What were the Brits thinking?

[Dixie]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

one good initial sortie doesn't qualify for me compared to the other planes. Right from the get go once 109's got a good look at em they were meat. Skua and Fulmar "debut" was longer and in the latter case it's success stretched out for a good initial period.

While the two naval planes had limited shelf lives, they did have a period of usefulness. The Turret fighter concept just didn't work at all.

Depends on your definition of debut [:D] After the initial clashes the Defiants were done for, but there were some successes in there against modern fighters. As with all things the usefullness of the Skua/Fulmar is dependant on the opposition. As you posted, they did well against bombers but would have suffered (like the Def) against anything approaching modern fighter quality.

I'm not saying the turret fighter concept worked, but it would have done if those pesky baddies had stuck to the plan and sent unescorted bombers flying in clear daylight along a set course...[:-]

[DuckofTindalos]

Since when was Skua and Fulmar a "turret fighter"? Are we talking about the Roc and Defiant all of a sudden?

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Dixie


[Depends on your definition of debut [:D] After the initial clashes the Defiants were done for, but there were some successes in there against modern fighters. As with all things the usefullness of the Skua/Fulmar is dependant on the opposition. As you posted, they did well against bombers but would have suffered (like the Def) against anything approaching modern fighter quality.

I'm not saying the turret fighter concept worked, but it would have done if those pesky baddies had stuck to the plan and sent unescorted bombers flying in clear daylight along a set course...[:-]

I'm not aware of any vs fighters but I get the gist of what your saying. My primary point in this would be to differentiate the fact that the entire concept of a turreted fighter (with pilot and gunner doing seperate jobs which results in them impairing each other's effectiveness) was so flawed as to be virtually unworkable outside of an isolated success or two. While the Fulmar and Skua, the former in particular proved very vulnerable to a modern 1E fighter such as the 109 or A6M2, it's "conventional" design still gave it a far better chance than the Defiant/Roc type fighter. The only situation in which a Defiant can win is if the enemy fighter is completely ignorant of the type (and thus gets blasted like a bomber blasting a fighter) or if the enemy fighter is completely suprised. This is what was shown during the BoB. Once the 109's knew what the Defiant was, it was a turkey shoot....complete and utterly. At least a Skua or a Fulmar could make a fight of it even if at a disadvantage.

[Dixie]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Since when was Skua and Fulmar a "turret fighter"? Are we talking about the Roc and Defiant all of a sudden?

Sort of, the topic wandered towards turret fighters on the last page. Probably through the discussion of below par fighters.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus


My primary point in this would be to differentiate the fact that the entire concept of a turreted fighter (with pilot and gunner doing seperate jobs which results in them impairing each other's effectiveness) was so flawed as to be virtually unworkable outside of an isolated success or two.

One of the few descriptions of air combat that makes clear sense to me...

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Dixie

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

Few points here that need clarification :
(1).  The concept of the armoured flightdeck certainly protected the carrier from bomb damage,  but actually when it was hit the damage took longer to be repaired - queue the Formidable being hit by 1 bomb in the Med (dropped by a Stuka),  and being out of action for 1 year - it had to go to the US for repairs.  Also there was the problem that this made the carrier slightly top-heavy,  which also made it vulnerable to torpedo attacks - the Courageous was lost in Sept '39 in such a way and the Ark Royal in the med in '41,  both suffering damage that US carriers might well have survived.  Finally there was the theoretical problem that the armoured flightdeck created an armoured box which would actually concentrate any fires and make them worse, this is why the RN drilled so long and hard in fire control & no carriers were lost this way.
(2). After the war nearly all RN carriers were determined too big and expensive to maintain, so went the way of the breakers prematurely or were sold off to other navies (like India, Australia, and ironically the Argentinans).  A few light ones (Glory class) did sterling service in Korea though.  Out of the WWII carriers only Victorious soldiered on with a ludicrously long 9-year refit/upgrade. in the 40/s/50's only to be the last in the Indomitable class of ships & then scrapped prematurely in the early 60's after very little service.
(3). After WWII the UK only finished two 'modern carriers',  the Ark Royal (laid down in '43) and the Eagle, althogh others were planned.  Neither outlived the 70's as both were scrapped due to economic concerns and lack of cash for refits/upgrades & were replaed with the 'through deck cruisers' of the Invincible class, which are still aroudn today although about to be withdrawn/laid up.
(4). The UK is now building two massive new aircraft carriers which should be ready about 2015, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales.  Originally the plan was to build them in Korea by Nippon Steel on the grounds that 'the Japanese knew more about aircraft carriers than the UK ever did' in ironically the same shipyard as turned out hte Musashi, Yamato & Shinano...  A political decision ignoring the fact that the Japanese actually hadn't built a proper CV since WWII...  Some say that the navy minister actually came up with this brain-wave after w atching the Pearl Harbour movie in 2001...  After a public outcry Nippon Steel were paid off (£1 billion down the drain for doing nothign) and the ships are now being constructed in the UK although they will now take longer & be more expensive, although ironically to the original Japanese design.  Just to make matters more interesting, there is no money in the budget left over for any new planes to equip them - work on the JSF and also the F-35 has now been mothballed by the UK government on the grounds of cost,  so looks like they will deploy Harriers and some choppers (bring back the Buccanneer & Phantom, anyone?)
I guess they will probably go the way of previous UK post-war carriers, being too expensive to deploy and then going prematurely to the breakers yard, unless hte Chinese or North koreans want to buy them...

For point 1, neither Courageous nor Ark Royal were armoured carriers. [;)]

Yeah, and that's not the only strange point in the whole expose...

After a public outcry Nippon Steel were paid off (£1 billion down the drain for doing nothign) and the ships are now being constructed in the UK although they will now take longer & be more expensive, although ironically to the original Japanese design.

Mate, never heard of that - and the design is a Thales one (which had great publicity in France as there was the debate about sharing the construction of the second Aircraft Carrier taking advantage of the Thales design). Are you sure you're not day-dreaming?! [&:]

[Nikademus]

That might just be it right there. I really don't consider them below par. They filled a need. Both did decent work.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Apart from crippling the Bismark, crippling the Italian fleet at Taranto, ferrying fighters to and from Norway (RIP HMS Glorious), escorting the Malta convoys...

apologies, I meant in the Pacific. Was any action contemplated, or did they not want to get in range of Japanese land based aircraft?

The Americans assigned them to secondary roles. They really did not want to share the honors.

I know German subs got a couple. Did they ever lose any to aircraft?

[JohnDillworth]

The Americans assigned them to secondary roles. They really did not want to share the honors.

Hey, when did this become a story about the Australian Army!*

*I qualify this by saying I think the diggers were the finest infantry in the Pacific theater

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

It was true of all four carriers. After the fires burned out you'd be left with four hulls intact below water, but with such structural damage up top that you might as well build new ships. Add to that the challenge of trying to tow 1-4 hulks halfway across the ocean with the inherrant risk to the escorting ships and it just wasn't practical. Hence all four were scuttled.

Yorktown case was different. Her bouyancy was compromised but stable (at the time). Structurally she was in decent shape and PH was far closer to them than Kure was for the Nagumo. Hence the effort was made and might have succeeded (though we'll never know for sure even had I-168 not intercepted her)

With the machinery spaces still OK, they could have steamed home under their own power. However, the distance from home and even a friendly port where they could have holed up for temporary repairs made that pretty much impossible. Any carriers that did limp back would have been in the yard for a long time. Possibly longer than was practical.

The Franklin is the best comparison of damage. The Kaga was definitely more damaged, but the Franklin's damage was in the same ball park as say the Hiryu which was still smoking in the pictures taken the day after she was abandoned, but generally the same condition.

The Japanese didn't know what was still out there. They had just had their confidence shattered by what they thought was an inferior foe. The Akagi was attacked by a US sub while fire fighting was going on and there were other subs in the area. A withdraw with the damaged CVs would been very slow and they were a long way from home.

Scuttling the stricken carriers was the smartest thing to do. They didn't know how badly the US airgroups had been mauled by the fight and they didn't know how many US carriers were still out there. They thought they had hit two, but the strikes on the Hiryu and the retreating IJN cruisers showed the US still had some fight left and were pursuing.

They also had no idea what surface forces the US had and were aware they were a lot closer to Pearl Harbor, the home of the US Pacific Fleet than home. With all those factors stacked up against them, they just wanted to bug out and head for home.

The Yorktown had been badly damaged, but there was not much fire damage and she was pretty close to a major port with a dry dock. If it hadn't been for the submarine attack, the Yorktown may have missed the battles the rest of 1942, but would have survived to fight again. Of the five carriers hit, the Yorktown's probably was the most repairable.

Bill

[wdolson]

The two seat carrier fighter concept was common at the time the Skua and Roc were conceived of.  The Grumman FF and F2F were two seat fighters.  There were some other two seat USN fighters around the same time. 

It had been pretty well accepted by the early 1930s that carrier fighters would be less capable than their land based contemporaries.  It was only on the eve of the war that the concept of carrier fighters being on par with land based fighters took hold in the USN and IJN.  The Corsair came out of a 1938 requirement that was a major advancement in carrier aviation.  The Zero was called that because it was introduced in 1940, which was a zero year in the Japanese calendar.

The British were just a generation or two behind Japan and the US as far as naval aviation went.

Bill

[Braedonnal]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed
At the end of the war, the capacity of late war UK designs which had evolved since the Illustrious allowed for a much larger complement of planes - just like Terminus said, the first reason why the British had anemic airgroups, apart from the lack of planes, was a doctrinal one. They wouldn't use deck space for parking. Some ended the war carrying 70 birds, that's pretty respectable...

No argument here though low hanger heights hurt those later designs. They could not carry Corsairs.

ORIGINAL: Fishbed
We don't argue about which design was sounder, they all answered to different needs. But this is a little far-fetched: the reason why Franklin burnt is foremost because the bombs actually went through its flight deck, seems obvious to me. Armored flight deck proved to be a disadvantage in the long run for the lifespan of these ships, but they were a blessing at the right moment for whoever would fight aboard those CVs, especially in 1945. 1951 just shows that HMS Indomitable was vulnerable to hangar fire just like any other ship - but more so because of its design - but the whole point of having an armored flight deck was specifically to render "such an attack" fruitless... Your logic is weird, man.

My logic is pretty sound, thanks. USS Franklin was caught with 36 armed and fueled aircraft on her deck aft warming up. She also was caught with her aft avgas lines open and something like 20 aircraft below decks (some armed, most fueled). Hit once centerline and once aft, what happened was academic and I'm not sure an armored deck would have helped had one been available. Those 36 aircraft were going to burn, the avgas was going to spread and munitions were going to burst. I think more than anything what the ordeal of the USS Franklin proved was that a carrier caught with armed and fueled aircraft was asking for trouble but it's not like Midway didn't tell us that.

No British carrier was ever caught in such a state during the war but if one had been would the ship have been proof against the damage? I'm not convinced as there are lots of variables to consider.

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
Not exactly. Illustrious took a serious number of heavy bombs to which it is more than possible neither a Japanese nor American carrier would have survived. Franklin's experience compared to Victorious is a better one when comparing the effects of fire and aviation ops.

Given the advantage of bursting bombs much higher within the ship, it is possible you are correct though one also needs to remember that many of those bombs struck non-vital areas. In Illustrious' case only one actually struck the flight deck armor so its value was limited in protecting the ship in those attacks. Reading though the attacks, I will say the Germans must have hated the unarmored aft lift, hitting it three times and had a Ju-87 crash into it as well.

[Braedonnal]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

ORIGINAL: xj900uk
(4). The UK is now building two massive new aircraft carriers which should be ready about 2015, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales.  Originally the plan was to build them in Korea by Nippon Steel on the grounds that 'the Japanese knew more about aircraft carriers than the UK ever did' in ironically the same shipyard as turned out hte Musashi, Yamato & Shinano...  A political decision ignoring the fact that the Japanese actually hadn't built a proper CV since WWII...  Some say that the navy minister actually came up with this brain-wave after w atching the Pearl Harbour movie in 2001...  After a public outcry Nippon Steel were paid off (£1 billion down the drain for doing nothign) and the ships are now being constructed in the UK although they will now take longer & be more expensive, although ironically to the original Japanese design.  Just to make matters more interesting, there is no money in the budget left over for any new planes to equip them - work on the JSF and also the F-35 has now been mothballed by the UK government on the grounds of cost,  so looks like they will deploy Harriers and some choppers (bring back the Buccanneer & Phantom, anyone?)

Why they will have Harriers at the start is no big surprise. The F-35's will not be ready at commissioning.

After a public outcry Nippon Steel were paid off (£1 billion down the drain for doing nothign) and the ships are now being constructed in the UK although they will now take longer & be more expensive, although ironically to the original Japanese design.

Mate, never heard of that - and the design is a Thales one (which had great publicity in France as there was the debate about sharing the construction of the second Aircraft Carrier taking advantage of the Thales design). Are you sure you're not day-dreaming?! [&:]

I've not heard a peep about any of that either. It is as Fishbed said, a Thales design. That they would have been built in Japan seems very unlikely though maybe kinda sorta I could have seen Nippon Steel making the steel and shipping it over...until you think the kind of uproar that would cause. As it is Corus is supplying the 80,000 tons of steel for the carriers.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Braedonnal
My logic is pretty sound, thanks. USS Franklin was caught with 36 armed and fueled aircraft on her deck aft warming up. She also was caught with her aft avgas lines open and something like 20 aircraft below decks (some armed, most fueled). Hit once centerline and once aft, what happened was academic and I'm not sure an armored deck would have helped had one been available. Those 36 aircraft were going to burn, the avgas was going to spread and munitions were going to burst. I think more than anything what the ordeal of the USS Franklin proved was that a carrier caught with armed and fueled aircraft was asking for trouble but it's not like Midway didn't tell us that.

The best comparison would be the Forrestal during Vietnam. It was, I believe, an armored flight deck carrier and it had a bad fire. It was bigger than any WW II carrier and the fuel burned was mostly jet fuel rather than avgas, but it's the closest scenario we have.

Bill

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Braedonnal

No argument here though low hanger heights hurt those later designs. They could not carry Corsairs.

They could - FAA Corsairs had clipped wings on purpose, and they actually pioneered the efficient use of shipboard operated Corsairs.

[/quote]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed
We don't argue about which design was sounder, they all answered to different needs. But this is a little far-fetched: the reason why Franklin burnt is foremost because the bombs actually went through its flight deck, seems obvious to me. Armored flight deck proved to be a disadvantage in the long run for the lifespan of these ships, but they were a blessing at the right moment for whoever would fight aboard those CVs, especially in 1945. 1951 just shows that HMS Indomitable was vulnerable to hangar fire just like any other ship - but more so because of its design - but the whole point of having an armored flight deck was specifically to render "such an attack" fruitless... Your logic is weird, man.

My logic is pretty sound, thanks.

I beg your pardon, but with all due respect, well no it's not.

USS Franklin was caught with 36 armed and fueled aircraft on her deck aft warming up. She also was caught with her aft avgas lines open and something like 20 aircraft below decks (some armed, most fueled). Hit once centerline and once aft, what happened was academic and I'm not sure an armored deck would have helped had one been available. Those 36 aircraft were going to burn, the avgas was going to spread and munitions were going to burst. I think more than anything what the ordeal of the USS Franklin proved was that a carrier caught with armed and fueled aircraft was asking for trouble but it's not like Midway didn't tell us that.

No British carrier was ever caught in such a state during the war but if one had been would the ship have been proof against the damage? I'm not convinced as there are lots of variables to consider.

The main reason why something so horrible happened to Franklin is that the two AP bombs penetrated several decks below into the hangar, period. The larger part of the loss of lives is coming from the hangar fire and consequently from the other parts of the internal quarters, not from the mess on the flight deck. Franklin was saved mainly for the very same reason a British armored flight deck may have prevented a British CV from suffering from the same fate: the hangar deck being the armored deck on US CVs at that time, the bombs didn't go further down below the hangar deck, and saved the ship from more destruction. I really don't see the point you're trying to make here [&:]

I think more than anything what the ordeal of the USS Franklin proved was that a carrier caught with armed and fueled aircraft was asking for trouble but it's not like Midway didn't tell us that

Well again I beg to differ - although you're certainly right about the kind of shit that happens when you shoot at planes parked on the deck, there is no proof that planes were actually spotted on the decks of the Japanese carriers during the attack, apart from CAP patrols.

[Raverdave]

Interesting thread.....and I seem to recall that this topic comes up every three or four years or so IIRC.

Does anyone know if the RN is still going ahead with their new CVs?  Or has the project been rejected due to cost? 

[Fishbed]

Ho they are going for it. Problem is one of those CVs may very well not be a CV at all because there may be not enough money to buy the full complement of F-35 needed to equip her... They may turn it (HMS Prince of Wales) into a giant CVH (not even a LPD, there's no docking in there!), like some sort of über-HMS Ocean. But there are a lot of rumours about them anyway - some say one of them may very well get sold to India instead. It's getting ridiculous, while the French aren't even ready to take a decision about their own second carrier...

[Braedonnal]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

ORIGINAL: Braedonnal

No argument here though low hanger heights hurt those later designs. They could not carry Corsairs.

They could - FAA Corsairs had clipped wings on purpose, and they actually pioneered the efficient use of shipboard operated Corsairs.

I'm fairly certain that the Illustrious class were the ones that could carry them because they had the 16ft hangers. Still have to clip the F4U-1 as they stood over 16ft tall. If you have some sources with the Indomitable and the two Implacables carrying them, I'd love to see it. I'm all about learning something new.

ORIGINAL: Fishbed
The main reason why something so horrible happened to Franklin is that the two AP bombs penetrated several decks below into the hangar, period.

Several US carriers survived bomb hits deep into the ship, if simply holing the hanger is the criteria to having catastrophic damage then we would have seen much worse damage during the war all around. USS Franklin burnt so terribly because she was struck when a carrier is most vulnerable, prior to launching armed and fueled aircraft on the ship.

I think more than anything what the ordeal of the USS Franklin proved was that a carrier caught with armed and fueled aircraft was asking for trouble but it's not like Midway didn't tell us that

Well again I beg to differ - although you're certainly right about the kind of shit that happens when you shoot at planes parked on the deck, there is no proof that planes were actually spotted on the decks of the Japanese carriers during the attack, apart from CAP patrols.
[/quote]

You should read what I wrote again. I don't believe I am the one bringing up deck parked Japanese aircraft at Midway. I believe my point is more along the lines of, you hit a carrier with armed and fueled aircraft aboard (hanger or deck, take your pick) they tend to blow the hell up. I think we can agree on that.

Your theory, unless I am reading things wrong, is that USS Franklin burned simply because of a hanger hit. I disagree with that. I'm willing to bet I can find several cases of Essex type carriers taking hits to the hanger without blowing up. Sure, they took damage but they didn't go up like USS Franklin.

Your other theory, that the British armored flight deck carriers would have shrugged off a similar attack I also have issues with. HMS Formidable gives a good case of what could happen. Plane hits and sends a single splinter though the hanger deck into one of the boiler rooms coming to rest in a fuel tank. Starts a pretty nasty fire as well. Now lets say HMS Formidable was preparing a strike and had her aircraft armed and fueled on the hanger when that happened? I think she goes up in USS Franklin-like fashion.

To give a different unrelated example, do you think that Akagi would have sunk to only a single 1000lb SAP bomb hit if she hadn't been caught rearming and refueling aircraft? Personally, I think she could have handled more damage under more favorable circumstances but she got hit when she did and that was the end of her.

[Braedonnal]

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

Interesting thread.....and I seem to recall that this topic comes up every three or four years or so IIRC.

It's one of those issues never get resolved. Both camps have their sides. Me, I prefer Midways. I get armored flight decks and huge aircraft complements.[:D]

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

Does anyone know if the RN is still going ahead with their new CVs?  Or has the project been rejected due to cost? 

As Fishbed says they are still going ahead with the CVs. I heard that the issues concerning the F-35 wasn't so much cost as it was simply the fact they would not be ready so they'd use Harriers and whatnot until they were available. There are also rumors of ditching the F-35B STOVL for the conventional F-35C CATOBAR as it would save roughly £2.2 billion and also give greater capabilities in range and payload. If they do finally decide to go with the F-35C, the class might not have the ski jump and will have an EMALS catapult and arrestor gear.

[EUBanana]

Armour strikes me as very iffy protection anyway. I mean, you do need it if you're expecting to take a licking(see : WW1 battlecruisers) but it's actual efficacy even in WW2 seems touch and go.

IIRC didn't an 8" shell from Prinz Eugen manage to penetrate Prince of Wales but somehow not explode that might have done serious damage? I seem to remember something like that. And the KGVs were very heavily armoured indeed.

And I've lost count of the number of times I read stuff like "X was armoured but the hit happened in a part not covered by the armour".

Strikes me that armour is a defence of last resort.