Essex class

lets see what do you think was the biggest weakness of the Essex class carriers?

 

Uh... The wooden deck, lack of armor?
The Essex class was a very good one, I don't know any real weakness.

 

Yeah that would be the only REAL weakness that i saw. The Essex class was a very well designed carrier. If they had made their decks armored they would have faired better against the kamikazes.
You wouldn't have seen destruction like on the Franklin.
When British carriers were operating at the end of the war...a few were hit by kamikazes and didn't suffer much damage. I's a good thing the Essex class had good fire control!

 

Right, but you sure know the Essex Class was designed before the war, so all in all it was a good guess!
And none was lost at sea, even if some were crippled and never saw action again. The armored deck of the English carriers were good protection against kamikaze, but it was heavy and harder to repair (i may be wrong). And the English armored carriers didn't have 90 planes squadron onboard...
BTW, the kamikaze hits were killing sailors, but most of the time the damage were rather quickly repaired. The Franklin was baldy hit, but the bomb stroke him with armed planes on the bridge! The heavily armored Kaga and Akagi were lost at Midway in the same circonstances... US Navy fire control teams were truelly superior at the time.

 

Yeah it was a great design overall. I guess it would be hard to mass produce armor decked carriers. It prob. would have made the class slower too. I guess it runs along the lines of the sherman tank. lighter armor faster speed...mass produced.
By the time the deck flaw was seen it would was too late to adjust the design for it, and also it would take to much time to overhaul all the carriers.
Good thing we learned a lesson from Japan's Midway defeat and had GREAT fire control!

 

Wooden decks a "flaw"?? REALLY? The British armored carriers paid a HUGE price in lesser aircraft complement (HALF that of an Essex), and being IMMENSELY hard to repair battle damage. The hits inflicted on Task Force 57's armored carriers created havoc all out of proportion. When you BEND armor, it takes a dockyard to un-bend it. If you tear up a wooden flight deck, you go down to the lumber storage and take a few timbers and repair it on the spot. I believe most of Task Force 57's armored carriers were trashed at the end of the war as being unsuitable for further service. Can't remember which one, but one of the armored carriers was so twisted that it required nearly full rudder to keep it going straight. All that weight up top created its own havoc, and...if the armored deck were penetrated, the explosion inside totally WRECKS the hangar deck because there are no side openings to vent the explosion. Engines could not be run up in the un-ventilated hangar (no big open spaces to let the wind in like our carriers), slowing down the launching cycle. In any given day, an Essex could probably put FIVE TIMES the aircraft in the sky that an Illustrious could. The Illustrious-class were designed when fighters were paltry and radar direction was in its infancy, so incoming attacks could not be adequately intercepted. Therefore it was thought that a carrier's own aircraft could NOT protect the ship and the ship NEEDED armor protection to survive. We, on the other hand, felt that the best defense is in fighters and offensive aircraft that could reasonably take out an opposing attack, and that damage could be easily repaired. Both Franklin and Bunker Hill were FULLY REPAIRED, and the only reason they were not returned to service after their extensive damage was that the war was over.

Remember, too, that ALL the large American CV's that sunk (Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp, and Hornet) were sunk by TORPEDOES (and Saratoga sent home twice), and deck armor does NOTHING to ward off torpedoes! By the time Task Force 57 got into the war, Japanese torpedo attacks (both aerial and submarine) were becoming increasingly infrequent. I do not recall the British carriers having to dodge torpedoes.

There were a LOT of drawbacks to the armored carriers. I would NOT trade any such armored carrier for an Essex!!

 

AFAIK the Japanese carriers didn't have armoured decks, just practically useless side armour (as were the 8" guns). The idea behind armour is to prevent penetration, if a hit does get past if makes things worse as it contais the blast, but I think nothing prevents having both deck armour and an open hangar, IIRC the Midway class had both. IIRC the crippled British carrier was HMS Illustrious that never really recovered from the pounding it got by the Luftwaffe and Regia Areonautica in the Med, nothing to do with kamikazes, almost certainly British carrier losses in the Med would have been higher without the armoured decks, but most raids there had fighter ecorts operating at extreme range, if any, so the rather small CAP they could put up was generally effective, for carrier battles the size of the strike and CAP was probably more important than passive protection.

 

re: Armored Decks---the IJN Taiho was the only operational Japanese carrier to have an armored flight deck. The Shinano also had one, but was never operational, and never attacked by air (A US sub sunk her). Unfortunately for the Taiho, her armored deck actually worked AGAINST her when a massive internal explosion was bounced back down back into the ship because the explosion couldn't vent by opening up her flight deck. "Impenetrable" flight deck--Gotta watch what you wish for!

 

The damage the Yorktown sustained was not fatal and if it had been repaired properly, maybe even less. The draw back to armored decks is as mentioned is not only can it aggravate, but it is much more difficult to repair.

 

British armoured flight decks were a reflection of the role envisaged for their carriers. They were built to operate within range of shorebased aircraft. "Illustrious" took several thousand pound bomb hits and still managed to steam away at 18 knots. An Essex would most certainly have been hors de'combat.

Youll find that Wooden flight decks had many advantages, but protection from Kamikazes wasn't one of them. A suicide hit on an Essex flight created all sorts of havoc.....on a British armoured flight deck carrier, it was "Sweepers, man your brooms!".

Additionally, Essex class could be built much faster, had a longer range before refuelling, (always an asset at sea), and they were armed with more anti-aircraft weapons. In fact, an American task force could throw up a veritable wall of flak that was very unsettling for attack aircraft, and from a certain time, it was radar directed to boot, making it highly lethal.

The lack of all that armour would mean a faster cruising speed, not to mention you could cram many more aircraft and launch and land far more aircraft at a time. Making your strike as large as possible increases your chance of hitting something enormously.

So, with the exception of Kamikaze attacks and pure survivability, the Essex class of carrier was definately a cut above their British counterparts.

The poms put hooks on the tail of Spitfires, called them 'Seafires", and began to operate them off carriers. They were lethal in air to air combat, but the long nose made them difficult to land. It was suggested that British carriers needed all that deck armour to protect them from landing Seafires!

 

"Shinano" was built on the hull of the third "Yamato" class BB that was not constructed. Poor damage control spelt doom after torpedo hits, but had she been launched a lot earlier in the war, that result might have been different. She was heavily armoured and could have been the perfect carrier to operate within range of land-based aircraft. But it was lack of aircrew's that hamstrung the IJNs Fleet Air Arm. "Shinano" should have been a major threat....

 

CTBurke,

As you should well know, the Taiho's demise, was not due to her armored deck. Several American carriers you listed earlier suffered massive internal explosions, and even though they had wooden decks, the damage was catastrophic enough that they still sank: USS Lexington, USS Wasp, USS Princeton, as well as, a few CVEs.

 

Takao:>As you should well know, the Taiho's demise, was not due to her armored deck.<

As you should well know, I didn't say that, did I? And you shouldn't put a comma between "demise" and "was".

I also never said that the Yamato had eight 18" guns, either (another thread).

You have a burr under your saddle for me or something, taking things I DON'T say and twisting them around trying to make you look better?

Who can say that the Taiho might or might not have sunk due to her inner explosion? All I was implying was that expanding blast vectors that shoulda gone UP were bounced back DOWN when the flight deck did not give way (as a wooden one would most likely have done). It certainly could not have HELPED Taiho survive.

 

Slipdigit: >Essentially, the hangar and flight decks were treated more or less as superstructire and were not integral to the hull structure and strength of the US carriers. With the British ships, it was.<

As was with Japanese carriers. Crumple the flight deck on a Japanese carrier and you have structural problems and need a dockyard to repair it. The Enterprise, et. al., would just retire to Noumea or another backwater anchorage and rebuild on the spot.

 

slipdigit: >For the most part. The Bunker Hill CV-17 and Franklin CV-13 had make trips a little further back, though, to repair damage.<

Surely. Those two were hit REALLY BADLY. My dad had the mothballed Bunker Hill brought back to San Diego in the late 60's to serve as a test-bed for ECM stuff he was making at NEL. It was parked by Coronado Island, but visible to the public. The shabby paint job had the City Fathers up in arms, so insisted that the Bay-facing side of the ship be repainted to look nice for the tourists driving on Harbor Drive to look at.

 

… I think Ron here left out a few things about the Illustrious Class Carriers, way back when. If properly considered, he wouldn't have compared them so closely to the Essex Class, as they were begun much earlier i.e. under the 1936 program, while the British were still longingly (desperately?) clinging to Treaty limitations, and they were also a lot smaller; comparison to the Yorktowns (started in 1934, Essex in 1941) is more appropriate.

Just a few things to point out:


- “Armoured Carriers” is a bit of a misnomer, and “Armoured Deck” has to be qualified. The Illustrious Class had closed, armoured hangars, the Yorktowns had open hangars, with some main deck armour i.e. the upper section of the hull (Essex was given more), and they all had side armour on their hulls. In the Illustrious’, only the deck area above the hangar was armoured, the rest of the decking, despite varying thickness, was not, neither were the lifts. The flight deck measured 740x96 ft., the hangars and armoured decking measured only 456x62ft.


- The closed integral hangar reduced stressing, hogging and sagging, which allowed lighter hull structure; for example Ark Royal had closed but unarmoured hangars, yet her hull was larger and lighter than a Yorktown.


- Two major considerations went into the design of Illustrious’s hangar closed &armoured structure, a general trend towards heavy armour, and a fear of fire. 1)The latter came from experience in WWI with Avgas fire, the hangars were closed(as were Ark Royal’s) and made air tight, 3 sets of internal fire curtains for subdivision, the hangars themselves were entered through an airlock, all to limit fire (consider the RN’s issues with US built CVEs too). 2) As for the former i.e. armour, Adm. Ernle Chatfield, 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Sea Lord in this period, was so aware of the RN failings at Jutland that he ensured that various types built under his watch; KGVs, CLs, and yes, the large carriers, were all more heavily armoured, some of it integral i.e. in the structure vs. external.The RN decided that both were worthwhile vs. cramming aircraft into every nook & cranny.


- Also considered given the above, beyond the radar more vs. fewer fighters plus AA debate, the FAA, strapped for aircraft, was required to provide more 1) recon.aircraft for the Fleet, and 2) mixed strike aircraft or jack-of-all-trades, they just couldn't afford fighters. The 36 aircraft allotted to Illustrious when built were broken down to 30 bombers (more akin to Scouts in USN parley), 6 fighter/dive bombers. Incidentally, in war, the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] CVEs were the opposite, fighters for convoy defence were primary, even ASW was secondary. Also, back to the mid-30’s, the FAA, determined that it was more operationally proficient to carry whole squadrons i.e. in groups of 12; 24, 36, 48, 60, and would do so, even if a few more aircraft (1-11?) could be carried.


- The lack of a provision for deck parking aircraft on British carriers was a greater determining factor for the number of aircraft that could be carried vs. US carriers, than was a closed/armoured hangar. Corrosion due to aircraft exposure to the elements, was to be limited, aircraft were to be stored in hangars, that’s what they were for. As it was, Illustrious, because of the high placement of armour, had a higher metacentric height, and had significantly less freeboard than a US open hangar carrier, or Ark Royal and Furious for that matter. They remained “wet” in comparison, despite the hurricane bow. When some US aircraft handling practises were adopted, increasing deck size (the decks were only armoured over the hangars, deck length went from 620 ft usable in 1940, to 740 ft flattened in April 1944) further increased the size of deck parks, which usually included the Sea Hurricanes, aircraft which couldn't be broken down further for storage. Interestingly, Friedman states that deck parking was intended from inception, DK Brown disagrees and points to the fact that despite increasing aircraft compliment by deck parking, concerns over fire remained, and Avgas storage remained the same; 50,000 gallons, compared to 178,000 for a Yorktown, still a limiting factor.


- The Illustrious Class ships that served in Western waters suffered far greater damage there, than they ever would in the Far East. Arguably the worst Kamikaze damage received was by Illustrious, and it was underwater hull damage. She’d been in the Far East since Jan 1944, repaired at Norfolk VA in 1941 although not fully, she’d never really fully recovered from the damage from 10 bombs she received in January 1941, probably the worst bomb damage received by a carrier in WWII. A Kamikaze hit and slid off her deck, causing light damage, but the bomb it carried detonated underwater near her side, shock tore open the hull and cracked frames, reducing her speed to 19 knots, but flight operations were maintained. She was already the cross-eyed sailor, her central prop shaft was damaged in 1941, repaired but then removed again because of excess vibrations, so she was already down in speed. Given that she had a 3 shaft arrangement, with only 1 central rudder behind the central prop, it’s easy to see why she sorta crabbed when under way with only the 2 outboard props (the Implacables had 4 shafts). Since, except for a spell with Saratoga, she worked with the slower CVEs while part of the Eastern Fleet, it hadn’t been a real problem. Anyway, 2 1/2 months after this latest damage she sailed to Rosyth for more complete repairs, and was considered for upgrade to Fleet Flagship. They could be prone to underwater damage, despite being proofed for a 750 lb. charge like Ark Royal, a call for resistance to a 1,000 lb.charge being rejected. That said, of the 6 ships, only Indomitable was torpedoed, off Salerno, the torpedo just missing her armoured belt, she sustained a 28x20 hole in her plating amidships, but within 45 min. she was back up to 14 knots, and was able to operate her aircraft as she returned to Malta.


- Deck damage/repair & ordnance has to be addressed. Of course the British were aware that armoured hangars could be penetrated, but it was hoped not by the HE& GP type bombs. AP bombs would be required, but AP types had small explosive charges, most of the damage was caused by splinters and shell fragmentation, not explosive blast like HE & GP types. It was hoped that the ships could survive. All bombs striking the armoured deck above the hangar were capable of denting it, AP bombs IF they penetrate armour, leave relatively small holes. This damage is not all that difficult to repair with wood, steel plate, and concrete, a flight deck can be made usable. There’s more of problem with the unarmoured deck sections. Indomitable for example was struck by a pair of 1,100 lb. SAP bombs during PEDESTAL; hit on the flight deck fore near the forward lift, and aft, both beyond the armoured decking above the hangars(3 near misses caused varying degrees of hull damage). There was extensive damage below the flight deck but the hit forward resulted in a 14” hole in the flight deck, the hit aft caused a much larger hole in the lighter plating,jagged edges canted up obstructed landing and had to be cut off.


- The USN was enamoured with the “armoured decks” of British carriers; some before the war, the likes of “Slew” McCain and Ernie King, called for armoured decks on US carriers. Later, somewhat echoing our lovely Opana, the USN attaché in the UK, on seeing Formidable in 1940 declared he’d prefer crossing the Pacific in her than in Yorktown, even with fewer aircraft he’d have a better chance of getting there. With Illustrious being repaired in Norfolk in 1941, the USN got a good look at her; an early design for a post-Essex carrier i.e. Midway featured extensive armour, and an aircraft complement of only 60 aircraft.


- Consider the Lexingtons - built on Battle Cruiser hulls, or rather in them for the most part, they too were built with closed hangars; nominally wooden flight deck/planking over a design integral steel deck, with 1” armour. Being so far along when converted they retained most of the BC armour structure, the main deck i.e. below the flight deck had 2” of armour, and 1-3” on lower decks. Despite their great size and bulk, the main aircraft handling hangar within the hull of a Lexington, measured only 393x68ft, or 26,724 sq. ft., while that of the smallest Illustrious i.e. the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] 3, including Illustrious herself, was 28,272 sq. ft. – the sheer size of a Lexington’s flight deck allowed for HUGE deck parks. For further comparison, the hangar size of a Yorktown? 546x63= 35,532 sq. ft., an early Essex?, 654x70 = 45780 sq. ft., an Implacable?, 456x62 plus the 2nd hangar 208x62 = 41,168 sq. ft., an Implacable with deck park and outriggers could carry some 80 aircraft.


- I can’t remember who actually said it, but 1945 was the “Year of the Bomb” when it came to damage to the carrier forces; Kamikaze borne, and otherwise. Actually, given the increases in aircraft speed, and new ordnance types, both offencive and defensive, the air launched torpedo was becoming redundant. In 1945 Saratoga, Franklin, Ticonderoga, Randolph, Bunker Hill, and Hancock and all suffered bomb/Kamikaze strikes which claimed well over 100 casualties each, some in the many hundreds, a number of CVLs and CVEs were hit as well. The damage and casualties sustained are way out of proportion compared to TF-57, where the most serious loss of life caused by bomb/Kamikaze was sustained by Formidable; 8 dead, 51 wounded, and she remained in operation, to be struck again 5 days later. Shortly after that her hangar was gutted, but not by enemy action. A landing Corsair missed the wires and fell down into the aft lift, which was down at the time, the Corsair's guns began firing in the hangar – ooops! DK Brown bases much of this on a Pacific Fleet report of May 1945 which stated "Without armoured decks, TF 57 would have been out of action (with 4 carriers) for at least 2 months." Merely conjecture here, but if you asked the crews and aircraft maintenance folks, regardless of deck repair, most would prefer to take their chances on a British carrier, with a closed armoured hangar.


- Aircraft engines were “warmed up” in British closed hangars, they just weren’t “run up”. RN maintenance crews had gadgets that heated engine oil in the crankcase, engine run up on the flight deck was reduced.


- Postwar, the newer Implacables weren’t modernized because their paired hangars just weren’t deep/tall enough to carry the larger, taller, aircraft types being designed/produced.
Compared to the US open hangar carriers, the type of rebuilding required was just too expensive, a driving factor for the postwar RN, that had other smaller carriers that could be enhanced on the cheap. Only, Victorious,the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] of the 1936 program, received full modernization, championed the angled flight deck, and served well into the 60’s.


Ultimately I think it comes down to this: were there advantages to wooden decks and open hangars? Yes. Were there advantages to closed hangars and armoured decking? Yes. What both Allied navies built served them well, when and where they had to, against opponents that had numerous advantages that had to be overcome, and they were. Considering post-war types in both navies featured steel armoured decks, closed hangars, or that could be closed in the event of nuclear or chemical attack, it was really a natural progression.

 

Elevators: At least for the American airmen, the elevators on Japanese carriers were a prime target "aiming point". I mean, if you knock out the elevators on a carrier, it's REALLY HARD to get an air group ready for launch. Seems that, if anything, the ELEVATORS should be armored more than the flight deck. I suppose, though, a direct hit on an armored elevator would throw it out of whack (de-track it, or bend/break stuff) enough to render them useless anyway. So if the British armored-flight-deck carriers have un-armored elevators (lifts in Brit-speak), you have to HOPE for "misses" for your precious elevators. The Illustrious and Implacable-class also only had *TWO* lifts (Ark Royal had three), so if even one gets taken out....!

Large American carriers (post-Ranger CV-4) all had THREE elevators--GOTTA be an advantage!