I'll respond to this monster post of yours in parts. 

LEXINGTON and SARATOGA were  ALWAYS on opposite sides in exercises as far as I've been able to discover.  If you can cite me a specific example otherwise, please do.  By the way, that's the reason for the wide black strip on the side of SARA's stack structure seen in pre war pictures.  The two ships were often mistaken for each other in the exercises, and their captains sometime took advantage of the mistakes.  LANGLEY was used, but was so small and slow it was effectively useless, and I don't consider the attempts to use it worth considering.

 

RANGER spent its time in the Atlantic and almost never operated with the other carriers.  It was considered a failure.  It was slower and shorter range, and kept sea so poorly that it was not possible to operate her a/c except in very calm seas. 

 

Attackin Pearl Harbor as an exercisse subject was done twice, each time with one carrier attacking and one defending.  Same with attacks on the Panama Canal, which was another popular subject.

 

Table topping is useful ONLY if you have some real world experience to support the assumptions you make.  Remember, the Japanese famously table topped the Midway operation, and it sure didn't come out like the real thing.

 

Again, the USN had NO experience in operating two carriers together, either in a single formation, or in seprate formations.  Nor had they ever actually practice full group sized strikes under anything like realistic conditions (carrying full ammo and fuel loads and full weight weapons rather than light weight training equipment, let alone weight for additional armor, etc.).  If anyone cosidered the problems of launching multi-deckload strikes prior to 1942, I've found no record of it.

 

Prior to Dec. 7, '41 the Pacific Fleet carriers were divided with one each assigned to three different forces.  The carrier force had ENTERPRISE (YORKTOWN had gone to the Atlantic), LEXINGTON worked with the battleship force, and SARATOGA with the Scouting force.

Better go back to your references.  The LONDON class were 8" gun cruisers.  Completed in the late 1920s, 9800 tons, 8X8", 8x4"AA, 8-16X2lbr AA, 32 kts, 1 (except in LONDON 3) a/c.

Yes that's right. Most of what I typed on that was from memory. That should have been Edinburgh or something like that. You get one point.

 

The original point of this thread was what could the RN have done differently, in the light of hindsight.  I understand why they did what they did.  That's not the point.  You seemed to want them to build more LEANDERS, I contend that they were right to discontinue building them when they did.

I wrote what they did, based on what they knew, and what threats they faced and what tech they had made a lot of RN mission SENSE. If it works well, and fits the RN situation, why not build more of  it? I mean the 6 inch bore twin gun turret worked against the design set of likely targets, the 4 inch bored gun AAA worked well against its likely target set, the torpedo outfit was reasonable for the European threat of the day, and the size  displacement was reasonable for an ocean going escort. Where the shortcomings were, were in the fire control directors and the secondary AAA armament. Borfors and radar will fix that. The cruiser even has a seaplane that is a useful ASW asset if you use it properly. Whats not to like in this GP cruiser?  

 

By Coral Sea, the USN had already increased AAA on its ships considerably, although nothing compared to what they did later.  The AAA for Benson-Livermore was "as designed" not as operated in May, '42.  Same for the cruisers, and especially for the carriers.  The Japanese found the US flak to be terrifyingly superior to their own.  Check out the a/c lossed suffered by CarDiv5 at Coral Sea.  In spite of the inadequate number of fighters they lost two-thirds of their attacking force.

Of 70 Japanese aircraftn lost, 39 shot down due to US AIR INTERCEPT  ACTION[Wildcat and Dauntless versus Zeke Val and Kate]   over the Lex [we lost 33 aircraft in that action] and the majority of the Japmese remainder lost either  being bombed on the  Shokaku's flight deck or splashed into the ocean after running out of gas after bungling an attack on Yorktown. Losses to American AAA, ZILCH. Pilot repiorts on the American side reported Japanese AAA to be pretty.

 

Again, most of what you put up has little to do with my points.  Not much of a rebuttle.

source citation pdf....

As you can see my assessment of the Fleet Problems is accurate and your assessment is not.

Have a nice evening.

Herald

their homebrewed SSL cert is the bunk, Herald.  Do you get an Unknown Authority cert error  loading your link, https://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/2658/etd-tamu-2005B-HIST-Wadle.pdf;jsessionid=99E5E3C823D957119DBB3EF1E8D5AB29?sequence=1

h*tps://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/2658/etd-tamu-2005B-HIST-Wadle.pdf;jsessionid=99E5E3C823D957119DBB3EF1E8D5AB29?sequence=1

I do. 

I don't.

UNITED STATES NAVY FLEET PROBLEMS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF
CARRIER AVIATION, 1929-1933
A Thesis
by
RYAN DAVID WADLE  

BTW, both you and Larry come across as quite well informed and erudite.  Even your typing is better! ;>  Not all the same information shared yet among you, but that's why this has been worth reading. 

Maybe its a difference of interpretation with Larry, but his problem is that he  completely  overrates everybody's capabilities in the 1930s and seem to buy into naval revisionism as published in the 1990s instead at lookiong at what is going on in the scholarship NOW.  The USN was not some mythical technical innovator in AAA artillery until after the war starts and then not until 1944. The British were not some bunch of backward looking rubes and the Japanese and Germans were not some miracle workers. Each Navy had its triumphs and its fiascoes. [well maybe not the Germans who fought a terrible naval war  tactically, operationally and technologically.].

May I ask whether skip-bombing by naval aircraft could have served any useful purpose, or did you need land-based e.g. B-17s to bring a sufficient quantity of the pain?

The B-17 could bring the pain. I would have used the Mitchell, but there was no skip bombing in  June 1942 and the Mitychells available were desperately needed in Papua/New Guinea.

The Australians in mid 1942 I think, and the British in the Mediterranean experimented with skip bombing about this time. It was perfected by ANZACs and Americans in the first half of 1943.

What a/c would Midway Island have best been reinforced with?  B-25s perhaps, it can carry four bombs to a very long patrol range.  Although as is known the land-based bombing was largely ineffectual, couldn't this have been otherwise with the early adoption of skip-bombing?

Skip bombing with medium bombers against ships was a low level exercise. The Japanese  tried a variation of this  type of tactic against the USS Lexington before Coral Sea and Lexington's fighters SLAUGHTERED them.  It only works if you completely suppress the enemy fighter CAP.

This would be a pure advance in the tech tree, H, or earlier adoption of an extant concept?  When invented, skip-bombing, when conceived?

Around later half of 1942. Its a technique, not a new technology beyond the existing equipment or crews.

A 72% success rate is almost too good.  Who needs PGMs?

We did. The AAA by 1944 was too murderous to inside of 4000 meters to survive in order tom skip bomb, even Japanese  AAA.

But we had the beginnings of these.  Did they prove out much at sea?

Five BATS launched, at least two hits and destroyer sinkings. A BAT in 1941 means Torpedo 8 launches BATs to wreck Nagumo's carriers  at Midway beyond Japanese fighter CAP and  then they return with torpedoes in round two to finish the job. Trouble is that the BAT requires gyro autopilot control and airborne radars that we just didn't have until 1944. 

Just because your orders don't make sense and your command arrangements are confused-doesn't excuse BUNGLING and criminal STUPIDITY.

Let me remind you of what was the REALITY when the Bull chased after Ozawa.

1. The follow up reconnaissance launched by Bogan found Kurita had turned around and was headed straight for San Bernardino Strait and that those ships appeared to be in good order and formation.
2. US  Army reported San Bernardino  channel lights were lit up  like a  Christmas  spectacle. Somebody expected somebody to make a night run through the Strait.