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Subject: Ideal World War Two RN
earlm    5/4/2008 3:13:32 PM
With hindsight what should the RN have done to be the best force possible for WW2? 1. Obtain better AA fire control from US. 2. Obtain US carrier based aircraft through lend lease. 3. Introduce a dual purpose 4.5-5" gun. (US 5"/38?) 4. Scrap the R class. 5. Save money on KGV and arm them with R class turrets with higher elevation. 6. Modernize Hood 7. Modernize Repulse
 
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larryjcr       5/8/2008 1:03:02 PM




The Japanese carrier doctrine was MUCH better than the USN.  They were operating up to six carriers as a group while the USN hadn't even attempted to practice with more than one in a group.  The aviation element wanted to use carriers as a striking force, but had nothing but theories (some of them badly wrong) about how to do it.

4. Incorrect. The US Navy had correctly come to the conclusion that it took remarkably few aircraft to wreck a carrier. Thus the USN doctrine, early in the war, like the Japanese doctrine: emphasized, find first, attack first and cripple the enemy flight deck. as a mode of defense The USN wargamed fighter defense and found the US naval fighters of the day FAILED. AAA wasn't good enough, either, to mass fires to stop either dive bombers or torpedo planes. The only USN defense that worked as late as 1942 was carrier dispersal and strike them first, so that a single enemy attack didn't catch everybody in the same strike sortie. At Coral Sea it helped. At Midway it was the DIFFERENCE. So as to contemporary US carrier tactics, you don't know what the hell you are talking about.  Only an effective AAA curtain, sheer numbers, and a strong fighter element with a competent GCI vector director  could guarantee defensive carrier group tactics would work.  Nobody had that until 1944. Until then the US dispersal defense of 1942 worked as long as a competent admiral handled it properly. Incidentally, that wasn't Fletcher.



At Midway, it wasn't doctrine that failed the Japanese, it was overconfidence, the assumption that they were going to win, and that the Americans would react when, and in the way that was expected of them.  Midway had been called a great victory against the odds.  True.  But it wasn't the number of ships or a/c that was the primary disadvantage the USN had to deal with.  The Japanese strategy and planning, along with the results of the Battle of the Coral Sea, had negated their advantage of numbers.  The long odds that the USN had to surmount was its own lack of an effective operational doctrine for either operating carriers together, or for operating air groups together.  Only YORKTOWN, managed to put a strike of more than two squadrons together and execute effectively.


5. Again with that BS. You do know that I discredited you on that previous Fletcher, Spruance  thread by citing the actual Midway Action Reports that showed the Enterprise got three carriers one shared with Hornet , and the Yorktown shared one with Enterprise? When are you going to stick to the FACTS? Aren't you tired of being beaten up?  I mean come  on! What was that strike on the Kurita SAG  or the strike Enterprise put over Akaga and Soryu?

 

The Japanese started the war with a very effective weapon that their enemies couldn't match for quality, but they made major mistakes in applying it, starting with sending only one division of carriers to the Coral Sea.  They allowed their force to be defeated in detail, thanks to a great deal of determination, and, at Midway, an unbelievable amount of sheer luck.  

6. Bullshit. Good intelligence and good planning produced solid results. [Nimitz and Spruance] To say otherwise flies in both the official records of the  USN and the IJN  as we have it recorded today.

a. The Japanese had no fighter director system whatsoever. The US was working on the rudiments of such in Fleet problem XVIII.
b. The USN had a carrier DOCTRINE based on their limitations as they understood it from wargaming into 1941. They used said  doctrine until 1943 against the Japanese. Despite bunglers like Halsey, it apparently worked well enough, so that even mediocre American admirals [Fletcher] could fight the Japanese outnumbered to a draw.

Wrong on 4, 5, and 6.  


Herald



4. Oh, you are so full of it your hair is floating.  The USN NEVER seriously examined the relative advantages of multi-carrier forces before P.H.  None of
 
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Wicked Chinchilla       5/8/2008 1:14:57 PM
I am going to have to take issue with one thing that you said larry.  Calling the Northern Operation a "waste of flight decks" is only correct in hindsight and due to good intelligence. 
 
Would those carriers have been more useful at Midway with the battle that unfolded?  Most certainly.  That is not a debate.  What you fail to address is that had the U.S. not had intelligence fingering Midway as the target than those carriers, with small air-wing capacity anyway, could have been invaluable.  The Japanese used them as a decoy.  Their decoys worked, just look at Leyte Gulf.  The U.S. Navy, without its intelligence coup, could easily have rushed to react to the Northern Operation and totally been slammed at Midway or forced to engage at a disadvantage.  It is only by the skill of the intel guys that the dicey situation at Midway wasnt turned into a near unavoidable disaster because of those "wasted flight decks."
 
In the beauty of revisionist hindsight it is all too easy to say that those carriers would have been far far more use at Midway, but thats because the Japanese plan was found out. 
 
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larryjcr       5/8/2008 1:57:13 PM




I think that the RN made the right decision in concentrating on the SOUTHAMPTON class over the 8" gun classes or the smaller LEANDERs.  Until about mid-1943 when radar fire control forced increased spacing of salvoes, the large 6" gun ships were more effective surface fighters than the 8" gun types of the same tonnage.  The LEANDERs were useful for patrolling distant oceans in peacetime (which is what they were built for) but no match for the larger modern cruisers in any sort of fleet operation.  The DIDOs were a very good investment for their size and filled very important functions.  They were about as good as the LEANDERs in general service, and much more effective as air defense units.

7. For a navy that was short of fleet trains but which had a global base system in the light of the aircraft technology of the day. the small patrol cruiser that could function as a convoy escort against surface raiders and U-boats makes senseThe main threat to Britain as seen was NOT Japan. it was Germany.  This correct build program decision proved out during the Battle of the River Plate, where two Leanders and a York class heavy cruiser put an end to Graf Spee.

8. Leanders were much cheaper than Didos, which were properly very expensive AAA defense ships, to be used in company with scarce  British carriers;  sort of like the Atlantas were supposed to be used with US carriers to provide a AAA screen and bodyguard ship.


The Tribal class certainly gave very good service, but they were very expensive to build.  The smaller four and six gun classes were a better investment, in view of the RNs shortage of escort types generally.  They were better ASW units than the Tribals and could be built more quickly.  It was something (anything) like the Flowers and the HUNTs that were needed really desperately.  At least the RN started building new destroyers years before the USN did.


9. The British needed some large screen destroyers to serve with their capital units that could keep up with the fleet at SPEED and range.

a. The Tribals were it-the equivalent of the US Fletchers, though nowhere as good a AAA ship [though a better ASW escort it turns out].  The Flowers and whatever other corvettes would do until the Germans introduced their electric U-boats, then the British would have to build a class of fast frigates ton pace them.
 

b. The 4 and 6 gun destroyers were too light to stand in a Pacific carrier battle as AAA pickets. Virtually most, of the RN destroyer classes, fell far short of the air defense standards needed, even in the 1940 Mediterranean. The British needed to get that 4.5 DP gun they design bungled to work. The 4 inch x position turret stopgap they tried on many of their midwar refitted destroyer classes wasn't going to do it, in a serious naval war against a first rate naval enemy like Japan.

Wrong on 7, 8, and 9.

Herald



7 and 8.  You're the one who was recommending building more LEANDERS, and 8" gun cruisers.  The RN, showed good judgement when they ended construction of LEANDERS before the beginning of the war.  While comparatively cheap, they were just too limited in capabilities.  What they needed WAS AAA escort ships, which they tried to make out of some of the old C and D class ships, with mixed results.  The DIDOs were what was needed, and could do a LEANDER's job as well as it could if needed.  The SOUTHAMPTONs were much more flexible ships than the older 8" gun cruisers, and just as good, or better, in a surface action until the fire control radar improved enough to make spacing the salvoes so that the radar could plot fall of shot became a factor. 
 
At River Plate, (a very interesting action, by the way) one eight inch cruiser and two LEANDERS proved a match for a single armored curiser with heavier guns and armor, and drove it into port.&nb
 
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Herald12345    Strike One   5/9/2008 9:11:11 PM
1. Well, ONE of us clearly doesn't know what he's talking about.  Note the use of the word 'scuttled'. 

The Midway carriers were killed -- destroyed -- by fire.  The burning hulks were eventually scuttled by torpedoes, but that's all they were by then -- hulks that had been warships, but had been damaged far beyond any possibility of repair.  Same with HORNET, PRINCETON etc.  This is rather like claiming that sinking a fishing boat is a naval battle.


That would still be you. Larry.


Sinking a radio picket guard boat during a battle. Get it straight nitpicker. You won't be permitted to try to slide a misstatement of historic fact into this discussion.


I'm going to tell you this one time, and I expect you to understand it, Larry. The mechanism each chose to scuttle their carriers is the TORPEDO. Get it? T.O.R.P.E.D.O. They didn't open sea cocks and flood the bilges. They broke a carriers keel and sank it with torpedoes so that it couldn't be captured reverse engineered, trophied, or used. Scuttle is when you sink yourself. I addressed the HOW. Now that I squared you away on this little factoid; let's deal with the rest of your nonsense.


LEXINGTON and TAIHO  were both lost to a series of events that started with torpedo hits (plus bomb hits in the case of LEX., but were destroyed by fires resulting from explosions of avgas fumes.  In each case the immediate damage caused by the torpedoes had been dealt with, flooding under control and the ships were prepared to operate a/c.  The proximate cause of the explosions was, in each case, an error in damage control efforts.  In LEXINGTON this was an error of omission -- failure to shut down an electric generating unit located near the avgas leak.  In TAIHO is was an error of commission -- the attempt to use power tools to free the jammed a/c elevator without purging the ship of avgas fumes first.


Sunk by torpedoes. Otherwise they would have been towed home by SOMEBODY as a war trophy.


WASP and SHINANO (due largely to incomplete compartmentalization) were certainly torpedo kills.  YORKTOWN was also finally killed by the I-boat attack, but only after surviving both bombs and torpedoes as the resulting fires, and all the other fleet carriers mentioned were destroyed by fire.


Hulks are not destroyed for use until they are SUNK. This little fact seems to escape you.

 

ARK ROYAL's loss to torpedo damage was largely due to the engine room arrangement, which was duplicated in the four ILLUSTRIOUS class ships, none of which was ever hit by a torpedo, so the question of their ability to survive such hits remains only a theory.  Again, you're ducking the real problem.  ARK ROYAL was the only RN carrier with adequate a/c capacity.  The  USN would cheerfully have traded either WASP or RANGER (especially RANGER) for ARK ROYAL.  The ILLUSTRIOUS class were basically huge, expensive, armored CVLs.  This was acceptable because all that was expected of them was scouting and CAP for a battleship force. 


Incorrect. You are forgetting the British PTF? What carriers were used? No American admiral would use the British carriers without British crews, nor could he. Different tech trees-totally different tech trees. Not even the ammunition was the same for the primary AAA guns.

 

The TBF was available by the time the Barracuda was.  What I said was that the Albacore wasn't enough improvement on the Swordfish (note that the Albacore was retired BEFORE the Swordfish it was supposed to replace) to be worth the cost of development and production interruption and the Barracuda wasn't worth doing at all.  Brown (DUELS IN THE SKY) considered the Skua an excellent dive bomber, but tricky to land on board (but no worse than a Sea Spitfire) and was also critical of its stall characteristics.  Still, the big problem was that RN carriers didn't have enough capacity for dive bombers as well a fighter and torpedo a/c.  If I recall correctly, the first serious German warship sunk by RN a/c was dive bombed by Skuas. 


The Barracuda is not available in 1939, neither is the Avenger. Got it? You have the Swordfish and the Fulmar . You have to make do with your tech tree. No miracles. The Albacore was sturdy enough to take a better engine but wasn

 
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Herald12345    Strike One   5/10/2008 12:52:17 AM

4. Oh, you are so full of it your hair is floating.  The USN NEVER seriously examined the relative advantages of multi-carrier forces before P.H.  None of the Fleet Exercises involved two or more carriers operating together.  Unlike the Japanese, there was no realistic training in air group sized strikes and NONE AT ALL involving two or more groups together, which is why the Japanese were so much better at it during most of '42.   The Japanese doctrine made the air group the TOTAL a/c of BOTH carriers of a division, not that of a single ship.  It made possible coordinated wave attacks while the US air groups were fumbling with multi-deck load launche

 

A. You don't know what you are talking about as usual, Larry.

Fleet Problem X-XIII had Lexington and Saratoga go up against each other usually with the Langley aiding one of them. As soon as Ranger came onboard it was two on two or three on one, or all against landbased air. The Pearl Harbor attack was a FAVORITE. At the NWC they table-topped multi-carrier engagements [Spruance ran some of those problems]

B. What the NWC table-topped either became a Fleet Problem or the Fleet Problem was simmed, but the exercises were usually collaborated so that everybody commanding had a whack at it and understood what the fleet was trying to do.


On the other hand, the US AAA was far better than the Japanese, due to radar.  Without radar, the IJN air defense doctrine was to concentrate the carriers tightly and spread the escorts around them in a circle five to seven miles in radius to spot the incoming attack and direct the CAP Zeroes to intercept by firing the warships main guns at the attackers.  That meant that the CAP (who didn't carry radios) tended to mob the first attacking force encountered and were unable to react to any other strike groups, and that the attack force would be shot at by one or two escorts crossing the 'ring' and would then have to deal only with the AAA of the carriers themselves.


First of all the Japanese used the AAA Hotchkiss 25mm triple mount


Effective slant range on it was 4000 meters. It was fed clips of 15 rounds each jammed like crazy and was aimed by a guy pointing a sword at an aircraft while the gunner followed in train bearing and elevation used a segmented ring sight.


Second; The USN used the Chicago Piano as its standard AAA mount. That was the 28 mm/60 caliber auto-cannon that had an effective slant range of 4000 meters , was fed 7 round clips in a vertical feed, jammed like crazy and was aimed by a gunner using an unreliable mechanical track lead that the gunner laid by following where the gun captain pointed at plane until the gunner put the plane into a segmented ring sight.


Third: the Japanese used flash charges to point their fighters in the direction their fire control optical directors saw enemy aircraft come in to attack.


Fifth: US radar at Midway was ineffective beyond thirty nautical miles.


Sixth: Japanese picket ships occupied the compass points around the carriers. The rest of the escorts were in a C-shaped ASW formation. Standard drill was every ship for herself, when under air attack maneuvering to dodge bombs or torpedoes. Nobody covered a sky arc.


Seventh: US carrier separation was thirty miles. When the Hiryu attacked Yorktown, the ENTIRE US CAP swung around and went out to meet the raid-all twelve of them-which was the average American CAP size for Midway by the way. Concentration of carriers in the same location didn't matter. The CAP failed because there weren't fighters-not because there weren't enough carriers.


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eldnah       5/10/2008 1:15:49 PM







Agree on all.  The Fulmar was really a non-starter as a fighter.  It was one of the bad results of RAF control of carrier a/c development prior to the mid-1930s.  When the RN finally got control back they had no one knowledgeable on a/c with enough rank to influence decision making, hence the idea that a naval fighter needed a navigator on board.  Better to go with the Sea Hurricane until the Grumman F4F was available as a fighter, stick to the Skua as primary strike a/c until a development of the Battle/Fulmar layout could be developed (Firefly), stick to the Swordfish as torpedo a/c until the TBFs were available.  The Albacore wasn't enough improvement on the Swordfish to be worth the effort and the Barracuda wasn't worth the effort to develop.

You have to start somewhere.  The problem with the Fulmar was that it was grossly underpowered with a rather weak aeroshell.  RN funds were limited so I regard the suggestion to stick with the Swordfish for torpedo work and introduce the Sea Hurricane as sound until the Firefly was ready. The RN had a good air-dropped torpedo and a tough little bird in the Swordfish; so you could get away with it, the Swordfish, flying against crap German and Japanese naval AAA for your torpedo work as long as you didn't have Zekes to bother you. The Firefly gives you the longer ranged strike fighter suitable for the yoyos you are likely to meet over the ocean in the European theater, which are mainly Italian Machis, Savoias, some junk German Junkers, the occasional brave Heinkel and the Dornier or two along with the pesky Arados. German air-dropped torpedoes were almost as bad as American ones, so your big carrier heartburn would be SM 79 Sparrowhawks with their SI 400/536 torpedoes or the Japanese Kates with the Type 91 torpedo. The Firefly or the Sea Hurricane should handle both threats easily. The Wildcat did, and it wasn't that great a fighter.    



Build improved ARK ROYALs instead of the ILLUSTRIOUS class.  The armored flight deck was nice to have, but it wasn't worths a fifty per cent reduction in a/c capacity.  Again this was based on RN belief that a/c carriers were just a scouting element and fighter protection for the BBs, rather than a striking force in their own right.

Disagree. The Ark Royal was poorly designed to resist torpedo and underwater shock damage. Except for Midway, where the Japanese scuttled burned out hulks , they couldn't tow  home, the chief  cause of carrier  death during WW II, was below the waterline torpedo hits that sank the carrier. Most of the Japanese carriers not scuttled as bombed hulks were torpedo kills either by US submarine or torpedo bomber. The obverse was also true. Most British carriers lost were torpedo kills. The Illustrious had a better bubble and was more shock resistant than Ark Royal. She was also cheaper and quicker to build. More RN carriers in a hurry was essential. Improved Illustrious carriers  bulged , blistered and with proper attention paid to deck hardstand and hanger height would make a fifty-sixty  plane capacity carrier possible on 25,000 tonnes displacement . The Japanese competed with carriers of that size range.



Of course, all of this is totally based on hindsight, so it's nothing but an intellectual exercise.  The Japanese were the only ones who took the idea of a carrier striking force seriously.  The USN talked about it as a theory, but made no actual effort to develop the idea in practice until the sudden demonstration of the OBBs vulnerability to air attack forced dependence on carrier based Task Forces.  The Royal Navy seems to have barely considered the possibility, hence the design of a 23000 ton carrier class with a capacity of 36 a/c, but plenty of armor to provide protection against the gunfire of enemy surface ships.



 If the Japanese knew what they were doing, how do you explain Midway [Nagumo]? That was flatout  a textbook example of how to use carriers WRONG. Santa Cruz, Eastern Solomons and the Turkey Shoot
 
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eldnah       5/10/2008 1:15:53 PM







Agree on all.  The Fulmar was really a non-starter as a fighter.  It was one of the bad results of RAF control of carrier a/c development prior to the mid-1930s.  When the RN finally got control back they had no one knowledgeable on a/c with enough rank to influence decision making, hence the idea that a naval fighter needed a navigator on board.  Better to go with the Sea Hurricane until the Grumman F4F was available as a fighter, stick to the Skua as primary strike a/c until a development of the Battle/Fulmar layout could be developed (Firefly), stick to the Swordfish as torpedo a/c until the TBFs were available.  The Albacore wasn't enough improvement on the Swordfish to be worth the effort and the Barracuda wasn't worth the effort to develop.

You have to start somewhere.  The problem with the Fulmar was that it was grossly underpowered with a rather weak aeroshell.  RN funds were limited so I regard the suggestion to stick with the Swordfish for torpedo work and introduce the Sea Hurricane as sound until the Firefly was ready. The RN had a good air-dropped torpedo and a tough little bird in the Swordfish; so you could get away with it, the Swordfish, flying against crap German and Japanese naval AAA for your torpedo work as long as you didn't have Zekes to bother you. The Firefly gives you the longer ranged strike fighter suitable for the yoyos you are likely to meet over the ocean in the European theater, which are mainly Italian Machis, Savoias, some junk German Junkers, the occasional brave Heinkel and the Dornier or two along with the pesky Arados. German air-dropped torpedoes were almost as bad as American ones, so your big carrier heartburn would be SM 79 Sparrowhawks with their SI 400/536 torpedoes or the Japanese Kates with the Type 91 torpedo. The Firefly or the Sea Hurricane should handle both threats easily. The Wildcat did, and it wasn't that great a fighter.    



Build improved ARK ROYALs instead of the ILLUSTRIOUS class.  The armored flight deck was nice to have, but it wasn't worths a fifty per cent reduction in a/c capacity.  Again this was based on RN belief that a/c carriers were just a scouting element and fighter protection for the BBs, rather than a striking force in their own right.

Disagree. The Ark Royal was poorly designed to resist torpedo and underwater shock damage. Except for Midway, where the Japanese scuttled burned out hulks , they couldn't tow  home, the chief  cause of carrier  death during WW II, was below the waterline torpedo hits that sank the carrier. Most of the Japanese carriers not scuttled as bombed hulks were torpedo kills either by US submarine or torpedo bomber. The obverse was also true. Most British carriers lost were torpedo kills. The Illustrious had a better bubble and was more shock resistant than Ark Royal. She was also cheaper and quicker to build. More RN carriers in a hurry was essential. Improved Illustrious carriers  bulged , blistered and with proper attention paid to deck hardstand and hanger height would make a fifty-sixty  plane capacity carrier possible on 25,000 tonnes displacement . The Japanese competed with carriers of that size range.



Of course, all of this is totally based on hindsight, so it's nothing but an intellectual exercise.  The Japanese were the only ones who took the idea of a carrier striking force seriously.  The USN talked about it as a theory, but made no actual effort to develop the idea in practice until the sudden demonstration of the OBBs vulnerability to air attack forced dependence on carrier based Task Forces.  The Royal Navy seems to have barely considered the possibility, hence the design of a 23000 ton carrier class with a capacity of 36 a/c, but plenty of armor to provide protection against the gunfire of enemy surface ships.



 If the Japanese knew what they were doing, how do you explain Midway [Nagumo]? That was flatout  a textbook example of how to use carriers WRONG. Santa Cruz, Eastern Solomons and the Turkey Shoot
 
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Herald12345    Eldnah brief reply.   5/10/2008 3:50:33 PM
On Strategy Page is a thread where I give a complete answer about Halsey. He forced Kincaid into a carrier battle beyond US land based air cover during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. I blame him for First Guadalcanal, the Battle of Bull's Run, the two typhoons, the botched mess that is Leyte Gulf, bungling the follow up naval campaign that allowed the Japanese to reinforce Ormoc by sea. There were numerous other botched decisions that Halsey made for which I wish he had been relieved.

Herald      .
 
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Herald12345       5/10/2008 6:29:28 PM

and 8.  You're the one who was recommending building more LEANDERS, and 8" gun cruisers.  The RN, showed good judgement when they ended construction of LEANDERS before the beginning of the war.  While comparatively cheap, they were just too limited in capabilities.  What they needed WAS AAA escort ships, which they tried to make out of some of the old C and D class ships, with mixed results.  The DIDOs were what was needed, and could do a LEANDER's job as well as it could if needed.  The SOUTHAMPTONs were much more flexible ships than the older 8" gun cruisers, and just as good, or better, in a surface action until the fire control radar improved enough to make spacing the salvoes so that the radar could plot fall of shot became a factor. 


What eight inch bore gun cruisers? The Londons and the Southhamptons are 6 inch bore gun cruisers the last time I looked.


The reason for a Leander is fairly simple.


?http://www.navy.gov.au/spc/history/ships/perth1.html?


Modified Leander

HMAS PERTH (I)

Statistics

Type

Light Cruiser Modified 'Leander' Class

Displacement

6,830 tons (standard)

Length

555 feet (waterline), 530 feet (between perpendiculars)

Beam

56 feet 8 inches

Draught

15 feet 8 inches

Builder

Portsmouth Naval Dockyard

Laid Down

26 June 1933

Launched

26 July 1934, by the Marchioness of Titchfield

Machinery

4 Parsons geared turbines

Horsepower

72,000

Speed

32.5 knots

 
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larryjcr       5/11/2008 2:21:25 AM

1. Well, ONE of us clearly doesn't know what he's talking
about.  Note the use of the word 'scuttled'. 

The
Midway carriers were killed -- destroyed -- by fire.  The
burning hulks were eventually scuttled by torpedoes, but that's all
they were by then -- hulks that had been warships, but had been
damaged far beyond any possibility of repair.  Same with HORNET,
PRINCETON etc.  This is rather like claiming that sinking a
fishing boat is a naval battle.





That would still be you. Larry.





Sinking a radio picket guard boat
during a battle. Get it straight nitpicker. You won't be permitted to
try to slide a misstatement of historic fact into this discussion.





I'm going to tell you this one
time, and I expect you to understand it, Larry. The mechanism each
chose to scuttle their carriers is the TORPEDO. Get it?
T.O.R.P.E.D.O. They didn't open sea cocks and flood the bilges. They
broke a carriers keel and sank it with torpedoes so that it
couldn't be captured reverse engineered, trophied, or used. Scuttle
is when you sink yourself. I addressed the HOW. Now that I squared
you away on this little factoid; let's deal with the rest of your
nonsense.





LEXINGTON and TAIHO  were both lost to a series of events
that started with torpedo hits (plus bomb hits in the case of LEX.,
but were destroyed by fires resulting from explosions of avgas
fumes.  In each case the immediate damage caused by the
torpedoes had been dealt with, flooding under control and the ships
were prepared to operate a/c.  The proximate cause of the
explosions was, in each case, an error in damage control efforts. 
In LEXINGTON this was an error of omission -- failure to shut down an
electric generating unit located near the avgas leak.  In TAIHO
is was an error of commission -- the attempt to use power tools to
free the jammed a/c elevator without purging the ship of avgas fumes
first.





Sunk by torpedoes. Otherwise they
would have been towed home by SOMEBODY as a war trophy.





WASP and SHINANO (due largely to incomplete compartmentalization)
were certainly torpedo kills.  YORKTOWN was also finally killed
by the I-boat attack, but only after surviving both bombs and
torpedoes as the resulting fires, and all the other fleet
carriers mentioned were destroyed by fire.





Hulks are not destroyed for use
until they are SUNK. This little fact seems to escape you.


 


ARK ROYAL's loss to torpedo damage was largely due to the engine
room arrangement, which was duplicated in the four ILLUSTRIOUS class
ships, none of which was ever hit by a torpedo, so the question of
their ability to survive such hits remains only a theory. 
Again, you're ducking the real problem.  ARK ROYAL was the only
RN carrier with adequate a/c capacity.  The  USN would
cheerfully have traded either WASP or RANGER (especially RANGER) for
ARK ROYAL.  The ILLUSTRIOUS class were basically huge,
expensive, armored CVLs.  This was acceptable because all that
was expected of them was scouting and CAP for a battleship force. 





Incorrect. You are forgetting the
British PTF? What carriers were used? No American admiral would use
the British carriers without British crews, nor could he. Different
tech trees-totally different tech trees. Not even the ammunition was
the same for the primary AAA guns.


 


The TBF was available by the time the Barracuda was.  What I
said was that the Albacore wasn't enough improvement on the Swordfish
(note that the Albacore was retired BEFORE the Swordfish it was
supposed to replace) to be worth the cost of development and
production interruption and the Barracuda wasn't worth doing at all. 
Brown (DUELS IN THE SKY) considered the Skua an excellent dive
bomber, but tricky to land on board (but no worse than a Sea
Spitfire) and was also critical of its stall characteristics.&nb

 
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