US cruiser aircraft arrangments

I ran across this interesting photo of SOC floatplanes on a Brooklyn class cruiser:

File:SOCs on cat of Brooklyn class cruiser 1943.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In particular it shows how the catapults could launch across the ship, one advantage of the fantail location on these and subsequent classes.

Between the cats, on the right of the picture, is the hangar hatch cover in its forward position. The hatch is open, a bit difficult to make out behind the men standing on deck. The SOC on the starboard cat is right above the hangar opening.

The hangar occupied most of the space between the aft turrets and the stern and could accommodate four aircraft. In the later wartime cruisers, Fargo and Oregon City classes and I think the later Baltimores, the forward half of the hangar was converted to berthing spaces, reducing aircraft storage to two.

Some sources credit the Brooklyns with capacity for six aircraft, including two stored on the catapults. That had been the practice on earlier cruisers like the Northampton and New Orleans classes, which carried four planes but had hangars only for two. Those ships had their catapults amidships, where they were safer from sea damage and out of the way of the after turrets*. I'm not aware of any "aircraft aft" ships actually carrying more than four, indeed by mid-war they often only had two.

* the crane could lay flat on the deck when not in use.

This arrangement featured in the opening scene of the movie Pursuit of the Graf Spee, in which USS Salem portrayed the pocket battleship. The movie starts with a lifeboat from one of Graf Spee's victims being picked up by crane and lowered into the dark hangar - it looks as though they're being captured by Darth Vader!

 

IIRC, the large hanger in the stern caused some vibration problems in these later classes. On the otherhand the amidships hangars on the treaty cruisers was a big vulnerability in surface actions, as was proved around Guadalcanal. Float planes, flamable materials, avgas, etc. was very combustible when hit. I wonder if there was a better system.

 

Apparently there were mixed feelings in the USN; our next generation cruiser designs reverted to the aircraft amidships. The only ones built were the Alaska class. There were similar designs for 6" and 8" gun cruisers, but with the onset of war it was more expeditious to mass-produce the current Cleveland and Baltimore classes.

After Savo it became common to park all aircraft on the catapults, so they could be launched or if necessary jettisoned in case of surface action. During the Guadalcanal campaign, many cruiser floatplanes were based in the lagoon at Tulagi, where they could still support ships operating around the islands. Even so there would be things like spare wings (doped fabric) and lubricants to create a fire hazard. No perfect solution, I guess.

American battleships had no hangars and carried their aircraft on the fantail or atop #3 turret, where they were more vulnerable to blast or water damage but less likely to endanger the ship. The key role envisioned for battleship planes in the interwar period was to launch before a battle and provide gunfire spotting; we seem to have been more willing to "use them or lose them" on a one-time basis. Cruiser planes were more integral to everyday cruiser operations; they significantly extended the ship's scouting range, one of the key functions of cruisers in the days before the proliferation of aircraft carriers. So cruiser planes rated a higher level of protection, and a bit more risk to the ship was acceptable.