What were the Brits thinking?

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: sprior

Ah, but remember the Skua was the first plane to sink a major warship under way, in this case the unfortunate Konigsberg. Alright, I'll grant you they were land based.

The Skua was carrier-based, thankyouverymuch. That particular attack was carried out by temporarily land-based aircraft of 800 and 803 squadrons. The later attack on the Scharnhorst, by the same two squadrons, was flown from the Ark Royal.

And the Skua also scored the first FAA kill of the war.

[Terminus]

I like the Skua, in case you couldn't tell...[:D]

[xj900uk]

Skua was the workhorse of the Norweigan campaign.  Another British aircraft that seems to have rather disappeared from the annals of history.  Up until recently a complete one didn't even exist anywhere, then soembody found an intact one at the bottom of a Norweigan fiord so it has been painstakingly salvaged & reassembled (can't be flown though)

[sprior]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: sprior

Ah, but remember the Skua was the first plane to sink a major warship under way, in this case the unfortunate Konigsberg. Alright, I'll grant you they were land based.

The Skua was carrier-based, thankyouverymuch. That particular attack was carried out by temporarily land-based aircraft of 800 and 803 squadrons. The later attack on the Scharnhorst, by the same two squadrons, was flown from the Ark Royal.

And the Skua also scored the first FAA kill of the war.

The ones that sank the K flew out of RNAS Hatston in Orkney. Just up the hill from Kirkwall. Hence my "they were land based".[:'(]

[Terminus]

I know that. They were still carrier squadrons.

Quite the flight, by the way. When they came home, one of the pilots logged a 4 hour and 30 minute flight. The Skua had an official endurance of 4 hours and 20 minutes.

[Takeshi]

Terminus,

Wikipedia was a convenient quote. There are several sources describing the improved survivability of armored decks vs wooden decks in the Okinawa campaign. Yes, post war the damage turned out to be severe to the CVs with armored decks, but those ships operated throughout the campaign despite that damage.

Tak

[Terminus]

That's the problem with Wikipedia: it's "convenient". It's also "convenient" for people to go in and write WHATEVER THEY WANT.

I made the mistake of looking up the G3M the other day, and the entry was mostly about its use against civilian targets in China, with appropriate use of words like "terror" and "criminal".

[frank1970]

ORIGINAL: Takeshi

Terminus,

Wikipedia was a convenient quote. There are several sources describing the improved survivability of armored decks vs wooden decks in the Okinawa campaign. Yes, post war the damage turned out to be severe to the CVs with armored decks, but those ships operated throughout the campaign despite that damage.

Tak

Just don´t quote it. Everyone could write in everything. [;)]
Take the quotet sources at the very end of each Wiki article [:D]

[Takeshi]

Point taken. I'll refrain from quoting wikipedia as a source in the future. I was at work and was in a hurry and it had a colorful quotation.

I realize the armored decks as designed by the RN for WWII were flawed and abandoned post war. The point I tried to make was they worked IRL for the Okinawa campaign.

Tak

[Iridium]

Here's a good article describing the whole CV design philosophy and weighing the pros and cons.

Were Armored Flight Decks on British Carriers Worthwhile?

[Nikademus]

Read it.

I found it overly critical regarding UK design philosophy. Liked DK Brown's analysis better. Armored decks weren't a flawed concept, but the "armored box" proved to be due to the restrictions it imposed on hanger heights and the containment of blast effects though hindsight makes it seem obvious naturally.

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

I know that. They were still carrier squadrons.

I think he never disputed that, quite the contrary...

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

I do wonder who thought the Fulmar was a good idea...

Ironic....I was just recently involved in a discussion regarding the Fulmar on another board. Here were the exchange rates for the Fulmar during the Med fighting for Malta.

lost - 40

1 - D-520
3 - CR-42
1 - MC-200
1 - MC-202
1 - RE-2001 (or 109)
3 - FAA
5 - Ground (air attack)
1 - AA
1 - Z-1007bis
6 - S-79
1 - Z-506B
1 - Z-501
1 - Ju-88
3 - Ju-87
11 - op losses

Kills - 67

5 x Z-1007bis
4 x BR-20M
15 x S-79
5 x S-84
1 x S-81
13 x Z-506B
9 x Z-501
5 x Ju-87
8 x Ju-88
1 x Ju-52
1 x Bf-110

Fulmar's also wracked up some decent numbers during the Greece/Crete fighting. Obviously against modern 1E fighters they were at a distinct disadvantage, but in the Med environment where the biggest threats were snoopers and bombers, they could and did give valuable service when coupled with good FD aided by radar.

[sprior]

Wow, over 1/4 were ops losses. Maybe AE needs to ratchet that up too.

[Nikademus]

op losses are too low and servicability too high. The former was purposely so in stock days because it invariably took the pilot with the op loss which caused issues.

[mariandavid]

Not sure if mentioned before in this long series of posts but:
- the armoured deck philosophy was only introduced in 1936. Before that RN CV's were similar in concept to those of the USN; eg the Ark Royal had a hanger capacity of about 55 aircraft - similar to that of the Yorktown etc. The change came because the RN made three judgements, all of them correct
 
- that war would break out within five years
 
- that CV's would be dueling with land-based aviation since the RN and the French controlled the open seas
 
- the land based fighters were superior to any carrier based of the foreseeable future - would therefore be struck below and would be protected by an armoured deck. In turn this meant that the double hanger of the Ark would have to be replaced by the single one of the new carriers.
 
The RN was of course absolutely right on the relative values of land and carrier aircraft. I am not sure what the USN was flying in 1939 but I suspect it was far less competant than a Me 109E; while the Wildcat was contemporaneous with the Fw 190A! Perhaps if the FAA had been under total Admiralty control from the early '30's enough pressure could have been exerted to force Hawker and Supermarine to 'navalise' their fighter designs in 1938. But that is the only way by which the armoured deck concept would have been reversed.

[starsis1]

Some time ago I got fascinated by the various "strange" design decisions made by the British before WW2 - Cruiser/Infantry tanks, Armoured Carriers with a handful planes each, upward-shooting "fighter" planes, short pants worn by general officers, etc.
I found some of the answers in a great book:

British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and Their Aircraft by Norman Friedman

I think that most if not all questions about carrier and FAA aircraft design could be answered based on the info in this book. While it is pricey, I strongly recommend it 

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Iridium

Here's a good article describing the whole CV design philosophy and weighing the pros and cons.

Were Armored Flight Decks on British Carriers Worthwhile?

Great link Irridum, thanks! I found this part intriguging

The British were hobbled by the RAF that allocated few resources to the FAA, so the carriers had few and obsolete fighters. They had to build their carriers to take damage.

That would seem to be something that could be established empirically, i.e., by looking at evidence of decisions made due to economic constraint, lack of resources and the like. Maybe this synthetic statement by the authors, does in fact represent a kind of synthesis of evidence.

But from my naive perspective as a non-military-history social scientist, I cannot help but wonder about the role of tradition. Certainly the RN had a magnificent tradition as one of the top, if not _the_ top navy in the world.

Capital ships with minimal guns, and a big flat top to land planes were, in the 1920s and 1930s, just not very "traditional," and so I cannot help but speculate that this would've weighed into the struggles between RN & RAAF over resources for aircraft, etc. I can just picture some incredulous RAAF advocate debating with this RN colleague, "What do you mean you want two million pounds to build a big floating airport!? You navy chaps just use big cannons don't you!?"

Having less of a longstanding (rigid?) naval tradition, and being (if you believe de Toqueville) a generally more innovative culture, maybe the U.S. was more open to the revolution for less materialistic (money and resources) or strategic/ecological (geography) reasons but rather for more cultural reasons?

[starsis1]

Real quick - British did build a large-deck carrier BEFORE armoured deck carriers - Ark Royal. It had much larger aircraft capacity and was in many ways similar to the Yorktown-class USN carriers

[Dixie]

Perhaps if the FAA had been under total Admiralty control from the early '30's enough pressure could have been exerted to force Hawker and Supermarine to 'navalise' their fighter designs in 1938. But that is the only way by which the armoured deck concept would have been reversed.

Probably not. The Spitfire was only just around in 1938, both the Spit and Hurricane were badly needed by the RAF so even with the FAA controlling it's own aircraft the Hurris and Spits would have still gone to the RAF. What is more likely is that the FAA would have got something better than Gladiators, Rocs and Skuas but not as good as the Hurricane.