Japanese Carriers

Perhaps. From whose POV would the film take place?

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

Hey, that warships1 article is brilliant. Who is the clever fellow who wrote it?
Taiho had 25mm D steel as splinter protection on the hangar sides. She also had specially designed blow-out plates to allow explosions in tha hangar to vent outward. This, naturally, was irrelevant to the sort of explosion that destroyed her.
Taiho and Shokaku were excellent designs, probably the best non-US carriers of the war.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

There are those who claim that honor for the British armored deck carriers. And it is true that none of them were sunk during the war. ILLUSTRIOUS took a beating that would have sunk an American or Japanese carrier in 1941, after all.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

I am not one to make that claim, as I don't regard Illustrious as being superior even to Ark Royal.
I can't endorse the idea that the Illustrious bombing would have destroyed an American or Japanese carrier. How many times was her hangar armor hit? Only once, and that bomb penetrated her deck. In fact, the bombs that missed the armored deck apparently exploded no further into the hull than the one that hit the armor. The tech article that PMN1 linked to argues strenuously that the armored flight deck was not justified by wartime experience.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

Well, I got my information from the book "Red Duster, White Ensign", which is about the epic Malta convoy battles. I forget the author's name, but he gives a vivid description of the punishment ILLUSTRIOUS suffered at the hands of the Luftwaffe. That she survived was amazing, and I bleieve that the fact that she needed to go to Norfolk, Virginia to have the damage repaired says a lot. I do not say that the armored deck carriers were perfect, but I don't think they should be casually dismissed, either.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

Whatever I think, Illustrious certainly withstood a greater concentration of bomb damage than any other ship. Shokaku and Saratoga would probably be the closest. However, I will point out that, rather than surviving numerous hits, I think it's better to avoid getting hit in the first place.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

Well, of course you do; so do I and any sailor worthy of the name. But if you're going to get hit, survivability is important. After all, when kamikazes hit the British carriers, it was fundamentally "Sweepers, man your brooms", at least after the initial fires were put out. Kamikaze hits on American carriers required several months repairs in Pearl Harbor or the West Coast.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

As I note in the warships1 article, armored carriers were more vulnerable to kamikaze attack than Essexes.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

[quote="corpcasselbury"
Well, of course you do; so do I and any sailor worthy of the name. But if you're going to get hit, survivability is important. After all, when kamikazes hit the British carriers, it was fundamentally "Sweepers, man your brooms", at least after the initial fires were put out. Kamikaze hits on American carriers required several months repairs in Pearl Harbor or the West Coast.[/quote]

In his book 'Nelson to Vanguard' D K Brown says 'there were 8 hits by siucide bombers on RN carriers. The only one causing serious damage was on the Illustrious where the bomb exploded in the water close alongside, the hanger protection being irrelevant. There was one hit on the armour deck where the fleet thought the protection had been invaluable; in the others it was thought that the structure of an unarmoured deck would have resisted a galncing blow. More fighters would have been better protection than armour.'

The Ark Royal carried around 72 aircraft when it launched - the Illustrious class around 36 on the same displacement. According the Freeman, when Illustrious was launched the Admiralty reduced the Ark's air wing - possibly as a way of disguising something strange about the Illustrious class.

The pictures you see in books and films look bad but more the larger air group that an unarmoured carrier such as Ark Royal and Essex could carry meant more fighters for defence and more strike aircraft.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

Still, it is an accepted fact that kamikaze hits tended to inflict crippling damage to American carriers, while the British armored deck ships shrugged them off. And it must also be accepted that some kamikazes got through to the American carriers in spite of the number of fighters they were able to put into the air: 81 per fleet carrier by July of 1944.

 

Correction: That should read, "July of 1945". Sorry about that.

 

Take a look at the warships1 article. Not one Essex was lost to kamikaze attack, while the British ships would have been crushed.

 

Re: Japanese carrier and fuel

The RN armoured decks didn't shrug them off, history shows that in all actions most of the hits (conventional bomb or Kamikaze) were outside the armoured 'box' that protected the hanger.

There is a big difference between a completely armored deck and an armoured box around the hanger.

 

Contrary to popular belief, not every kamikaze hit resulted in crippling damage to the U.S. carriers. having an air group 1/3 the size of Essex's wasn't the only problem the British carriers had, the were unable to support their air groups for as long (didn't carry as much avgas or bombs) nor could they match the range of the American carriers.

 

RN vs USN aviation fuel storage

How did the USN avaiation fuel storage system compare to the RN, given that when US built CVE's were transferred to RN control the amount of aviation fuel that was stored was reduced quite dramatically - would the RN's system have enabled their carriers to carry as much fuel per aircraft as the US system?

 

Re: RN vs USN aviation fuel storage

Here are figures for avgas storage in imperial gallons:
Yorktown 148,180
Essex 192,900
Ark Royal 100,000
Illustrious 50,650
Indomitable 75,400
Indefatigable 96,230

 

Re: RN vs USN aviation fuel storage

Was USN aviation fuel storage as safe as RN aviation fuel storage?

To my knowlege no US carriers were lost to avaition fuel going up.

 

Re: RN vs USN aviation fuel storage

A contributing factor to the loss of the Lexington at Coral Sea was avgas fumes.

 

Re: RN vs USN aviation fuel storage

Damm, you got there before me, I should have said was it as safe as the RN system following changes made after the Lexington and Wasp had been lost.

Would a RN carrier have been lost the same way - ruptured fuel lines, from Ark Royal on the aviation fuel was stored in cylindrical tanks isolated from the ships structure and jacketed (when Ark Royal was torpedoed, there was considerable whipping but no fuel leakage or fire). An air pressure delivery system was using in place of the previous water pressure system to reduce the danger of contamination of the fuel.

How did the US and Japan store their aviation fuel?

 

Re: RN vs USN aviation fuel storage

If I may be frank, no British carrier was likely to be sunk by fumes as Lex was--simply because it would likely have sunk by flooding first. Maybe I'm being overly harsh, but Ark Royal and Indomitable etc give a grim picture of underwater vulnerability.
Dasher may provide the most useful illustration. She was lost to an avgas related accident. The British blamed the American construction, the Americans blamed the British operational practices. Take yer pick--I'm guessing each side was correct from its own perspective.