I think the answer is "Yes."
The HMS Glorious was lost due to operational errors; the RN would make similar changes to its operational procedures whether the ship was lost or was towed into port, listing, flooded, and smoldering. The Ark Royal was lost due to problems with damage tolerance and damage control; a severely damaged Ark Royal that's towed into harbor would provide more information about the nature of the damage than would one that's under a few scores of meters of disputed sea. I think an Ark Royal that's a constructive total loss would actually provide better information about how to design ships and damage control procedures than what actually occurred.
Given that this thread has been resurrected, a few comments about some of the posts.
A lot was learned from the Ark Royal sinking because most of her crew survived. And some of it was implemented very quickly.
One major fault with Ark Royal's design was that having been torpedoed on the starboard side and having her starboard boiler room flood, that flooding was able to spread to the centre and then port boiler rooms via the compartment above the boiler rooms that contained the cross ship ducting to the funnel. Arrrangements were made for the Illustrious class , which also had this feature, to be refitted with half height bulkheads to at least slow this happening. Probably first fitted to Indomitable after her Op Pedestal damage. This was also done in the Implacables. It also caused a redesign of the Audacious class to carry the boiler uptakes higher in the ship before being taken across to the funnel. That design was finalised in mid/late 1942. When Indomitable was torpedoed in a boiler room in July 1943 another lesson from Ark Royal was that quick counterflooding was carried out in order to stabilise her.
There's nothing wrong with using carriers to attack subs, and with more than two dozen depth charge armed Swordfish four destroyers is probably sufficient. So the tools and the mission are not to blame. But the carrier should have been running at 30 knots in erratic manoeuvres and operating at least fifty miles away from wherever u-boats were predicted to be.
Without wishing to become involved in whether or not Courageous should or should not have been used, a number of points come out of the above.
Firstly, ASDIC could not be used over 18-20 knots. So her escorts would have been blind travelling above that speed. Only late in the war did sets appear in the US Allen M Sumner and Gearing class destroyers that were capable of being used at higher speeds.
Secondly, speed is not of itself a defence against a submarine lying in wait. Ask the Japanese. Taiho was torpedoed while travelling at 26 knots and Shokaku at 25 knots in June 1944. Speed also substantially increases the fuel burn so reducing range.
AIUI Courageous had stopped zig zagging in order to be able to launch and recover aircraft. Unfortunately her aicraft couldn't stay airborne forever!
In terms of escort numbers, and the criticism that 2 were not enough, with the other 2 having been sent off to assist a merchantman, I would draw attention to the hunter killer tactics employed later in the war. From 1944 both the RN and the USN were sending out an escort group, usually of 6 vessels, with an escort carrier specifically to hunt down subs known to be in an area, usually through signals intelligence. In the RN the procedure was for the escort group commander to take 4 of the escorts off to form a line of search to run down a bearing. The remaining two escorts would be left to provide escort to the carrier following some distance behind. It was while being engaged on such a mission that the US escort carrier Block Island CVE-21 was sunk.
Somewhere in a post someone commented that the CVEs were expendable. Not to the RN. That is why, after the loss of the Dasher and then the Avenger that they insisted on modifications to make them more survivable. The proof was in the survival of Nabob & Thane in 1944/45 after they both suffered torpedo hits. Compare that with the torpedoing of USS Liscombe Bay in Nov 1943. Hit by a single torpedo she exploded and sank within 30 mins.
Hi
Rather limited air power, two Walrus or two Seafox, plus the cruiser has to 'stop' to pick them up in an area they are searching for submarines! Maybe lessons of Cressy, Aboukir and Hogue are relevant here?
Mike
The RN ships were able to recover aircraft without stopping. The recovering ship would sail in an arc to provide an area of calm(er) sea on which the aircraft would land and taxi alongside the ship to be hooked on a cable hung over the side. You can see the methods of launch and recovery in this RN instructional video.
They were canceled due to the Washington Treaty. None of the other signatories would have acceded to the qualitative limits had the RN been able to build these ships without comparable concessions. Also, Britain's economy was a wreck due to extensive debt (private and governmental) and and the demographic damage from the casualties of the Great War (losing some 700,000 men, predominantly between 18 and 40 [
Records for the War Dead of WW1] on a population of 43 million is significant. See also
Four charts that show the impact the First and Second World Wars had on the UK's population - CityAM).
The largest failure of Britain's inter-war diplomacy wasn't the disarmament treaties; it was not backing up France with regard to German post-war violations of the Versailles Treaty.
The 4 Admiral class were laid down between Sept and Nov 1916 but the design was immediately subject to change to incorporate the lessons of Jutland. By the spring of 1917 only the construction of Hood was allowed to proceed. The remaining 3 were finally cancelled in Feb 1919, long before the Washington Conference. The ships cancelled as a result of the Washington Treaty were their successors, the G3 battlecruisers.
The bomb was carried using the same lugs as the slipper DT.
???
I'm pretty sure that the downward projections are not bomb racks. They are the forward set of catapult spools. RN catapults of the period used a trolley on which the aircraft sat with its tail up. See below a Fulmar being loaded on the trolley.
I have one photo of a Fulmar with the drop tank and it sat in that position so they may have been repurposed to carry that. While it was capable of carrying 2x250lb SAP or GP bombs or 2x100lb or 2x250lb AS bombs I've never seen a photo of them being carried.
I was thinking back to this thread. Given the need for the armoured carriers in home waters, were Glorious, Courageous Furious able to operate in the Indian and Pacific waters? I ask, as at Ceylon in 1942 the Revenge class with their original machinery were unable to condense sufficient water to keep their crews alive. And of course there's no air conditioning, but on that score you've got big hangar doors both fore and aft for ventilation. IIRC, these three carriers are rather short ranged.
There are clues as to howw the Admiralty would have allocated its carriers in a 1939 planning document that looked forward to 1942 under 3 situations - peace, war with Axis (Germany & Italy) and war with Japan. Note one or other not both together. For Axis war
Home - Formidable, Illustrious, Indomitable and Furious (as a training carrier)
Gibraltar - Victorious
Alexandria - Implacable & Indefatigable
Singapore - Ark Royal
Halifax - Hermes
Jamaica - Courageous
Freetown - Glorious
War against Japan
Home - Formidable, Illustrious, Victorious and Furious (as a training carrier)
Gibraltar -
Alexandria -
Trincomalee - Courageous
Singapore - Ark Royal, Indomitable, Implacable, Indefatigable and Glorious
Halifax -
Jamaica - Hermes
Freetown -
Note there is no mention of Argus or Eagle in either of these scenarios so presumably they are no longer in front line service as the Illustrious class complete.
Of course the plan goes to pot on the outbreak of war when delays to completion start and priorities need to change.
The big hangar doors at the forward end in F, C & G were sealed up when the forward flying off deck ceased to be used in the 1930s.
IIRC, they all served in the Pacific pre-war, and Glorious was serving in the IO when war started. IMHO, they would have been invaluable as aircraft ferries, if nothing else. In an single sortie Glorious could have doubled the number of Hurricanes on Ceylon, for example.
Between the wars the only carriers serving East of Suez were the Hermes and Eagle.
Glorious began her war in the Med. She was only in the Indian Ocean between 9 Oct 1939 and Dec 1939 hunting raiders when she returned to the Med to refit at Malta and then in April was ordered home due to the German invasion of Norway.
The Skua going by my 1/72 scale model folded to 10 ft (3m) x 36 ft (11m) so roughly 2 Skuas per Val in the hangar.
The folded width of a Skua was 16ft 2in and its length 35ft 7in.
They are lightly built for certain. Check out the collision damage to HMS Glorious below. The merchant ship she hit looks like it was made of stronger stuff.
HMS Glorious Collision, SS Florida 1938.
But HMS Furious soldiered on into 1944 before being withdrawn as being totally clapped out, granted she was mostly used as an aircraft ferry after taking a machinery-wrecking near miss off Malta during the same op where HMS Eagle was sunk.
AFAIK Furious was not damaged during Operation Bellows, her first Spitfire delivery mission that accompanied Op Pedestal to Malta. After flying them off she retured to Gibraltar with an escort of a few destroyers (one of which, Wolverine, rammed a U-boat en route), immediately picked up another load of Spitfires and made a second delivery run (Op Baritone) before the end of Aug 1942. Then it was back to the Home Fleet for 6 weeks before another Malta run (Op Train) and participation in Op Torch, the landings in Algeria. Then back to the Home Fleet. Her next refit was in Aug-Dec 1943 before another 9 months service with the Home Fleet before being pensioned off in Sept 1944. So she was an operational carrier, not a ferry throughout 1943/44.
So, it's autumn 1941 and we have HMS Glorious and Courageous at Puget Sound, WA loading up with non-folding Martlet and Dauntless, plus the folding wing Chesapeake. The plan is to use US-compatible aircraft in the Pacific as part of Force Z. On the morning of Dec 7th both carriers having left Puget Sound with their American aircraft, are now found at CFB Esquimalt making a courtesy call to BC's capital Victoria. Commanding Officer Pacific Coast,
Commodore William Beech interrupts a meeting of the RN senior officers to announce the Pearl Harbour attack. Now what?
BTW, anyone interested in the RCN naval list would find this informative
The Navy List - CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum
Britain only got 111 fixed wing Marlet I/III between Aug 1940 and March 1941, all but 10 coming from French and Greek orders. It deliberately delayed the rest of its own initial order for 100 by some 6 months in order to get the folding wing version to maximise the number of fighters able to be carried on its carriers. No more would be forthcoming from US orders as the USN badly needed modern fighters for its own squadrons. So there is a difficult choice for you. Do you want 90 more (because that was all that was on order) fixed wing Martlets from April 1941 or the historical position?
Historically, Britain's first folding wing Martlet II came off the production line on Long Island on 4 Oct 1941 (the prototype only flew in June). The first 36 were delivered by 12 Dec 1941 and were shipped to the UK in Illustrious and used to equip 3 of the fighter squadrons that went to the Indian Ocean on Illustrious and Formidable in Feb/Mar 1942. The remaining 54 aircraft of the batch (only 7 delivered before the end of 1941 with the rest in Mar/Apr 1942) were shipped direct from New York to India/Ceylon in Mar/Apr 1942, effectively as attrition replacements. The next batch, from Lend Lease orders, took place between June and Nov 1942 and totalled 220 aircraft.
Folding wing F4F-4 for the USN began to come off the production line in Nov 1941, but the last front line squadron didn't re-equip until just before Midway.
As for the 50 Vought Chesapeakes, they were all delivered to Britain in early 1941, and production for the USN had by then ceased. For the Dauntless, the USN/USMC had only taken delivery of 144 SBD-1/2 by March 1941 when production of the SBD-3 began (584 by the end of 1941). Good luck with persuading the USN to give up production capacity to Britain when it still had some of its new divebomber squadrons flying biplane Curtiss SBC Helldivers in Spring 1942.
The companies producing naval aircraft in the US are simply not geared up in 1941 to produce large numbers of aircraft for the USN plus allow the US to give more aircraft to Britain. Procurement decisions would have to have been taken much much earlier than historical for the RN to achieve what you want.
Aden
This port had been a coaling station for the RN since the late 1830s. By 1939 it held substantial oil stocks and was a major stopping off point for shipping using the Suez Canal as many ships had to limit their fuel loads to minimise their draughts. I don't think there was much in the way of facilities there other than for fuelling.
RN and the Pacific
The criticism is often levelled that RN ships compare badly with those of the USN in terms of range. But each navy, particularly in Treaty tonnage limited times inter war, built the ships that suited it for the wars it intended to fight. So the USN knew that if it went to war with Japan it would have to travel from the US West Coast with the next stop Hawaii and after that, hopefully the Philippines or maybe an intermediate base. Despite knowing that its replenishment oiler fleet was wholly inadequate in 1941.
The RN never intended to fight in the Pacific at all. Its war with Japan was planned to take place in the South or East China Seas. To get there it would use its network of bases worldwide. A fleet would leave Britain to reinforce that Eastern Fleet and call at Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Aden, Trincomalee to arrive at the new naval base at Singapore. From there it would sortie towards Hong Kong and Japan after securing use of a forward base, perhaps at Cam Rahn Bay or in the Philippines depending on the political situation. Each of these ports held substantial stocks of fuel and could be topped up from oil from the Persian Gulf, Burma and the DEI. The quantiries of oil storage at these bases is quite staggering. So range is nowhere near so important to the RN when comapred to the USN.
Thumpalumpacus no worries
