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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 12:59:03 GMT -6
Post by jodak on Mar 17, 2015 12:59:03 GMT -6
During WW II the US learned to its sorrow that armored flight decks would have saved a couple of carriers lost. Dave
A lot of misconceptions exist concerning the question of armored vs. non-armored flight decks, the design parameters behind them, and the relative merits of each. This is a link to a couple of comprehensive and balanced articles that do an excellent job of laying all of this out and debunking many of the myths that have grown up surrounding this very complex issue.
www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 13:20:26 GMT -6
Post by dave on Mar 17, 2015 13:20:26 GMT -6
Jodak
I have read about carrier operations during WW II---Coral Sea, Midway, Battle of the Philippine Sea and other engagements---but little regarding technology.
I appreciate your sharing this site with me and look forward to learning more about the technical part of carriers.
Thank You
Regards
Dave
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 13:32:13 GMT -6
Post by jodak on Mar 17, 2015 13:32:13 GMT -6
Much of the misconception stems from the fact that people tend to confuse the term non-armored "flight deck" to mean "non-armored" in general. In reality, as the articles point out, the U.S. carriers had essentially the same armor protection as British carriers but carried it a deck lower, on the hangar deck. There were numerous advantages to this, chief among which was the ability to carry/operate larger air groups, and experience was to prove that larger air groups (including more defensive fighters), were far more beneficial to carrier protection than was an armored deck.
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 13:55:32 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Mar 17, 2015 13:55:32 GMT -6
WO: Hermes and Eagle were the first two fleet carriers with hurricane bows. I can't recall in what order they were commissioned, but whichever it was they were close on one another. Hermes was purpose built, and Eagle built on what was intended as a battleship hull. Furious, Glorious, and Courageous could almost be said to have had them as well. Not quite though.
The Midways dis not have a hurricane bow until they were reconstructed. As commissioned they were conventional. United States, the intended follow-on to Midway was supposed to have a conventional bow as well. Coral Sea, the third Midway, either upon commissioning or shortly thereafter had a partially enclosed but not hurricane bow,and that is what differentiated her from her two sisters.
Jodak: I am not sure I can agree with what you said above as a blanket statement. The armored deck added weight onto relatively small hulls that we see in the Ark Royal, Illustrious Class, the repeat Illustrious Class, and the light fleets. Aircraft capacity was really limited by the size of the hanger decks, and particularly the height of the hanger decks.
The Midways had armored decks and were rated at 120 aircraft (of WWII vintage) when they were first commissioned. The increased size and weight of the aircraft themselves very quickly reduced that capacity.
I cannot recall any US fleet carrier lost that could have been saved if it had an armored deck. Lexington was lost due to poor damage control. Yorktown to a torpedo. Wasp to a torpedo. Hornet to both bomb and torpedo. Princeton, a light fleet was much too small to even consider equipping her with an armored deck.
Lexington and Saratoga had enclosed bows as a result of their being adapted from a battle cruiser. With those two exceptions, the main deck on U S carriers was the hanger deck. The flight decks and all structure above the hanger deck were considered superstructure. This pattern existed from Ranger CV4 to United States (intended) CV 58
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 14:09:41 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 17, 2015 14:09:41 GMT -6
During WW II the US learned to its sorrow that armored flight decks would have saved a couple of carriers lost. Dave
A lot of misconceptions exist concerning the question of armored vs. non-armored flight decks, the design parameters behind them, and the relative merits of each. This is a link to a couple of comprehensive and balanced articles that do an excellent job of laying all of this out and debunking many of the myths that have grown up surrounding this very complex issue.
www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm
Jodak,
I think the short answer is that an armoured internalised hanger deck was the right end destination, once carriers were built that were large enough to still provide the necessary offensive capability and large CAP. Both the RN and USN were making risky compromises in that era, before the USN super carriers.
WO
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 14:14:48 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 17, 2015 14:14:48 GMT -6
Much of the misconception stems from the fact that people tend to confuse the term non-armored "flight deck" to mean "non-armored" in general. In reality, as the articles point out, the U.S. carriers had essentially the same armor protection as British carriers but carried it a deck lower, on the hangar deck. There were numerous advantages to this, chief among which was the ability to carry/operate larger air groups, and experience was to prove that larger air groups (including more defensive fighters), were far more beneficial to carrier protection than was an armored deck.
Jodak,
But there was a downside to armouring the hangar deck. See the Bunker Hill and the Franklin.
The problem was that the RN carriers were too small for armoured flight decks, because it so reduced their aircraft numbers that it would inevitably increase the amount of times the armoured flight deck was put to the test for want of a sufficiently numerous offensive capability and defensive CAP.
WO
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 14:31:24 GMT -6
Post by jodak on Mar 17, 2015 14:31:24 GMT -6
There was a sort of Catch 22 circular logic involved in the design of the British carriers. It wasn't as much that the air arm was small because the carriers were small as it was that the carriers were small because the anticipated air arm was small. The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) was a component of the RAF, which was miserly (out of necessity) in the numbers of planes that it was willing/able to allocate to the navy. As a result, the RN elected to build smaller carriers, that were sufficient for the numbers of aircraft available, but, due to their limited CAP capabilities, provide them with deck armor for greater protection in lieu of fighter protection.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 17, 2015 14:49:40 GMT -6
Limited CAP AND the fact that the RN carriers were designed to operate primarily in the European and Med littorals, where land based air power could reach out and touch them. Had we gone to war and it involved the Med in the mid 1950's those 27A/C/125 Essex Class carried would not have lasted 10 minutes. One of the reasons the Midways were the last to be upgraded in the 1950's is straight deck or not, those decks were armored, and the risk of extended yard periods for modernization was too great prior to the Forrestals coming on line.
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 15:34:52 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 17, 2015 15:34:52 GMT -6
There was a sort of Catch 22 circular logic involved in the design of the British carriers. It wasn't as much that the air arm was small because the carriers were small as it was that the carriers were small because the anticipated air arm was small. The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) was a component of the RAF, which was miserly (out of necessity) in the numbers of planes that it was willing/able to allocate to the navy. As a result, the RN elected to build smaller carriers, that were sufficient for the numbers of aircraft available, but, due to their limited CAP capabilities, provide them with deck armor for greater protection in lieu of fighter protection. Jodak,
The old joke that the greatest defeat that the RN ever suffered was losing the RNAS to the newly created RAF in 1918!
It's more complicated than just the RAF attitude to the Fleet Air Arm before Chatfield rested back control.
The Ark Royal and the Illustrious class were designed within the framework of the London Naval treaties. An armoured flight deck on the available gross tonnage was also a tall order in terms of the consequent hangar space, even if they had lots of aircraft and which (as you point out) they did not.
Look at the size of the lower hangar deck on the Implacable and Indefatigable, which made both carriers obsolete for larger post-WW2 aircraft......
WO
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 15:37:09 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 17, 2015 15:37:09 GMT -6
Limited CAP AND the fact that the RN carriers were designed to operate primarily in the European and Med littorals, where land based air power could reach out and touch them. Had we gone to war and it involved the Med in the mid 1950's those 27A/C/125 Essex Class carried would not have lasted 10 minutes. One of the reasons the Midways were the last to be upgraded in the 1950's is straight deck or not, those decks were armored, and the risk of extended yard periods for modernization was too great prior to the Forrestals coming on line. QC,
Take a look at what the Enterprise/Yorktown dive bombers did to the Akagi, Kaga and Soryu within a few mins with 1942 technology....
WO
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 15:57:19 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Mar 17, 2015 15:57:19 GMT -6
And to top it all off, the Midway four had a very large Hinomaru painted on their flight decks, almost saying aim here.
The truth is though that those SBD's should have never gotten near any of those three you mentioned, had Kido Butai, and the IJN in general ever developed an integrated CAP system, and by that I mean, CAP fighters, escort Triple A, and a fully functional fighter direction and communications system working in concert with one another. There escort formations sucked as well. Those carriers were pretty much on their own as far as gunnery defense goes. The escorts were so spread out trying to visually detect incomers, in the absence of radar, they could not provide protection or reinforce carrier gun power. The IJN was a deeply flawed Navy and completely out of their pasture when it came to dealing with the USN.
We had a steep learning curve, and there were none better in 42 than the IJN small and medium surface combatants with both tube and torpedo gunnery, but we all the basic ingredients developed, it was just a matter of training and experience in use. The IJN was a WWI navy fighting WWII in more ways than one.
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 16:51:45 GMT -6
Post by jodak on Mar 17, 2015 16:51:45 GMT -6
We had a steep learning curve, and there were none better in 42 than the IJN small and medium surface combatants with both tube and torpedo gunnery, but we all the basic ingredients developed, it was just a matter of training and experience in use. The IJN was a WWI navy fighting WWII in more ways than one. "After the 4th Battle of Savo the IJN never got any better; the USN never stopped getting better." I can't take credit for that, as I read it somewhere, but I think that it is very true.
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 16:59:36 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 17, 2015 16:59:36 GMT -6
And to top it all off, the Midway four had a very large Hinomaru painted on their flight decks, almost saying aim here. The truth is though that those SBD's should have never gotten near any of those three you mentioned, had Kido Butai, and the IJN in general ever developed an integrated CAP system, and by that I mean, CAP fighters, escort Triple A, and a fully functional fighter direction and communications system working in concert with one another. There escort formations sucked as well. Those carriers were pretty much on their own as far as gunnery defense goes. The escorts were so spread out trying to visually detect incomers, in the absence of radar, they could not provide protection or reinforce carrier gun power. The IJN was a deeply flawed Navy and completely out of their pasture when it came to dealing with the USN. We had a steep learning curve, and there were none better in 42 than the IJN small and medium surface combatants with both tube and torpedo gunnery, but we all the basic ingredients developed, it was just a matter of training and experience in use. The IJN was a WWI navy fighting WWII in more ways than one. QC,
And the IJN loved their intricate plans with widely dispersed forces. They spread themselves out of mutual support at Midway more than GAC spread his companies at the LBH! Remind me, what exactly was Yamamoto doing with the Yamato, Nagato and Mutsu whilst the Kido Butai was being massacred for want of AA fire...?!
WO
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 17:10:10 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Mar 17, 2015 17:10:10 GMT -6
And you are considering the night battleship action on 14 November as 4th Savo I presume.
I read that same thing, but can't for the life of me remember who said it.
Tell you the truth though I think it was earlier than that. The IJN surface units were at the height at 1st Savo. The walked into one at Cape Esperance (2nd Savo). I am probably the only person on God's green earth that thinks Callahan and Scott accomplished what they set out to do on the night of 13 November (3rd Savo). Lee pulled one out of his butt the next night, but he came off with a tight win.
The thing that killed the IJN as an offensive strike force was Santa Cruz, a battle of great importance. There will never be a ship named USS Santa Cruz, and it gets lost in talk of Coral Sea and Midway, but it was Santa Cruz that finally destroyed IJN carrier aviation, and they could not ever recover.
I enjoy these naval discussions. As a boy, my Dad worked first at the Naval Gun Factory, Washington DC Navy Yard, and then at Main Navy. Among his friends who would often be at our home for dinner, most were surface and air Navy vets of Coral Sea, Midway, and the Solomons. I would listen to their professional discussions (not war or sea stories) for hours on end.I was not of an age to grasp it all nine or ten through 15, but it instituted in me a lifelong interest in the first year of war in the Pacific, when the issue was in some doubt.
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 17:12:35 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Mar 17, 2015 17:12:35 GMT -6
WO: I hate fancy crap. The more intricate the more chance of failure. Simplicity of concept and execution is what wins battles, and you catch your adversary off guard, because he is most likely war gaming complicated.
He was having a nice pleasant sail four hundred miles behind, sitting in flag country playing Shogi, and writing letters to his mistress
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