USN carrier night fighters

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Mind how you go skimm cheers

[plan_D]

The attack on Pearl Harbour has been said to have been learnt from a lot of places. However, Yamamoto's chief of staff (I forget his name) was in Taranto at the time of the Taranto raid by H.M.S Illustrious (Was it Illustrious or Indomitable, I forget).

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Illustrious D
It was meant to be a joint affair with the Eagle but she was old had boiler trouble and the Regia Aeronautica high level bombing attacks effected the aircraft fueling supply lines of the now ancient Eagle. The systems finally gave up the ghost aided by near misses this just left the one carrier Illustrious with 21 planes some of which had transferred from Eagle to carry out the attack.

[Andrew]

The worlds first proper Aircraft Carrier ie: a ship that you can land aircraft on was HMS Argus, she was the partly completed Italian Liner called Conte Rosso and was commissioned in September 1918, used mostly for training during WW2.

HMS Eagle was the next Aircraft Carrier, this was the partly completed Cillean Battleship Almirante Cochrane, commissioned on the 2nd February 1924.

The next RN Aircraft Carrier was HMS Hermes, laid down 15 Jan 1918, launched 11 Septmber 1919 and commissioned July 1924, this was the worlds first ship designed as an Aircraft Carrier from the outset.

HMS Corageous HMS Glorious & HMS Furious were all rebuilt as Aircraft Carriers between 1924 & 1930, these were all ex Light Battle Cruisers, HMS Furious was completed with a flight deck forward and 1 X 18" Gun aft, Courgegous and Glorious were completed as Light Battle Cruisers with Twin 15" Gun turrets 1 forward & 1 Aft, these Guns & Turrets were eventually used on HMS Vanguard.

HMS Ark Royal was Commissioned on the 16th November 1938.

By the start of WW2 the RN had 7 Aircraft Carriers in commission although 6 of these were getting very long in the tooth by then.

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I think i better start a carrier thread in the shipping section sorry for taking the subject off thread guys it was my fault.

[R Leonard]

Ummm. the operative words are "designed and built as Fleet Carriers". HMS Ark Royal was launched 13 April 1937, and commissioned 16 Nov 1938.

Pre-dating Ark Royal into fleet service as designed and built for purpose fleet carriers were USS Ranger, USS Yorktown, and USS Enterprise. Ranger was launched 25 February 1933, and commissioned 4 June 1934. Yorktown was launched on 4 April 1936, and commissioned on 30 September 1937. Enterprise was 3 October 1936, and commissioned 12 May 1938. I suppose one could present a convincing argument that Ranger, though designated a fleet carrier, was, in the long view based strictly on tonnage, somewhat smaller than a fleet carrier, but larger than a light carrier . . . somehere in between. Damn those treaty restrictions!!!

HMS Hermes, as Andrew noted was a designed and built for purpose aircraft carrier, but would tend to be included in the Light Carrier category on the basis of size, tonnage, and, most importantly, complement.

The first Japanese carrier was Japanese IJMS Hosho, usually noted as the first design and built for purpose aircraft carrier, Hosho, in fact, started life as a tanker, laid down 16 Dec 1919, redesignated as a carrier 13 October 1921, launched 13 Nov 1921, and completed 27 Dec 1922. Hosho, like USS Langley of about the same vintage (renamed and converted from the collier USS Jupiter, starting around 11 April 1920 and recommissloned 20 March 1922), was essentially an experimental carrier. Hermes could also tend to fall into the experimental category if you want to stretch the definition a bit. Also Hermes has the dubious distiction of being the first aircraft carrier sunk by aircraft from an enemy carrier (9 April 1942). Langley, sunk on 27 February 1942, had already been converted to a seaplane tender and was serving as an aircraft transport when sunk by land based aircraft. Of these three experimental carriers, then, only Hosho survived to the end of WW2.

Regards,

Rich

[HealzDevo]

All quite interesting information. I really think this whole thread should be shifted to the shipping section of the site as it is all quite good information you people have given.

[maxs75]

The first ship projected and built as a carrier was the Japanese Hosho IIRC. The first British was Hermes, the first US was Ranger CV-4 and the first French was Foch class (the Joffre class was incomplete due to the fall of France in 1940).
Anyway the british carrier Argus was very modern (as concept).

Max

[Andrew]

R Leonard Quoted

HMS Hermes, as Andrew noted was a designed and built for purpose aircraft carrier, but would tend to be included in the Light Carrier category on the basis of size, tonnage, and, most importantly, complement.

I agree with you, but as built HMS Hermes was clasified as a Fleet Carrier, although her displacement was about 4,000 tons lighter than HMS Argus, and nearly 11,000 tons lighter than HMS Eagle, I cannot remember reading anything about her being reclasified as a Light Fleet Carrier, but that might have happened when the 3 Courageouse Class Battlecruisers were rebuilt as Fleet Carriers.

Maxs75 Quoted

The first ship projected and built as a carrier was the Japanese Hosho IIRC

Hosho was the first ship projected and built as a carrier to be commisioned she was laid down 16.12.1919 Launched 13.11.1921 and commissioned 27.12.1922.

Whereas HMS Hermes was laid down 15/01/1918 launched 11/09/1919 but not commissioned until July 1923, the reason she took so long to be commissioned, was that they couldn't work out what sort of navigation bridge they were going to give her, and used Argus to experiment with several bridge designs, including a rising bridge bridge structure using hydraulics, and they eventually opted for the Island bridge structure instead.

[MP-Willow]

Thanks all Carriers are wounderful, and Yamamoto was a grand planner
I ill be looking for the shipping section and this discussion.

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Hosho I think you'll find was based on a fleet oiler hull so she was not designed and built from the keel up.(source warships by D Miller)
Hermes was the worlds first specifically designed carrier and the smallest
designated fleet carrier in the RN the hull design was taken from a cruiser but it was not a conversion.

IJN Hosho

Extract. Japan's first aircraft carrier, laid down as a tanker and redesigned as a carrier during construction with considerable British assistance. Officially known as an aircraft depot ship. She was a relatively conventional carrier design, but quite small. A sister-ship Shokaku was planned, but construction never began, because of the limitation of the Washington Treaty and her construction was cancelled on 19 November 1923.

[HealzDevo]

I did miss out that section on the first purpose built carrier. On the other hand, I was saying that while the US did have aircraft carriers, up until the Pearl Harbour disaster the US always considered the Battleship the heart of the fleet. It took the near complete destruction of Battleship Row, to prove the viability of the carrier as a weapon in its own right. When properly protected, a carrier task force can do damage over a longer range than a Battleship ever could. It is force multiplication in terms of also being able to radio in targets from the aircraft to the Battleships and Destroyers to engage. The Harrier taskforce was an example of how a properly equipped taskforce can operate effectively against a much larger airforce. That includes trained men, which the British had. Both sides would have had effectively trained men, but Argentina was operating conventional aircraft against something that could drop and climb vertically. The Harrier proved effective over conventional aircraft for this type of warfare.

[MP-Willow]

Now what about USN night fighters, like say the F7F-3N, made for carriers and it did fly in Korea before replaced by the F9F

Go Cats Go!!

[R Leonard]

....while the US did have aircraft carriers, up until the Pearl Harbour disaster the US always considered the Battleship the heart of the fleet. It took the near complete destruction of Battleship Row, to prove the viability of the carrier as a weapon in its own right.

A popular misconception. Permanent battleship losses at Pearl Harbor were two, Arizona and Oklahoma. Most heavily damaged was West Virginia, then, somewhat in order of severity, were California, Nevada, Tennessee, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. All of these last six were repaired, some obviously taking longer than others, modernized, and returned to the fleet.

Not damaged, simply because they were not at Pearl Harbor, were Wyoming (gunnery training), Arkansas, New York, Texas, New Mexico, Mississippi, Idaho, Colorado, North Carolina, and Washington. So there were nine battleships (not counting Wyoming) undamaged, more than were at Pearl Harbor at that time of the attack, including the two newest, North Carolina and Washington.

There really wasn’t an epiphany of “oh, crap, our battleships have been wiped, guess we’ll have to resort to carriers.” It was well recognized in the US Navy that the fleet carrier was not only faster than all of the existing battleships, but also a more versatile striking platform. Of those not at Pearl Harbor, speed-wise, only North Carolina and Washington even came close with rated top speeds of about 27 knots. A Yorktown class carrier could easily beat that. Doesn’t seem like much, but when moving at top speed under combat conditions, that means the carrier could eventually out distance the slower battleship, conceivably making it superfluous. The older battleships were lucky to crank out 21 knots maximum.

The easiest illustration of this is Enterprise and Saratoga going out in November 1941 to ferry aircraft to Wake and Midway. In both cases, it was decided to leave the battleships behind as they would not contribute to the operations and would only serve to slow down the task group.

The funny thing about battleships is that, while, true, they can pile a lot of iron on a beach, they are really designed for one purpose and one purpose only, to poke holes in the other guy’s battleships. Carriers, on the other hand, have the ability to reach out well beyond gunfire range and deliver killing blows to any size enemy ship, from battleships on down. The down side to carriers is that they require escorts to provide AAA and submarine defense coverage. Such escorts need to be relatively speedy and heavily armed for the purposes intended. Cruisers, especially of the AAA type, and destroyers fit the requirements nicely. And, true, while a battleship can provide considerable AAA fire, and incidentally serve as a bomb magnet, it also requires a certain amount of escort and aerial protection and so causes an unhappy division of resources.

A similar example of the deliberate decision to leave battleships out of the equation was Nimitz’s decision to leave his available battleships in the vicinity of the west coast of the US during the Midway operation. While, to an extent this was to appease the Nervous Nellies in Washington, he also knew that they would be of little value in what was sure to be a pure aircraft carrier engagement. Their presence would have merely served to slow down the carriers, dilute his available escorts, and force the carriers to provide protective CAP when there was painfully none to spare.

New battleships authorized after the expiration of the Naval Limitation Treaties and completed were as below. Note that all were started before the US entered WWII, and indeed, three of them before WWII even started in Europe.
North Carolina, laid down 27 October 1937
Washington, laid down 14 June 1938
South Dakota, laid down 5 July 1939
Indiana, laid down 20 November 1939
Massachusetts, laid down 20 July 1939
Alabama, laid down 1 February 1940
Iowa, laid down 27 June 1940
New Jersey, laid down 16 September 1940
Missouri, laid down 6 January 1941
Wisconsin, laid down 25 January 1941

Authorized, pre-war, but never completed, or, in most cases, never even started, battleships are listed below. It should be kept in mind that some of these were to be replacements for such obsolescent BBs as Arkansas, New York, and Texas.

Illinois (laid down 6 December 1942, canceled 12 August 1945)
Kentucky (laid down 7 March 1942, suspended 17 February 1947, canceled 1958)
Montana (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)
Ohio (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)
Maine (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)
New Hampshire (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)
Louisiana (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)

Significantly, once the war started for the US, no new battleships were completed that had not already been started prior to 7 December 1941, and after some 18 months of war, all new planned battleship construction was canceled, and neither of the two BBs started after Pearl Harbor were completed. Further, no other new battleships were authorized.

On the other hand, there were authorized prior to the US entry in to WWII thirteen Essex class carriers. Authorized in June 1940 were three: Essex, Yorktown, and Intrepid. Another ten (Hornet, Franklin, Ticonderoga, Randolph, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Wasp, Hancock, Bennington, and Boxer) were, a month later, authorized. After the US entered the war an additional 19 Essex class carriers were authorized between July and September 1942. Of these six were canceled on 28 March 1945, as they were never started, and the under construction Reprisal and Iwo Jima were canceled on 12 August 1945. In all, twenty four Essex class carriers were completed. Off the top of my head, fourteen of them saw combat service in WW2. Also constructed were another 9 CVLs and, without counting fingers and toes, about 99 CVEs.

So, just on the basis of authorizations, with 13 Essex class carriers, before the US entered the war, the argument could be made that the aircraft carrier was already on its way to becoming the leading capital ship of the USN before battleship losses and damage in the Pearl Harbor attack.

Rich

[plan_D]

Extremely informative, as always. What about Battlecruisers though? They were fast and heavily armed, surely an ideal escort for carriers. Did the U.S make use of battlecruisers? I don't know much about the USN during World War 2 beyond the basics of their carrier operations in the Pacific.

I do know they had the Alaska-Class battlecruisers that, I think, just missed the war.