp (laid down two years later in 1936). Even comparing the Illustrious class to the 5 year older Yorktown class the author struggles to show any great advantage in the RN ships. The final pair of armoured carriers were laid down in 1939. Treaty restrictions were no longer a concern, and yet GB decided to build two repeats of the earlier ships without taking advantage of the lack of restrictions. The ships were put on hold and then subjected to a massive redesign that raised their tonnage from 23,000 to 32,000 tons with the ships finally commissioning in 1944. The USS Essex was laid down in 1941 and commissioned in 1942 and grossed 30,800 tons. Both ships were designed (or redesigned) and built outside treaty restrictions, both ships were designed (or redesigned) to incorporate lessons learned in the first years of the war, both ships were of a comparable size. It seems to me that insisting on comparing the Implacable class with the Yorktown class is unreasonable. In my opinion any comparison between RN carriers and USN carriers is flawed because the ships were designed to operate under different doctrines in different theaters with different threat environments. The only direct comparison that can be made between the carriers of these two navies is to compare HMS Ark Royal (laid down 1935) with the Yorktown class. Drawing conclusions based on the BPF's performance in 1944 is dangerous because it ignores the preceding island hopping campaign that the USN had fought, and any honest evaluation of the ability of the RN armoured carriers to fight that campaign would have to conclude that they would fail. Their airgroups were too small, they had too short a range, they didn't carry enough avgas, they were reliant on support carriers for engineering support, their hangers were too short to accommodate modern aircraft - the list goes on and on. Conversely, the USN carriers would have failed to fight the campaigns that the RN carriers were designed for. Second London naval treaty was still valid, this is the reason why Implacable class design was in 23.000 tons limit when ordered, Implacable was designed with limitation of treaties, Essex class was not as the war ended that treaty. This is Article 5 relating to aicraft carriers - London conference 1936
No aircraft-carrier shall exceed 23,000 tons (23,368 metric tons) standard displacement or carry a gun with a calibre exceeding 6.1 in. (155 mm.). If the armament of any aircraft-carrier includes guns exceeding 5.25 in. (134 mm.) in calibre, the total number of guns carried which exceed that calibre shall not be more than ten.
Relating to "Debunking ... ", it is partisan but the original essey is no better. I will use text from his page "I'll state right now that I think that, overall, the US Essex class carriers were clearly the superior assault carriers of World War II." It clearly show he understand topic quite well he want only show how bad the original essey from Slay and Worth was.
Yorktown was ordered early 1934, Illustrious early 1937 - it is 3 years. Read design of Illustrious class and compare to Yorktown class, there much more passive defence features than armoured hangar. Passive features of Illustrious class was ahead even of Essex class as Henderson and British was obssesed with it and try to include what was possible for survival of the carrier.
You compare different tonnage for ships. If you want to use full load than Essex has around 36.000 long tons (the longer version even more), Implacables around 32.000 long tons.
And I completely agree with you that any comparison what carrier are better is flawed. It is not matter only of threat environment but also to possibilities of each Navy, their doctrines etc. What limits British carriers most was not design itself but a lot of other factors as quality of aircrafts, logistics, support, doctrine, operation procedures. In this part USN was quite ahead I and think if the proposed exchange of carriers really happened USN will use British carriers better than British because of all these factors.
I would point one thing I notice. When British have not enough resources or not ideal resources they try to find solution how to make it work with such limited resource. When USN lack something they made all effort to gain it and it was due to their industrial base possible.
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Post by fleet5 on Mar 19, 2019 5:14:43 GMT -6
Not aware of the controversy, but what I found out about this is that the naval treaty limited the tonnages so they had to cut corners and this one saved a lot of tonnage.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 19, 2019 6:05:05 GMT -6
Second London naval treaty was still valid, this is the reason why Implacable class design was in 23.000 tons limit when ordered, Implacable was designed with limitation of treaties, Essex class was not as the war ended that treaty. This is Article 5 relating to aicraft carriers - London conference 1936
No aircraft-carrier shall exceed 23,000 tons (23,368 metric tons) standard displacement or carry a gun with a calibre exceeding 6.1 in. (155 mm.). If the armament of any aircraft-carrier includes guns exceeding 5.25 in. (134 mm.) in calibre, the total number of guns carried which exceed that calibre shall not be more than ten.
Relating to "Debunking ... ", it is partisan but the original essey is no better. I will use text from his page "I'll state right now that I think that, overall, the US Essex class carriers were clearly the superior assault carriers of World War II." It clearly show he understand topic quite well he want only show how bad the original essey from Slay and Worth was.
Yorktown was ordered early 1934, Illustrious early 1937 - it is 3 years. Read design of Illustrious class and compare to Yorktown class, there much more passive defence features than armoured hangar. Passive features of Illustrious class was ahead even of Essex class as Henderson and British was obssesed with it and try to include what was possible for survival of the carrier.
You compare different tonnage for ships. If you want to use full load than Essex has around 36.000 long tons (the longer version even more), Implacables around 32.000 long tons.
And I completely agree with you that any comparison what carrier are better is flawed. It is not matter only of threat environment but also to possibilities of each Navy, their doctrines etc. What limits British carriers most was not design itself but a lot of other factors as quality of aircrafts, logistics, support, doctrine, operation procedures. In this part USN was quite ahead I and think if the proposed exchange of carriers really happened USN will use British carriers better than British because of all these factors.
I would point one thing I notice. When British have not enough resources or not ideal resources they try to find solution how to make it work with such limited resource. When USN lack something they made all effort to gain it and it was due to their industrial base possible.
The Italians and Japanese abrogated the 1936 treaty in 1937, effectively releasing all signatories from that treaty. GB chose to lay the Implacable class down in 1939 as repeats of the Illustrious class, and then redesigned them well outside treaty restrictions. I did make a mistake on the years - i was thinking of the Illustrious and counting from the Implacable so you are right, Yorktown was only 3 years before Illustrious. The tonnage figures I quoted for Implacable and Essex class are from wikipedia (so suspect); Essex class 30,800 standard / 36,380 full load, Implacable class 32,110 standard / 32,630 full load. The full load figure for the Implacable class looks suspect to me but I couldn't find another source. Even comparing the full load figures my point still stands - the tonnages are much closer than comparing Implacable to a 19,800 ton treaty carrier. I have tried to avoid getting in to specifics about any of the ships (having learned my lesson) but I will say that using one obviously partisan author to debunk another obviously partisan author is probably not going to give us any meaningful conclusions. In RTW2 I think it is all probably moot anyway. I don't think the armour modelling will be changed enough for us to create realistic copies of the Essex class, and even if we could they wouldn't work. Historically the US had 20 years to plan to fight Japan in the Pacific, and created the tools for that war. In RTW2 in a twenty year period we would probably have to fight 3 different wars in three different theaters so that type of specialisation is impossible - any ships we design will need to work equally well in the Med as in the Pacific. Add to that the fact that the enormous difficulties of real world operation in the Pacific are almost non existent in the game and I can only conclude that some type of armoured carrier will be the only viable option in RTW2.
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Post by archelaos on Mar 19, 2019 6:13:34 GMT -6
Funny thing is that treaty signatories found it important to state that CV should never have guns bigger than 6,1in or more than 10 5,25in, but not to state a limit on plane numbers or plane weapon numbers.
What better tells that CVs were, even in 1936, considered secondary or support by the highest brass and politicians than the fear that people would cheese a treaty by building CV in such way that they could be used as a capital ship or large cruiser...
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Post by dorn on Mar 19, 2019 6:57:39 GMT -6
Italians and Japan left the treaty however the treaty was still valid. There were 2 escalator clauses. The first one was automatic for 16" guns battleship. The second one was ask by USA after Japan refuse to confirm that they do not build any large battleshpis. One it takes time to build new design. If RN wanted carriers construction in 1939, they have no time to completely redone the design at time.
British did Implacable on same limit tonnage (design) and thus they decreased belt armour for them to allow full lenght of additional hangar.
If by 19800 tons carrier you think about Yorktown class, than Illustrious class included Indomitable was closer to Yorktown class, Implacables were closer to Essex class. But even 3000 tons is quite a tonnage for carrier and it could be done a lot. Just think that from 23000 tons of Illustrious more than 5000 tons was armour. I do not know how much armour has Yorktown class. But if you compare dimension Yorktown class was 16 m longer at waterline and 26 m longer using lenght overall. Illustrious class has more draught and beam.
It is true, you can take it as only facts that can be used to overall picture but fact without context.
@archealos I am not sure but I think it was because how carriers were viewed and to be sure that nobody build any hybrid with battleship armour and guns under carrier tonnage.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 19, 2019 6:59:31 GMT -6
Funny thing is that treaty signatories found it important to state that CV should never have guns bigger than 6,1in or more than 10 5,25in, but not to state a limit on plane numbers or plane weapon numbers.
What better tells that CVs were, even in 1936, considered secondary or support by the highest brass and politicians than the fear that people would cheese a treaty by building CV in such way that they could be used as a capital ship or large cruiser... I read that the US CNO at the 1936 treaty negotiations went with a firm intention of ensuring that flight deck cruisers were not limited in any way, and no matter what else he had to give up. He succeeded, but at about the same time the Naval War College was busily proving that flight deck cruisers were useless. I have a mental image of Homer Simpson in naval uniform saying "Doh".
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Post by MateDow on Mar 19, 2019 7:22:43 GMT -6
I had a stunning thought last night RTW doesn't calculate stabilityIt calculates weight but doesn't even look at stability. You can put the thickest armoured deck you want 50' above the water and the ship design AI won't even blink! Its on! We can build the armoured carriers the RN only dreamed of - 12" deck armour, 17'6" hangers on 2 levels, huge airgroups, the works, because RTW doesn't calculate stabilityOk, i might need to take a deep breath, but I think this is gonna be fun (and horrifically ahistorical)
How would it calculate stability? The program doesn't calculate any of the numbers that would allow it to calculate stability like beam, draft, or hull form. Height of a weight alone doesn't determine if a ship is stable or not. You can have a drilling vessel that can suspend a weight of millions of pounds from the top of the derrick, and yet the vessel remains stable. In fact, it is more stable than a container ship of similar size.
The program assumes that the naval designer is competent. If you as the controlling admiral want to mount an 12" thick piece of armor that high above the center of gravity, this designer will do their best to accommodate that. Their might be weight limitations based on your specified tonnage, but that would be the limitations. The ship might have an incredibly large beam, or a deep draft, but you could design the ship to have it without having negative stability.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 19, 2019 7:32:04 GMT -6
Italians and Japan left the treaty however the treaty was still valid. There were 2 escalator clauses. The first one was automatic for 16" guns battleship. The second one was ask by USA after Japan refuse to confirm that they do not build any large battleshpis. One it takes time to build new design. If RN wanted carriers construction in 1939, they have no time to completely redone the design at time.
British did Implacable on same limit tonnage (design) and thus they decreased belt armour for them to allow full lenght of additional hangar.
If by 19800 tons carrier you think about Yorktown class, than Illustrious class included Indomitable was closer to Yorktown class, Implacables were closer to Essex class. But even 3000 tons is quite a tonnage for carrier and it could be done a lot. Just think that from 23000 tons of Illustrious more than 5000 tons was armour. I do not know how much armour has Yorktown class. But if you compare dimension Yorktown class was 16 m longer at waterline and 26 m longer using lenght overall. Illustrious class has more draught and beam.
It is true, you can take it as only facts that can be used to overall picture but fact without context.
@archealos I am not sure but I think it was because how carriers were viewed and to be sure that nobody build any hybrid with battleship armour and guns under carrier tonnage.
I really don't know why you are quibbling about this. GB laid down the Implacables in 1939 and then spent 5 years redesigning them. The end result was a ship that was 9,110 tons greater displacement, 40% bigger than the original design. It was clearly not built to any treaty restrictions. It doesn't really matter what they wanted in 1939 because they had time to completely redesign it. I wouldn't compare any of the 4 previous carriers (Illustrious, Formidable, Victorious, or Indomitable) to the Essex class, but I think it is fair to compare Implacable and Indefatigable to Essex.
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Post by MateDow on Mar 19, 2019 7:33:36 GMT -6
Funny thing is that treaty signatories found it important to state that CV should never have guns bigger than 6,1in or more than 10 5,25in, but not to state a limit on plane numbers or plane weapon numbers.
What better tells that CVs were, even in 1936, considered secondary or support by the highest brass and politicians than the fear that people would cheese a treaty by building CV in such way that they could be used as a capital ship or large cruiser...
In the original Washington Treaty carriers were limited to the same armament as cruisers (8-inch main battery). The changes to the main armament for cruisers in the London Treaty (6.1-inch main battery) was then applied to carriers as well. As with the original treaty, the intent was to create a gap between capital ships and supporting vessels. One of the key changes for the London Treaty was the limitation of total tonnage of cruisers, so the provisions for carriers less than 10,000 tons now had limitations as well.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 19, 2019 7:41:02 GMT -6
I had a stunning thought last night RTW doesn't calculate stabilityIt calculates weight but doesn't even look at stability. You can put the thickest armoured deck you want 50' above the water and the ship design AI won't even blink! Its on! We can build the armoured carriers the RN only dreamed of - 12" deck armour, 17'6" hangers on 2 levels, huge airgroups, the works, because RTW doesn't calculate stabilityOk, i might need to take a deep breath, but I think this is gonna be fun (and horrifically ahistorical)
How would it calculate stability? The program doesn't calculate any of the numbers that would allow it to calculate stability like beam, draft, or hull form. Height of a weight alone doesn't determine if a ship is stable or not. You can have a drilling vessel that can suspend a weight of millions of pounds from the top of the derrick, and yet the vessel remains stable. In fact, it is more stable than a container ship of similar size.
The program assumes that the naval designer is competent. If you as the controlling admiral want to mount an 12" thick piece of armor that high above the center of gravity, this designer will do their best to accommodate that. Their might be weight limitations based on your specified tonnage, but that would be the limitations. The ship might have an incredibly large beam, or a deep draft, but you could design the ship to have it without having negative stability.
That's my point, it doesn't calculate stability so we don't have to consider it in our designs. In real life putting a 12" armoured deck 50' above the waterline would be a huge stability problem, and require a completely different hull that had a massive beam and draft and probably a much lower potential top speed. RTW doesn't calculate stability so as long as the weight all adds up the design is golden, and we don't get a ship that is as wide as it is long, has the draft of a supertanker, and a top speed of 3 kts.
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Post by vonfriedman on Mar 19, 2019 8:29:37 GMT -6
Funny thing is that treaty signatories found it important to state that CV should never have guns bigger than 6,1in or more than 10 5,25in, but not to state a limit on plane numbers or plane weapon numbers.
What better tells that CVs were, even in 1936, considered secondary or support by the highest brass and politicians than the fear that people would cheese a treaty by building CV in such way that they could be used as a capital ship or large cruiser...
In the original Washington Treaty carriers were limited to the same armament as cruisers (8-inch main battery). The changes to the main armament for cruisers in the London Treaty (6.1-inch main battery) was then applied to carriers as well. As with the original treaty, the intent was to create a gap between capital ships and supporting vessels. One of the key changes for the London Treaty was the limitation of total tonnage of cruisers, so the provisions for carriers less than 10,000 tons now had limitations as well.
In www.ibiblio.org/anrs/docs/V/1202hattendorf_doingnavalhistory.pdfat pages from 33 onwards there is an interesting discussion about the aircraft carriers of the 30s and in particular on those of the Royal Navy. And not just this.
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Post by dorn on Mar 19, 2019 9:01:36 GMT -6
Italians and Japan left the treaty however the treaty was still valid. There were 2 escalator clauses. The first one was automatic for 16" guns battleship. The second one was ask by USA after Japan refuse to confirm that they do not build any large battleshpis. One it takes time to build new design. If RN wanted carriers construction in 1939, they have no time to completely redone the design at time.
British did Implacable on same limit tonnage (design) and thus they decreased belt armour for them to allow full lenght of additional hangar.
If by 19800 tons carrier you think about Yorktown class, than Illustrious class included Indomitable was closer to Yorktown class, Implacables were closer to Essex class. But even 3000 tons is quite a tonnage for carrier and it could be done a lot. Just think that from 23000 tons of Illustrious more than 5000 tons was armour. I do not know how much armour has Yorktown class. But if you compare dimension Yorktown class was 16 m longer at waterline and 26 m longer using lenght overall. Illustrious class has more draught and beam.
It is true, you can take it as only facts that can be used to overall picture but fact without context.
@archealos I am not sure but I think it was because how carriers were viewed and to be sure that nobody build any hybrid with battleship armour and guns under carrier tonnage.
I really don't know why you are quibbling about this. GB laid down the Implacables in 1939 and then spent 5 years redesigning them. The end result was a ship that was 9,110 tons greater displacement, 40% bigger than the original design. It was clearly not built to any treaty restrictions. It doesn't really matter what they wanted in 1939 because they had time to completely redesign it. I wouldn't compare any of the 4 previous carriers (Illustrious, Formidable, Victorious, or Indomitable) to the Essex class, but I think it is fair to compare Implacable and Indefatigable to Essex. You cannot mix standard displacement with full displacement. Illustrious class had 23000 standard displacement, Implacables were designed about that, finally making about 24000 tons. 32000 tons was full displacement, comparateble was around 36-37000 of Essex class (27.000 standard displacement).
The did not redisign class, they design it in 1938 and the were no major changes after that. The design was taken from Illustrious class with condition to have more aicraft so they take some weight (as heigh of hangar, belt armour of hangar) to be able have 2 full hangars. The reason why ships were commissioned in 1944 was priorities of Royal Navy switched to U-boat threat and the fact Churchill push ahead KGV class over Implacable class.
It is completely true that comparison has no sense. You can compare armoured deck philosophy with armour at hangar deck philospohy in Midway design (probably Malta too). I think USN has several variants of designs including armoured deck and exluding it. To compare them is I think best comparison as it used same principles otherwise. I have not them, but I think it could be written about them in Friedman U.S Aicraft Carriers. If you do not have book as me we can ask somebody if there is some comparison with variants. I found something on internet but the variants were only about speed, dimension, armour but not about number of aircrafts.
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