Japanese Carriers

Re: RN vs USN aviation fuel storage

Look what i found - loss of the Ark Royal

http://www.warships1.com/BRcv03_ArkRoyal_sink.htm

 

ARK ROYAL was lost to incredibly bad damage control; ditto LEXINGTON.

 

Questioning the RN Armoured Carriers

Has anyone read anything to suggest that any RN planners were at any time during the late 30’s beginning to doubt the wisdom of the armoured box carrier with its limited air group and only able to withstand a 500lb bomb - the size carried by the Skua at the time. Engine power and the carrying capacity of aircraft were increasing all the time and although I doubt if they would know much about the true capabilities of other countries aircraft, looking at how British aircraft has progressed should have given them some clues and so knock away one of the reasoning’s behind the armoured box carrier as designed.

In addition, would any of these planners be in a position to know about the developments in radar which would knock away another of the reasoning’s behind the armoured box carrier - radar would give the advance warning that faster aircraft had taken away.

 

Re: Questioning the RN Armoured Carriers

Not that I've heard of. The only book I've seen that even partially addresses the issue is "Red Duster, White Ensign" (the author's name eludes me), which is about the Malta convoys but also contains much information about the ILLUSTRIOUS. Given the amount of punishment she absorbed, I'd say the concept worked rather well, all things considered. Factor in the ability to apparently shrug off a direct hit by a kamikaze, and you have what most people would consider a winning design. Yes, the type had its flaws; the air group was way too small, for example. But I have read that this was at least partially recitified later in the war when the RN adopted the American practice of stowing some of their planes on the flight deck, thus increasing the air group to at least some degree, which was better than nothing.

 

Re: Questioning the RN Armoured Carriers

The repeat-Implacable design that was to be ordered in 1941 was supposed to have the flight deck armor ar well, but increased to 4in. This was despite the fact that the RN had come to understand that even 4in could not defeat a dive-bomb.
There are three sources that may be of help. First is Friedman's British Carrier Aviation. It may not be in print anymore, but you can get it via ILL. It is excellent. Also, Brown's Nelson to Vanguard gives some of the key points in British design thought, and it's now available at some really cheapo prices. Less common is an older volume by Brown, The Design and Construction of British Warships, part 1.

 

Re: Questioning the RN Armoured Carriers

Read all three via the library (if the last one is the one describing warships from battleships to corvettes) - all very interesting, they do suggest designs were in a state of flux at the time though nothing as radical and heratical as abandoning the armoured box.

 

Re: Questioning the RN Armoured Carriers

I think ship design in most navies at that time was in a state of flux. The lessons learned in combat and needing to be incorporated into new construction would see to that.

 

I believe that the US Naval Academy still runs a sim every year of the Battle of Midway. And since its conception, never have the U.S. side won.

 

Not surprising; by every reasonable standard, the Japanese should have won. One author described the American victory as "brilliance shot through with luck."

 

Carriers

It is worth noting that in 1939 none of the big three (USN, RN, and Japanese Navy) had got everything right. The British amoured carriers were in hindsight an understandable step in the wrong direction. Several USN fleet carriers were running around with heavy cruiser guns. Combat showed that very few carriers were lost to gun fire and where they were it was to something far too nasty to be scared off by 8" guns. The Japanese carriers were and remained horribly vunerable to avation fuel fires.

The big difference between the Brits and the rest is that we were in the war first by a long shot and we simply had to run with the hotch potch of ships we had had. USA and Japan had time to make some adjustments before it became their time.

 

I did like our armoured carriers, though.

Yes, it made the desk a bit difficult to repair if damaged (understatement time) but it did give a better measure of protection than wooden decks.

Yes, I can see that wooden decks were generally better!

Incidently, are the stories of attempted Kamakazi attacks 'bouncing' off British carrier flight decks true, or simply another WW2 myth?

 

I believe it was HMS FORMIDABLE I believe. They weren't as bad as some would have you believe their problem was they were based on concepts that became outdated very quickly. Also there were big differences in the campaigns they fought. Carrier battles in the Pacific tended have a strong element of 'hid and seek' but operations in the Med were generally tests of pure strength. If we consider one of the primary rolls of any warship is the stay afloat then the Illustrious Class must be regarded as at least reasonable ships.

 

I'd agree with that. I know that ILLUSTRIOUS and her sisters carried small air groups, but did they not increase them later in the war by storing some of them on the flight deck? I once read that they did this and were then able to carry more planes.

 

Re: Carriers

I don't think we can say that, in 1939, the mounting of cruiser-caliber guns on carriers was a wrong move. In the case of the US ships, it refers only to Lexington and Saratoga, which had carried them since commissioning. Even into the late-1930's, US fleet exercises showed repeatedly, even inevitably, that carriers were subject to interception by enemy fast units. The sudden emergence of long-range planes c1939 made this less likely, and the Lexingtons landed their 8in guns within a couple years.
I believe it was Britain's Malta design, analogous to America's Midway, was the first to renounce the armored box hangar.
DK Brown has found only one instance he can indicate where the flight deck armor was needed to deflect an incoming kamikaze. I'm not sure about "concepts that became outdated very quickly." The underlying concept of the armored box was the idea that AA gunnery could best counter attacking planes. I don't know if that was ever true.

 

Re: Carriers

It wasn't. All to many times, a ship's AA gunners hit the incoming plane, only to have it still either make a hit with its bomb or hit the ship itself. BTW, this is NOT intended as any slight to the AA gunners themsleves, who were doing a difficult job to the best of their abilities. But the best AA weapon there is is a fighter.

 

Re: Carriers

The story of interwar AA fire is one of missing the target.

 

Since the topic is Japanese Carriers, has anyone else read why the Japanese put the island on the left side of two of their carriers (Akagi and Hiryu)? I learned it just a few years ago.

 

Dang - I read this somewhere.

I like the fact that many Japanese carriers were so completely flat decked - even the funnels go over the side.
Good looking, but I'll admit a tad impractical.

 

The first American carrier, USS LANGLEY, as also completely flat. Of course, she served primarily as a test bed for developing carrier doctrines for the USN.

As for AKAGI and HIRYU, IIRC, it was due to the fact that carrier pilots, on takeoff, tended to turn to the right after leaving the flight deck, so this was an experiment to avoid having the island clipped by the turning plane.

I may be wrong about this, though.

 

Not quite, although carrier pilot tendencies played a major part in why their idea didn't work. Anyone else?