how much total plane capacity if Japanese follow American practice

[guctony]

I am curious how much more plane could Japanese could store On their CV's if the preferred to store planes on flight deck as Americans. In Shoukaku out of 72 could they reach 90 planes.?

[btd64]

You can have 110% of the CV's capacity on board and still have flight operations....GP

[Akos Gergely]

Difficult to say as the US carriers had open, single level hangars with deep girders (except Lex/Sara) so they were operating totally different in many ways, not just in the deck park concept. The Japanese fleet CVs all had dual level hangars with no overhead storage for spare a/c which is usually counted in their total a/c count for US ones.

Potentially you can add a +20-25% a/c over their rated complement for Japanese CVs for a pure theoretical number, but they won't be able to effectively operate that much simply 'cos there were too many differences in their operational methods.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: btd64

You can have 110% of the CV's capacity on board and still have flight operations....GP

110% with no degradation of ops, 115% with some degradation (e.g. unable to launch a full strike in one air phase). Over 115%, no launch and recovery, although launch to a land base or other ship may be possible.

IME, going over 100% overtaxes the ability to maintain the aircraft, so you soon have a lot of damaged/heavily fatigued aircraft aboard and can't use them without heavy ops losses. Better to carry lower numbers and be able to keep them all operating, IMO.

[John 3rd]

I have often thought on this but never modded it. In a discussion on one of my Mod Threads YEARS ago we came to the conclusion of about a 25% bump in capacity if the Japanese adopted 'air parks' on deck. This would take the Shokaku-Class to 90 Planes for normal operational capacity. The CVLs would go 37 or 38 aircraft.

Have never actually done this because it ran antithetically to Japanese Doctrine.

[geofflambert]

Remember, you must keep track of the reserve aircraft because the system will not necessarily add them to the used qty. If they come out of reserve because sqd. planes are in maintenance and your total is then above 115%, it will shut your carrier down.

[Macclan5]

Game mechanic answer : above

Theoretical question answer:

"Folding wings"

"Folding wing tips"

Guess which nation is which.

Then extrapolate over the tonnage and year the ship frame was built.

[geofflambert]

The Americans were better in every category of plane and carrier. I actually think the Wildcat was a better carrier fighter than the Zero and the Empire was stuck with the Zero throughout the war. The US carriers were better in every way, size, speed and most importantly damage control. The Avenger was better than anything the Empire came up with and the Dauntless was as good as anything Japanese, and things just kept getting better from there.

The Zero pilots at the beginning of the war were better than the American pilots, but that did not last very long at all.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

The Americans were better in every category of plane and carrier. I actually think the Wildcat was a better carrier fighter than the Zero and the Empire was stuck with the Zero throughout the war. The US carriers were better in every way, size, speed and most importantly damage control. The Avenger was better than anything the Empire came up with and the Dauntless was as good as anything Japanese, and things just kept getting better from there.

The Zero pilots at the beginning of the war were better than the American pilots, but that did not last very long at all.

The Wildcat was faster and some pilots preferred the 4 gun version over the 6 gun version because of the added weight made the fighter less maneuverable. The slash and zoom tactics worked fairly well. So did the Thatch weave.

[guctony]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

I have often thought on this but never modded it. In a discussion on one of my Mod Threads YEARS ago we came to the conclusion of about a 25% bump in capacity if the Japanese adopted 'air parks' on deck. This would take the Shokaku-Class to 90 Planes for normal operational capacity. The CVLs would go 37 or 38 aircraft.

Have never actually done this because it ran antithetically to Japanese Doctrine.

I sometimes think that instead of adding new carriers this %30 or so increase in aircraft capacity is a better equalizer for player balance. Maybe it can be modded as a mid war upgrade rather than 1941 which make more sense, If Yamamoto is in charge as Naval minister it could be something to consider I guess. Specially at the second part of war where Japanese was trying to maximize their attach potential.


Regards

[guctony]

Another interesting question is Japanese and in general dive bombers and torpedo bombers were allowed to land CV's with full load I mean with their Bombs or torpedo's attached. Or it was a common practice to ditch their ordnance before landing for safety and landing issues.

If I was the planner I would try to achieve a position where I could arrange attack planes stocked in nearby land bases And provide Carrier force as refueling platform to increase Fighter planes for CAP and to create a steady flow of planes for attack much like how CVE's function. It wouldn't work in real life for sure but still could be a viable option.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: guctony

Another interesting question is Japanese and in general dive bombers and torpedo bombers were allowed to land CV's with full load I mean with their Bombs or torpedo's attached. Or it was a common practice to ditch their ordnance before landing for safety and landing issues.

If I was the planner I would try to achieve a position where I could arrange attack planes stocked in nearby land bases And provide Carrier force as refueling platform to increase Fighter planes for CAP and to create a steady flow of planes for attack much like how CVE's function. It wouldn't work in real life for sure but still could be a viable option.

Bombs would probably be ditched. Torpedoes were very expensive and scarce, so they might land with them if they could. The movie Midway shows a torpedo break loose from a TB on landing and slide down the deck. Apparently that really happened.