HMS Ark Royal survives unscathed into 1942.

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SaparotRob said:
Using Ark Royal on the Malta run wasn't something you'd want to do. It was something they may have had to do. Like sending Wasp into the front lines.
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Only if fifty or more Fulmars and all their crews could be embarked, along with sufficient RAS avgas, so that a constant dozen CAP was feasible. I want Ark Royal to survive until she can convert to folding Martlets.
 
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ISTR reading that Ark's intended 1941/42 refit, as planned around Aug 1941, was supposed to last until April 1942 and might, at that point in time been planned to take place in the USA. With US entry into the war those plans for a US refit would have had to have been altered to a refit in Britain.

How long it would take would depend on many things but 4-5 months seems short for what was required over and above the kind of normal maintenance work, of which there was much to be done.

So what else?
Radars - Types 282 (6 sets) and 285 (4 sets) for Pom Pom and main armament. Type 281b (single aerial setup) for air warning. That requires fitting a second mast to carry the aerial (it couldn't just be added on top of the Type 72 beacon on the foremast (the Illustrious/Implacables had a different Type 72 setup as completed. Furious retained her original Type 72 setup which was the same as Ark's). Fitting those means finding space and reconfiguring compartments to take the wardrobe sized electronics.

Also fit a centimetric surface warning Type 271/272/273 lantern somewhere on the forward part of the island.

Some reconstruction / expansion of the bridge structure to provide the space for fighter direction facilities (compare the size of the bridge structure forward of the funnel in Ark with Illustrious). What are the knock on consequences? Move/eliminate one of the forward starboard Pom poms as happened in Victorious & Formidable in 1944 and Illustrious & Indomitable post-war?

Light AA replacement of quad 0.5" with single 20mm. How many are available and can be fitted beyond replacing the 8 original mounts? Anyway, 8-10 was typical for the Illustrious class in this period.

Installation of diesel generators, preferably outwith the machinery spaces (where?) to improve damage control.

Modifying the stern to reduce / eliminate the round down and perhaps broaden the overhang. (But care is needed or it might cause the type of "cliff" effect for landing aircraft as experienced by Seafires on Unicorn at Salerno).

Lifts. Capable of lifting 14,000lb, which was what the Illustrious class started at. Strengthening was possible and carried out in the Illustrious class later. Probably not essential in 1941/42.

What would not be possible in the kind of timescale envisaged is eliminating the two platform layout. But how much of a hindrance is it? DK Brown in "Nelson to Vanguard" suggested that the lower, shorter (by 116ft) hangar might have been used more for aircraft maintenance so requiring fewer movements from it. I've also seen it argued that it was not as inefficient as at first seems if you do a time and motion study. Not sure I wear that argument unless you are bringing aircraft up from both hangars to the flight deck simultaneously as opposed to just needing something in the lower hangar.

Hangar height. This is not a problem. It was 16ft under the beams, the same as the Illustrious class and Indomitable's lower hangar. So that even allows Corsairs (with their clipped wingtips for the RN) in 1944/45.

Accelerators (Catapults). Ark was fitted with BH.I (not BH.III as stated by Hobbs). Rated at 12,000lb at 56 knots (Cooper, but Hobbs says 11,000lb). These were shorter than the BH.III in the Illustrious class which were initially rated at 12,500lb at 66 knots. So probably OK for Albacores. The latter were upgraded as the war went on to cope with heavier aircraft like the Barracuda and Avenger. How far the BH.I could be upgraded, who knows. The only other ships with it were C&G and Argus.

Note RN accelerators were designed to work with British aircraft using a trolley to position the aircraft in a flying attitude. Loading an aircraft took time, slowing down a range of aircraft, hence the RN preference for free take offs (even the USN favoured free take offs on fleet carriers until late in WW2). The first RN aircraft designed for tail down launch was the Seafire XV, hence the development of RATOG. The BH.III catapults were modified from 1942 for tail down launch of US aircraft types, starting with later Martlet deliveries.

Arrester gear. Mk.3*. Rated at 8,000lb at 60 knots. The Mk.4 & 6 fitted in later classes were upgraded as aircraft weights increased. So again probably adequate for the Albacore but not beyond. And being an earlier design just how upgradable? Replacing it entirely adds to the refit time.

As for aircraft, no way the Chesapeake. Only 50 delivered in 1941 from an ex French Order, and the last of 260 of the type off the production line. In the USN they only continued on the Atlantic carriers until sufficient SBD could be spared from the Pacific.

Martlets are a problem as discussed numerous times. 90 folding wing Mk.II delivered Oct 1941-April 1942, mostly ending up in Indian Ocean for Formidable, Illustrious & Indomitable. The next batch, with the exception of one aircraft delivered in Feb 1942, don't begin to be delivered in the US until June 1942, with arrivals in the U.K. from late Aug 1942.

So the best that can be expected in 1942 is Fulmars and a handful of Sea Hurricanes to be retained on the flight deck, and perhaps placed on outriggers (which would need to be fitted as was done in Eagle at this time).

Overall, I see no reason why her airgroup should follow a pattern different from the of the Illustrious class. So
1942 - mainly Fulmars as fighters with a handful of Sea Hurricanes, and the latter replaced by Seafires late in the year. Swordfish or Albacores as TB.
1943 - mainly Martlets with a handful of Seafire II/IIc. Albacores as TB. The first Barracuda squadron only converted in April and went aboard Illustrious in June.
1944/45 - Corsairs as main fighter, with a squadron of Fireflies. Barracudas as TBR. Avengers by the end of the year only if she is headed for the Pacific (which depends on her use and refit status between 1941 & 1944).

As Avengers can't carry British torpedoes and it is still considered the main offensive weapon by the RN, they won't be aboard before late 1944 unless she spent time in a USS Robin capacity in 1943 in the Pacific.

To my mind there is no way the RN would consider sending any force to the Pacific in 1942. The focus then was very much of securing the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean to the Middle East and India where there were major and very immediate threats.

And remember Victorious was sent in response to a request from the USN that arose after the loss of Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp & Hornet and the damage to Enterprise by Oct 1942 leaving only Saratoga in the Pacific and Ranger in the Atlantic from amongst the pre-war fleet carriers. Until that point the USN seemed to have considered that it had things under control carrier wise in the Pacific. Britain offered two carriers, Illustrious then in the IO and Victorious with the Home Fleet provided Ranger could join the Home Fleet. The US chose Illustrious from the IO, probably because it seemed nearer the scene of their action. And that is even though she only had Swordfish as TB at that time. Britain chose to send Victorious without the cover of Ranger.

So the possibility of Ark instead of Victorious being requested by the US, seems to me to depend on where she would have been serving at the time.
 
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Thinking back to your post, the best way to get more carriers into service is to skip the Illustrious/Implacables and go from Ark Royal straight to a faster, slightly longer Centaur class. Essentially an Illustrious but with only 1 in flight deck armour and no armoured sides. But again, only if we have more and better aircraft combined with cutting edge radar and fighter control - all of which needs a lot of confidence and foresight in 1935-38 that such tech and innovation is coming.
 
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Not sure how you figure that.

In 1943 when the Centaur class were being designed, (that is as originally designed at 18,000 tons with 4.5" guns not the postwar modified design of about 20,000 tons that was built with no more than Bofors) were being designed the DNC expected a construction time of 33 months (see Friedman). And the Admiralty were generally optimistic with their estimates. Compare that to the DNC estimate of 20 months for a Colossus (the first 5 wartime completions averaged 29 months with the fastest 25 months). And many of the Centaur design features were driven by a generation of aircraft that were not even envisaged in 1936.

Ark Royal herself took 39 months to build. Illustrious 36 (I believe 30 months had been hoped for when she was ordered) and Victorious, Formidable & Indomitable 41-48 months after suffering various delays. Of the pre-war US carriers only Hornet, which was a virtual repeat of the Yorktown, was built in substantially less than 3 years.

The only way you get more British carriers in WW2 is to lay down more in 1936-38. And to do that you need to change the whole attitude of the RN, which was shared with all the other major navies of the world at the time, that the Battleship was king. And while the purse strings were loosened in the late 1930s, the Treasury was still keeping a leash on overall defence spending.
 
I was thinking that instead of building an Ark Royal, order a class of four Ark Royals. Build time would have reduced as experience was gained. There would be no time wasted redefining the the requirements, preparing the design and building a new structure. More than one yard built the carriers and it would have been quite possible to have all four in service just after the outbreak of war.
This would have allowed a follow on group of four carriers to have been designed and in service by mid 1942 incorporating the lessons of the original Ark Royals.

The Achilles heal of all this was the lack of suitable aircraft, but that as they say, is a whole different story.
 
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There are a number of problems with your proposal depending on the timing of the ships being laid down.

Ark Royal was designed between 1931 and 1934, funded under the 1934 Programme, laid down in Jan 1935. She used up the last of the carrier tonnage available to Britain under the 1922 Washington Treaty after taking account of the conversion of Argus to an auxiliary as a Queen Bee carrier. That Treaty didn't expire until 31 Dec 1936.

So to start building more carriers before the end of 1936 you have to plan to lose some or all of Hermes (10,850 tons), Eagle (22,600 tons) and, Britain claimed, Furious (22,450 tons) which could be replaced anytime by virtue of being treated as "experimental" under the Treaty. Laying down any further ships means you also have to look at losing C&G which can't be replaced until after Oct 1936 when they hit the age of 20 years (therexwerecrules about when construction of replacements could start and when old ships needed to be removed from service under the Treaty).

So to lay down a class of 4 Arks in 1935/36 means losing the Eagle (by 1939 she was not figuring in plans for 1942) and Furious and C or G. In terms of carrier numbers you therefore end up no better off by the outbreak of war.

You also have the problem that in 1934/35 the world is still in disarmament mode with a long running conference in Geneva. And in 1935 negotiations began ahead of the 1936 London Conference which was held between Dec 1935 and March 1936. As far as carriers were concerned, Britain went in arguing for a 22,000 ton carrier limit i.e. Ark Royal size. The US wanted a higher figure. The result was 23,000 tons. A plus is that after that there was then no overall limit.

How much of an improvement to the Ark Royal design does 1,000 tons buy you? Can you afford not to design a new ship with fewer compromises? DK Brown noted that her machinery proved too powerful for the designed speed and weight could have been saved there. On the other hand by the time Implacable was designed in 1937/38 the call, for unexplained reasons, was for a ship faster than Illustrious, hence the new machinery layout. Her lift layout was also less than ideal. The Illustrious class were also given an extra two feet of hangar width, which proved useful in 1940 when the RN began specifying a fighter aircraft folded width of 13ft 6in. That allowed 4 abreast in the hangar, leaving adequate working room, for the likes of Firebrand I and Seafire III in due course.

Do you actually get any significant reduction in build time with construction spread across a number of different yards in different geographical areas of Britain? Fleet carrier construction was spread across Cammell Laird on the Mersey, Vickers Barrow, Harland & Wolff in Belfast, 2 yards on the Tyne and two yards on the Clyde between 1935 & 1945.

I still think construction would take 3 years new design or not. So they become available in 1940. But you have lost some of the older hulls.
 
You make some good points. My initial reaction would be make it an initial class of three, replacing the Eagle and Furious with two new hulls. The Hermes could be kept as a training ship and later when action starts as a convoy escort.
The C and G were probably the best of the early carriers and good use could have been made of them in most roles.
As for what does an extra 1000 tons buy you on top of the Ark Royal design, not much, but simply sorting out the Lift configuration would suffice and shouldn't weigh too much.

As for the later design coming on stream in 1942/3, anything goes as we are at war and who cares what it weighs. A personal thought would be something like a Centaur class carrier. Fast enough to keep up with the fleet, relatively cheap and quick to build and available in greater numbers. A mark 2 Ark Royal would have worked but I believe the vast improvement in carrier technology would have necessitated a new design. Who knows, maybe someone might have thought about the angled deck.
 
I'll not comment further on potential other carriers, and instead try to bring us back on topic.
Given Ark Royal's need for a refit in 1942, perhaps we're most likely to next see the 1943 CAG you propose. How big of an air group would you see? Would Ark Royal keep her two full length hangars or like the Implacables sacrifice half of the lower hangar to workshop, spares and accommodation space? These later carriers operated up to 81 aircraft, but I have to assume in a solely short-term pinch due to limited fuel, ordnance and space.
 
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A though regarding the aircraft that potentially could be carried. As an interim measure before the Martlets are available. What about substituting the Fulmar with the Buffalo?

They were in production without a real home and it has to be better than the Fulmar. Faster, better climb and smaller so you can fit a lot more into a crowded space.
 
The UK did test the Buffalo as to its suitability for their carriers, but rejected it for several reasons. I have read several anecdotal accounts as to why, but nothing from original source documents.
 
The Buffalo with its fixed wings doesn't fit the lifts of Ark or the first 3 Illustrious class (45x22ft with Ark forward lift 45x25ft). Buffalo span 35ft length 26ft.

There is a photo of a B339B Buffalo being deck landed on Eagle as an experiment at Alexandria in March 1941 (1 of 2 put aboard for trials). But there is much doubt about how they were able to land. Free, unarrested, landing? Or using the undercart to catch a wire? This photo has been posted before.




And there was also this one




But beyond that experiment no British carrier use was made of them. One aircraft may have later returned to Britain on Eagle at the end of 1941 to refit. Mike Crosley in "They gave me a Seafire" reported seeing one tucked away in a corner of her hangar when he went aboard at Liverpool in early 1942.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I'll not comment further on potential other carriers, and instead try to bring us back on topic.

Given Ark Royal's need for a refit in 1942, perhaps we're most likely to next see the 1943 CAG you propose. How big of an air group would you see?
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I'll come back to this after highlighting a few other things.
Admiral Beez said:
Would Ark Royal keep her two full length hangars or like the Implacables sacrifice half of the lower hangar to workshop, spares and accommodation space?
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Not sure what you mean here.

When the Implacables were designed in 1937 the first request was for more speed requiring new machinery. The second request was for more aircraft. So the airgroup was to grow from 36 Swordfish/Skua sized aircraft (36 ft long) to an eventual 48 Albacore sized aircraft (40ft long).

Contrary to popular opinion the reason for the half sized lower hangar was not to generate space for accomodation etc. It arose because the hangar of the Illustrious class had to dropped by a deck to ensure adequate stability within the 23,000 ton Treaty limit. At its forward end it then ran into those boiler uptakes I referred to in earlier posts which had run under the hangar deck in Illustrious. That caused it to have to be only half the length. A new full length hangar was then added on top. Then, again for stability reasons, the hangar height in both ships had to be cut to 14ft. Indomitable had the same layout but managed to retain the 16ft height in what became the lower hangar. But her upper hangar was 40ft shorter meaning her designed aircraft capacity was 45 Albacores (although for simplicity for planning purposes the Admiralty in 1944/45 treated her as a 48 aircraft ship like the Implacables).

A side effect was that, given the lower hangar's depth, some space was available forward of those boiler uptakes which was used for accomodation etc, but that simply replaced what had been lost by lowering the hangar deck in the first place.
Admiral Beez said:
These later carriers operated up to 81 aircraft, but I have to assume in a solely short-term pinch due to limited fuel, ordnance and space.
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A lot changed between 1938 and 1945 with the Implacables.

Firstly, as noted above, they were designed around a hangar capacity of 48 Albacore sized aircraft (33 in the upper hangar carried 3 abreast and 15 in the lower hangar carried 3 abreast). By 1945 the airgroup contained 40-48 Seafires. [Indefatigable always carried about 9 fewer aircraft than Implacable for reasons not clear to me. There were design differences between the two ships so this might have had an effect. There was also a shortage of Seafire F.III (as opposed to LF.III) in 1945 with which one of her squadrons was equipped. And Implacable was a very happy and efficient ship]

Seafires were shorter than Albacores (30ft v 40ft) and could be packed into the hangar 4 abreast, instantly offering an increase in aircraft capacity.

And in 1945 all the British carriers were operating constantly with deck parks so allowing an increase in aircraft numbers even further. Deck parks, while not unknown in 1940/41 (see Taranto) were not so common.

The petrol capacity of the Implacables was 94,650 Imp Gals. So nearly double that of an Illustrious class (50,000 gals) and not far short of that of Ark Royal (100,000 gals). And in 1945 in the Pacific the carriers were topping up their fuel supplies every 2-4 days from tankers of the fleet train (these ships were carrying mixed loads of furnace fuel oil, diesel and petrol) in the same pattern as the US TF38/58. So initial fuel capacity was less of a problem.

As for ordnance, there were fewer strike aircraft aboard in 1945 (only 21 Avengers) while the Fireflies only used rockets. And the Seafires were only used for CAP during Operation Iceberg while they flew with drop tanks in July/Aug so had no call for bombs or rockets. Add to that, magazines were able to be refilled from ships of the Fleet Train during those replenishment at sea days.

Compare those operations with Ark in 1940/41 operating close to RN bases at Scapa or Gibraltar where she could pop in, refuel, rearm pick up replacement aircraft etc. She would rarely be more than a few hundred miles from a friendly port, not the thousands seen during Pacific operations in 1945.

Assessing Ark's possible aircraft complement is not so easy as in one of the Armoured carriers. Her hangars were 2ft narrower. It makes for example fitting Seafires 4 abreast difficult as it reduces working room below the usual RN 1.5-2ft minimum. The lifts were within the hangar space itself and took up about half the width, allowing for bulkheads, machinery etc. So you lose about 4,500 sq ft of hangar floor (the lifts in Illustrious/ Implacable were outwith the hangar space). Just how each aircraft types could be fitted around those, and other hangar furniture like fire curtains, would be a pen and paper exercise with some detailed plans.

So back to your first question. Ark's capacity from 1942 onwards.

What we do know is that her designed hangar capacity on completion was 60 Swordfish / Skua sized aircraft (36ft long). By 1941 her capacity was about 54. That seems to me to be easily explained by her having replaced 36ft long Skuas with 40ft long Fulmars. 24 Fulmars carried 3 abreast occupy an extra 32ft of hangar length compared to Skuas forcing a reduction of a minimum of 3 Swordfish before figuring in fitting them around lifts etc, which clearly cost another 3.

On the one hand Martlets (29ft long) & Corsairs (34ft long) are smaller than Fulmars, but Albacores/Barracudas/Avengers are all 40ft long. Fitting 3 Avengers in the hangar abreast is tight (19ft folded = 57ft leaving 3 ft - a bare 9in around them compared to 15in in the Armoured carriers). Fitting 4 Martlets abreast (14ft 4in each) was probably impossible as working room comes down to about 6in. So would it have been done in practice? Who would have thought a couple of feet in hangar width could make such a difference!

And then what effect would deck parks have on her aircraft capacity?

So my answer at the moment is I really don't know what Ark's aircraft capacity could have been after 1941. I doubt anyone else does either without a large amount of research and some detailed plans of the ship.
 
Glider said:
A thought regarding the aircraft that potentially could be carried. As an interim measure before the Martlets are available. What about substituting the Fulmar with the Buffalo?
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The 35 ft wide, 26 ft 4 in long, non-folding Buffalo won't fit down Ark Royal's lifts - two at 45ft x 22ft and one 45ft x 25ft. Widening Ark's lifts is out of the question without a prohibitively extensive reconstruction. So, we need to stay with whatever aircraft can fit within the existing lift dimensions.

And to be fair to Ark's designers, while hangar height would present a challenge, her lifts were sufficiently large to accept every folding single-engine prop aircraft operated by the FAA except the postwar A1 Skyraider, but including the Firebrand and Gannet.
 
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The 1940 Spec for the Firebrand, which was met in the Mk.I fighter version, called for a folded width of of 13ft 6in (from its 50ft wingspan). That is the same as the Seafire III achieved from its 37ft wingspan.

It was only when the Firebrand was asked to carry a torpedo that the folded width began to grow to the eventual 16ft 10in in Mk.IV/V form.
 
Our longevity-enhanced Ark Royal and of course all the RN's CVs were let down by the Air Ministry. Give the FAA of 1940 a sizeable quantity of Merlin-powered, folding wing, eight gun, single seaters capable of >320 mph, designed from the onset for carrier ops (endurance, RDF, undercarriage, low speed handing, visibility) and the MTO is a different place for the Luftwaffe and Italians.

If Mitchell had lived and proposed the above from Vickers-Supermarine, perhaps Fairey and his Fulmar would be told to pound salt…. too bad. I'd liked to have seen what Mitchell did with the Seafang, Attacker, Swift, and Scimitar.
 
I wonder how, if keeping to the original displacement Ark Royal's design would have been altered had the hangars been built with a minimum 60ft width. Presumably the galleries on either side of the the hangars below would need to be removed, like the later Essex class? Perhaps these could be moved to below or above the flight deck?

 
See Hobbs "British Aircraft Carriers ". Ark's hangars WERE 60ft wide. But the lifts occupied space WITHIN the hangar leaving about half that alongside them. The width was increased to 62ft in the Illustrious class where the lifts were outside the hangar itself.
 
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