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Post by generalvikus on Mar 24, 2019 19:57:20 GMT -6
I’ve been wondering if the armored deck on British carriers might not go the full deck length. We know that the Illustrious deck length was 740 ft. and the length of the hangar was 456 ft. For the other two ships in the class, the second hangar was 168 ft and 208 ft. respectively. We know that the flight deck was made of 3 in. of armor. The question is whether that deck was armored the full length or just over the hangar. It would mean that 284 ft. of her flight deck was not protected by armor or 142 ft. at the bow and 142 ft. at the stern. I found that only two-thirds of the deck was armored. This is 492.84 ft with the other 247.2 ft. was not armored. A one-thousand-pound bomb could easily penetrate 3.5 in. of armor from about 4500 feet. Which it did, on January 10,1941. The original report states that Hit No. 2 went through the flight deck forward on the port side. This might mean that that hit did, in fact, pierce the unarmored forward portion of the deck. The first hit the after lift which would be unarmored. The lift would not be armored because it would be too heavy. Anyway, here is the link to the document - www.armouredcarriers.com/adm26783/2014/10/16/illustrious-january-10-damage-report-bomb-shellI am not making a point, just attempting to investigate the value of the armored deck. It was dive bombed, and pierced by a 1000 lbs. bomb which is exactly the bomb the specification states the armor was supposed to protect against at 4500 ft. Your conclusions. We have proof that the armored flight deck, possibly due to weight restrictions could not and possibly should not run the full length of the flight deck and if it doesn't, but just covers the hangar deck, what is its value? It was pierced. I'm a little confused - as you explain it, hit number one hit the unarmoured aft lift, and hit number two hit the unarmoured forward portion of the flight deck. So neither of the hits pierced the armour. Am I missing something?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 24, 2019 20:07:07 GMT -6
I’ve been wondering if the armored deck on British carriers might not go the full deck length. We know that the Illustrious deck length was 740 ft. and the length of the hangar was 456 ft. For the other two ships in the class, the second hangar was 168 ft and 208 ft. respectively. We know that the flight deck was made of 3 in. of armor. The question is whether that deck was armored the full length or just over the hangar. It would mean that 284 ft. of her flight deck was not protected by armor or 142 ft. at the bow and 142 ft. at the stern. I found that only two-thirds of the deck was armored. This is 492.84 ft with the other 247.2 ft. was not armored. A one-thousand-pound bomb could easily penetrate 3.5 in. of armor from about 4500 feet. Which it did, on January 10,1941. The original report states that Hit No. 2 went through the flight deck forward on the port side. This might mean that that hit did, in fact, pierce the unarmored forward portion of the deck. The first hit the after lift which would be unarmored. The lift would not be armored because it would be too heavy. Anyway, here is the link to the document - www.armouredcarriers.com/adm26783/2014/10/16/illustrious-january-10-damage-report-bomb-shellI am not making a point, just attempting to investigate the value of the armored deck. It was dive bombed, and pierced by a 1000 lbs. bomb which is exactly the bomb the specification states the armor was supposed to protect against at 4500 ft. Your conclusions. We have proof that the armored flight deck, possibly due to weight restrictions could not and possibly should not run the full length of the flight deck and if it doesn't, but just covers the hangar deck, what is its value? It was pierced. I'm a little confused - as you explain it, hit number one hit the unarmoured aft lift, and hit number two hit the unarmoured forward portion of the flight deck. So neither of the hits pierced the armour. Am I missing something? I think I explained it incorrectly and that is why I put the link in the post. The first bomb struck the side armor near a Pom-pom. The second bomb struck the flight deck and went through it. I believe this one hit the unarmored portion. Hit 3 struck another pom-pom. Hit 4 struck the aft deck. Hit 5 struck the aft lift well, that would not be armored, I don't think. Hit 6 pierced the flight deck and burst on the hangar deck. This last bomb would have pierced the armored deck since it covered the hangar deck. The last bomb was a 1100 lbs. bomb. I am sorry for confusing everyone.
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Post by dorn on Mar 25, 2019 2:01:19 GMT -6
As I can see Illustrious class that she has a lot of passive defensive features and armoured flight deck is only one of them.
It certainly helps against Japan as they did not used heavier bombs but in the Mediterranean it is true it is questionable as range of dive bombers using heavier bomb was not so much issue.
As I understand the armoured flighty deck any of Illustrious/Implacable classes were pierced only once by 1000 kg bomb and it was HMS Illustrious in January 1941. The other hits, especially heavy hits sustained by HMS Formidable - 2x1000 kg hits were outside armoured hangar.
1. Does have armoured flight deck any value protecting hangar? It is clear that by design it was understimated. It fully protected against 125 kg bombs, high protection against 250 kg bombs, has some protection against 500 kg (it depends on release height) and no protection against 1000 kg. It was failure trying estimate future bomb loads. In reality it shows that in the Mediterranean it has no value, on Pacific it shows value as Japanese do not used so heavy bombs Luftwaffe did.
2. Does have armoured flight deck any value if they did not protect lifts, fore and aft The lifts were designed that they can operate even if they are misaligned up to certain value. I expect this was thought that if some bomb hit fore or aft, rest of ship is unaffected and air operation can continue with some limitation. The second thing (I am not sure if it was intended - probably not) that doing some serious damage to these ship you need to use heavy SAP and AP bombs which has quite smaller explosive warhead than GP bombs. However againt understimation of bomb used has negative effect. Question is if it was known that bombs would have at least double weight, it could be solved in 23000 tons.
3. Could be build armoured deck from fore to aft? I do not know but as you mentioned armoured deck was about 60 % of flight deck. As it was 1500 tons of armour, than you need about 1000 armour to have it everywhere. It is quite a lot. Could it be taken from belt? Could it be taken from hangar deck? Probably in same way it could be however it is problem of all designs it took years to verify it and when you find best solution the technology, doctrines makes already this outdated.
I put another question. It was really needed to have 3" armoured hangar deck? Could it be lowered just to splinter protection and used armour elsewhere (strenghten deck armour/enlarge ship)? I can not ask about belt as it was decrease in thickness for Implacable class.
Overall I do not think that armoured flight deck has important value after receiving hits in the Mediterranean but has more psychological value on Germany. In Pacific it clearly shows the advantage (could not be pierced by japanese bombs) and disadavantages (number of airplanes, limited supplies etc).
I think that more important was overall concept of passive defence, which each part was piece to large picture. If one part of the whole does not work completely as inteded is it this failure of whole system?
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 25, 2019 5:34:37 GMT -6
I think it is not unreasonable to suppose that when using a deck park the Ark Royal could have carried an airgroup that easily exceeded Implacables claimed 81 aircraft. The 81 was Implacable's air group on 17 July 1945 (48 Seafires, 12 Fireflys, 21 Avengers). She carried 80 for Operation Inmate in June 1945 (same group but one less Firefly), so I suspect it was a 'real' airgroup number. That said, I don't have an air group for her sister (Indefatigable) larger than 73. Apologies if repeating anything that's already been said, I'm not up to reading through the whole thread (and imagine most of it won't be new, even for these boards ), but some thoughts for consideration: One thing I remember reading is that upwards of 80 there become issues effectively operating an airgroup of that size. Midway, for example, had issues where she couldn't effectively use her whole air wing. Still good to have the aircraft as spares, but in terms of strike capacity/ship there's less difference between a Midway and an Essex than the size of the air groups would suggest. Apparently it was similar-ish with Ark Royal, in that a much larger air group wouldn't have lead to much greater strike capacity. The big issue the British carriers faced, iirc, was fuel load, requiring them to meet their fleet train and 'top up' more regularly. This was due in no large part to very strict fuel handling and protection measures, which meant the carriers were less likely to explode dangerously than either US or Japanese carriers (although US carriers improved a heap on this front over the course of the war, and iirc the Ibuki design involved far better damage control than earlier Japanese carriers), but also carried less fuel. I think the issues with larger airgroups revolve around how big a strike can be launched simultaneously (or nearly simultaneously). Obviously the size of the flight deck dictates how many aircraft can be ranged for launch, however on the Essex's a second group of aircraft could be warming up their engines in the hanger and this meant that once the first group were off the second group could be ranged and launched very quickly. This was only possible because the Essex's had open hangers. All of the RN carriers (including Ark Royal) had closed hangers so they could not warm up the engines of a second launch in the hanger. Coupling this with the smaller flight deck area on the RN carriers meant that each launch was smaller and there was a much longer interval between launches. I assume this would make coordinating large strikes much harder for the RN than it was for the USN. Even if the Ark Royal was able to carry an airgroup close to the size of an Essex it would take far longer to launch the whole group which would have a large impact on strike coordination. The figures I quoted earlier show that the RN carriers carried approximately half as much aviation fuel per aircraft so they would have to replenish twice as often as an Essex operating at the same tempo.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 25, 2019 8:27:05 GMT -6
I’ve been wondering if the armored deck on British carriers might not go the full deck length. We know that the Illustrious deck length was 740 ft. and the length of the hangar was 456 ft. For the other two ships in the class, the second hangar was 168 ft and 208 ft. respectively. We know that the flight deck was made of 3 in. of armor. The question is whether that deck was armored the full length or just over the hangar. It would mean that 284 ft. of her flight deck was not protected by armor or 142 ft. at the bow and 142 ft. at the stern. I found that only two-thirds of the deck was armored. This is 492.84 ft with the other 247.2 ft. was not armored. A one-thousand-pound bomb could easily penetrate 3.5 in. of armor from about 4500 feet. Which it did, on January 10,1941. The original report states that Hit No. 2 went through the flight deck forward on the port side. This might mean that that hit did, in fact, pierce the unarmored forward portion of the deck. The first hit the after lift which would be unarmored. The lift would not be armored because it would be too heavy. Anyway, here is the link to the document - www.armouredcarriers.com/adm26783/2014/10/16/illustrious-january-10-damage-report-bomb-shellI am not making a point, just attempting to investigate the value of the armored deck. It was dive bombed, and pierced by a 1000 lbs. bomb which is exactly the bomb the specification states the armor was supposed to protect against at 4500 ft. Your conclusions. We have proof that the armored flight deck, possibly due to weight restrictions could not and possibly should not run the full length of the flight deck and if it doesn't, but just covers the hangar deck, what is its value? It was pierced. I am surprised I have to point this out to you, but Illustrious did not have an armoured flight deck, it had an armoured hanger. The roof of that hanger had the effect of providing armour to the center section of the flight deck between the two lifts (62% of the deck) but provided no protection to the forward or aft ends - the critical areas for flight operations. This all follows quite logically from the doctrine that caused the ships to be armoured in the first place; the armour is there to protect the aircraft in their hanger, not to protect the flight deck or to keep the flight deck operational. I have mentioned this before, several times, in this very thread.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Mar 25, 2019 8:48:18 GMT -6
As I can see Illustrious class that she has a lot of passive defensive features and armoured flight deck is only one of them.
It certainly helps against Japan as they did not used heavier bombs but in the Mediterranean it is true it is questionable as range of dive bombers using heavier bomb was not so much issue.
As I understand the armoured flighty deck any of Illustrious/Implacable classes were pierced only once by 1000 kg bomb and it was HMS Illustrious in January 1941. The other hits, especially heavy hits sustained by HMS Formidable - 2x1000 kg hits were outside armoured hangar.
1. Does have armoured flight deck any value protecting hangar? It is clear that by design it was understimated. It fully protected against 125 kg bombs, high protection against 250 kg bombs, has some protection against 500 kg (it depends on release height) and no protection against 1000 kg. It was failure trying estimate future bomb loads. In reality it shows that in the Mediterranean it has no value, on Pacific it shows value as Japanese do not used so heavy bombs Luftwaffe did.
2. Does have armoured flight deck any value if they did not protect lifts, fore and aft The lifts were designed that they can operate even if they are misaligned up to certain value. I expect this was thought that if some bomb hit fore or aft, rest of ship is unaffected and air operation can continue with some limitation. The second thing (I am not sure if it was intended - probably not) that doing some serious damage to these ship you need to use heavy SAP and AP bombs which has quite smaller explosive warhead than GP bombs. However againt understimation of bomb used has negative effect. Question is if it was known that bombs would have at least double weight, it could be solved in 23000 tons.
3. Could be build armoured deck from fore to aft? I do not know but as you mentioned armoured deck was about 60 % of flight deck. As it was 1500 tons of armour, than you need about 1000 armour to have it everywhere. It is quite a lot. Could it be taken from belt? Could it be taken from hangar deck? Probably in same way it could be however it is problem of all designs it took years to verify it and when you find best solution the technology, doctrines makes already this outdated.
I put another question. It was really needed to have 3" armoured hangar deck? Could it be lowered just to splinter protection and used armour elsewhere (strenghten deck armour/enlarge ship)? I can not ask about belt as it was decrease in thickness for Implacable class.
Overall I do not think that armoured flight deck has important value after receiving hits in the Mediterranean but has more psychological value on Germany. In Pacific it clearly shows the advantage (could not be pierced by japanese bombs) and disadavantages (number of airplanes, limited supplies etc).
I think that more important was overall concept of passive defence, which each part was piece to large picture. If one part of the whole does not work completely as inteded is it this failure of whole system?
Once again you have confused an armoured flight deck with an armoured hanger. If you could just get these two concepts straight then a lot of the rest follows naturally. As far as I know Midway was the first carrier to have an armoured flight deck, having 3.5" throughout. This was on top of an unarmoured external hanger with the hanger deck as the strength deck - essentially Essex' design plus armoured flight deck. This was achieved by eliminating 8" guns and reducing 5" guns, and resulted in a significantly larger ship (45,000 tons) that had lower free-board than the Essex, and an airgoup of 130 aircraft. From the wikipedia entry: "The resulting carriers were very large, with the ability to accommodate more planes than any other carrier in the U.S. fleet (30–40 more aircraft than the Essex class). In their original configuration, the Midway-class ships had an airwing of almost 130 aircraft. It was soon realized that the coordination of so many planes was beyond the effective command and control ability of one ship. However, their size did allow these ships to more easily accommodate the rapid growth in aircraft size and weight that took place in the early jet age.""While the resulting ships featured excellent protection and unprecedented airwing size, they also had several undesirable characteristics. Internally, the ships were very cramped and crowded. Freeboard was unusually low for such large carriers; in heavy seas, they shipped large amounts of water (only partially mitigated by the fitting of a hurricane bow during the SCB-110/110A upgrades) and corkscrewed in a manner that hampered landing operations."So there was quite a high cost for having an armoured flight deck.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 25, 2019 9:19:34 GMT -6
Dorn
The protection of a carrier or any capital ship for that matter, is based on the layered defense. The armored deck is essentially the last defensive measure if the attacking aircraft get through the outer and inner defenses. The carriers AA defenses and her armored deck along with her ability maneuver deftly, will all contribute to the defenses of the carrier or battleship for that matter. All defenses must be connected with radio and have radar. An additional defensive measure for the carrier is a good damage control system on board. This and the AA guns were very poor on the Japanese carriers.
On the whole, good assessment of possible threats including the geographic region you will be sailing in is absolutely important. This will hopefully contribute to the building of adequate fighters to cope with any attackers. This is an area that the British failed. Combat air patrols can save your ship or reduce the possible attackers that can get to the carrier.
Imryn Larger air groups are vital especially for the defense of the task force. Once the strike group has been launched, then you can bring up another group of fighters to launch upon detection of an incoming raid. At least, they can be armed, and engines warmed up in the hangar. With an enclose hangar, you can’t do that. This is the issue the Japanese had at Midway plus poor radios caused their fighter cover to be in one area, but they could not move them once the incoming raid was detected. Adequate supplies of ammunition and fuel is also important as is the range of your fighters. They should be able to carry external fuel tanks to increase loiter time.
To All: Good posts. All of you seem to understand that the defense of a carrier group has to be an integrated defense with rings like an onion. The armored deck is just one possible defense.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 25, 2019 11:24:35 GMT -6
I’ve been reviewing the article on armoredcarriers about the illustrious. The armored deck, as I suspected was a box incorporating the center of the flight deck between the lifts. The lifts were not armored, and neither was either end. The 3in armor covered 62% of the deck. The primary difference between our carrier and the British was, according many of my sources, that the flight deck was an integral part of the ships hull for the British carriers.
An interesting comment is that the closed hangar was best suited to the operational concept of small strikes; the open hangar to big strikes. The US believed that the hangar was a maintenance, repair and rearmament area, not just a storage area. This is validated by the deck part concept that we used.
Anyway, this article about the design of the Illustrious basically states what we have all said. I am going to read my D.K. Brown book Nelson to Vanguard: Warship Design and Development 1923-1945. This should give me much more information in detail.
We should continue to expand this discussion about the offensive and defensive capability of the carrier and the carrier task force because this is the real heart of the evolution of naval warfare.
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Post by dorn on Mar 25, 2019 11:44:17 GMT -6
I’ve been reviewing the article on armoredcarriers about the illustrious. The armored deck, as I suspected was a box incorporating the center of the flight deck between the lifts. The lifts were not armored, and neither was either end. The 3in armor covered 62% of the deck. The primary difference between our carrier and the British was, according many of my sources, that the flight deck was an integral part of the ships hull for the British carriers. An interesting comment is that the closed hangar was best suited to the operational concept of small strikes; the open hangar to big strikes. The US believed that the hangar was a maintenance, repair and rearmament area, not just a storage area. This is validated by the deck part concept that we used. Anyway, this article about the design of the Illustrious basically states what we have all said. I am going to read my D.K. Brown book Nelson to Vanguard: Warship Design and Development 1923-1945. This should give me much more information in detail. We should continue to expand this discussion about the offensive and defensive capability of the carrier and the carrier task force because this is the real heart of the evolution of naval warfare. As I understand this (US believed that the hangar was a maintenance, repair and rearmament area, not just a storage area.) was completely different to view of RN. They used hangar as storage area and designed HMS Unicorn as dedicated carrier for maintenace, repairs. I think it is quite interesting idea as it more effective allocate tonnage as the requirements for such carrier is different, mainly passive defenses.
Relating to information that flight deck being intergral part of ships hull instead part of superstructure that it save some weight. On top of that enclosed hangar helped to operate in harsh conditions so I am not suprised RN went this way.
I would point another thing about RN carrier force. It was their ability to launch night attack. RN was able to launch night attack even before war as they know that they are behind in aircraft design and this means to put some advantage back. This is quite interesting as with radar it give quite a possibility. The most know example is attack of Taranto which has devastating effect on Italian fleet with very small force dedicated for the attack.
RN did not use night attack again any carrier force as RN does not meet IJN in carrier battle. The only close was Somerville in Indian Ocean however Japanese were a little late so no carrier to carrier battle was fought. However it could be quite interesting as Somerville strategy was simple, be out of range from Japanese during day and launch night attack. At night all advantages (numbers, quality of planes) on Japanese side would deminished.
So we do not know how RN could be effective in this type of attack on carrier force but it is something we should not forget if we evaluate British carriers in carrier to carrier battle. So for example as they are a lot of question how will British carriers work in Midway instead of USN carriers, it is important to think that with the knowledge about Japanese much better would be to prepare for night strike hitting first. Even with 40 % of strike compare to USN it if they find Japanese during night it could still be devastating for Japanese. And one thing we can see about British was specializing using some advantages to max. benefit.
This was advantage RN has and I think it is quite usefull advantage to launch strike anytime 24 hours a day.
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Post by dorn on Mar 25, 2019 11:53:47 GMT -6
Dorn The protection of a carrier or any capital ship for that matter, is based on the layered defense. The armored deck is essentially the last defensive measure if the attacking aircraft get through the outer and inner defenses. The carriers AA defenses and her armored deck along with her ability maneuver deftly, will all contribute to the defenses of the carrier or battleship for that matter. All defenses must be connected with radio and have radar. An additional defensive measure for the carrier is a good damage control system on board. This and the AA guns were very poor on the Japanese carriers. On the whole, good assessment of possible threats including the geographic region you will be sailing in is absolutely important. This will hopefully contribute to the building of adequate fighters to cope with any attackers. This is an area that the British failed. Combat air patrols can save your ship or reduce the possible attackers that can get to the carrier. Imryn Larger air groups are vital especially for the defense of the task force. Once the strike group has been launched, then you can bring up another group of fighters to launch upon detection of an incoming raid. At least, they can be armed, and engines warmed up in the hangar. With an enclose hangar, you can’t do that. This is the issue the Japanese had at Midway plus poor radios caused their fighter cover to be in one area, but they could not move them once the incoming raid was detected. Adequate supplies of ammunition and fuel is also important as is the range of your fighters. They should be able to carry external fuel tanks to increase loiter time. To All: Good posts. All of you seem to understand that the defense of a carrier group has to be an integrated defense with rings like an onion. The armored deck is just one possible defense. And RN with the situation they were does not believe that active defence could work enough. So they emphasis on pasive defence. British rearment program works on full throttle however they were still at least 2 years behind.
However if I evaluate RN, IJN and USN it seems to me that the best was the one which was able to adapt. USN was best at adaptaion, RN in middle and IJN worst. And I think this is another reason why USN did excellent in Pacific campaign, RN did well with struggling in some areas and IJN did well at start but as war progress they were worse and worse in comparision to USN and RN. If IJN was quick learner as USN, USA would have much more difficulty with their Pacific campaign.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 25, 2019 15:31:52 GMT -6
I was reading through my D.K. Brown book on the British warship design and construction and he mentioned something about carriers that I had not brought up in the discussion. I feel kind of stupid. Total aviation fuel storage and the number sorties per aircraft.
The F4F-3 needed 110 gallons for normal fighter sorties, 147 for overload. For 36 fighters, for one sortie that would mean about 3960 gallons. For the SBD, the fuel capacity was 310 gallons. There were 36 SBD’s in two squadrons, which works out to 11,160 gallons for one sortie. For the TBF, the fuel capacity is 335 gallons with 18 aircraft normally. This works out to 6030 gallons.
Ok, so, for one sortie, by all the aircraft in the air wing, the total fuel would be 21150 gallons. The Yorktown’s could carry 178,000 gallons of aviation gas. So, there was enough gas for 8 sorties by all aircraft in the air wing. This is very important.
According to D.K. Brown, Illustrious could only carry 120,090 gallons of aviation fuel for her aircraft. This figure worked out to about five sorties per aircraft. This is as a direct result of the armored hangars. US carriers, under continuous flight operations probably had about four to five days of fuel based on two sorties per day, before they would have to do an underway replenishment. For the British, Brown states that the later 1940 Improved Implacable' s only had enough gas for two days of continuous air operations. It takes longer than two days to get from Gibraltar to Malta. According Brown the different designs over the late 1930's and into the war period, toyed with increasing the air wing size, reducing the hangar wall armor and thus being able to increase the aviation fuel storage. As I read through this ( I am still reading through it, along with reading two books on Opera) you get the feeling the British were really struggling trying to get the carrier designs improved. He states that in the Pacific, the British carriers suffered due to the lack of fuel.
My personal opinion is that the aircraft carrier an offensive weapon and should have a large air wing, large ordnance storage capacity and fuel capacity. However, I do understand the British economic issues of the late 1930's and the treaty compliance. These problems seem to have hindered their designs.
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Post by dorn on Mar 25, 2019 18:26:56 GMT -6
I think there are several reasons for this restriction.
Design -Illustrious class operated later up to 55 planes however they were designed for 36 planes. It decrease sorties per plane almost to half.
Doctrine - Royal Navy strategy was mainly defending their shipping so operating near their bases. This means they can replenish quite often. I do not think that they can think about operations that carriers are like airfields near enemy land as it was done by USN. All thinking about aircraft carriers before the war was hit and strike and protecting fleet.
Fuel storage - RN used safer storage of fuel. However it means they can store less.
RN were a little obsessed by defence, we can see it on Illustrious class, KGV class. It is question if this is all from Jutland but I think so. This experience switch their focus to defences, sometimes probably more than could be reasonable. US systems were more balanced.
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Post by director on Mar 25, 2019 19:58:54 GMT -6
More and more I am convinced that the key to the difference in British and American/Japanese carrier concepts lay in the lessons learned from the really large Lexington/Akagi/Kaga classes. One could wish the British had been able to complete Renown and Repulse as carriers, or two of the cancelled 'Admiral' class battlecruisers.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 25, 2019 21:16:10 GMT -6
I don’t know if we want to venture into British naval history, but what we can say is that after WW1, the heyday of the British Navy, with its assistance to trade and industry was over. Trade and industry had for well over 320 years helped to fund the British Navy but now, with globalization and the money expended on the World War, the British public was forcing the government to cut defense spending. This greatly affected the Royal Navy. We also now have the introduction of the third member of the triad, air power. With the rise of the Japanese naval power, the British were now going to have to build up their Far Eastern fleet based at Singapore and the funding just wasn’t available. What happened was essentially that the British Navy would have an Atlantic Fleet and a Mediterranean Fleet. By this time, there were now three threats; Germany, Italy and Japan. The consequences of the above were that the Royal Navy could no longer protect the nation from attack by air. This gave rise to the RAF and the Royal Naval Air Service paid the price. If you examine a table of expenditures for the Army, Navy and the RAF from 1933 to 1939, you will see the RAF rose more than 10 times in funding, but the Royal Navy did not even double. Another issue was that in the twenty years since the World War, British shipbuilding had suffered and lacked the technological innovation and the willingness to invest in better shipbuilding techniques.
All this resulted in a carrier force that was not offensive in its doctrine and the carriers developed reflected this. Their carriers had little, if any offensive capacity and probably could not gain air supremacy in any region. The carrier designs that we have been discussing reflect these issues, in my opinion.
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Post by armouredcarriers on Mar 26, 2019 16:05:03 GMT -6
Hiya guys, I'm the builder of the armouredcarriers.com site.
I just want to say ... I'm very happy to see this debate.
It is exactly the informed exchange of opinions - based on the broad impact of doctrine, design and history - that I had hoped to promote some 15 years ago when I first started compiling the information that eventually made its way online.
I'm sorry some of you feel my site is intentionally biased: I'm always happy to take directed criticism, examine it and address it where appropriate (tell me which part of which page, and give me some reasons and references: not sweeping motherhood statements, please). And I always try to provide what I assess to be the closest related comparisons, where possible (though even with apples v apples, it often means Granny Smith v Fuji). But it is inevitable that I will be accused of bias as I am attempting to present a case.
A little background: I'm not British, nor do I live on the British Isles. I'm not a citizen of the United States, nor do I live in those states. I'm 6th generation Australian of mostly German heritage, with some Russian and Cornish thrown in.
I'm not an academic. I initially had no intention of putting this online. I deliberately chose to write a narrative summary to encapsulate related first-person accounts and official documentation, be it supportive or critical. I very much regret not taking the footnoted approach as mentioned here, as - yes - I find I often have to dig through my books and transcripts to find the source. Chalk that down to ignorance at the outset. (I've since been steadily going back over articles to reduce this failing, and almost all side panels have their archive reference number or book source. And I have reference pages detailing the reference books I own, though it is due for a significant update)
Like most Australian schoolkids, I grew up to stories and lessons about the Coral Sea and the Pacific Campaign. Like most Australian schoolkids, I became a big fan of the Essex and Iowa class ships that were the figureheads of that campaign. Like most Austrlaian schoolkids, I had no idea the British Pacific or Indian Ocean fleets existed after Singapore.
My interest in the RN armoured carriers was only piqued when reading some of the books that came out in the 90s and 00s about USS Franklin and Bunker Hill. I'd only ever seen 'throwaway' mentions of the RN carriers and their experience - rarely more than two or three sentences. And most of them seemed to conflict in important areas of detail.
This became doubly evident when watching online discussions.
I tried to locate some in-depth sources, but found them - then - to be surprisingly rare. There was Friedman's mostly excellent British Carrier Aviation. But this was about the technical evolution of the ships and aircraft, not history or performance. Eventually I stumbled across Poolman's Illustrious. But most other accounts were fragmented, and spread across a variety of usually older books.
So I started pulling them together for myself. And I became so annoyed at all the conflicting accounts that I ordered digital copies of the HMS Illustrious and HMS Formidable battle damage and after-action report archives from the UK National Archives so I could figure out what had actually gone on.
Posting online attracted academic attention on both sides of the Atlantic. Extremely generous researchers have since volunteered some of their open access to the US and UK archives to continue to expand and broaden the content of my site. Which is why it has since grown to be the beast it has become.
It is not finished. I'm finding it much harder than expected to find in-depth details about the design of USS Midway, including drawings and accounts of the extent of the armour on her flight deck. But I'm working on it slowly. This is 'just a hobby', after all.
Again: I'm glad to see how much the debate has evolved since the time the essays of Slade and Worth were the only accessible material on the subject back in 2000.
Keep it up. And I'll keep watching those discussions I find in order to find substantive details that will help add to the summaries of my site.
Regards, armouredcarriers.com
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