Ditching a Sea Hurricane.

[Onslow]

Article XVIII
Each of the Contracting Powers undertakes not to dispose by gift, sale or any mode of transfer of any vessel of war in such a manner that such vessel may become a vessel of war in the Navy of any foreign Power.

Which really overrides Article XV (one of the contractions of the treaty). And we will note that none of the contracting powers did build and cruiser/battleships/carrier for a non-contracted power.

Yes, Vickers/Armstrong/etc assisted in construction in Spain of cruisers, but we will also note, it took 8 years to build them. And Battleship/Aircraft Carriers are much more complex.

I haven't found a conclusive analysis, but my reading is that one "disposes" of existing ships owned by a Contracting Power, not ones that a company within the Contracting Power is building for another nation. A nation may not have any ownership in a ship that is being built in a yard within that nation, therefore the nation has nothing to dispose. It's standard contract law that a contract can easily specify that the property in an item under construction is held by the purchaser at all times, and therefore the nation in which the item is being built has nothing at all to "dispose" of. There is simply no legal right to do anything to the vessel, much lesss to dispose of the vessel.

Article XVI said;

"If the construction of any vessel of war for a non-Contracting Power is undertaken within the jurisdiction of any of the Contracting Powers, such Power shall promptly inform the other Contracting Powers of the date of the signing of the contract and the date on which the keel of the ship is laid; and shall also communicate to them the particulars relating to the ship prescribed in Chapter II, Part 3, Section I (b), (4) and (5).|

So with XV and XVI, there are two articles explicitly about what ships can be constructed, and how such construction is to be notified. Contracts are normally read from the viewpoint that they are logical, and there is no logic in having two clauses controlling the construction of ships for other powers if such construction is entirely banned. Therefore the term 'disposal' would be seen as referring to disposing of ships owned by the Contracting Power (IMHO its normal definition anyway) because to do otherwise would be to adopt a very unusual definition of "disposal" and to make Articles XV and XVI illogical.

As far as building times go, this is not an Essex. The concept is basically for a RN light fleet carrier with larger powerplant and light deck armour a la Unicorn. Given the likely Vickers involvement that would probably mean a design by J S Redshaw. D K Brown called his design for the Light Fleets "one of the outstanding designs of all time, both simple and efficient", and their very long post-war lives proved their utility. They weren't even built to normal warship hull standards. The Light Fleets weren't more complex than a cruiser if measured by actual building time - they had an average of 27 months average, about the same as a smaller Colony class cruiser.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

For a small island nation west of New Caledonia and with some outlying possessions, I think the flexibility of a carrier would be more valuable than 36 extra aircraft (or 44 twin engined aircraft if going off the RN/RAF agreed facts at the CID) sitting on one location.

It is obvious the answer is aircraft carrier, now what was the question?

So by the time one gives one's 40 or so extra land-based aircraft some decent mobility by building a network of bases,

Right, the country is so big a network of land bases is required, but small enough one carrier can cover the entire place quickly enough, now add the air base near every port the carrier will be based for a start, the aircraft need to get off the carrier before it docks and still be able to fly if required. Consider despite building a network of air bases the land based types are supposed to stay in the one place, not use the other bases even for reconnaissance.

Aircraft can generally scout further than they can strike, so a force can do its own reconnaissance as required, if the carrier is going to be sent beyond land based range what is the cost of the system to tell the carrier where to go to find the enemy at this distance from land? The further you want to fight from your borders the costlier it will be. Or is this country facing threats from a narrow arc, which would mean fewer land bases required. Essentially the more air bases required to support a good air defence the more airbases and ports required if using aircraft carriers

Before replying please define the land mass size, distance to non friendly territory, etc. of this only aircraft carriers will do land. A gigantic atoll perhaps? With long range scouting aircraft that give enough warning the aircraft carrier can be at the other end of the country and still do a timely intercept? With the air bases the scout force uses not available to the strike force? How does the country find out where the bad guys are? Is a single central position good enough to provide adequate warning, 1 port, 1 airbase, 1 carrier can do it all, no other aircraft required? At the moment it seems the country is small enough a single aircraft carrier will do yet big enough to need multiple air bases. So what are these distances?

A Royal Navy ship commissioned in 1914 and scrapped in 1945 would have seen around 10 years of war and 22 of peace, an IJN one about 2 years more war, a USN one around 6 years of war. Yet we are given maximum effort wartime expenditure as the way to compare costs.

When it comes to ground forces a figure from the pre WWI dreadnought race equated the cost of a dreadnought to that of equipping an infantry corps, the corps of course could have anything like 40 times the personnel to pay, along with higher requirements for food, clothing and shelter etc, how much their heating and electricity cost equates to the dreadnought fuel consumption is unknown. The ship would require support like dry docks etc.

A WWII infantry corps had a lot more vehicles and radios, does it have the ability to move everyone in vehicles? A medium tank cost about the same as a fighter plane, so how many armoured formations? How about paratroopers? Engineers given things like extra bridging needs (horses can swim)? Amount of air defence needed? Doctrine, how much ammunition expenditure allowed during the majority of the time when the front is static? And so on.

 

[Shortround6]

c. To nitpick, the R-2000 had to run in '41 as the C-54 (well really DC-4) flew with 4 on 14/Feb/'42. And noting the Sea Hurricane didn't fly until January '41. Which would be less than a years between the Hooked Hurricane and the enlarged P&W. They can fly on kit R-1830s until the indigenous engines are ready.

To build an R-2000 you need a lot more than 5.75in Pistons. And you need 5.75 pistons that will hold up to both a 2700-2800rpm (not the 2200-2250rpm of Wasp) and higher cylinder pressures. You want to make a 14cylinder engine using actual Wasp cylinders you are going to wind up with a 933hp engine. You need to be able to make cylinders with a lot more fin area than Wasp cylinders, you need a better supercharger, and you need better con-rods and above all, you need better bearings, both main and rod.
The R-1340 is NOT a short cut to an R-2000.

 

[Onslow]

It is obvious the answer is aircraft carrier, now what was the question?

Right, the country is so big a network of land bases is required, but small enough one carrier can cover the entire place quickly enough, now add the air base near every port the carrier will be based for a start, the aircraft need to get off the carrier before it docks and still be able to fly if required. Consider despite building a network of air bases the land based types are supposed to stay in the one place, not use the other bases even for reconnaissance.

Geoffrey, I respect your contributions here but there is no need for such a snarky tone, especially on something I only brought up to explain why I was asking a technical question.

No, I did NOT say that one carrier can cover the entire place quickly enough. Not a single word implied that. Yes, I know carrier aircraft have to get off the carrier. I did NOT say, suggest, imply, infer or in any other way say that "the land based types are supposed to stay in the one place`' and it is not reasonable or honest of you to claim I did.

The fact is that if a nation buys more land-based aircraft, then it will require more (or larger, but normally more) bases to operate them from. This is not even worth debating, surely. The cost of a few bomber fields very quickly becomes significant, even when compared to the cost of a small carrier and the smaller fields for carrier aircraft support.

The two "main" islands, west of New Caledonia, are 460m east-west and 360 north-south. A less developed island lies further to the NE by 450 miles from the closest coast of the "main" islands. A southern island 400m away is out of the picture in terms of significant attack. Total area 88,000 square miles (similar to the north island of NZ) but that's not counting minor but significant outlying islands of more than 1400m away. There is a distance of about 750nm that is open to amphibious attack, in three different land masses, and a span of over 1000 miles that needs fighter cover. The carrier would NOT be involved in day-to-day fighter cover or defending against landed enemy forces, but the geographic spread means that land-based air will need more alternative bases than in most combat situations, and given the cost of bomber bases that will make land-based bomber defence even more expensive than usual (and probably no more effective in combat).

It seems that you are only considering one aspect of warfare - defence of the main centre against an un-determined threat. That ignores the fact that maritime nations don't do very well without merchant ships. Surface fleets often don't do very well without air support. Carriers can do all sort of things - anti-submarine warfare, raider hunting, cover for their own fleet, maritime strike, etc so I don't know why you seem to ignore their versatility.

A small nation in that location is also inevitably going to be involved in coalition warfare. It makes sense for a country to concentrate on its strengths, such as weapons manufacturing in a limited number of higher-tech areas, than on areas where it can never be more than a footnote due to its small population, like infantry. The ability to counter-act raids by minor Japanese naval forces while the main units are involved with the British and/or US fleets was a significant factor in pre-war planning, and a small fleet with a carrier is dramatically better at that than a small fleet without one.

Aircraft can generally scout further than they can strike, so a force can do its own reconnaissance as required, if the carrier is going to be sent beyond land based range what is the cost of the system to tell the carrier where to go to find the enemy at this distance from land? The further you want to fight from your borders the costlier it will be. Or is this country facing threats from a narrow arc, which would mean fewer land bases required. Essentially the more air bases required to support a good air defence the more airbases and ports required if using aircraft carriers

The cost of the system that tells the carrier where to find the enemy is 1 - the carrier itself; 2- all the usual intelligence sources that are required anyway; 3 - in some situations, the other ships accompanying the carrier. Why is that an issue?

In the Coral Sea approach routes are restricted. Coastwatchers can be used. Signals intelligence on the allied side in the area was excellent if little known.

Before replying please define the land mass size, distance to non friendly territory, etc. of this only aircraft carriers will do land.

Distances to non friendly territory changed in war. The northern major island in this case, pre war, was 1500m from Truk, a major base. If the war took the same course as in our time line distance to the nearest non friendly territory during the war would be 500m.

A gigantic atoll perhaps? With long range scouting aircraft that give enough warning the aircraft carrier can be at the other end of the country and still do a timely intercept? With the air bases the scout force uses not available to the strike force? How does the country find out where the bad guys are? Is a single central position good enough to provide adequate warning, 1 port, 1 airbase, 1 carrier can do it all, no other aircraft required? At the moment it seems the country is small enough a single aircraft carrier will do yet big enough to need multiple air bases. So what are these distances?

I never said that the scout force airfields would not be available to a strike force. Where in the world did you get the bizarre idea that idea had anything to do with "no other aircraft required", `'1 port', "1 airbase" ? I wrote no such things. In the past I have respected your input but now you are making up straw man after straw man in a manner that is frankly silly.

Much of the infrastructure to maintain a small carrier, such as graving docks, can already be found in a country that can maintain a small navy.

A Royal Navy ship commissioned in 1914 and scrapped in 1945 would have seen around 10 years of war and 22 of peace, an IJN one about 2 years more war, a USN one around 6 years of war. Yet we are given maximum effort wartime expenditure as the way to compare costs.

I have no idea what you are referring to. Not a single one of the costs I mentioned earlier included any WW1 vessel. The costs were NOT for maximum wartime expenditure - they were peacetime costs.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

The economics of providing a mobile airfield say you end up with more aircraft and more non mobile airfields for the same money. How much depends on the various sizes and things like how many ports the carrier is expected to operate from, each requiring a nearby airfield. In money terms the carrier is either giving capabilities beyond the land based airpower, so a supplement or an economically inefficient substitute. A scenario has been defined that is so clear to the writer, it is assumed everyone else fully understands it without much explanation

No, I did NOT say that one carrier can cover the entire place quickly enough. Not a single word implied that.

Actually it did, unless the idea is to leave parts of the country undefended.

Yes, I know carrier aircraft have to get off the carrier. I did NOT say, suggest, imply, infer or in any other way say that "the land based types are supposed to stay in the one place`' and it is not reasonable or honest of you to claim I did.

Correct about the one place, I confused that with the carrier, in fact the scenario is pushing costs onto the alternative to the carrier by requiring a network of land bases.

The fact is that if a nation buys more land-based aircraft, then it will require more (or larger, but normally more) bases to operate them from. This is not even worth debating, surely.

More aircraft require more bases is quite logical, but when comparing costs each carrier capable port comes with an airfield, two ports, two airfields, plenty of room for more aircraft bought with the carrier money. In simple terms the more airfields the country needs the more ports.

The two "main" islands, west of New Caledonia, are 460m east-west and 360 north-south. A less developed island lies further to the NE by 450 miles from the closest coast of the "main" islands. A southern island 400m away is out of the picture in terms of significant attack. Total area 88,000 square miles (similar to the north island of NZ) but that's not counting minor but significant outlying islands of more than 1400m away. There is a distance of about 750nm that is open to amphibious attack, in three different land masses, and a span of over 1000 miles that needs fighter cover.

460x360 = 165,000 square miles, which does not seem to cover the area of the surrounding ocean where an enemy carrier force could be. And a solution to this is a carrier operating aircraft with a 150 mile combat radius? It seems part of the idea is the carrier will substitute for 4 or more land airfields in order to be the cheaper alternative, or else be so balance tipping no to few attacks are made on the country, or else the carrier is an add on, not a substitute and comes out of a different budget.

The carrier would NOT be involved in day-to-day fighter cover or defending against landed enemy forces, but the geographic spread means that land-based air will need more alternative bases than in most combat situations, and given the cost of bomber bases that will make land-based bomber defence even more expensive than usual (and probably no more effective in combat).

The bigger the area the more the carrier will need more alternative bases than in most combat situations, with associated airfields, allocate the costs and constraints to both forces, not just one. Add the costs to both forces.

It seems that you are only considering one aspect of warfare - defence of the main centre against an un-determined threat. That ignores the fact that maritime nations don't do very well without merchant ships. Surface fleets often don't do very well without air support. Carriers can do all sort of things - anti-submarine warfare, raider hunting, cover for their own fleet, maritime strike, etc so I don't know why you seem to ignore their versatility.

Actually I am trying to compare like with like, all the above missions air air ones, the carrier mission to operate beyond land based air cover requires adding the cost of the system to enable the carrier force to know where to go to find raiders. Also what trade route distances need to be covered, one carrier can cover 1 trade route, so how many routes? Submarines in particular will be operating all around an island nation under attack.

A small nation in that location is also inevitably going to be involved in coalition warfare. It makes sense for a country to concentrate on its strengths, such as weapons manufacturing in a limited number of higher-tech areas, than on areas where it can never be more than a footnote due to its small population, like infantry. The ability to counter-act raids by minor Japanese naval forces while the main units are involved with the British and/or US fleets was a significant factor in pre-war planning, and a small fleet with a carrier is dramatically better at that than a small fleet without one.

Raids would normally include examples like Pearl Harbor, Darwin etc., along with anti shipping, it is the pre war scenario here, the Australians worried about surface raiders with their float planes attacking ships and bombarding, later amended with the idea an IJN force would come with a carrier. The 1939 solution was Sunderland long range reconnaissance, a squadron of Beaufighters as escort and a couple of squadrons of Beauforts with torpedoes, able to detect and strike at ranges longer than the carrier types. The shorter the range of your aircraft the more you need to know where the bad guys are going. Work it out, the carrier could be in home waters and 450 miles from the target, at 25 knots come within range of the target 12 hours, plus any time to raise steam and/or resupply, plus the distance the enemy fleet is beyond the target. There is no doubt a carrier enhances a naval force, the issue here is how it is being costed.

The cost of the system that tells the carrier where to find the enemy is 1 - the carrier itself; 2- all the usual intelligence sources that are required anyway; 3 - in some situations, the other ships accompanying the carrier. Why is that an issue?

In the Coral Sea approach routes are restricted. Coastwatchers can be used. Signals intelligence on the allied side in the area was excellent if little known.

Because with a range of 150 miles the intelligence/information service needs to be better at warning than for a force with a range of 300 miles to have the strike in range when required. The excellent signals intelligence requires lots of equipment and personnel, that costs. And is the assumption the other side is not as good and therefore cannot track the single good guy carrier with any precision? The Japanese could tell whether Spruance or Halsey were in command and had a good idea when an operation was going to hit, the big unknown was where.

I never said that the scout force airfields would not be available to a strike force. Where in the world did you get the bizarre idea that idea had anything to do with "no other aircraft required", `'1 port', "1 airbase" ? I wrote no such things.

Notice I posed it as a question? It is your scenario. I noted how all land based airfields were charged to to the land based strike force, for costings purposes airfields used by scouting forces could not be used by strike forces.

In the past I have respected your input but now you are making up straw man after straw man in a manner that is frankly silly.

Simply put from where I sit, you are looking in the mirror when typing the above. Stop loading costs onto one force without also adding them to the other.

Much of the infrastructure to maintain a small carrier, such as graving docks, can already be found in a country that can maintain a small navy.

To alter things slightly much of the infrastructure to maintain a small air strike force, such as airfields, can already be found in a country that can maintain a small air force, things like training and civil ones for a start. If you are going waive costs for the navy, do so for the air force to keep things even. A 10,000 ton county class cruiser was 640x66, Colossus/Majestic 690x80.25, Hermes 737x90, the larger Illustrious class 766.5x95.75, King George V 745x103. The Australians needed a bigger dry dock for the British Pacific Fleet.

I have no idea what you are referring to. Not a single one of the costs I mentioned earlier included any WW1 vessel.

The lifetime number is to point out most of the time the ship costs will be charged to a peace time budget.

The costs were NOT for maximum wartime expenditure - they were peacetime costs.

Try these, message 16

Australia spent 97.2 million pounds on its contribution to the EATS up until March 1943. A nation of three million and a comparable per capita contribution to EATS would have spent about 40 million on EATS during that period. So instead of joining EATS, it could have bought and run two carriers each year for the same funds and had cash left over.

Message 20

Extensions alone to Fighter Command fields in one year (1943) alone cost as much as a new fleet carrier ...

The vast sums spent on the EATS seem to indicate a lot of money that was available to be spent elsewhere. NZ spent about 21.5 million on EATS and had a smaller population at the time than "ATL-land", so even if "Atland" spent half as much as NZ on the EATS then the savings could pay for a carrier and more.

So in general while fully recognising the cost of a carrier, and the problems of being a smaller nation, a carrier could be afforded by either cutting back on ground forces or simply by not joining the EATS or halving a nation's pro-rata contribution.

Easy to make peacetime (or a single wartime program) expenditure look small when using maximum effort wartime expenditure.

 

[Greyman]

Did they do much research to see whether the altered radiator position was viable in other ways?

Unfortunately I'm not sure about anything that took place outside this one study.

Is there a photo of such Hurricane avilable?

This would have been done with models, as they were only testing ditching -- not a full investigation into the idea. Frustratingly there was no photo (or even sketch) of this particular model included in the report.

 

[Onslow]

The economics of providing a mobile airfield say you end up with more aircraft and more non mobile airfields for the same money. How much depends on the various sizes and things like how many ports the carrier is expected to operate from, each requiring a nearby airfield. In money terms the carrier is either giving capabilities beyond the land based airpower, so a supplement or an economically inefficient substitute. A scenario has been defined that is so clear to the writer, it is assumed everyone else fully understands it without much explanation

What you are missing is that I did NOT ask anyone to understand it, care about it, think about it, or write about it through the heavens blazing trails of glory. I wrote ONE sentence about it to explain why I was asking an arcane question about a possible modification. That's all.

If I had been asking for comment on the scenario I would have presented it properly so that everyone could understand it. Since I was not, I did not.

Actually it did, unless the idea is to leave parts of the country undefended.

The intention is just the same as the US, UK and Japan had with their carriers. The carrier arm is not the basis, or the major component, of the air defence of the homeland.

Correct about the one place, I confused that with the carrier, in fact the scenario is pushing costs onto the alternative to the carrier by requiring a network of land bases.

I didn't say a carrier in this situation needs more than one base. It would have an operating radius of about 1800nm from that base without further logistical support, bringing the radius of its aircraft to almost 2000 miles.

To get similar radius of potential action, a land based squadron would typically need three bases. That racks up the costs.

More aircraft require more bases is quite logical, but when comparing costs each carrier capable port comes with an airfield, two ports, two airfields, plenty of room for more aircraft bought with the carrier money. In simple terms the more airfields the country needs the more ports.

The carrier, with the majority of the fleet, is normally based some 30nm south of the most populous city which is at -20.211339, 159.138710.

I confess I don't understand why "each carrier capable port comes with an airfield, two ports, two airfields…". There are obviously typos there because each airfield can't come with two airfield and each port can't come with two ports.

The geography of this area is that of the Chesterfield Rise and Fair Way Rise both lifted 2000m and with detailed topography, settlement, etc lifted from other real parts of the modern world and slightly adapted. I adopted it for a completely unrelated AU/ATL, a sporting one, and I'm maintaining the same settlements, geography etc so I don't make everything too convenient - however it is quite convenient for defence.

The main naval port on the east shore of the largest (central) island sitting on Chesterfield Rise, where the strait between the main island and the eastern one (which is Fair Way Rise elevated) is just 55m. The main national naval air base is about 40m south of the main naval base and for emergencies/overflows etc there is a small (450m) strip within a mile of the main naval base as well as the major commercial airport 14m NW of the main naval base. The major exercise area is off the major national naval air base. The details come from the real facts of the areas lifted from the real world to detail the ATL world within the basic Chesterfield/Fair Way outline.

Because the main naval base is very central to the main two islands and because of the geography, there's no need for any other true carrier-capable port on the main two islands. From the ocean off the other main coastal cities of the main island (CF) it's only 100m back to the main base and there would be emergency strips scattered around, so there is no problem if the conditions require calmer seas.

460x360 = 165,000 square miles, which does not seem to cover the area of the surrounding ocean where an enemy carrier force could be. And a solution to this is a carrier operating aircraft with a 150 mile combat radius? It seems part of the idea is the carrier will substitute for 4 or more land airfields in order to be the cheaper alternative, or else be so balance tipping no to few attacks are made on the country, or else the carrier is an add on, not a substitute and comes out of a different budget.

The carrier is like other carriers - a flexible and valuable arm of the fleet. This is a country that has been working with the Commonwealth for decades in an environment where the Singapore Strategy exists, with its own far-flung islands, and which does not want to ignore these wider responsibilities. Nor does it want itself to be cut off by a force as small as say a Kongo and Ryujo with escorts, taking turns with 8" cruisers and Hosho to cut the nation off from the south.

Without a carrier, the entire nation can be cut off. With a carrier, it can at least run convoys in and out. It seems bizarre to allow an entire nation's fate to hinge on the fact that you don't want a properly-balanced force that can exert power more than 550m from the shores.

The bigger the area the more the carrier will need more alternative bases than in most combat situations, with associated airfields, allocate the costs and constraints to both forces, not just one. Add the costs to both forces.

Look, for example, at the Med. For much of the time the RN had one base at Gib, one base at Malta sometimes available, and one at Alex. So that's one base every 1100 miles or so. A bunch of early-war landplanes are not going to be able to offer the flexibility to move across that sort of area with only one airfield.

Look at the careers of the armoured carriers - some of them operated from the Arctic, through much of the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and then the Pacific. How many airfields do you need to achieve a similar span of action with land based aircraft?

Actually I am trying to compare like with like, all the above missions air air ones, the carrier mission to operate beyond land based air cover requires adding the cost of the system to enable the carrier force to know where to go to find raiders.

But that cost has to be paid anyway, even if you don't have a carrier. Cruisers will be sent out if there is no carrier.

Also what trade route distances need to be covered, one carrier can cover 1 trade route, so how many routes? Submarines in particular will be operating all around an island nation under attack.

Geoffrey, do you think others are not aware of factors like the existence of submarines? I posted a thread asking about Sea Hurricane radiator scoops. Why on earth am I now being asked to set out something like the most important of the eight ASW small-ship classes, the Aux AA ships, the MACs and AMCs and the mixture of ASW aircraft planned? Corvettes and converted merchant vessels do not use Sea Hurricane radiator scoops and are therefore utterly irrelevant to the thread.

Raids would normally include examples like Pearl Harbor, Darwin etc., along with anti shipping, it is the pre war scenario here, the Australians worried about surface raiders with their float planes attacking ships and bombarding, later amended with the idea an IJN force would come with a carrier. The 1939 solution was Sunderland long range reconnaissance, a squadron of Beaufighters as escort and a couple of squadrons of Beauforts with torpedoes, able to detect and strike at ranges longer than the carrier types. The shorter the range of your aircraft the more you need to know where the bad guys are going. Work it out, the carrier could be in home waters and 450 miles from the target, at 25 knots come within range of the target 12 hours, plus any time to raise steam and/or resupply, plus the distance the enemy fleet is beyond the target.

Carriers are rarely used for point defence. A bunch of Beauforts are going to be doing nothing against anything outside a radius of about 550m unless they have more than one field to fly from. In this case, the NW island is under the main threat but the central islands are vital. If you only give your strike wing one airfield, in either of those islands, the other can be smashed by anything around - even Ryujo - and your strike wing will do nothing.

There is no doubt a carrier enhances a naval force, the issue here is how it is being costed.

It's naval force is costed on the official figures from the First Sea Lord, as presented officially to the Parliament of the UK and Australia. I've used the comparison costs given by the RN and RAF for official planning.

The only discussion seems to be about what other costs should be included in a comparison and what other projects to compare the carrier to as a yardstick. I chose EATS because (1) having a much smaller contribution to it financially and in personnel suits "ATLland's" grand strategy; (2) the vast sums that the other SP nations threw at it showed that in the grand scheme of re-armament and war, a light carrier is not a vast cost.

Yes, I was using wartime EATS figures but I don't think it's a gross distortion since if you can afford 40 million pounds in 1939 then you can have afforded 2.8-ish in 1935-1939, when a new carrier would be built.

Because with a range of 150 miles the intelligence/information service needs to be better at warning than for a force with a range of 300 miles to have the strike in range when required. The excellent signals intelligence requires lots of equipment and personnel, that costs. And is the assumption the other side is not as good and therefore cannot track the single good guy carrier with any precision? The Japanese could tell whether Spruance or Halsey were in command and had a good idea when an operation was going to hit, the big unknown was where.

Notice I posed it as a question? It is your scenario. I noted how all land based airfields were charged to to the land based strike force, for costings purposes airfields used by scouting forces could not be used by strike forces.

Simply put from where I sit, you are looking in the mirror when typing the above. Stop loading costs onto one force without also adding them to the other.

To alter things slightly much of the infrastructure to maintain a small air strike force, such as airfields, can already be found in a country that can maintain a small air force, things like training and civil ones for a start. If you are going waive costs for the navy, do so for the air force to keep things even. A 10,000 ton county class cruiser was 640x66, Colossus/Majestic 690x80.25, Hermes 737x90, the larger Illustrious class 766.5x95.75, King George V 745x103. The Australians needed a bigger dry dock for the British Pacific Fleet.

A graving dock as big as the pre-war one in Cockatoo would be large enough for something like a modified Light Fleet or Unicorn. This is not the first large ship the nation has ever owned.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Trying to see if I have the theme correct.

We are dealing with a mythical country whose economy, geography, opponents and allies are such that the answer is aircraft carrier and things like relevant sized docks and nearby airbases already provided, while not providing airbases for land based strike aircraft. It is small enough only one carrier capable port with associated airbase is required but big enough multiple airbases are required for land based aircraft, this is partly due to maintaining an intelligence service that can enable sending the carrier up to 1,600 miles away from base in a timely manner, over half the London New York distance or since we are in the South Pacific based in Australia and going 250 miles beyond New Zealand. At 20 knots be there in 80 hours, a Fletcher class destroyer war endurance was 3,480 miles at 20 knots, British designs had less range. The threat will be such the carrier can deal with it before needing to return.

However the intelligence service has a failure, enabling a small IJN carrier with about 31 aircraft on board to totally cripple an airbase and associated land based airpower, while seemingly unable to hurt the friendly carrier. Which is good because without a carrier the entire nation can be cut off and to stop this needs to strike targets more than 550 miles from bases. The intelligence service will also give enough warning the carrier will be built and fully trained up just before the war (training done on the operational airbase near the port to save money no doubt and continue during the war), this avoids the lifetime bills, over 20 years, Illustrious £17,880,000, Ark Royal assuming only extra costs are aircraft £26,160,000. To make the carrier costs look small only quote the build cost and compare it to 3.5 years of mass aircrew training by a system that had by March 1943 a strength of 11,659 personnel overseas plus personnel who had either returned or had become casualties.

The intention is just the same as the US, UK and Japan had with their carriers. The carrier arm is not the basis, or the major component, of the air defence of the homeland.

Even when a small IJN carrier turns up and cripples the land based airpower?

I confess I don't understand why "each carrier capable port comes with an airfield, two ports, two airfields…".

Each carrier capable port needs an airfield, if you want two carrier ports you need to build two airfields, one for each port.

Look at the careers of the armoured carriers - some of them operated from the Arctic, through much of the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and then the Pacific. How many airfields do you need to achieve a similar span of action with land based aircraft?

Lots, but now we have moved away from even 1,600 miles from home, how many carriers to maintain a permanent presence in each area, since an airbase gives that presence? What are the local requirements? How about how many carriers to the 8th Air Force to use this idea of comparison?

Geoffrey, do you think others are not aware of factors like the existence of submarines? I posted a thread asking about Sea Hurricane radiator scoops. Why on earth am I now being asked to set out something like the most important of the eight ASW small-ship classes, the Aux AA ships, the MACs and AMCs and the mixture of ASW aircraft planned? Corvettes and converted merchant vessels do not use Sea Hurricane radiator scoops and are therefore utterly irrelevant to the thread.

1) who introduced the mythical land?
2) who keeps adding extra capabilities, like anti submarine warfare to show how great carriers are?

Yes, I was using wartime EATS figures but I don't think it's a gross distortion since if you can afford 40 million pounds in 1939 then you can have afforded 2.8-ish in 1935-1939, when a new carrier would be built.

The £40 million figure is from 3.5 years of training thousands of air and ground crew, late 1939 to early 1943. To turn it around, we have £26,000,000, what a training system we can build, airfields, schools, the lot, of course aircraft, people, fuel, power etc. are extras but look at how much bigger it is than just 1 Ark Royal for 20 years. Even more so when you factor in all the infrastructure already built by the civil economy.

It is obvious the answer is aircraft carrier, now what was the question?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The bickering, man.

 

[SaparotRob]

Trying to see if I have the theme correct.

We are dealing with a mythical country whose economy, geography, opponents and allies are such that the answer is aircraft carrier and things like relevant sized docks and nearby airbases already provided, while not providing airbases for land based strike aircraft. It is small enough only one carrier capable port with associated airbase is required but big enough multiple airbases are required for land based aircraft, this is partly due to maintaining an intelligence service that can enable sending the carrier up to 1,600 miles away from base in a timely manner, over half the London New York distance or since we are in the South Pacific based in Australia and going 250 miles beyond New Zealand. At 20 knots be there in 80 hours, a Fletcher class destroyer war endurance was 3,480 miles at 20 knots, British designs had less range. The threat will be such the carrier can deal with it before needing to return.


…

Yes. You have it correct.