imryn
Full Member
Posts: 156
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Post by imryn on Mar 19, 2019 9:38:20 GMT -6
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.
Please can you tell me where you got the figure of 24,000 tons standard displacement for the Implacable class. As I said, wikipedia lists the Implacable class as 32,110 standard / 32,630 full load. I have found an additional reference on navypedia.org that lists it as 23,450 standard / 32,110 full load, but I find it very unlikely that the difference between those two figures could be so large - 8,660 tons of stores etc represents 37% of the ships standard tonnage. Compare it to Essex (5,580 tons) which carried a larger airgroup, much more avgas, had a longer range (so more fuel oil and food) etc. And you are still quibbling because even comparing full load displacements it is obvious that comparing a 32,110 (or 32,630) ton ship to a 25,500 ton ship (Yorktown, full load) makes less sense than comparing it to a 36,380 ton ship (Essex, full load). Regardless of what GB actually did in Implacable's redesign the fact remains that they had 5 years to build the carrier they wanted and the result of that effort should rightly be compared to a ship built at the same time. If the RN used that time to built a minor tweak to a 1937 design then history (and us) should heap all the scorn in the world on them.
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Post by Adseria on Mar 19, 2019 9:47:39 GMT -6
I am a simple man. I have a simple view of the world. I'm English, and proud of the fact. Armoured flight decks saw us through the Second World War, and our carriers survived kamikaze attacks with barely a scratch while American carriers needed months in drydock after a hit. Plus, the 2 main aerial weapons of the time were the bomb and the torpedo; one hits below the waterline, the other hits (you guessed it) the armoured flight deck. And guess what weapon won the war in the pacific for the US? Well, let me put it this way. At the Battle of Midway, the Americans scored one torpedo hit during the entire battle, and that was against an oil tanker. The four Japanese carriers were sunk by bombs punching straight through the unarmoured flight decks. When the Japanese counterattacked, they hit Yorktown with 2 torpedoes... after she already took 3 bombs, slowing her to 19 knots (and that's after repairs). Further, guess what carriers use to this day?
"When a kamikaze hits a U.S. carrier it means six months of repair at Pearl Harbor. When a kamikaze hits a ***** carrier it’s just a case of 'Sweepers, man your brooms'."
Say what you want. I know which side I'm on.
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Post by dorn on Mar 19, 2019 10:33:48 GMT -6
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.
Please can you tell me where you got the figure of 24,000 tons standard displacement for the Implacable class. As I said, wikipedia lists the Implacable class as 32,110 standard / 32,630 full load. I have found an additional reference on navypedia.org that lists it as 23,450 standard / 32,110 full load, but I find it very unlikely that the difference between those two figures could be so large - 8,660 tons of stores etc represents 37% of the ships standard tonnage. Compare it to Essex (5,580 tons) which carried a larger airgroup, much more avgas, had a longer range (so more fuel oil and food) etc. And you are still quibbling because even comparing full load displacements it is obvious that comparing a 32,110 (or 32,630) ton ship to a 25,500 ton ship (Yorktown, full load) makes less sense than comparing it to a 36,380 ton ship (Essex, full load). Regardless of what GB actually did in Implacable's redesign the fact remains that they had 5 years to build the carrier they wanted and the result of that effort should rightly be compared to a ship built at the same time. If the RN used that time to built a minor tweak to a 1937 design then history (and us) should heap all the scorn in the world on them. Relating displacement it is good question. I think it is linked that in original configuration Royal Navy only take aicraft capacity with hangar capacity about 55 aicrafts. Probably 32000 tons full load is with final configuration. Thus I would expect that her original configuration was probably something over 23000 but during war it raised something to 26000 tons. But it is guess. Essex has more efficient engines but still I would think they have more fuel.
But if you really want compare 2 principles around armouring carriers I will definitely go with studing Midway design because comparing Essex with Implacable has no meaning as there are too many other differences.
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Post by dorn on Mar 19, 2019 10:41:57 GMT -6
I am a simple man. I have a simple view of the world. I'm English, and proud of the fact. Armoured flight decks saw us through the Second World War, and our carriers survived kamikaze attacks with barely a scratch while American carriers needed months in drydock after a hit. Plus, the 2 main aerial weapons of the time were the bomb and the torpedo; one hits below the waterline, the other hits (you guessed it) the armoured flight deck. And guess what weapon won the war in the pacific for the US? Well, let me put it this way. At the Battle of Midway, the Americans scored one torpedo hit during the entire battle, and that was against an oil tanker. The four Japanese carriers were sunk by bombs punching straight through the unarmoured flight decks. When the Japanese counterattacked, they hit Yorktown with 2 torpedoes... after she already took 3 bombs, slowing her to 19 knots (and that's after repairs). Further, guess what carriers use to this day?
"When a kamikaze hits a U.S. carrier it means six months of repair at Pearl Harbor. When a kamikaze hits a ***** carrier it’s just a case of 'Sweepers, man your brooms'."
Say what you want. I know which side I'm on. It is not so easy. British carriers has much lower strike potential. Some of that was because of design but mainly because of doctrine and how carriers were handled. British carriers had much smaller deck this give a lot of problems as aircrafts become larger and larger.
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Post by aeson on Mar 19, 2019 11:58:54 GMT -6
Please can you tell me where you got the figure of 24,000 tons standard displacement for the Implacable class. As I said, wikipedia lists the Implacable class as 32,110 standard / 32,630 full load. The only displacement I see on the Wikipedia page for the Implacable-class aircraft carrier is the deep load displacement of 32,110 long tons (~32,630 tonnes or metric tons, symbol 't') in the summary box, and doing a search for 'displacement' does not turn up any other displacement figures on the page.
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bubby
Junior Member
Posts: 66
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Post by bubby on Mar 19, 2019 12:22:44 GMT -6
I am a simple man. I have a simple view of the world. I'm English, and proud of the fact. Armoured flight decks saw us through the Second World War, and our carriers survived kamikaze attacks with barely a scratch while American carriers needed months in drydock after a hit. Plus, the 2 main aerial weapons of the time were the bomb and the torpedo; one hits below the waterline, the other hits (you guessed it) the armoured flight deck. And guess what weapon won the war in the pacific for the US? Well, let me put it this way. At the Battle of Midway, the Americans scored one torpedo hit during the entire battle, and that was against an oil tanker. The four Japanese carriers were sunk by bombs punching straight through the unarmoured flight decks. When the Japanese counterattacked, they hit Yorktown with 2 torpedoes... after she already took 3 bombs, slowing her to 19 knots (and that's after repairs). Further, guess what carriers use to this day?
"When a kamikaze hits a U.S. carrier it means six months of repair at Pearl Harbor. When a kamikaze hits a ***** carrier it’s just a case of 'Sweepers, man your brooms'."
Say what you want. I know which side I'm on. It is not so easy. British carriers has much lower strike potential. Some of that was because of design but mainly because of doctrine and how carriers were handled. British carriers had much smaller deck this give a lot of problems as aircrafts become larger and larger. Not to mention the fact that in the early 1940's the Royal Navy was fielding almost exclusively helplessly obsolete aircraft from their carrier decks, it was so bad in fact they resorted to purchasing aircraft from the US. British Naval Aircraft design wouldn't even begin to start catching up to the US until the early-60's, at which point ironically their carrier fleet was shrinking rapidly.
If the Aircraft Carrier was a defensive weapons platform this might be useful, however it's not. A Carrier's offensive power rests solely on the shoulders of her Carrier Air Wing, and when this gradient is factored in to be the most important characteristic of an Aircraft Carrier; British Carrier's don't even crack the top 10.
"I know which side i'm on" - adseria
Yeah, me too. The side relying on American Naval Aviation to throw together a capable strike group.
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Post by Adseria on Mar 19, 2019 14:35:42 GMT -6
It is not so easy. British carriers has much lower strike potential. Some of that was because of design but mainly because of doctrine and how carriers were handled. British carriers had much smaller deck this give a lot of problems as aircrafts become larger and larger. Not to mention the fact that in the early 1940's the Royal Navy was fielding almost exclusively helplessly obsolete aircraft from their carrier decks, it was so bad in fact they resorted to purchasing aircraft from the US. British Naval Aircraft design wouldn't even begin to start catching up to the US until the early-60's, at which point ironically their carrier fleet was shrinking rapidly.
If the Aircraft Carrier was a defensive weapons platform this might be useful, however it's not. A Carrier's offensive power rests solely on the shoulders of her Carrier Air Wing, and when this gradient is factored in to be the most important characteristic of an Aircraft Carrier; British Carrier's don't even crack the top 10.
"I know which side i'm on" - adseria
Yeah, me too. The side relying on American Naval Aviation to throw together a capable strike group.
And yet, those "obsolete" bi-planes were able to disable the Bismarck, while the Wildcat was barely able to match Japanese equivalents like the zero.
You guys clearly haven't heard the phrase "glass cannon." One bomb to an unarmoured flight deck, and it's out for months. A kamikaze to an armoured flight deck in the morning, and it's operating planes by the afternoon.
Oh, and who ever said the carrier had to be offensive? The earliest "carriers" were seaplane tenders, operating in a reconnaissance role, and escort carriers were invented to provide convoys with much-needed fighter cover. A carrier could have been just as effective providing CAP to a surface fleet as to a convoy.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 19, 2019 14:48:39 GMT -6
Not to mention the fact that in the early 1940's the Royal Navy was fielding almost exclusively helplessly obsolete aircraft from their carrier decks, it was so bad in fact they resorted to purchasing aircraft from the US. British Naval Aircraft design wouldn't even begin to start catching up to the US until the early-60's, at which point ironically their carrier fleet was shrinking rapidly.
If the Aircraft Carrier was a defensive weapons platform this might be useful, however it's not. A Carrier's offensive power rests solely on the shoulders of her Carrier Air Wing, and when this gradient is factored in to be the most important characteristic of an Aircraft Carrier; British Carrier's don't even crack the top 10.
"I know which side i'm on" - adseria
Yeah, me too. The side relying on American Naval Aviation to throw together a capable strike group.
And yet, those "obsolete" bi-planes were able to disable the Bismarck, while the Wildcat was barely able to match Japanese equivalents like the zero.
You guys clearly haven't heard the phrase "glass cannon." One bomb to an unarmoured flight deck, and it's out for months. A kamikaze to an armoured flight deck in the morning, and it's operating planes by the afternoon.
Oh, and who ever said the carrier had to be offensive? The earliest "carriers" were seaplane tenders, operating in a reconnaissance role, and escort carriers were invented to provide convoys with much-needed fighter cover. A carrier could have been just as effective providing CAP to a surface fleet as to a convoy.
I am not entirely certain that the attack by the swordfish torpedo bombers on a battleship without air support is a justification for the swordfish biplanes in service. Their attack on Taranto was again, not defended by any aircraft and it took place essentially in the dark. This hampers any fighter defense and ground defenses. It does not say that the Swordfish wasn't effective under certain circumstances, but in the Pacific it would have been a death trap as was our TBD's.
Yorktown's deck was hit and she was restored and she launched aircraft. Unarmored decks were resilient and easy to repair. If the armored deck was pierced, which it could very easily, she would have some real issue as did the HMS Illustrious after her damage during the operations in early 1941. She was hit initially by two 1100 lbs. bombs which struck the aft lift. She was hit five more times, with one hit penetrating the un-armored aft lift. and detonating beneath it. So armored decks have vulnerabilities, in the lift area. The worse damage was the hit on the deck armor forward of the aft lift penetrated and exploded 10 feet above the hangar deck. Bottom line is that carriers are very easy to mission kill, just damage the lifts or the deck, and she is now useless.
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Post by aetreus on Mar 19, 2019 16:40:34 GMT -6
And yet, those "obsolete" bi-planes were able to disable the Bismarck, while the Wildcat was barely able to match Japanese equivalents like the zero.
You guys clearly haven't heard the phrase "glass cannon." One bomb to an unarmoured flight deck, and it's out for months. A kamikaze to an armoured flight deck in the morning, and it's operating planes by the afternoon.
Oh, and who ever said the carrier had to be offensive? The earliest "carriers" were seaplane tenders, operating in a reconnaissance role, and escort carriers were invented to provide convoys with much-needed fighter cover. A carrier could have been just as effective providing CAP to a surface fleet as to a convoy.
I am not entirely certain that the attack by the swordfish torpedo bombers on a battleship without air support is a justification for the swordfish biplanes in service. Their attack on Taranto was again, not defended by any aircraft and it took place essentially in the dark. This hampers any fighter defense and ground defenses. It does not say that the Swordfish wasn't effective under certain circumstances, but in the Pacific it would have been a death trap as was our TBD's.
Yorktown's deck was hit and she was restored and she launched aircraft. Unarmored decks were resilient and easy to repair. If the armored deck was pierced, which it could very easily, she would have some real issue as did the HMS Illustrious after her damage during the operations in early 1941. She was hit initially by two 1100 lbs. bombs which struck the aft lift. She was hit five more times, with one hit penetrating the un-armored aft lift. and detonating beneath it. So armored decks have vulnerabilities, in the lift area. The worse damage was the hit on the deck armor forward of the aft lift penetrated and exploded 10 feet above the hangar deck. Bottom line is that carriers are very easy to mission kill, just damage the lifts or the deck, and she is now useless. Enterprise survived bomb hits, but I think there's a level of survivorship bias in looking primarily at ships that lived through the war. Many, many carriers were killed primarily via damage done by GP or light SAP bombs(Lexington, the IJN carriers at Midway, Princeton, Hermes), and almost all sunk by aircraft had bomber attack as a contributing factor. Had these ships carried armored decks it is very likely the would have survived. USN dive bombers generally carried GP or 1000lbs SAP(they could carry 1000lbs AP or 1600lbs AP, but both were specialist munitions, and 1600lbs AP was very rare). IJN dive bombers excepting the B7A which never had significant success against carriers carried 250kg or 500kg SAP in the antishipping role. None of these bombs could reliably deal with even a 3" armored deck. They might have temporarily put the carrier's flight deck out of action, but they would not have allowed the loss of the ship. It's notable that the USN and IJN both utilized armored flight decks in their new carrier designs during WWII(Midway, Taiho, Shinano, G-15 program). While there were weapons that could defeat armored flight decks, not all aircraft could carry them, they shortened aircraft ranges, and were available in limited numbers as carriers usually used SAP and GP as their standard weaponry.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 19, 2019 17:32:04 GMT -6
I am not entirely certain that the attack by the swordfish torpedo bombers on a battleship without air support is a justification for the swordfish biplanes in service. Their attack on Taranto was again, not defended by any aircraft and it took place essentially in the dark. This hampers any fighter defense and ground defenses. It does not say that the Swordfish wasn't effective under certain circumstances, but in the Pacific it would have been a death trap as was our TBD's.
Yorktown's deck was hit and she was restored and she launched aircraft. Unarmored decks were resilient and easy to repair. If the armored deck was pierced, which it could very easily, she would have some real issue as did the HMS Illustrious after her damage during the operations in early 1941. She was hit initially by two 1100 lbs. bombs which struck the aft lift. She was hit five more times, with one hit penetrating the un-armored aft lift. and detonating beneath it. So armored decks have vulnerabilities, in the lift area. The worse damage was the hit on the deck armor forward of the aft lift penetrated and exploded 10 feet above the hangar deck. Bottom line is that carriers are very easy to mission kill, just damage the lifts or the deck, and she is now useless. Enterprise survived bomb hits, but I think there's a level of survivorship bias in looking primarily at ships that lived through the war. Many, many carriers were killed primarily via damage done by GP or light SAP bombs(Lexington, the IJN carriers at Midway, Princeton, Hermes), and almost all sunk by aircraft had bomber attack as a contributing factor. Had these ships carried armored decks it is very likely the would have survived. USN dive bombers generally carried GP or 1000lbs SAP(they could carry 1000lbs AP or 1600lbs AP, but both were specialist munitions, and 1600lbs AP was very rare). IJN dive bombers excepting the B7A which never had significant success against carriers carried 250kg or 500kg SAP in the antishipping role. None of these bombs could reliably deal with even a 3" armored deck. They might have temporarily put the carrier's flight deck out of action, but they would not have allowed the loss of the ship. It's notable that the USN and IJN both utilized armored flight decks in their new carrier designs during WWII(Midway, Taiho, Shinano, G-15 program). While there were weapons that could defeat armored flight decks, not all aircraft could carry them, they shortened aircraft ranges, and were available in limited numbers as carriers usually used SAP and GP as their standard weaponry. The USS Lexington was hit by three two direct hits and two near misses. There were two torpedo hits, on the port side almost simultaneously. Those hits were completed by 1132 and the explosion that actually sank her was at 1247. Poor damage control preparation has been determined to be the cause: With adequate preparations for an attack, a carrier can be protected from such a violent explosion. Lexington could have survived those hits, with the proper preparations.
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Post by dorn on Mar 19, 2019 17:33:02 GMT -6
I am not entirely certain that the attack by the swordfish torpedo bombers on a battleship without air support is a justification for the swordfish biplanes in service. Their attack on Taranto was again, not defended by any aircraft and it took place essentially in the dark. This hampers any fighter defense and ground defenses. It does not say that the Swordfish wasn't effective under certain circumstances, but in the Pacific it would have been a death trap as was our TBD's.
Yorktown's deck was hit and she was restored and she launched aircraft. Unarmored decks were resilient and easy to repair. If the armored deck was pierced, which it could very easily, she would have some real issue as did the HMS Illustrious after her damage during the operations in early 1941. She was hit initially by two 1100 lbs. bombs which struck the aft lift. She was hit five more times, with one hit penetrating the un-armored aft lift. and detonating beneath it. So armored decks have vulnerabilities, in the lift area. The worse damage was the hit on the deck armor forward of the aft lift penetrated and exploded 10 feet above the hangar deck. Bottom line is that carriers are very easy to mission kill, just damage the lifts or the deck, and she is now useless. Enterprise survived bomb hits, but I think there's a level of survivorship bias in looking primarily at ships that lived through the war. Many, many carriers were killed primarily via damage done by GP or light SAP bombs(Lexington, the IJN carriers at Midway, Princeton, Hermes), and almost all sunk by aircraft had bomber attack as a contributing factor. Had these ships carried armored decks it is very likely the would have survived. USN dive bombers generally carried GP or 1000lbs SAP(they could carry 1000lbs AP or 1600lbs AP, but both were specialist munitions, and 1600lbs AP was very rare). IJN dive bombers excepting the B7A which never had significant success against carriers carried 250kg or 500kg SAP in the antishipping role. None of these bombs could reliably deal with even a 3" armored deck. They might have temporarily put the carrier's flight deck out of action, but they would not have allowed the loss of the ship. It's notable that the USN and IJN both utilized armored flight decks in their new carrier designs during WWII(Midway, Taiho, Shinano, G-15 program). While there were weapons that could defeat armored flight decks, not all aircraft could carry them, they shortened aircraft ranges, and were available in limited numbers as carriers usually used SAP and GP as their standard weaponry. I would take it as advantage that aircrafts needs to have heavier AP bombs. If IJN used armoured deck on all carriers USN will use AP bombs on their bombers. However heavier bombload decrease range which could help. And AP bombs did less damage when hit something.
Illustrious and Formidable had piercing hits through their armoured deck by 1000 kg bombs, it was something that IJN and USN did not used at all as I am aware. Another advantage is that even if ship is mission killed her armour protect vitals more than enough. Even with such hits Illustrious got in January 1941 she was not jeopardize, her vitals were not affected.
However if enemy have such armour deck navy will adapt. The whole war is about counter enemy which than try to counter the counter....
But if the deck armour is penetrated the closed hangar makes damage even worse and put carirer out of action for longer period (I would just be caution compare repair times of RN carriers in USA with USN carriers as US drydock work with unfamiliar designs and some of equipments need to be shipped from UK). But on opposite if the hangar is split on separate sections it helps to localize damage.
Frankly speaking armoured carriers in USN hands will be much more dangerous, they would suffered with smaller striking power however in long run the results of IJN losses would be probably similar, IJN squadrons would be probably depleted as IJN would struggle to sink these carriers but USN using these carriers would struggle do such losses they historically did. But it would probably takes more time as it would be war of attrition even more that it historacally was.
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Post by aetreus on Mar 19, 2019 18:38:37 GMT -6
Enterprise survived bomb hits, but I think there's a level of survivorship bias in looking primarily at ships that lived through the war. Many, many carriers were killed primarily via damage done by GP or light SAP bombs(Lexington, the IJN carriers at Midway, Princeton, Hermes), and almost all sunk by aircraft had bomber attack as a contributing factor. Had these ships carried armored decks it is very likely the would have survived. USN dive bombers generally carried GP or 1000lbs SAP(they could carry 1000lbs AP or 1600lbs AP, but both were specialist munitions, and 1600lbs AP was very rare). IJN dive bombers excepting the B7A which never had significant success against carriers carried 250kg or 500kg SAP in the antishipping role. None of these bombs could reliably deal with even a 3" armored deck. They might have temporarily put the carrier's flight deck out of action, but they would not have allowed the loss of the ship. It's notable that the USN and IJN both utilized armored flight decks in their new carrier designs during WWII(Midway, Taiho, Shinano, G-15 program). While there were weapons that could defeat armored flight decks, not all aircraft could carry them, they shortened aircraft ranges, and were available in limited numbers as carriers usually used SAP and GP as their standard weaponry. I would take it as advantage that aircrafts needs to have heavier AP bombs. If IJN used armoured deck on all carriers USN will use AP bombs on their bombers. However heavier bombload decrease range which could help. And AP bombs did less damage when hit something.
Illustrious and Formidable had piercing hits through their armoured deck by 1000 kg bombs, it was something that IJN and USN did not used at all as I am aware. Another advantage is that even if ship is mission killed her armour protect vitals more than enough. Even with such hits Illustrious got in January 1941 she was not jeopardize, her vitals were not affected.
However if enemy have such armour deck navy will adapt. The whole war is about counter enemy which than try to counter the counter....
But if the deck armour is penetrated the closed hangar makes damage even worse and put carirer out of action for longer period (I would just be caution compare repair times of RN carriers in USA with USN carriers as US drydock work with unfamiliar designs and some of equipments need to be shipped from UK). But on opposite if the hangar is split on separate sections it helps to localize damage.
Frankly speaking armoured carriers in USN hands will be much more dangerous, they would suffered with smaller striking power however in long run the results of IJN losses would be probably similar, IJN squadrons would be probably depleted as IJN would struggle to sink these carriers but USN using these carriers would struggle do such losses they historically did. But it would probably takes more time as it would be war of attrition even more that it historacally was.
The issue is that you don't really get to always use the ideal weaponry for attacking a particular target. Heavy AP bombs are good for attacking targets with thick deck armor and deep vitals, it is what they were designed to do. The nature of an armored carrier versus a battleship means that a CV's armored flight deck can never realistically be as thick as the main deck of a battleship, AP bombs designed against the latter will be effective versus the former. Carriers spend much of their time attacking things like ground targets or lightly armored ships(destroyers, cruisers to a certain extent) against which full AP bombs are much less effective, though. Sending a flight of aircraft up carrying 500kg/1000lbs AP bombs or even heavier 800kg/~1600lbs weapons means that that flight will deal less damage should it drop its bombs on the carrier's escorts or to a certain extent even battleships(heavily armored battleships could shrug off even fairly large AP bombs). This also influences the amount of bombs in the carriers magazines- for instance an Essex only has capacity for around 600 tons of bombs, and the CV's mission means most of that will have to be GP or SAP bombs effective against most targets. In terms of range, 1000lbs bombs tended to cut into the useful range of late 30's/1940 dive bombers quite a bit(example: Dauntless radius with 500/1000/1600lbs bomb went from 420nmi to 250nmi to 95nmi). Most of the aircraft introduced during the war could handle the load and eventually the heavier 1600-2000lbs class weapons as well. Stuff like the super heavy 1400kg AP bombs that the Germans carried were usually an increasingly big hit to range. They also required the aircraft be designed for very heavy hardpoint loads, which complicated things. More importantly, effectiveness of heavy AP bombs was very significantly impacted by the attack profile of the aircraft. Getting the fairly high penetration that is cited in relation to the USN AP bombs requires they be dropped in a fast and steep dive, this means dedicated dive bombers as fighters and level bombers cannot safely use that sort of attack profile. Given that there's a huge pressure to add more and more fighters to defend the carrier, depending on AP bombs in the 1000lbs/1600lbs class to remain effective against 3-4" armored decks isn't a sure thing.
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Post by corsair on Mar 19, 2019 20:09:28 GMT -6
I'm English, and proud of the fact. Armoured flight decks saw us through the Second World War, and our carriers survived kamikaze attacks with barely a scratch while American carriers needed months in drydock after a hit. Except that it turned out those kamikaze hits had warped the hulls of those RN carriers, so much so they were deemed unsuitable for post-war rebuilds. The Essex class carriers, on the other hand, continued in service for several more decades, under going substantial rebuilds and refits allowing them to operate jet-powered air wings.
At the Battle of Midway. . . [t]he four Japanese carriers were sunk by bombs punching straight through the unarmoured flight decks. Having unstowed ordnance scattered around the hangar deck was a significant contributor to the subsequent conflagration, as well as being caught at the worst possible time with fueled and armed aircraft in the hangar. IJN damage control practices also left much to be desired.
When the Japanese counterattacked, they hit Yorktown with 2 torpedoes... after she already took 3 bombs, slowing her to 19 knots (and that's after repairs) In spite of all that damage, the Yorktown most likely would have survived the battle had it not for being torpedoed by the I-168. And yet, those "obsolete" bi-planes were able to disable the Bismarck, while the Wildcat was barely able to match Japanese equivalents like the zero. And if those biplanes had encountered enemy fighter CAP they would likely fared as well as the TBD Devastators at Midway.
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Post by dorn on Mar 20, 2019 1:27:00 GMT -6
It is not so easy. British carriers has much lower strike potential. Some of that was because of design but mainly because of doctrine and how carriers were handled. British carriers had much smaller deck this give a lot of problems as aircrafts become larger and larger. Not to mention the fact that in the early 1940's the Royal Navy was fielding almost exclusively helplessly obsolete aircraft from their carrier decks, it was so bad in fact they resorted to purchasing aircraft from the US. British Naval Aircraft design wouldn't even begin to start catching up to the US until the early-60's, at which point ironically their carrier fleet was shrinking rapidly.
If the Aircraft Carrier was a defensive weapons platform this might be useful, however it's not. A Carrier's offensive power rests solely on the shoulders of her Carrier Air Wing, and when this gradient is factored in to be the most important characteristic of an Aircraft Carrier; British Carrier's don't even crack the top 10.
"I know which side i'm on" - adseria
Yeah, me too. The side relying on American Naval Aviation to throw together a capable strike group.
It is simplification either.
We can look at main strike carriers as HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious which has Swordfish, Fulmar and Skua in 1940. USS Yorktown: TDB, F3-F3 (biplane fighter), BT-1 (even SBD were available in 1941).
Japanese were ahead.
I cannot see any better planes in USN than RN overall. Later in 1941 RN did not catch however the main reason was that almost all resources went to RAF. It was easily seen as British carriers operated quite often understrength.
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Post by Adseria on Mar 20, 2019 1:31:32 GMT -6
You know, I get the feeling I'm going to regret joining this conversation...
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