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Essex class

Discussion in 'Naval Warfare in the Pacific' started by Ron, Oct 4, 2000.

  1. ResearcherAtLarge

    ResearcherAtLarge Member

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    I think it depends on the nature of the hit. A conflagration such as what happened to Bunker Hill's and Franklin's *flight deck* would have required repair as well; at the minimum the wood planking would need replacing, but there might be other damage if, say, the steel was cooked enough to soften or endured a bunch of different concussive forces.

    Male, by the way... doesn't offend me to be assumed to be female, but I had a case where it *really* weirded someone out who had assumed so for a while, so I try and get that out of the way at least.

    Regarding my comment about academic conversations... I'm not a big fan of "what if" and alternative histories. I like to focus on how things were because even with that there's plenty we don't know. But at the same time, I think that we run the risk of losing site of the true history. I'm researching the Pearl Harbor battleships, for example; there are serious questions as to what color they were painted. But I try and keep site of the fact that probably none of the sailors who died that day cared about the color of paint that was burning along with them. The color of the paint is an academic footnote to the battle, the same way that the design differences between US an British carriers are an academic exercise that subtracts a bit from the human story... what was it like to be on that hangar deck, for example, and not be able to see out, but to see and hear the anti-aircraft guns start to beat a rhythmic warning of potential death and carnage? I would imagine it was fairly consistent regardless of the type of flight deck.
     
  2. SymphonicPoet

    SymphonicPoet Member

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    I'm a sucker for the right "what if" but in general I see your point and agree that the experience was indeed probably much the same were the deck planked, painted, or covered in daisies. (And I hear you about the paint. I obsess over the paint more than I should, given that I still have mistakes on my own models in need of correcting. That said, I still like Tora! Tora! Tora! much better than certain other war films in spite of the paint.)

    . . .

    ^Note Icon
    Case in point: Who knew the IJN used a half dozen shades of grey and the only way to guess which one a ship wore is to find out what yard had her last. And Maizuru with too much sun damage is probably not the correct answer for Kaga. Sasebo seems a better bet. But it's a gaming miniature so hopefully it will pass for now.
     
  3. arthur45

    arthur45 Member

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    Armored versus non-armored deck design has no simple answer. I read a multi-page discussion of the two approaches
    and clearly there was no consensus of one over the other. To a large extent, it depended upon what the carrier was
    expected to do. During the design of the Essex class, I'm sure the idea of kamikazes never occurred to anyone, including the Japanese.
    And, to my mind, kamikazes can easily be defeated before approaching any carriers, given a forward fighter base, radar and
    moving the carriers out of harm's way as much as possible. Carriers have a long range and kamikazes usually have a well known approach path and are basically defenseless weapons. Spruance's inability to come up with a viable kamikaze defense off Okinawa
    I never understood - he was probably the smartest commander we had. But then, he always took his duty to provide
    protection of onshore troops very, very seriously. That would be an interesting topic.
     
  4. steverodgers801

    steverodgers801 Member

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    There 2 very good reasons to have a wooden deck. The first is that the deck can easily be repaired. Look at the Yorktown at Midway, the Japanese thought they had hit two carrriers, because of the ability to repair. With an armoured deck a big enough hit can ruin the frame of the ship. The second is more aircraft, an Essex could carry about 30 more aircraft, so at 15 Essex class that is 450 aircraft, quite a difference. Asfar as the Kamikaze, the main problem is that there will always be some that can get through.
     
  5. Carronade

    Carronade Ace

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    So we have an easy strategy for defeating kamikazes which eluded Spruance and his staff? Granted it would be easier if one could move the carriers out of harm's way and protect them from forward fighter bases and radar stations, but the situation at Okinawa was that the carriers needed to protect the land/amphibious forces. Under the circumstances I think Spruance, Mitscher, et. al. did about as well as they could. Overall the fast carrier forces shot down about 80% of attacking kamikazes, but unlike conventional bombers or torpedo planes, the ones that got through were almost certain to score damaging hits.
     
  6. syscom3

    syscom3 Member

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    Part of the solution was to replace the Hellcats with Bearcats and Corsairs. They had a lot better rate of climb and could take care of a lot more of the "leakers".

    Not foolproof, but better than what the USN had flying from the carriers.
     
  7. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Good Ol' Boy Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    Just throwing this out for consideration:

    Would a better rate of climb have prevented the hits on the Franklin? Did not the offending Japanese aircraft come in low and essentially caught the crew unaware until it too late stop it?
     
  8. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Consider that at the Kamikazes switched over to going after the picket DDs as well. Sounds to me like they may have had an acceptable defence. I think the USN was shifiting to 20mm armed fighters as well. The Corsair could carry that armament as could the follow on fighters.
     
  9. syscom3

    syscom3 Member

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    I agree.

    There will always be leakers. My comment pertained to a better last minute probability of intercept with the F8F and F4U. Most Kamikazi's were flown by poorly trained aviators. Once they were forced to maneuver or get shot at before they went into their final dives, they were going to fail in their mission.
     
  10. steverodgers801

    steverodgers801 Member

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    considering the thousands of Kamikazis that were sent and the fact that only two fleet carriers were hit says that the US did a great job. Also remember that there was a kill zone near carriers that fighters did not enter due to the risk of friendly fire from flak.
     
  11. syscom3

    syscom3 Member

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    Not true.

    Two carriers were knocked out of the war. The Bunker Hill and Franklin.

    Plenty others were hit and were in the repair yards at various times.
     
  12. steverodgers801

    steverodgers801 Member

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    I did mean knocked out, not just hit
     
  13. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    Saying that the Bunker Hill & Franklin were "knocked out of the war" is somewhat trivial. The Bunker Hill would complete repairs in September, 1945 - shortly after the end of the war, and the Franklin would quickly follow. The USS Intrepid narrowly avoided this moniker by returning to combat just before the Pacific War ended.

    A fairly thorough list of Kamikaze damage to aircraft carriers can be found here:
    Kamikaze Damage to US and British Carriers
     
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  14. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    I don't think the kamikazes "switched" to attacking the picket DDs so much as they attacked the first targets that they encountered. The Pickets were often mis-reported as cruisers or battleships, thus gaining more than their fair share of attention.

    The US Navy was experimenting with the 20mm cannon, both on the F4U Corsair and the F6F. The F6F-5N*night fighter) & F6F-5P(photo reconnaissance) were equipped with 2 * 20mm and 4 * .50cal, and some of the Corsairs were equipped with 4 * 20mms. However, the vast majority of the F6Fs & F4Us retained the 6 * .50 cals. The "official" switch to the 20mm did not take place until after the war ended.
     
  15. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    The British did quite well repairing their armoured flight decks using cement and steel plates(with the exception of many bomb hits). The best reason against armoured flight decks was that it was torpedoes that killed large ships, not bombs. The Americans got lucky at Midway, but for the most part, it was torpedoes that killed carriers.

    The warping of the frame of the carrier was due to the armoured "box" system (armoured flight deck and armoured sides that form a "box" protecting the hanger and machinery spaces - quite vulnerable to deformation due to hangar fires) that the British used. The armoured flight deck was a "strength deck"(part of the ship's integral hull structure), whereas the Americans had the hanger deck as the "strength deck" of their carriers, the flight deck was considered to be part of the superstructure, and not part of the hull. This was continued with the Midway class - they had armoured decks, but they too were not "strength decks", but superstructure. It would not be until the Forrestals that the armoured flight deck was a "strength deck."

    The Essex class were still "Treaty" carriers, thus designed with the Treaty naval restrictions in place. So, yes, an armoured flight deck would mean less aircraft - design studies for the Essex class indicated that with an armoured flight deck, the Essex could likely carry only 45 aircraft. However, the larger unrestricted Midway class with their armoured flight deck could carry up to 130 aircraft.
     
  16. USMCPrice

    USMCPrice Idiot at Large

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    I always enjoy your posts Takao! Always excellent information, love the Carrier/Kamikaze site, I read it, then saved it for future reference.
     
  17. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    My impression was that early in their usage the kamikazes almost always appeared to be going for carriers or larger ships. By late in the Okinawa campaign they had clearly switched to going after the picket DDs and DEs. Now this may indeed have been due to them being the first ships encountered but the switch was still there. Furthermore why would the "first enocuntered" effect not have been true earlier? The only reason I can think of was the use of seasoned pilots earlier and the increased use of green pilots in the latter stages. Even then a green pilot should be able to disntinguish a carrier from a destroyer.
     
  18. Carronade

    Carronade Ace

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    Okinawa was unusual in that the amphibious forces and the carriers covering them had to remain in a relatively fixed geographic area for an extended period of time. This was what made a large number of relatively static picket stations both possible and necessary, along with the circumstance of attackers approaching over a couple hundred miles of open water.

    The fast carriers had used pickets as early as the approach to the Marianas, when two DDs were stationed about twenty miles in advance of the main force. On that occasion they had a single, well-defined threat axis. I haven't seen much reference to pickets in the Marianas Turkey Shoot, the attack on Formosa, Leyte Gulf, or other occasions - anyone?

    The first major kamikaze attack was against the Taffies off Samar. In this case each carrier group had a close escort of DDs and DEs, and they were not far from shore, so detaching ships from the screen would have provided little if any additional warning. The invasions of Mindoro and Lingayen Gulf also involved operating close to shore; for example CVE Ommaney Bay was sunk in the Sulu Sea with islands all around.
     
  19. LRusso216

    LRusso216 Graybeard Staff Member

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    I'm not so sure. Many pilots on both sides mis-identified ships. Sometimes it was a mistake made by excitement, other times it was deliberate. I think that the greener the pilot, the more likely he was to be mistaken. As for the kamikazes, I think that when the experienced pilots were used up, the newer pilots were just anxious to hit anything. The DDs and DEs were there, and that's who they hit.
     
  20. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Miss Id'ing a ship isn't that hard in some cases. For instance a Baltimore class CA can easily be mistaken for an Iowa or a SoDak. Mistaking a CVE for a CVL or even a CV isn't unreasonable either. However mistaking a DD or a DE for a CV is really pushing it especially from the air.
     

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