What were the Brits thinking?

[eMonticello]

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 RN did lend USS Robin to Nimitz until Essex arrived in mid-1943.

[Terminus]

You can't really blame them for not wanting to get within range of Jap aircraft after the whole Force Z debacle and the Indian Ocean raid.

[pompack]

One of the difficult things about hindsight is we sometimes are not aware of all that we know.

In this case a significant point is the development of radar and the integrated CIC concept. With these tools and the availability of sufficient numbers of fighter aircraft, it proved possible to create a “bubble” of protected airspace that was virtually impenetrable- think Battle of the Philippine Sea. Prior to that it was felt that extra fighters at the expense of attack aircraft were a waste since “the bomber will always get through”.

Both the USN and RN accepted this, but went about countering it in different ways. As it turned out, the USN approach was superior but that was not obvious until nearly a decade after the ships in questioned were designed.

Note that the USN did not increase the proportion of fighters with the air group until after radar and early fighter-direction concepts demonstrated that additional fighter aircraft could provide significant reductions in carrier vulnerability. Also note that Midway provided ample evidence of the vulnerability of carriers protected by CAP dependent upon only the Mark I Eyeball for detection and control.

Just an aside, the primary reason that the USN rejected the concept of the armored hanger box was the requirement that aircraft be warmed-up within the hanger- thus the USN open-sided hangers.

My primary source for this is American & British Aircraft Development 1919-1941 my Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles

[JohnDillworth]

The RN did lend USS Robin to Nimitz until Essex arrived in mid-1943.

USS Sir Robin!

[Anthropoid]

What is it about those RN ships that restrict the number of aircraft so dramatically compared to their contemporaries? Is it just the armor?

[John Lansford]

British CV's were intended to operate within the range of LBA in the North Sea, Baltic or Med, provide aircover to other ships, perform scouting missions, and antishipping attacks.  An armored flight deck and enclosed bow was needed for those conditions, and the reduced on board aircraft capacity was accepted as a consequence of these design needs. 

The USN and IJN, OTOH, intended their CV's for Pacific use, where LBA was limited and ships were expected to be self sufficient, capable of protecting themselves and projecting power outside the range of naval gunfire.  That meant a lighter flight deck protection to get the larger air capacity and munitions storage that was required, along with the longer endurance the ships needed in the Pacific.  

[wdolson]

The armor made the hanger deck smaller.  I believe RN carriers were also a bit smaller overall than their US and Japanese contemporaries.

As some other people have said, when the pre-war carriers were designed, nobody knew for sure how they were going to be used.  A lot of the admiralty of each nation believed that carriers were an adjunct to the big fleet rather than the center of it.  Even the big gun admirals in the IJN weren't completely shut up by PH.

The designed role for RN carriers was an operation like the hunt for the Bismark.  There the carrier aircraft augmented shore based searches then a Stringbag slowed up the Bismark enough to allow the big guns to catch up and finish her off (whether scuttled or not, the RN battleships contributed significantly to her sinking).

The idea that the carrier was going to replace the BB as the center piece of carrier combat was slow to evolve.  It's obvious in hindsight, but at the time it was too radical a concept for many of the old school admiralty (who were the majority in all major navies).

Another concept that didn't give way until the eve of the WW II was that carrier aircraft would have to be a generation or more behind their land based counterparts in capabilities.  Carrier aircraft were behind the curve throughout most of the interwar period.  In the US, it was the 1938 requirement that led to the TBF, SB2C, and F4U that was the first departure from this concept. 

The British suffered from a bureaucracy that put the FAA under RAF control.  As a result, the FAA was starved even worse than other navies in the interwar period.  The British went to war with badly obsolete aircraft and didn't begin to catch up until they started getting US lend lease aircraft.  (Late war there were some decent British designs too, but US built aircraft were filling out most FAA squadrons at that point.)

The RN was doubly handicapped between poor aircraft and choosing the wrong designs for the next war.  At least the wrong design for a Pacific war.  Those ships may have been the right design for the European/Med theaters where land based air was dominant.

Bill

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Biplanes? Are you serious?[:)]

They kicked the crap out of the Italians at Taranto... Swordfish are pretty good in AE as well.

Better than Devastators, anyway.

[EUBanana]

And torpedo bombers rock. The RN carriers aren't that hard done by. They forgo the dive bombers, but all they do is start fires on battleships. With Seafires on CAP and torpedo bombers with working torpedoes, Val-proof decks and heavy AAA, they actually aren't that bad. Not as good as US carriers but far from useless.

[Terminus]

Of course not. Only amateurs think so.

[NightFlyer]

Maybe the British carriers pointed to the future of carrier designs. The mid-war Jap Taiho CV class had armored decks as did the newer US Essex Class CVs.
At the battle of Midway where 4 jap fleet carriers were set ablaze and sunk with relatively few bomb hits (about 2-3 bombs per carrier on average) maybe the japs thought armored decks weren't such a bad idea. I think the Japanese and Americans favored more power projection the the RN did however, i.e. more strike aircraft over defense.

[WITPPL]

- Washington treaty
- Division of carriers for strike (ie light, fast, large air group) and line (armoured) types.

my 2c

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: NightFlyer

Maybe the British carriers pointed to the future of carrier designs. The mid-war Jap Taiho CV class had armored decks as did the newer US Essex Class CVs.
At the battle of Midway where 4 jap fleet carriers were set ablaze and sunk with relatively few bomb hits (about 2-3 bombs per carrier on average) maybe the japs thought armored decks weren't such a bad idea. I think the Japanese and Americans favored more power projection the the RN did however, i.e. more strike aircraft over defense.

The Essex class didn't have armored decks. All were damaged by kamikazes at some point, though most were repaired fairly quickly. You might be thinking of the Midway class, which did have armored decks.

At Midway the IJN carrier than took the most hits was the Kaga. The Akagi only took one hit (and two near misses). The lack of torpedo hits meant that most of the damage was high up. The only carrier that took a hit deep in the ship was the Soryu which had a 1000 lber penetrate deep into the ship before going off.

If the Japanese had been operating closer to home and been able to cover their retreat with air cover from another source, one or two of the carriers might have been saved. The Akagi might have been savable if her rudder hadn't jammed from one of the near misses. The Kaga was still intact above the waterline, but the damage to the upper parts of the ship was so severe she might have been written off even if she had limped home. A case of 99 Sys damage.

The nature of the war in the Pacific, carriers didn't have to contend with constant threats from land based air. When land based air was a threat, it was usually from only one vector. Around Europe, a TF was rarely out of range of multiple bases from different directions. Being able to absorb a lot of punishment while limping away from a battle was a design consideration the British needed to take into account which was less critical to the IJN and the USN.

Bill

[rhohltjr]

Did the British carrier aircraft have folding wings? Folding wings let you pack'em in like sardines.
[:D] How many aircraft could they hold when they got the Wildcats, Hellcats and Corsairs?
Did the SeaFire have folding wings?

[8|]

[JohnDillworth]

Did the SeaFire have folding wings

I don't know but the Spitfire was fairly lightly built and subscribed more to the Japanese aesthetic of dogfighting maneuverability at the expense of durability. Unlike the Japanese the British planes did not have long range. Perhaps they armored their planes. I remember reading somewhere that the Spitfire/Seafire just was not sturdy enough for carrier landings and did not hold up. Unlike the ugly Grumman stuff. Didn't they call it the Grumman Iron Works? Certainly not the prettiest planes (The Avenger being the worst offender)but they could take a beating.

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

When they developed their aircraft carrier philosophy? The American's and The Japanese went one way with wooden decks and lots of aircraft. The English went with armored flight decks and few plans. The numbers are rediculus though. British CV's have 1/3 to 1/4 the air capacity and their aircraft are inferior. I know hey were primarily preparing for a different war but their thinking seems to have stopped years before the war. So frustrating to see these full sized captial ships (and the huge investment) and they are virtually useless. 23 planes, silly.

Btw you're being a little harsh on poor HMS Formidable. [;)] There are 23 planes deemed operational, but there are actually 9 additional Martlets which are being maintained from what I can see The total is 32, that still isn't much, I give you that.

[Takeshi]

British CVs held up better to late war Kamikaze attacks:

In March 1945, while supporting the invasion of Okinawa, the BPF had sole responsibility for operations in the Sakishima Islands. Its role was to suppress Japanese air activity, using gunfire and air attack, at potential Kamikaze staging airfields that would otherwise be a threat to U.S. Navy vessels operating at Okinawa. The carriers were subject to heavy and repeated kamikaze attacks, but because of their armoured flight decks, the British aircraft carriers proved highly resistant (unlike their U.S. counterparts), and returned to action relatively quickly. The U.S.N liaison officer on the Indefatigable commented: "When a kamikaze hits a U.S. carrier it means 6 months of repair at Pearl [Harbor]. When a kamikaze hits a Limey carrier it’s just a case of "Sweepers, man your brooms."”

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Pacific_Fleet

[msieving1]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Did the SeaFire have folding wings

I don't know but the Spitfire was fairly lightly built and subscribed more to the Japanese aesthetic of dogfighting maneuverability at the expense of durability. Unlike the Japanese the British planes did not have long range. Perhaps they armored their planes. I remember reading somewhere that the Spitfire/Seafire just was not sturdy enough for carrier landings and did not hold up. Unlike the ugly Grumman stuff. Didn't they call it the Grumman Iron Works? Certainly not the prettiest planes (The Avenger being the worst offender)but they could take a beating.

The Seafire III had folding wings, but the Seafire II did not. Seafire IIs saw action in the Mediterranean, but I don't think they were ever used in the Far East.

The Seafire was generally a pretty sturdy airplane, but the landing gear was not designed for carrier landings. The maximum landing speed was just barely over the stall speed. This was less of a problem landing on fleet carriers, which could maintain a pretty good speed for landing. The Seafire's reputation for landing gear failures came from the Salerno operations, where they were landing on escort carriers that could barely make 15 kts, in essentially windless conditions.

A good book about RN carrier operations is They Gave Me A Seafire by R. R. "Mike" Crosley. It's a personal memoir rather than a scholarly account, but Crosley goes into a great deal of depth on the strengths and weaknesses of the Seafire and British carrier doctrine.

[jazman]

Here's a good read on the armoured vs. the non-armoured flight deck:

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm

In fact, the British designs failed. Off Okinawa, the resistance of the British carriers seemed impressive but in reality the damage they took was severe. Having the hangar inside the hull girder made the hull structure weak and the ships were deformed by comparatively minor damage. Note how quickly nearly all the armored carriers were scrapped postwar - surveys showed they had irreparable hull damage. In contrast, the Essex's, which suffered much more severe damage, lasted for decades.

The severe damage suffered by the British armored carriers is documented by their post-war surveys. These surveys were carried out to determine the suitability of the ships for modernization.

Of the British armored carriers, Formidable and Illustrious were write-offs due to war damage. By the end of the war, Illustrious was in very poor condition; her centerline shaft was history due to structural deformation and her machinery was shot. Formidable had raped herself when a Firefly (sic – aircraft that caused the damage was actually a Corsair) rolled off a lift and raked the hangar with 20 mm gunfire. This started a very bad fire which was contained within the hangar and acted like a furnace. The heat deformed the hull and that was it.

[Fishbed]

Excuse-me if the question is pretty dumb, but from what I understand, the design, space-wisely, wasn't that bad, right? I have read that late war the British CVs would embark much more planes, nearly on par with their American counterparts, and that the originally limited number of planes carried had a lot to do with doctrinas rather than available space. Although there is no discussion that those CVs had really low hangar ceilings that didn't allow a lot of plane to get parked with getting maimed (Corsair anyone?) from what i understand they could actually carry 60+ planes, and later in the war they did on certain occasions. Implicable class could even carry 70+ planes from the start, right?