'Armoured' and 'Unarmoured' Carriers - Survivability vs Strike Power
2019 ж. 1 Қаң.
661 593 Рет қаралды
In which we try to unpick the somewhat thorny issue of armoured vs unarmoured flight decks in WW2 carrier design.
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I remember reading that an American naval officer serving as an observer on a British carrier in the kamikaze period quipped that when a kamikaze hit a British carrier, it was usually just a matter of "Sweepers, man your brooms".
Both carriers were well designed for their intended operational areas. The British had the advantage of short range operations, while the Americans had to range far out and to the Pacific. Logistics played a huge role in the way each of the ships were designed. American Carriers had a much greater operational range for the vast distances of the Pacific, while the British ships never had to worry about covering that area. The British suffered logistical nightmares in the Pacific, while American carriers would probably never have survived the short range intense battles of the Atlantic. Apples and oranges! Love the channel
Task Force 58 would have survived the Med.
The British had the same issues with their KGV battleships. Excellent ships, but short range, and the British RAS procedures could take a day to re fuel and re arm a battleship.
Spudskie By the time TF 58 existed, it was arguably the most powerful battle fleet to have ever sailed, and the Italians had long since been defeated. It isn’t really a fair comparison. Looking back at 1940-43, the American carriers of the time (the Yorktowns and Lexingtons) would have been ill-suited to operations in the Med. They just weren’t designed for it any more than the Illustrious-class carriers were designed for operations in the Pacific.
@Jonathan Jackson I agree one hundred percent with you’re assessment. The operational theaters were completely different so comparing the carriers in this way is apples to oranges. If you were to put the carriers both in the same theaters, I’d say the US carriers would be more likely to survive in the Pacific while British carriers would be more likely to survive in the European theater.
As pointed out in his wrap up though, dealing a death blow to the Japanese carriers while sustaining your own increased losses is technically a winning proposition for the US vs the Japanese. The US had a much larger population and industrial base to pull from and thus could afford a potential mutual loss of carriers where they could replace their losses when the Japanese couldn't.
" Those people are idiots"...."Those people are also idiots". Best 2 lines since, "oh bugger, the tank is on fire".
Which one was that?
@@jaysmith1408 Chieftan.
This often happens with laymen commenting on famous tank designs or battleships. Especially the Tiger and the Bismarck. One side says they were amazing superweapons beyond imagination, and the other side says they were a completely useless piece of scrap. Of course, both sides are idiots, because all these systems had their strengths and weaknesses, were practical when used correctly and impractical when forced into situations they were not designed for.
Almost made me spit out my Rum Ration!
"What typhoon?" I agree. That's a typical British summer day...
how do you spell thats ships name ? HMS Interfatigable ?
@@murderouskitten2577 Indefatigable, means working tirelessly or to be persistent.
@@murderouskitten2577 indefatigable Its a bit of a weird word
Indefatigable.
British Stoicism and Humor should be considered deadly weapons in their own right...
"Kamikaze on deck sir!" "Right you are Chief, broomsticks at the ready".
I hope they were fire-proof besoms
Yep, heaven forbid ... leaving a war zone and being stuck in Hawaii.... perish the thought.
Good job it' not the Army they'd have to get a brew on first.
@The Infidel Wrong. Unless The Kamikaze hits an extremely vital part of the WWII US carrier, repairs to flight deck and renewed strike attacks by the Carrier was quick and efficient. A British Carrier on the other hand if the flight deck or was severely damaged had to be recalled for repairs. In the Case of the Kamikaze attacks it was found that while the deck of the ship was showed minor damage there was more severe structural damage to the hangars which took 3-6 months repair.
And yet the British carriers stayed operational while American carriers were put out of action. The video is very clear on why this happened
My Father always spoke very highly of the British Carriers toughness. He was on the Lexington during the Battle of Coral Sea so his opinion could be a little bias for some reason. I remember asking him, "How long did you fight the fire Dad?" his answer, "Oh, not too long. There was a bang and I woke up just before I hit the water". He treads water for hours before being picked up. He was on another CV shortly after that. He wanted a little payback. I miss him, Blue Water Navy through and through.
Great
One of my earliest non children's book reads was "Queen of the Flattops" by Stanley Johnston. About "Lady Lex".
God Bless Him....I hope to meet them ALL someday....SOMEHOW!!!
Thanks for sharing your father's war experience with us.
@@edmondmcdowell9690 I had that book as well. The Lex would have been saved without that explosion. IT is what it is.
My great grandfather was killed in action at Formosa on 21 January 1945. He was manning an anti-aircraft battery aboard the USS Ticonderoga when it was attacked by kamikazes, killing him and many others. He was subsequently buried at sea and awarded the Silver Star posthumously. The ship survived the attack and was towed back to port to receive repairs and then returned to service. I really appreciate the research and thoroughness of your videos. Thank you for all the hard work you put into these.
Hail to the Victorious dead🤘SKOL!
Did you note the importance of passage through the Panama Canal in design? American warships have always found this a painful constraint on draught and beam.
Not an issue given the British ships would fit. Panamax at the time was just a smidge more than 32m and both the Illustrious and Implacable classes were slightly more than 29m at the beam. It should be noted that while this sound tight, the Iowa class went right to the limit, and still passed the locks (with some difficulty of course; look up the pictures of an Iowas passing, they are really spectacular).
I haven’t consulted the numbers in detail, but keep in mind Panamax isn’t _only_ a measure at the waterline. The locks extend into the air so a flaring hull (like on a carrier) needs to be more narrow at the waterline. (Battleship hulls generally did not flare, meaning they went right to the margin up and down.) Probably the clearest manifestation of these constraints in this conversation is the strange elongated narrowness of the Essex class.
The information about the max width is probably buried in specialist books and papers I don't know or have access to, but the information available says the Implacable class had a deck width of 31.1m but the Essex is given as 45m max (as built, not modernised). From pictoral evidence, Essex and the British classes shared somewhat similar flares, the British having a more uniform flare and the Essex a more pronounced deck and blister flare. Which somewhat support the smaller British figures compared to the larger American, though I'm guessing the American number includes the swing-out elevators. Given the elevator dimensions, we can probably subtract about 10m from Essex for it's normal max. Given their rather similar waterline widths, if the Essex class could pass the locks, then the British should as well.
Oh agreed, I have found accounts of the British carriers in the video passing through the canal. But the Essex class was substantially larger than any other ship in this video, but had a shorter draft and was very narrow compared to its length. I believe (but can not prove) that is because of the canal. Similar considerations may have motivated the need to keep it light relative to meters of keel.
@@oceanhome2023 The Japanese were planning to do that. They'd built Submarine aircraft carriers during the war, and their main reason for construction was to attack the US and the Canal. (More for strategic value, than trying to catch a ship.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-400-class_submarine Actually Drachinifel Those would be a very interesting class for a video.
Hi Drach, One last point to mention. The Malta and Midway classes converged remarkably. Both having big air groups and armoured decks. It seems that bothe the Americans and British took the best of both design philosophies in the end.
As did the Japanese with the Taiho albeit at smaller tonnage.
By that point the needs of the rapidly evolving aircraft also rather forced the convergence of design philosophies. The aircraft were growing too heavy with too high a landing speed for wooden decks and too large for enclosed armored hangers. And that’s even before the jets start arriving. I mean all of the Essex’s that survived the postwar purge were retrofitted to steel decks. Heck I think the Essex class Lexington holds the record for longest service life of a Carrier. Even if most of it was as the Carrier Training ship cruising Florida and the Caribbean every week. (“Be Back By Friday!”).
Sorry I'm late to the party, but last time I checked the final design for the Malta-class were unarmored? And the Midways even though an "Armored" design, were very very different than the British Armored Carriers.
@@andrewtaylor940 yes Lexington CV16 is the longest serving Conventional powered carrier, with over 48 years in service
The damage endured by Illustrious, in the battles near Malta, would have sunk at least three American or Japanese carriers from that period.
This was actually surprisingly balanced and fair. You sir, do not understand how the internet is supposed to function. :P Basically I have the same ideas and conclusions. Both the RN and USN had there own operational requirements and produced different ships as a result. The RN and USN basically converged with the Malta and Midway classes. That party has to do with operational requirements. There is a point where not building the strength deck at the flight deck level is just a pointless waist of tonnage and a detriment to the ship. For the USN, Essex was about as large as they could go with a traditional hull and superstructure hanger and flight deck. For the 45.000t Midway they had to build the strength deck at the flight deck to keep structural integrity acceptable. Why not armour the flight deck while you are at it? The RN in that aspect was ahead of the curve. However the 4.2m/14feet high hangers on Indomitable and Implacable massively crippled those ships in just a few years after completion. Illustrious at least had 4.8m/16feet of headroom in its hanger. USN was all around 5.2m/17feet. Because of that fact I to a degree I consider the Illustrious to be better design than the follow ons. It didn't matter in the 1940-1943 time frame because most planes will fit all the RN armoured carriers which makes Implacable the best ship of the group. After that point you will start running into problems. By the introduction of the first jets, the Indomitable and Implacable where becoming obsolescent because of space constraints. Further I would also give the Illustrious the nod over Yorktown in the 1940-1943 time frame with one conditions met, proper planes. With proper I mean USN planes (aside from the Devastator) and not that FAA crap which was on them the first few years. With that condition met I would prefer the three Illustrious class, or even better Illustrious, Indomitable and Implacable with deck parks over the three Yorktown's in the 1942 naval battles in the Pacific. For example Hornet and Enterprise combined managed 117 aircraft at the crucial strike during the Battle of Midway. Two RN armoured carriers with deck parks should be able to roughly match that. The RN carriers probably would be limited to some 50 ish planes per CV in the strike because of there shorter flight decks. You couldn't really launch more than 60 aircraft of a Yorktown or Essex for that matter because of the need to mass the strike and lack of space to position all the aircraft on the flight deck before take off. The 117 planes already took the Hornet and Enterprise an hour to launch, and then the strike still was spread out with poor coordination and massing. In that aspect a few planes less might actually be better because it allows you to mass and launch and a strike faster and keep it together in the air. In the case of the Battle of Midway a smaller but more concentrated strike might also have given the torpedo bombers a chance to really finish the carriers off instead of the CV's having to be finished off by Japanese destroyers. Both designs, no matter there pro's and cons however still beat the IJN carriers. Not that is was that hard beating a floating bomb with a lot of design errors anyway. Especially the closed hangers, no armoured flight deck, poorly flash tight munition lifts, terrible protection and shock resistance of the fuel tanks, poor ventilation and the brilliant idea to place fuel lines along the width of the hangers. Basically when a 250kg/550 pound bomb hit an IJN carrier, the hanger would just blow up and the fire would be kept going by ruptured fuel lines. Further most of the Japanese damage control parties also worked inside the hanger. They would basically all die at the first hit. That basically covers Kagi, Agaki, Sōryū, Hiryū and its derivatives as well as the Shokaku class. Taihō was interesting. She had a 75mm armoured flight deck just as the RN armoured carriers. But Taihō did not have armoured hanger sides and used the freed up weight for taller hangers. Taihō however had the same design issues as the other IJN carriers as well as elevator wells extending to below the waterline. That final problem doomed here because it allowed fuel vapors to get into the hangers. Stupid damage control then turned the ship into a fuel air bomb. Without all these flaws, Taihō might actually have been the best WW2 carrier to see service. She had space for a fairly large air group, very capable planes and good armour.
It's probably worth noting that there were basically three competing approaches to aircraft carrier design in the run-up to the war. Two of these (the USN and RN approaches) have been addressed in this video, and I think there is enough information for everyone to make up their own minds (although it won't stop the arguments of course). The IJN adopted a third approach with fully-enclosed hangers compensated with having two hangers one on top of the other (hence managing to support a decent-sized airgroup that matches the USN carriers). However the IJN carriers could not be armored to the level that the RN achieved since this would make their carriers top-heavy, so they basically left the carriers unarmored. The final result was definitely the worst of both worlds. "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully actually has a very good discussion on this subject; well worth the read for this alone, although it's analysis of the Midway battle is very thought provoking.
Enjoyed this info
I wonder what a Illustrious and Implacable carrier would work or look like without armored sides.
Actually, the Midways still used the hangar deck as the strength deck (despite the armored flight deck); US carriers didn't move the strength deck to the flight deck until the Forrestal class.
@@adamtruong1759 would be *SKINNY*
It comes down to a balance between survivability and offensive ability - the Illustrious Class proved their ability to take hits in the Mediterranean and off Okinawa, 1,000 pounders or Kamikazes. Japanese and US carriers were more vulnerable but had a greater air group. It can be argued that the 'armoured' carriers were best suited to the Med or the Atlantic seaboard - operating within range of land-based aircraft - while the US and Japanese carriers were 'Pacific' ships best suited to the wide-open spaces. The biggest criticism of the Royal Navy is not the aircraft carrier design but the types of aircraft they were forced to operate early in the war. The early aircraft were obsolescent at best, awful at worst (the Blackburn Roc?). An HMS Ark Royal in 1941 operating 1945 types like the Corsair, Avenger or Barracuda would have been a game changer. Sadly pre-war RAF control of Fleet Air Arm procurement meant that the RN Fleet Air Arm started the war one generation behind everyone else. Barry
Agreed, fleet air arm did not have good aircraft for a while
This was not so much due to the RAF meddling since the Royal Navy broadly had their own types of aircraft that the RAF did not operate but on penny pinching officers at the admiralty. Also early war Fleet Air Arm aircraft were meant for practically operating from carriers at the expense of combat performance. Planes like the Roc, Skua, Swordfish and Fulmar were solid well built aircraft for carrier operations and had additional crewmen to handle the complex job of navigation over open water, which it was reckoned was beyond a single pilot who was also busy flying the plane and keeping a watch for hostile units. Experience would show that these planes were hopelessly outclassed against single seat, land based planes. Only when the Royal Navy adapted the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire to fly from carriers and acquiring purpose built planes from America did they even the odds somewhat. How does that saying go? "In theory there is no difference between theory and practise. In practise there is..."
Giving the Royal Navy late-war carrier aircraft in 1941 wouldn't have solved the biggest problem facing British carrier forces, which was that the British didn't have a carrier doctrine anywhere near as developed as the Japanese (or later the Americans). Unless the Admiralty has a massive change of heart, you wouldn't see very much improvement in British carrier operations even with the better aircraft.
It must be kept in mind that often British ships would operate fairly close to allied controlled shores which could provide friendly air cover and striking power. The sort of grand strategic plan of sweeping across thousands of miles of ocean to strike at targets that would be out of land based bomber's range wasn't really an issue the Royal Navy had considered. U.S. Navy aircraft could take on a Japanese base in the Pacific and inflict plenty of damage while in the Mediterranean the Royal Navy's use for aircraft was to defend the fleet from air attack and perhaps undertake the odd tactical strike on ships at sea or in port but in a limited fashion. Different priorities, strategic versus tactical.
Don Felipe That's not quite what I was talking about. British practices for operating their carriers was far behind that of Japan and the U.S., especially after 1941, and it didn't get close to their level until 1945. By that I mean things like grouping carriers into dedicated formations, organizing massed strikes, coordinating aircraft, directing a CAP, handling procedures in the hangars and on flight decks, etc. Their carrier organizations were underdeveloped, and their carrier tactics and plans were limited to small raids and supporting roles. For example, at Taranto Illustrious launched two unescorted squadrons of torpedo bombers almost an hour apart. This fell far below Japanese practice for even a single carrier, for which a normal deckload strike was thirty aircraft flying off the deck in one wave. The Japanese carrier crews could have such a force ready in less than an hour. And the Japanese were superb at combining aircraft from multiple carriers to form larger air formations. Had the Japanese sent a single carrier division (two carriers, the smallest unit First Air Fleet would detach) to Taranto, the Italians would've found themselves attacked by two waves of sixty aircraft apiece, each a mix of fighters and dive and torpedo bombers. There is no comparison. This was because the British just didn't conceive of carriers as a decisive force in battle, and for a long time they weren't willing to put in the same level of effort the Japanese and later the Americans did to learn "how to carrier". Taranto reflected this since it was about the upper limit that the British carriers could achieve for much of the war. For the forces involved, it was a wild success, but it was still a limited raid that accomplished nothing of note strategically, and it needed Japanese and American carrier doctrine to take it beyond that.
I'd love to see a similar comparison between allied and IJN carriers, both early in the Pacfic war and later.
Applies to all your videos but I've realised one thing I love about your video is the smoooooth narration with no "erm" or "umm"s. That is actually really rare and kudos sir, kudos. Makes you sound very very professional (which of course you are!)
I fell in Love, When you said, " Those people are Idiots." Then went on, I will give facts, make your opinion. God Bless you, For giving me the benefit of doubt, thinking I have a IQ...
This was very informative...thank you for putting so much information together for us. My Father was an enlisted man on the USS Lunga Point, CVE-94....one of the Escort Carriers in the Pacific Campaign. He saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa and at other places too. The Lunga Point had a couple of very interesting achievements during her 1 year of operations, 1944-45. She was the only carrier to receive as many direct Kamikaze hits as she did and still make it to a safe port still under her own power. And the most amazing fact is that in spite of all of the Kamikaze hits.... she lost no sailors...amazing. The 1 death that she had was when a sailor walked into a turning prop on the flight deck. I joined the U.S. Navy myself way back in 1971 but I got assigned to a land based aviation squadron and the only time I got to be on any ship was when one of our planes had to be put on board the carrier Kitty Hawk at Pearl Harbor and taken to San Diego where it had an engine replaced. Since I was the Plane Captain for that particular plane, I got to go with the plane on the Kittty Hawk for the 6 day trip back to San Diego. That was my entire time on board a Navy ship...but it was a carrier and I really enjoyed the 6 days.
marbleman52.."She was the only carrier to receive as many direct Kamikaze hits as she did and still make it to a safe port still under her own power." Any carrier who got hit by kamikaze planes and didn't sink, or need a tow, accomplished this too. Moron.
@@tc1817 No need to be rude. Sure many carriers hit by kamikazes were able to make it to port, under their own power, including the Franklin. The thing is though, I don't think the USS Lunga Point was actually hit by a kamikaze at all, and only suffered minor damaged from near misses.
@@Peorhum My point is that marbleman52 needs to be more clear. The statement "She was the only carrier to receive as many direct Kamikaze hits as she did and still make it to a safe port still under her own power." is vague. If a carrier were hit by one, and made it back, or two, and made it back, or 10 and made it back, ALL of them made it back under their own power after being hit by 'as many' as they were.
Good stuff. Very thorough analysis. I remember watching an episode of "Biggest Military Blunders" years ago on the History channel (I know, I was setting myself up for frustration). The whole episode was about the huge blunder of building un-armored aircraft carriers by the Americans. I kept screaming at the television that these decisions were based on operational context and employment doctrine! So, thanks for doing this the right way.
You tube channels like Drachinifel, matsimus, and kings and Generals are my history channel now. I knew it was over for the history channel when they started airing shows like pawn stars (not that that was a bad show) and ice road truckers.
Do you remember Dogfights, Hero ships, Battle 360 and such? Good times. Made my childhood.
@@fernandomarques5166 Oh yeah all of those. I remember a particularly well done Hero Ships based on the Enterprise in all of her shenanigans in early 1942.
@@iwantcrawfish6110 agreed the good old days (as per Fernando) are gone for sure.
Yeah, what a blunder it was to have 80 planes in the air instead of 30. :P
"You would expect a ship several thousand tons heavier and a hundred feet longer to be a better carrier even if it was only an average design" I can hear Shinano crying from here.
Why?
@@thecanadiankiwibirb4512 Shinano was hugely massive for a carrier, bigger than any created at the time - but her airplane capacity was pathetic, more comparable to an escort carrier than the fleet carriers she outsized, and her damage control design (and crew) was so bad that she was sunk by a single submarine-launched torpedo on her maiden voyage!
@@thecanadiankiwibirb4512 Going to necro and piggyback, Shinano was a Yamato class hull converted into an aircraft carrier. However, I think Shinano was built to be a support carrier. Her large hangars were used to hold spare aircraft, fuel and weapons to be offloaded to the fleet carriers and airfields. Shinano was not completely fitted at the time of her commissioning so she did not have operational access to most of her damage control systems. The crew that manned her, were not adequately trained. She was struck by 4 torpedoes on her starboard side. Shinano was, for lack of better words, a rushed job to build an air carrier since the IJN lost 4 fleet carriers in the Battle of Midway.
Shinano was a victim of the sunk cost fallacy. The IJN wanted the dock space more than anything else actually. The construction was really too far along to convert to a carrier, and she was completed with the BB turret wells intact, and lots of other bulkheads where you really didn't want them for a carrier. Consideration was actually given to simply towing the half completed hull out of dock and starting over. Rather than abandon the work already completed, the decision was made to complete her as a support/transport carrier.
Graft Zeppelin as well.
"Those people are idiots".....amen Drachinifel...2019..
And the other side "They are also idiots"
People with extreme and overly-simplistic views often are.
@@andrewszigeti2174 You're half right. You can be extreme and be right. You can't be overly simplistic and right.
@Jurassic Aviator Power projection. By which is typically meant bombing the shit out of people who don't have an air force.
@@danmorgan3685 : Which is why I said 'often' and not 'always'.
I think that they built the Essex class very quickly is part of the reason armored flight decks were not considered. As far as the Yorktowns, the treaty limitations were probably why they were kept to around 19,000 tons. Another thought is that if all American carriers had armored decks it probably would have induced the Japanese to use armor piercing bombs like they used against the battleships at Pearl Harbor which could have negated the advantage of armored flight decks.
Very good point. A defense always triggers a better offense, and then the cycle begins again.
I think both countries, and certainly the US, got the ships they needed to suit their situation. The US could afford losses and still out build their enemy so they got max strike capability and repairability out of the Essex. While the British couldn’t replace losses as rapidly but could bring other striking capabilities (BBs) to bear. Each country had to build ships to conform to their own situation
Very very true.
how dare you say something logical and not ideologically based on one side of an argument its the internet its not proper
Hmm. That's true. The US had BB's as well.
Yeah, you're right.US could out build any other nation, but replacing crews is a huge problem.Any ship is only as good as it's crew.
Also, I think the US was had less time to develop and build new carriers for the current war. The US didn't enter combat until much later, certainly there were existing designs for new carriers, but the rapid change and uncertainty limited their ability to respond perfectly. I think they did pretty well considering.
So basically Armored: Defense is the best defense Unarmored: Offense is the best defense
more like not being found
Unless you are sunk.
@@boredb5623 And the British know all about the effectiveness of "Not Being Seen".
1. Strapping aircraft to the roof of the hangar? I never knew that was a thing on a carrier. 2. Typhoon? What typhoon. So British.
Too bad they didn't say; "Oh that little spat? I think my lieutenant spilled a bit of tea, only damage I am aware of is his honor I'm afraid."
"the fragile American Bath toy" listening to this with a yank and he just blew his top 😂
Ark Royal was sunk by one torpedo.
@@nickdanger3802 yes she was but theres a few points as to why. 1 Ark wasn't an "Armoured" carrier under consideration. 2 it was a freak torpedo. It malfunctioned and actually ran deeper than its settings and bypassed the torp defences, and it would have done on any carrier. Had it hit the TDs they would have saved the ship 3. After the rapid loss of 2 carriers earlier in the war with a large loss of life, the captain viewed saving his crew as more important than the hull. 4. Ark had several major design flaws that the hit exposed, and thankfully so. The lessons helped to make the following carriers better ships.
@@thehandoftheking3314 As I understand it. German torpedo's had a magnetic trigger designed to detonate under ships. Design or luck? HMS Courageous was sunk by U boot while on anti submarine patrol. HMS Glorious (armored deck) was sunk by a battleship despite warnings from Bletchley Park. HMS Illustrious (armored deck) Multiple bomb hits, one failed to explode, another passed through the flight deck and exploded near the ship. Later a 500kg bomb penetrated the flight deck. Illustrious and Formidable were repaired in Norfolk Navy Yard of the "neutral" USA under Lend Lease which was virtually free. Then collided with each other. I have been studying WWII on and off for almost 60 years, I do not recall anyone stating "we had the perfect ship/aircraft/tank for the task". Some of the other differences between RN and USN carriers you do not hear much about. The FAA had rubbish fighters and had the F4 Wildcat (Martlet) before the USN. Aircraft purchased by France were "transferred" to Britain in July 1940. USN carriers were much larger and carried many more aircraft by design and as policy. By the end of the war Britain had larger carriers. In the meantime they carried more aircraft than they were designed for. More planes means more pilots, mechanics, armorers, ordinance, spare parts and fuel with no place to put them. USN carriers had Bofors guns, RN carriers had Pom-poms. Germany had the Fritz X and Henschel Hs 293 guided anti ship missiles in service at about the same time RN carriers were withdrawn from the Med. The battleship Roma (deck armor 6 in/150mm) was sunk by a Fritz X. Kamikaze attacks began in October 1944, the RN carriers were in the Pacific about five months later. Most of Japans carriers had armored decks and all of them were sunk, usually by torpedo and usually by submarine. But, after Midway in which the USN sank four IJN carriers for the loss of the hastily repaired Yorktown, the USN ordered the Midway class carrier with armored decks. Right tool at the right time. Take any two contemporary RN carriers with British carrier aircraft and put them at Coral Sea or three for Midway, how does that play out? Sorry if this is terse, had a tooth pulled a few hours ago,
@@nickdanger3802 not the type that hit Ark. I think it's fair to say if you swop RN and USN carriers in specific situations both sides end up in worse scenarios than in actual history, US carriers taking the hits Illustrious did? The FAA were severely hamstrung by the fact all aircraft procurement went through the RAF, so navy aviation was never a major thing for them. Cost us the real Sea Fire that did. For me personally I always say the argument was settled by both navies in the Midway and Malta classes. Two designs that, like the pre war envisioned Pacific type carriers, were remarkably similar. Both had armoured decks and closed bows of RN carriers, and both had hanger layouts and aircraft areas of USN carriers. So neither design was "best" both had plenty to offer.
@@thehandoftheking3314 Well said. On a side by side comparison the only example I know of is Operation Bowery. HMS Eagle and USS Wasp, two very different ships but with Eagle having an aircraft capacity only six less than Illustrious which was a contemporary of Wasp with Wasp being built specifically to use up tonnage allowed under Naval treaties. Wasp put up a hefty CAP of ten or so Wildcats with forty some Spits launched to Malta and Eagle launching fewer than 20 Spits. Both were sunk by submarine a few months later. But Malta survived and it is considered by many to be the key to victory in North Africa. FAA Aircraft U tub has been deleting comments with links. Search: hansard fleet air arm
I love the USS Enterprise(CV-6), Its got to be one of the luckiest ships ever made. Right up there with HMS Warspite.
HMS Nelson was lucky as hell too in some ways and unlucky as hell in others. She had three torpedos hit her. None detonated. Yet she seemed to attract mines and had to spent quite a bit of time being repaired because of them.
USS enterprise and HMS warspite probably the two greatest modern warships built
Considering the odds it faced I vote HIJMS Yukikaze as luckiest ever xD
Ryan Cargill I see you are a person of Battle 360 USS ENTERPRISE as well.
The Enterprise and Warspite share one particularly unlucky commonality however: They were both scrapped instead of being saved as museum ships. Absolutely disgraceful.
I agree with most of your assessments and comments regarding armor decks and unarmored flight decks. Where I part ways with you to a degree is the loss of the Yorktown. Yorktown was or deed suffering from some significant battle damage prior to the Battle of Midway. This occurred in the Battle of Coral Sea. It was estimated at the time that it would take three months in the yard to overhaul and repair the damage from that bomb hit. This bomb head not only damaged her engines but also compromised her watertight Integrity to a degree. When the Battle of Midway occurred it was after 36 hours if my memory serves of dry dock and bubble gum and baling wire. They repaired vital systems but they did not repair the engines. Who used to say how many bombs would have struck had Yorktown been capable of full speed. Further when she was struck by the air launched torpedoes Abandon Ship while premature was prudent where to damage previous to Midway that affected her watertight integrity. Once again her damage from the Battle of Coral Sea haunted her in the Battle of Midway. Her condition when she was torpedoed by the submarine may have been somewhat different and her position may have been out of range of that submarine had she not been abandoned. To exclude Ark Royal from your critique was interesting. there were compromises in her design as you and I are both aware. But if you compare saratoga's being torpedoed repeatedly and put in Dry Dock repeatedly to be repaired oh, you have to wonder about their respective torpedo defense systems. The much-maligned Lexington battlecruiser Hulls seemed to be pretty durable however there turbo electric Drive seemed more vulnerable to damage. Makes me wonder about the Zumwalt. personally in a situation where you have a lot of seawater potentially pouring into the engine room, the last thing I would want is electric motors in that area! I can't remember exactly what was happening whenever Saratoga would take a torpedo but it was something that was causing a part of the power plant to jump out of its mounts for beds it's been a long time since I read about that like 40 years? as I said other than the Yorktown there isn't too much I take exception to in your comparison
A truly superb video sir. Well considered and well balanced. A perfect example as to why, IMO, you are the best naval histographer on KZhead.
I'd also add that the Americans had faith in their overwhelming industrial capacity to turn out more than enough carriers to replace any that were lost, something amply proved by the production and launching of 23 of 24 Essex class carrier during WWII, not mention the nine Independence class light carriers and vast numbers of escort carriers produced for the USN and RN. The number of ships of all types produced during WWII was so breathtaking that I wonder if the Americans could ever do it again.
It helps when you are still a - if not THE - major industrial power in the world, which modern America is not, and it further helps when the major manufacturing corporations in America are primarily loyal to the country instead of profit - which the remaining American manufacturing corporations are DEFINITELY not.
@@andrewszigeti2174 Who exactly do you think is the largest industrial power in the world then? It's certainly not China, which is just now working up its first domestically produced conventional fuelf aircraft carrier. The US produced three of the largest nuclear powered carriers in the world during same time period the Chinese were struggling to restore an old Soviet era carrier to operation. The US is still a $20.4 trillion economy compared to China's $14.4 trillion, with all other economies magnitudes of order less. Don't confuse outsourcing with a company not still being a US corporation. As the Chinese are seeing now, outsourcing as a basis for an economy can be disrupted almost overnight. The nature of a corporation is to maximize profit so they can pay shareholders and stay in business. If they can make more profit producing in the US, they will. In a time of national emergency or war, the whole concept of outsourcing become moot. I don't have a lot of faith we could ever reproduce the production miracle of WWII, but another WWII is just as unlikely.
@@sarjim4381 : When a corporation undertakes actions that cause severe economic problems for the host country, it's not exactly what I'd call loyal to the host country.
@@andrewszigeti2174 Corporations are only loyal to their shareholders. They produce products in whatever locations maximize their profits, some of which they return to shareholders. Do you think the tens of thousands to millions of shareholders of large manufacturing companies would be happy with the idea that won't get the dividend check this quarter because they had to produce at loss to remain loyal to a country? A nation needs to have conditions that allow companies to function without being overwhelmed by costs not directly associated with their product. The US is finally getting that idea now, and some manufacturing is returning. Tariffs that punish countries like China for dumping product below coat to expand their market share are long overdue. American manufacturing can compete with any country as long a we have a level playing field.
@Jurassic Aviator In the event of war, China's lack of carriers will be a tremendous handicap. Even as they build more carriers, it will take decades to reach the USN's level of proficiency when it comes to carrier and flight operations. The PLAN is building a second carrier now and has a goal of commissioning six carriers by 2030. They apparently don't have better things to spend their money on.
Just re-watched this video again. I think my take away of your analysis is the two navies designed for different wars. The fact that the Midways emphasized the need to incorporate both lead to carriers that in WWII trim, could cary 120 aircraft with an armored flight deck, somewhere north of 40K tons. What is also amazing I those three ships entered service shortly after surrender, and all would have been available to invade the home islands in '46.
A very fair summation of the two Navy's Fleet carrier and battle concepts. My father served in the US navy in the Marianas and Okinawa campaigns. His ship was one of the 360 US Navy ships hit by Kamikaze's at Okinawa. It must of been horrific, he didn't speak of it to his family until he was in his late 70's. When an enemy sends multiple flights of two to three hundred mixed group attack aircraft against your fleet, Kamikaze, dive bomber and fighters, some are going to get through. They simply overwhelm your fighter air cover and AA. The U.S. began the war with four fleet carriers and ended it with twenty seven. Even with the losses. We started with 0 Escort Carriers and ended with 121. "Quantity has a quality all its own." In the Navy the ship is the weapon. The carrier is an attack weapon. It's sole purpose is to defeat and destroy the enemy. Just being able to defend itself and survive is not enough. It was the crucial weapon that won the war in the Pacific. That and the logistics and support of the entire US Navy in the vastness of the largest battlespace in the history of the world. And all that being supported by a woke America fully engaged in producing arms, weapons, munitions and food for ourselves and all our allies. Think how differently the world might look if Yamamoto had heeded his own warning and " Let the sleeping giant sleep".
My former boss and the previous owner of my house served on the Hancock during WWII in the Pacific and he didn't have much to say when his service onboard came up (he was assigned to the ship's Master at Arms division). His brother, who served on the USS Wake Island (CVE-65), which was hit at least once by a Kamikaze, had many more "sea stories" to tell (but he was "Black Gang" and hadn't seen the carnage his brother had).
@@sewing1243 in that generation everyone had a war story and they were generally too politie or busy working to whine about stuff.
@@RGC-gn2nm The business I worked for at that time, with the exception of the secretary (and for much of that time the secretaries had been military wives) was maned by veterans (the majority were Navy). Stories about our time in the service were pretty common.
I would agree with the fact that the us production capability could replace losses, but think about what would happen if a us carrier entered the North Sea with all Europe under German control, and all skies swarming with the Luftwaffe. One heavy bomber drops a 1200 pound bomb on the deck, kaboom. Gone. They send more, more will sink. A British carrier? They get hit, the plane is shot down and they live to fight and fight until the Luftwaffe is hiding in Bremen, just hoping another Lancaster doesn't arrive. North Sea? Britannia rules the waves. If ur in the pacific, the seas start singing the star spangled banner. A British carrier in the pacific would survive, but have no impact. A British carrier within 100 km off the coast of Okinawa would still be superior to a us one. As you can tell by my profile pic I'm a biased Canadian loyalist, but I recognize that a us carrier at midway beats a British one-in the North Sea a us carrier would only survive as long as it wasn't spotted.
@@jaydaj6999 Being loyal to one's Nation is admiral as I myself am an American Conservative Nationalist. Comparing America's, Japans and Britain's fleet Carrier design is not really possible. The American and Japanese designed their carriers and carrier aircraft for an entirely different battle space and environment. Although British Carriers had an armored flight deck they sacrificed size and hanger height to do so. That is understandable in a small battle space where attack aircraft can launch from shore and reach about anywhere. You mentioned land based multi engine bombers as being the threat designed for but the truth turned out to be that accurate high altitude bombing of ships was nearly impossible. The real threat was dive bombers and torpedo bombers. The difference was the British fleet was designed to operate in essentially home waters where refueling and resupply came from land base's/ports. The British had no long range fleet supply train or fleet tankers. The IJn was operating in a similar fashion. America did not have that option. From the West coast of the US to the Philippines is 7000 miles. Most of our manufacturing was an additional 2000 to 2800 miles further inland. We learned from our first two carriers the Lexington class that small armored carriers wouldn't cut it. Two things had to be preeminent, a large strike package with carrier air cover and a low center of gravity. There's a British myth that the Pacific is what they liked to call a mill pond. The IJN and USN knew different. (Japanese naval typhoon disaster 1934) (Typhoon Cobra) 140 mile per hour winds, 140 foot seas. To inc operate a raised flight deck for more hanger space you had to sacrifice armor or you would capsize your ship. The British carrier fleet didn't enter the Pacific theater until March of 1945. The USN provided the fleet train and tankers as well as training British crews to refuel at sea. The British had no carrier fighter aircraft that could stand against axis land based or Japanese carrier aircraft in the beginning of the war. They used the American F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, F4U Corsair and the TBM bomber. In the Pacific fleets four carriers only one had the British Seafire which because of it’s short range was used for Carrier Air Patrol and short range attack missions only. BPF: Flight ops aboars HMS Illustrious, 1945 kzhead.info/sun/idmRodF_r3eCqpE/bejne.html Seafire deck operations: Royal Navy, circa 1943 kzhead.info/sun/Y5qknMh5emmkqKs/bejne.html A Royal Navy partially-dramatised presentation showing Seafire IIC fighters operating from an escort carrier. Eastern Fleet: USS Saratoga with HMS Illustrious kzhead.info/sun/pdaals2Zf2uoqHA/bejne.html USS Saratoga operates in formation with HMS Illustrious in 1944. Footage goes on to include Indian and Pacific Ocean flight operations from Illustrious and HMS Indomitable, with aircraft including FAA Corsairs, Barracudas, Avengers and Hellcats. HD Historic Stock Footage WWII Color AIRCRAFT CARRIER OPERATIONS 1944 kzhead.info/sun/lqV-l6qJZ2uunWw/bejne.html British Pacific Fleet Task Force 57 www.armouredcarriers.com/task-force-57-iceberg-i-british-pacific-fleet Rear-Admiral Vian recalled the situation: Meanwhile Admiral Fraser, appreciating fully the great importance, from a national point of view, of the Royal Navy engaging in the most modern type of sea warfare in company with the Americans who had perfected it, had been striving to convince Admiral Nimitz that the British would not only be able to operate alongside the Americans without calling on them for logistic aid, but that their Fleet would be of real help in the task which lay ahead - defeating Japan. He found that, like Admiral King, Admiral Nimitz felt that the fast United States carrier striking forces were perfectly capable of dealing, on their own, with the operations contemplated for the final reduction of the enemy… Admiral Fraser set himself to break down opposition. At the same time he realised that nothing but a really powerful Fleet could pull its weight alongside the great forces the Americans were using. Nothing but the very best would be expected by our Allies, who were by this time experienced veterans in the new forms of ocean warfare. It is a measure of his success that, when at length the British Pacific Fleet joined the Americans, they were greeted by a signal from Admiral Nimitz: “The British force will greatly increase our striking power, and demonstrate our unity of purpose against Japan. The United States Pacific Fleet welcomes you.” Admiral Fraser wrote fondly of an instance which would set the scene for the relationship of mutual respect and support that would feature in operations between Task Force 57 and 58: “I remember very well when I first went over to see Admiral Nimitz in Honolulu. At the end of our talks I was congratulating him on what the American fleet had done. He said, “Yes, I think we have done very well. There’s only one thing we envy you, and that is your British traditions.” I was very surprised and said, “Do you really think so, Admiral?” “Yes,”, he said, “it’s the thing you've got which can neither be bought nor sold. Guard it with your lives.” I always remember that. Wonderful thing for an American admiral to say.” Manus Island Manus Island had been selected as the British Fleet’s forward base. It was part of the Admiralty Group of islands north of New Guinea, and was a British protectorate. It was during this deployment period that the British Pacific Fleet realised just what a truly difficult task lay ahead of it. Despite Churchill’s assertions, the ships - designed to operate in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic - had not received the air-conditioning and ventilation modifications necessary for the tropical conditions. Manus Island was a hot, humid but huge anchorage for the British Pacific Fleet. Under the equatorial sun, the armoured flight decks would absorb the heat and radiate it downwards through the hull. Those who chose to sleep on the deck at night while on “rest” breaks at Manus would remark there was little point laying out ones bedding until after 11pm because of the retained heat. Conditions below were even worse. It was a sweatbox in which to sling out hammocks. At least on the flight deck there was a chance for a hint of a cool sea breeze early in the morning. Officers and ratings both suffered horribly, with prickly heat, sweat rashes and boils causing long queues outside the medical offices. Even fresh water was scarce as the Fleet Train’s distillation vessel had been held up by a dockyard dispute in Sydney. AT WAR IN THE TROPICS It became immediately clear that, despite Churchill’s words, the ships allocated to the British Pacific Fleet had not been fully tropicalised - if at all - and few had the most modern equipment. A war correspondent aboard Victorious described the stay at Manus Island as: “The tropical sea war is an unending Turkish bath - with no drying room... The long flight decks of the carriers are made of steel. They absorb the rays of the tropical sun and retain the torrid heat night and day. The heat penetrates down into the ship to meet the intense heat rising from the boiler rooms and galleys. At action stations warships are closed up, scuttles - portholes - are shut, Watertight bulkheads, which section off the ship into bootbox compartments, are locked with great iron pins. Four-fifth of an aircraft carrier’s ship’s company work sandwiched between those two layers of heat - stifled, sweating, every minute of every hour of every day and night until they are back in port. They suffer prickly heat and other skin disorders. The men of Victorious think of the damp when they were fighting in the icy cold of the Arctic and the North Atlantic. When it is freezing cold at sea you can, with many layers of clothing, at least get some warmth into your body; but out here you cannot get cool. Even the water you drink is as warm as that in which at home you would take a bath.
i remember reading somewhere that one of the larger concentrations for the US going with unarmored decks was to keep the center of mass as low as possible allowing for a narrower hull to simplifying/speeding up traversing locks and canals while still renaming stable.
This video is excellent. Well laid out, logical, and thorough. Great work!
Excellent production, as usual, without bias to try and explain the differences in protection and advantages that the different carrier philosophies entailed. One other aspect of the different carrier philosophies especially when comparing the Japanese, as they were the third large fleet carrier operator, is how they chose to handle their fuel for their flying groups. The Japanese navy stored it in regular tanks for most parts, sometimes adding some protection, but they were integral with the hull just like any fuel, water or oil tank. The British, fully aware of the risks not only from the burning fuel itself but also the petrol fumes, made them absolutely shockproof with floating tanks protected from "whiplash" through the hull and filled the space surrounding them with concrete. The Americans somewhere in between, but generally very good damage control and handling the situations correctly, largely helped by their open hangars that more or less prevented the firecracker effect (light a fire cracker in your open palm, then repeat the test with your fist closed, you see the difference when you start looking for where your fingers went). Probably why the British abandoned the closed hangar deck in the first place. The Imperial Japanese navy suffered some stupendous fires, you may contribute them to poor training of the damage control leaders and teams (with cases were the damage control centre ordered the fans to be started to try and vent the fuel fumes out, just to make sure the entire ship is a veritable bomb when the petrol/gasoline fuel was dispersed evenly over the ship), while the US navy fared better they still suffered some horrendous fires on their ships mostly due to petrol/gasoline fires and explosions. The Royal Navy never had a fuel fire put a carrier out of actions completely so far as I know of. Then again, with more aircraft to operate, as well as huge (almost Trump sized) radials in the 2000+ HP range needed more fuel as well, the American navy could probably not devote as much internal space to make the fuel tanks as safe as the RN as well as maintaining their necessary range for the types of operation they envisaged their carriers to do.
Both the UK and the US created innovations that were incorporated into the development of the aircraft carries. For instance after WW2 the UK created and angled flight deck, the "meat ball" landing system and steam-powered catapult and the US adopted all of these systems. It's my guess the a big reason US used the wooden decks to expedite carrier construction to fill the need immediate need for carries.
Nice analysis--thorough, insightful and even-handed.
Excellent comparisons. The information was presented in a logical and informative manner. Well done!
Lovely video. Very well put together. Please do more of your great work
An excellent and well thought out video The lesson presented here is how operational location greatly effects which system is better. A Yorktown or Essex operating in the Med eaarly in the war would have been overwhelmed and sunk by massed attacks no air group could have fought off. Similarly an Illustrious class would have been defeated by Japanese carriers greater striking power but might have remained afloat if it could dodge the torpedoes. British Admiral: "Another kamikaze! If this keeps up we'll have to order more brooms, Make a note of that yeoman" Where both the RN and the USN proved far superior to the IJN was in the area of damage control and Avgas security. Avgas is one of the most dangerous things for any ship to carry and carriers have to ship massive amounts of this. The Japanese method of storing what is essentially a massive bomb was flawed and combined with the single ventilation system it turned their ships into floating bombs waiting to go off after battle damage.
Fantastic video. Even an old navy fan and former navy man like me got a lot of expanding knowledge from this excelent analysis. And as usual a very good clear and informative lecture. And always a joy to listen to you. As allways your navy history videos are the best on the formidable internet. Well done. Thank You very very mutch and a Happy New Year.
This is a fine and very greatly detailed analysis, thank you for putting so much into it
Drachinifel as always great job. Extremely interesting video. Well done Sir. Thank you.
Just finished watching your Ark Royal video, great timing. Love your channel, you've gotten me interested in warships, I've started reading 'The Great Naval Race' by Peter Padfield to get my naval history fix.
I absolutely love this channel! I live 10 miles from Gneisenaus "Caesar" turret at Ørlandet on Fosen, Norway :D I'll take you there if you want to!
I inherited a model of the Gneisenau, built from wood between 1943 and 1944 by the father of a friend of mine. It's roughly scaled 1/160 and i also own the original plans, drawings and a photography of the Gneisenau
You live in Norway? Count your blessings!
I very much appreciate your unbiased evaluation of all military ships
I love the matter-of -fact way of speaking of Drach.
From a purely engineering standpoint, it's all about trade-offs. Especially if done to extremes. You want your carrier design to carry LOTS of planes and have a very long range, then that's much less tonnage for other things like armour, and vice versa. Also note, the comparitive narrowness of US carriers has to do with being able to use the Panama Canal (and so be able to quickly "switch" between Pacific and Atlantic as needed.l. This was a key design requirement for USN capital ships until (I think) the 'Midway' class of carriers.
Midway and Montana were the first two classes exempt from passing the Panama Canal.
@@timclaus8313 In fact the panama canal was supposed to get enlarged but the War ended up taking less time than expected apparently.
I would just like to say, regardless of views on either option, that this was an absolutely brilliant and well-made video. I recently found your channel while getting into World of Warships and you make videos of unrivalled quality for naval interests and just want to pass on my gratitude for the many many hours of quality content and the brilliant contribution you're making to naval history and the accessibility of it.
As always a very pragmatic approach! Well done as always!
Excellent presentation, sir! Thank you! I shall eagerly await further such videos from you. From my reading of naval action in the Pacific, I remember the old saw regarding USN carriers vs. RN carriers following an attack by Japanese air units: On US carriers, it was: "6 months in Pearl"...on RN carriers, it was: "Sweepers, man your brooms!" Thanks, again.
Thank you! A well done, fair and balanced discussion. I really enjoy your thorough assessments coupled with your pleasant voice, makes the whole experience a treat.
I think another major complicating factor is the evolution of technology through the period that made self-defense by CAP more or less viable. Initially it wasn't very viable, which helped inform the British design efforts towards more heavily protected and armed carriers. This is demonstrated pretty well at midway where hits were scored even by the fairly paltry counter-attack mounted by the Japanese as well as how effective the multiple small attacks on the Japanese proved as they frustrated the ability of the CAP to effectively position themselves. When radar started to spread and ultimately culminated in fighter direction guided by radar as well as radar guided AA, this massively improved the ability to defend a carrier by CAPs and AA fire. This is demonstrated with The Battle of the Philippine Sea where many Japanese attacks started with them being detected by radar with the US preparing a response all before the ships are reached. Finally the steady increase in speed and the introduction of new weapons such as the Fritz X would make carriers far less defensible again as speed reduced the response time as well as a weapon that allowed aircraft to operate at relatively standoff ranges ( for the AA of the time ). The culmination of such a threat is to imagine a carrier-borne Mosquito carrying a Fritz X.
A carrier-borne Mosquito carrying a Fritz X... Good Lord that's terrifying.
Also dont forget the proximity fuze (American spelling) that very significantly increased the effectiveness of anti aircraft fire later in the war. This was an application of radar using very small valves and also very clever circuit designs. The development of radar during the war is fascinating and bred a number of Nobel Laureates among the physicists.
Excellent video. There were many such comparisons, when you look Back at WW2, in land sea and air. I wish to thank and pay tributer to all who gave their lives and skills to to all campains. Thank you RIP
A. very fair evaluation of both countries carriers. Thank you for your obvious research!
Fantastic! This released while I was enjoying your video on the USS Massachusetts, ha.
It's happening! The great Schism of 2019!
Really outstanding information and analysis, especially taking into account wider issues to consider
Excellent presentation. Well balanced and informative
I know the whole point of the channel is early 20th century stuff, but have you ever thought about looking at Cold War era Naval stuff? Either way, keep it up. I could and do listen to you all day.
I think tjat the problem with more modern ships is that systems get more complex and it is not ships but integrated battlegroups what truly counts. Also, there have been no major wars between similar powers.. only sabre rattling.
Cold War era is from a historical stand point still new. There were no real naval engagements in that period. A part from Falklands, only India-Pakistan conflicts had two peer opponents fighting. Israeli-Arab wars had some engagements between small missile boats, and one well known success with the sinking of the Eilat(?) Isreali destroyer. The data is scarce and it could only be conjecture best guess.
I see both of your points. I just think about the debate of nuclear surface combatants, etc. Stuff up through the Vietnam era. Gun cruisers vs missile cruisers during that time period. The age old battleship debate. Operation Praying Mantis. There’s material. Idk, I just know I would personally love to hear it.
@@GutkowskiMarek True, but that is the reason for the Swedish navy to go entirely to a "small navy" with only missile boats and corvettes, and many more to go for similar ships as the Russian OSA class missile boats.
A missile boat is not a new concept. It is a logical evolution of the torpedo boat that was a clear threat since late XIX century. The self-propelled torpedo was just replaced by a guided missiles.
Fantastic episode
What a superb analysis. Thank you!
wonderful 7-segment video with a bonus 1:38 the 5-minute video was super informative.
Brilliant assessment and you managed to remain objective in your analysis. Thanks this was an enjoyable vid.
Fantastic video. I learned much about British carriers of ww2. Glad we're allies!
One of the things I like about your channel Drack, you make a real attempt to be subbjective when you analyze the design or an operational concept.
This is a brilliant video. Thanks for posting.
When in childhood my dad would tell me things like "There are these huge planes that were made in World War II that were so large that they were called Flying Fortresses" I thought they were actually large flying platforms tha looked like a battleship or a carrier with a bunch of engines attached to it. I thoguht it looked like those big flying bases you see in Tale Spin cartoons where Lord Carnage had his lair.
I pictured castles made of stone with huge propellers sticking out of the towers, lol!
I mean, B-17s were on the larger end of things for their time
G. Hl
What a well made and researched video. Incredibly interesting topic too. How would Japanese WWII carriers compare to these, would be my next question now.
A thoughtful and informative dissertation.
Some of the comments are so funny, they had me in stitches. Quality post. Thank you Drac
As with all things its case of a 6 and two 3s. The choice boiled down to the expected threats. Neither design was perfect, but both were good enough. As always a well produced video.
Yes. Both doctrines were made for the tasks and problems of their respective environments. You can argue that a longsword is superior to a dagger, but if I'm sitting at a table across from my opponent, give me the dagger.
Armoured carrier worked well in the Pacific also as they were designed to take the punishment and survive
@@zzirSnipzz1 Armoured British carriers were a failure in the Pacific. They were slow, heavy, lacking range, guzzled fuel, couldn't turn, super small number of planes, and we had to give the British planes for their carriers 'cause the British did not have anything to fly off of it. What a drain on us!
@@chopchop7938not one brit carrier sank in the pacific or was put out of action, also in storms when you guys carrie light deck was destroyed during a typhoon when asked about damage sustained after by us guy the brits asked what typhoon as it caused absolutely no damage unlike your own, Same as your mustang we had to fix it to actually make it a proper plane even then all it had was range, our navy achieved as much as you guys with obsolete planes sadly because the fleet air arm was neglected all you guys had was fast ship turn out times so if one sank it didnt matter lol
Sounds more like 'Open-sea' vs 'Coastal' design philosophies
Love it. What a wonderful display of humor.
Happy Days....a new Drachinifel video, time for a cuppa....or maybe more properly, rum! 😉 Happy New Year matey!
Super keen for man the guns DLC for HOI4 and having to make these kind of decisions and testing them out. Also great video!
Tell you what though. I'd rather be on an Armoured flight Deck Carrier.
+Jon Clivaz Nah, US Navy ships had ice cream machines!
@@philipjooste9075 : U.S. Navy ships were dry - no booze except what you smuggled in, and you faced some disciplinary action if you were caught.. Royal Navy sailors not only could bring their own booze, but had a booze ration given to them - although drunkenness would be punished. On a personal level, yes, serving with the armored flight deck is a no-brainer. But on a fleet level, it's not that simple.
But which carrier type would you rather defend yourself against? Hehehe
@@lamwen03 The Armoured Carrier, smaller Air Group. But I'd rather attack an Unarmoured.
Jon Clivaz If it's a Japanese carrier, sure. If it's an American carrier, NO. Because any USN carrier you meet has a task force with it. Screw the armored-unarmored issue: Avoid the fleet with the best radar-guided CAP direction and most disgustingly dense and powerful AA suites of the war.
Great job on this contentious discussion. War planning and weapons system development for future battles is a giant gamble of precious different resources. Some things pan out and some don't.
I love your videos man. They are all, Outstanding .
They were two good concepts, each designed for their own specific operations, that homogenized into one great design concept. Points all 'round.
Anyone else imaging Squire as the captain of a British carrier as bombs bounce off the decks like cricket balls?
Yeeeeeeeeeees
can't miss such a scenario. A cup o' tea and some biscuits would pair best with it
Lockdown is giving me time to work through your back catalogue! Cracking stuff
Brilliant presentation. Thank you.
as a former sailor I know which one I'd rather serve on the choice between alcohol and ice-cream only strengthens my preference of being on a RN carrier of the period.
Jon south AMEN!
Jon south That says a lot about your character.
If you Brits didn't have our superior American planes on those little carriers of yours you wouldn't have been there at all.
@@chopchop7938 I take it those are US designed Supermarine Seafires in US markings aboard a US carrier at the 16:50 mark?
Jon south Guess that's why the USN employed ice-cream barges to produce ice-cream. Also heard ice cream was traded to destroyers for every downed pilot that they picked up. Of course my favorite story is the line for ice cream with two newly commissioned lieutenants (could be higher, can't recall now) who tried to use their rank to butt in front of the line. As they were trying to do so they heard someone clear his throat. There, standing in line, was Admiral Hasley, who basically said 'if I can wait in line so can you'. Don't discount ice-cream because you had a different experience. I don't know what your experience is as a sailor, it covers many areas from military to civilian.
Thank you so much for the fair and balanced appraisal of the armored-unarmored flight deck debate. I'm not very knowledgeable about the armored vs. unarmored flight deck debate, but the few essays and arguments I've read about it led me to a tentative-yet-similar conclusion: Both navies' designs were eminently useable and performed good service, and the choice between them is more about the sort of combat you're expecting and what tradeoffs you're willing to make rather than one design being flat-out better than the other.
Well done good sir! Very insightful. I am addicted to your channel!!!
Excellent video, I enjoyed this discussion very much.
Excellent video as always - now we just need a similar analysis of Japanese Carrier Design Philosophy ;-)
Yes a analysis of Japaneese carries would be very good and interesting. But we have to remember that Japan under its restriction because of limitied industrial and materiel resources could only build good enough I believe. And special consideration because they could never win a long war against USA.
The Japanese seemingly picked the worst design elements from Royal Navy and US carriers and used them in their own designs. Unarmored flight decks with fully enclosed hanger decks and smaller air groups turned out to be suboptimal. While an oversimplification, I think it illustrates that while the USN and Royal Navy had different design philosophies, they were well executed and resulted in good ships. Japanese carriers generally have more inherent design flaws which made them highly vulnerable to bomb damage.
Worst of both worlds indeed. Using a closed hangar prohibited planes starting their engines in the hangar deck for maintenance or warm-up. It made bringing planes to flight deck more man-power intensive because the planes had to be pushed all the way instead of simply guided while using their own power. And then they had to spend extra time on the flight deck warming up their engines because the start required full power and doing this with a cold engine is a good way to blow it. The benefits of open vs. closed hangar is the one topic I was missing in this video, but then it is not strichtly related to armored vs. unarmored flight decks (more to the amored box design) and might have unnecessarily muddled the water.
The Yorktown's 3 months repair after Coral Sea turned out to be 48 hours, as it managed to make it back in time to weigh in at the victory at Midway.
Don't the Yorktown sink at Midway
Thats true. But the 3 months was the estimate to get back to full capability, primarily due to damage to the propulsion. The 48hrs was just a patch job, she left Pearl unable to reach near her top speed as they didn't have time to look at the propulsion (she needed a lot of work on her boilers), along with a lot of other work undone. The (understandable) failure to repair the propulsion had a direct bearing on her loss at Midway as she could not manoeuvre as well.
You are correct one of the things about that repair or patch up is that Yorktown did not have full watertight integrity. Hence the captain ordered the abandoned ship somewhat prematurely it turned out. When you think of all the damage she still had onboard from Coral Sea and then you add the damage from the Battle of Midway oh, she still fought to stay afloat, a tough tough ship. A part of me fantasizes that the ship a spirit that fights for her crew. I know it isn't true but I still think it
Not mentioning that fact was a mistake IMHO.
@@mikebronicki6978 you mean sending her back out with just a patch job? They needed the third deck I understand why they did it.
Drach dude you make the best damned documentaries I have ever watched. Well-Done!
Brilliant post thanks! Your vids are pretty much broadcast quality, certainly better than most of the dross on TV these days! You need more subs!!
This is one of those debates that always seems subjective. I think by the end of WW2 both the Brits and the US had come to the realization that a hybrid of the two approaches was the best option. An armored and more heavily reinforced flight deck which proved so effective for the British, mixed with the US open Hanger design, that allowed for greater ventilation, emergency egress and speed and effectiveness of damage control. Thus to avoid problems such as those experienced by the Japanese Taiho, where the sealed armor box of the hanger deck allowed for the build up of explosive vapors from the breached aviation fuel bunkers, with no effective way to clear it sufficiently. The wooden decks needed to go, but keeping the hangers more open provided more operational benefits and in some circumstances was the more survivable option.
At the end of ww2 the US situation was much more similar to the British situation at the beginning; the most obvious threat being large numbers of land based aircraft.So it's no surprise that designs would start to show some similar characteristics.
It would be interesting to compare the USS Yorktown and HMS Ark Royal's resistance to torpedo damage only.
Very well done sir!
Well done and riveting analysis. You are a fantastic resource! Almost most like trying to compare Pens and Pencils, for each point, there is a counter point. Also being that no two hits are equal. Even the same torpedo depending on angle and precise location can have two drastically different results, just the right angle and at the worst (best) location can spell doom Vs survive-ability. This is even more so in the Kamikaze equation to to the wide variance in type and composition. So many Variables........
I think the main difference here is doctrine and also the likely opposition the two navies concerned here were likely to operate against, exactly as you say in the video. The British were primarily concerned with the German and Italian fleets in the North and Mediterranean seas which were more enclosed than the Pacific. They also correctly assumed they would come under intensive air attack by land based bombers which carried heavier bomb loads than most carrier aircraft. Also the British carrier force was not as numerous as the U.S. Navy's so a single ship lost was a real blow where as the Americans could replace most losses in fairly short order. So as for sea going and tactical survivability the British carriers had the edge but the U.S. Navy carriers were larger with more planes and they had more ships, vast amounts of replacement aircraft and extremely good supply chains to provide support so the loss of a carrier while not good was not the disaster it might initially seem. Both schools of thought have their merits. Ultimately a combination of both won the war and for many years after the war the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy were the only fleets on the planet that could deploy a carrier force thousands of miles from home to enforce a political agenda. If only we hadn't lost the colonies...
are you referring to the colonies who became the united states or the rest of the empire in the case of the first it is incredibly unlikely that had those colonies remained British they would have expanded westward at even 1/10 the pace as the united states meaning that it's unlikely that many of the needed resources that made America such an industrial Juggernaut would have been under those colonies control let alone the needed infrastructure to exploit said resources as for the rest of the empire full integration was Brittan's only hope of keeping them and the people of the time had no interest in making those colonies equal to the home isles i mean they weren't even interested in letting the Irish be equals and those were people on the next island over
"the british carrier force was not as numerous" The US had a carrier force of 28 large carriers v british 19 large carriers. But the US carriers were spread out all over the world. The US did have more light/support carriers that were generally used for escort and other roles that were far less glorious in the history books.
I think we're generally talking about the early war period here, obviously early war from the American perspective is like mid-war from the British point of view. Once both navies began to acquire escort carriers and such numbers of carriers wasn't as much of a factor. I'll actually amend my statement from the previous comment. The Royal Navy started the war with more carriers than the U.S. Navy but two were lost early on and others were smaller or much older than their American counterparts or not purpose built carriers. If you're referring to the later years of the war then yes Britain and American both had a lot more carriers at their disposal, of many varieties although both sides had global commitments to meet, for fleet carriers the main theatre was the Pacific.
Could you do a vid on post war stuff ups of ships and the bad luck that some ships seam to suffer from? The HMAS Melbourne comes to mind and its ability to cut friendly destroyers in half.
remember reading about her, after seeing the film "On the Beach" a 1959 submarine film about the end of the world, in which the HMAS Melbourne was featured.
Excellent presentation.
Brilliant analysis...my dad was in the navy. 36-52...hes gone now..would have loved your work
I realize the AA armament as built was specified for comparison between the ship types in this video but the Yorktown class had laughably inadequate AA protection as built for the air war they were being thrown into. Sure, the 5" guns were fairly effective, the 1.1" guns were meh but nothing more than a couple dozen .50 cal mounted to the rails? The 20mm has been described as being ineffective at stopping kamikazes but it sure was a step up from the .50 cal. The 40mm Bofors were a life saver which probably saved Enterprise from being lost during the various Solomon Island battles (whether mounted on Big E or used by her escorts).
The narrative regarding the USS Yorktown is not completely accurate. The ship was damaged at the Coral Sea, and returned to Pearl Harbor. Repairs were estimated to take between two weeks and three months. She was hastily repaired and set sail for Midway after 48 hours. She was still capable of conducting flight operations, albeit with reduced speed. At Midway, she suffered two damaging airstrikes from the Japanese. She was abandoned, but remained afloat, and was then reboarded by a repair crew of 170 men. The final, fatal *fourth* strike in this sequence was from a Japanese submarine, which sank both the Yorktown and the USS Hammann, a destroyer that was assisting the recovery effort. At about 26:40 you stated that the second airstrike was the fatal blow, but the ship was afloat with a damage control party aboard when two torpedoes from the submarine finally crippled her beyond all hope of repair. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-5)#Battle_of_Midway
She needed 3 months of repairs, she sailed with what they could afford time-wise and so wasn't fully operational. Hence my comment that the damage caused 3 months worth of repairs, she didn't get them, but she needed them. At Midway the ship was abandoned as the captain and crew felt she was doomed after the aerial torpedo strike. She was later re-boarded and put under tow, which is when the submarine torpedoes arrived, but practically speaking she was dead after the aerial strike as I don't believe she would've made it back.
@@Drachinifel it does *not* stand to reason that Yorktown "would not have made it back". Unless you believe that a work party of 170 men was ordered aboard a ship that was doomed. No, if not for the submarine attack she stood an excellent chance of survival.
@@mikebronicki6978 given the distance she had to travel, the stress that travel puts on a ruptured hull, the relatively minimal effect that the various efforts up to that point had made on the list, etc, I don't think the ship would have survived the journey. The party on board would not have been doomed through, there were ships in attendance and it wouldn't have just rolled over and sank all of a sudden, more likely would be either travel, weather, bulkheads failing or a combination of the above would have accelerated the flooding to the point it would be clear she couldn't be saved and they'd evacuate as the crew did the at first.
@@Drachinifel I would have to respectively disagree with you about that. First her condition was no more serious than the USS Franklin in 1945 and she made it back to Pearl Harbor Secondly her repair crews had done remarkable job in stabilizing the damage the distance she would have to go to get back to Pearl Harbor was significantly less than what the Franklin had to travel.
@@Drachinifel The salvage party successfully extinguished all remaining fires and corrected two degrees of list by cutting away the five inch guns on the port side and pushing some aircraft overboard.
Superb job. I loved many of the comments below. It is my belief the various designs worked well for the specific theater of operations, threats and logistics that needed to be encountered. Neither was wrong. Both were a balance.
Very very nice channel. I would love a review on the Regia Marina's Andrea Doria Battleship, not the class but the ship. I just love that ship