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I don't think that was ever done. But I bet a Shagbat could land on a short platform on the host cruiser, in the right conditions. Into wind, airspeed just above stall, cruiser at full clip, closing speed shouldn't be more than a few knots.Curious why the plane and cruiser both doing the same speed can't connect & lift the plane.
But I should have put that in the first post, as I hate the exclusionary nature of acronyms.
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You want "luck" for the Glorious? Put up even two aircraft (of any kind) at a time sweeping the intended course just 50 miles ahead of the carrier. two is for redundancy, so you have one in the air or in position no matter what.
Lack of stupidity nets 2 operational carriers instead of 2 sunk ones, let alone damaged.
Fair point. I imagine Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would fled if a Revenge class had accompanied Glorious.The RN were not short of old battleships, given the danger of KM cruisers there should have a heavy escort of some type
I would guess that trying to pick up a light aircraft in the wake of a much larger ship could be quite sporty, geometrically more complex as the ship speed goes up.Operational Tempo: How long to stop the cruiser and lift aboard the plane?
Curious why the plane and cruiser both doing the same speed can't connect & lift the plane.
If Glorious was running as she should have been, yes. But Glorious was running at 17 knots with only half her boilers lit. Yes, since 17 knots was near flat out, any Revenge class would have burned a lot of fuel.The R class battleship would have slowed the Glorious down
and risked break down.Yes, since 17 knots was near flat out, any Revenge class would have burned a lot of fuel.
The Wasp wandered into a Japanese sub line and the Japanese sub I-19 launched six Type 95 torpedoes, which turned out to be probably the most devastating single launch by a submarine in the war. Three torpedoes struck the Wasp causing such damage she had to be later sank, one torpedo struck the destroyer O'Brien causing such damage that six months and 3000 nautical miles later her hull split open and she sank, then a torpedo struck the Battleship North Carolina, knocking out its forward turret, but otherwise didn't prevent the ship from maintaining speed and station. The Japanese had fabulous torpedoes. Here's an amazing picture of the O'Brien being struck by the torpedo. in the background is the stricken Wasp. Note how far the Wasp is from the O'Brien, both hit by the same salvo.Courageous was the first carrier lost to submarines, but there were many more, including HMS Ark Royal, Eagle, Audacity (the first CVE) and Avenger, USS Yorktown, USS Wasp and Block Island, IJNS Taiho, Shōkaku, Unryū and Shinano. If you're sending carriers into combat, you're going to lose some to enemy submarines even with the best ASW and damage control procedures.
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The entire Revenge class should have been updated, akin to the Italian Doria and Cavour classes. New machinery, increased main gun elevation and lengthen the hull for better hydrodynamics. Yes, that costs money and takes limited yard capacity, but they would have been much more usable units. Of course we'd want Hood updated first.and risked break down.
Problem with that idea is the lack of internal space, that's why the earlier QE ships were upgraded.The entire Revenge class should have been updated, akin to the Italian Doria and Cavour classes. New machinery, increased main gun elevation and lengthen the hull for better hydrodynamics. Yes, that costs money and takes limited yard capacity, but they would have been much more usable units. Of course we'd want Hood updated first.
True. The Cavours and Doria benefited by having the midship turret to remove, freeing up a lot of space. If we could cut a Revenge in half and add a 100ft plug, that would free up the space for machinery, etc.Problem with that idea is the lack of internal space, that's why the earlier QE ships were upgraded.
The R Class was the cheapest way of strengthening the Grand Fleet at the time. The tragedy for the RN was that they cancelled the last three Admiral Class in 1918. If they had continued them, they would have entered service in 1921 (Hood was commissioned January 1920) and Britain would probably have been able to sign something similar to the Washington Treaty and keep the Admirals instead of the Iron Duke Class during the Twenties. Obviously, the G3 Class would have been better but that is an example of the best being an enemy of the good.
And given the poor relative health and thus suitability of Britain's poorer people, more of those 700,000 dead would have come from the educated and middle class, the very people you need to run the country in the 1930s and beyond.the demographic damage from the casualties of the Great War (losing some 700,000 men, predominantly between 18 and 40
Not needlessly losing Courageous, Glorious, Ark Royal and arguably Hermes (sent to the Far East without credible CAG and sent to sea to escape Nagumo without any aircraft onboard or Ceylon air support) could have gone a long way to meeting the Axis globally.
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By needlessly I mean that Ark Royal's captain could have immediately begun damage control, as opposed to mustering everyone on deck and waiting over half and hour before beginning to save his ship. The captain seemed to forget mission, men, self. He went straight to men and forgot the mission. Courageous was bad luck, but using a fleet carrier for ASW with a light escort is a recipe for disaster. But I'm not erasing their fates, entirely. In this scenarios the torpedoes still strike Courageous and Ark, but they live to see another day.Courageous and Ark Royal weren't lost needlessly, it was bad luck and inadequate damage control, while on a mission.