HMS Carriers 1945 - 50's question

Hangartime · HMS Carriers 1945 - 50's question

Hi all,

Not being familar with carriers (apart from the obvious) - my question relates to the decks. What were the decks made of? I'm assuming steel but there must have been an overlap period of when they wooden at some stage.

Does anyone know? I'm wanting to make part of one as a diorama.

Thanks in advance.

Ian

peebeep

Prior to WWII British carriers had steel decks, unlike US and Japanese carriers, that's why they were more resistant to Kamikaze attacks. I will check it out but I think even the earliest British carriers had steel decks.

peebeep

T16S

I believe that British carriers had 3" thick armoured decks starting with Ark Royal and then the Illustrious class. They stood up well to bombing though Illustrious took a bad pounding in the Med from the Stukas and the A-Deck was penetrated. She survived and was repaired in the US. The US carriers had wooden decks and were devastated by bombers as a result. Same with the japanese ones I think. I'm not sure about the later British carriers - whether they had armoured decks that is, but certainly steel- we didn't have that much wood during the war! The Americans are supposed to have been puzzled by the given displacement of Victorious on her Pacific attachment to their fleet- so small a carrier by their standards, but so large a tonnage? Their answer came when a kamikaze crashed into her deck and she was able to resume operations after about five hours- didn't burn or blow up. Saved by the armoured deck of course which was a lot of top weight.
cheers Stuart

Brews

There is, of course a conflict of design aims. Speed, aircraft capacity (hence "firepower") and protection. Where does the designer place emphasis, because you can't have all three without compromising at least one. It's interesting that the British designers (Vickers?) emphasised deck protection. It certainly didn't help Glorious too much, and although Victorious held out against Kamikaze attack, perhaps if she had been able to field a greater number of fighters, then the Kamikazes wouldn't have gotten through ... who knows?

Digs

This is the quote that sprang to mind on seeing Hangartime's question:

'The U.S. liaison officer on the Indefatigable was impressed at the resilience of the ship. “When a kamikaze hits a U.S. carrier it means 6 months of repair at Pearl. When a kamikaze hits a Limey carrier it’s just a case of ‘Sweepers, man your brooms.’

Paul

Hangartime

Great, thanks - hmmm a 1/72 carrier is a bit much - but part of the dech might be ok.

Cheers
Ian

walrus

Paddy O'Irishman

Hi Ian, certainly from Ark Royal onwards, all British Carriers had armoured decks, whereas US Carriers had wooden decks, usually Douglas Fir. Two distinct philosophies were at play. Armoured/steel decks were harder to damage but harder to repair, wooden decks were easier to damage but easier to repair. The Royal Navy had a plus/minus situation, the minus situation was they could not afford to build Carriers at the rate the US Navy could, therefore they had less Carriers available so they designed them to be as damage resistant as possible, the plus side being, if a Carrier suffered major damage, the Royal Navy had bases worldwide that offered major repair facilities, the theory being that if a Carrier suffered major damage to the flight deck, it wouldn't neccesarily need to return to Britain for repairs, thus reducing the turn around time. The US Navy on the other hand, did not have many bases worldwide that could repair major damage, and due to their Carrier's operating mainly in the Pacific, had to be, to a degree, self sustaining. The US doctrine was "fix as you go". US fire fighting and damage control was superb (as testified by the USS Yorktown at Coral Sea- virtual write off to battleworthy in 3 days) Operating so far from home, US Carriers tended to trade armour for aircraft capacity, the idea being that if major damage was inflicted on the flight deck, provided the damage control teams could keep the ship afloat and moving, the flight decks could be quickly repaired by using wood obtained from the various islands dotted around the Pacific rather than having to return all the way to Pearl Harbour.

James Russell

While the Ark had a steel flight deck it was not armoured. The British paid strict attention to the Washington Naval Treaty and never went over the limits - it saved them money. Armour would have sent Ark Royal over the limit. Illustrious was the first armoured flight deck - the RN imagined operations in the Med and Channel (these waters provided shooting galleries for shore-based aircraft). In that environment wooden decks would have been sinking weekly.

The USN made their carriers for the wide blue Pacific - thousands and thousands of miles of ocean. Replenishment at sea, large aircraft complements, and endurance were the strengths of USN carriers. The chances of encountering more than a couple of dozen enemy aircraft at a time were slight and the Combat Air Patrol of pursuit planes was used to chase them away (that changed when they were closing in on Japan and shore-based aircraft came in large numbers).

The British carriers' ability to take abuse is absolutely impressive, but imagine how many would have been needed to wage war in the Pacific! Smaller range of operation and smaller air groups.

The two navies made carriers that made sense for their primary missions.