Hybrid aircraft carriers (1 Viewer)

[Thumpalumpacus]

So you again have to pursue an enemy ship, sail to the wind in order to launch aircraft, and set up an optimal firing solution for your main battery. Do you land that initial 26,000 yd hit that cripples Glorious? Who gets planes up first? And when the two destroyers charge the Germans, do they shift fire, or perhaps screw up their take-off sailing to dodge gnats?

Not a lot of secondary guns on them if they're hybrids.

4 - IMO - no 15 cm guns.

So definitely having to split two three-gun turrets (one forward on each S&G) between Glorious and the two destroyers. 3 ships, two turrets, and some funky sailing to get the German airplanes aloft. Stay target with one turret on the real carrier, and with no real German secondary, one destroyer gets a free torpedo run. Put both turrets on the British destroyers, the Glorious glides away.

 

[Warspite63]

A slight tangent: I actually thought that Gneisenau could have been returned to service quicker if her destroyed A turret was replaced with C; and then the aft end rebuilt per Mogami. The expanded air complement would have really increased her ability to locate targets (and avoid hunters) while raiding, and 6 11" guns are still enough for ranging (probably....). Of course, raiding was basically in the past by this time of the war

 

[tomo pauk]

Then all the hybrid has to fight a cruiser is the main turrets. A Southampton can't sink the hybrid with 6in guns but it can sure wreck the flight deck, aviation faculties.
One 11in turret or two per Hybrid? one turret means that two hybrids together have less fire power than the Graf Spee. You are now depending on the 10.5cm guns for anti-destroyer fire power. Even if you kill several DDs with 10.5cm fire, if they got within torpedo range they did their job.

Two 3-gun 11in turrets per hybrid in this case.
Southampton can be tackled with the S and/or G airgroup well beyond horizon.

They went all in and they had already lost (killed/crippled) several major ships and 1/2 their destroyers. The Hipper was the only other operational heavy unit in May/June of 1940.
Things could go very well for the Hybrids or they could go very, very badly.

They are in the war. In a war, bad things can happen. Even more so when one has no air support worth talking about.

So you again have to pursue an enemy ship, sail to the wind in order to launch aircraft, and set up an optimal firing solution for your main battery. Do you land that initial 26,000 yd hit that cripples Glorious? Who gets planes up first? And when the two destroyers charge the Germans, do they shift fire, or perhaps screw up their take-off sailing to dodge gnats?

Main weapon are the aircraft.
So they will be doing the recon and chasing, with the twins preferably staying well beyond horizon.

Not a lot of secondary guns on them if they're hybrids.

In case of the hybrids, the primary weapons are the aircraft, secondary weapons are the the 11 or 12 or 14 or 15in guns, or whatever the country of origin is making.
Tertiary guns are the air-defence types.

 

[tomo pauk]

So definitely having to split two three-gun turrets (one forward on each S&G) between Glorious and the two destroyers. 3 ships, two turrets, and some funky sailing to get the German airplanes aloft. Stay target with one turret on the real carrier, and with no real German secondary, one destroyer gets a free torpedo run. Put both turrets on the British destroyers, the Glorious glides away.

As noted above, it is the aircraft that need to do heavy lifting, not the big guns.

 

[EwenS]

A slight tangent: I actually thought that Gneisenau could have been returned to service quicker if her destroyed A turret was replaced with C; and then the aft end rebuilt per Mogami. The expanded air complement would have really increased her ability to locate targets (and avoid hunters) while raiding, and 6 11" guns are still enough for ranging (probably....). Of course, raiding was basically in the past by this time of the war

It wasn't just A turret that was destroyed. While A turret was physically displaced by the initial magazine explosion, the real problem was the fire which followed which gutted most of the forward end of the ship. It was the extent of the rebuild required to her forward end that made it attractive to replace her triple 11in turrets with twin 15in turrets that required a lengthened bow anyway, to ensure adequate buoyancy forward with the added weight (these were already "wet" ships)

When this happened she was sitting in a floating dock at Kiel, which was not suitable for major repairs. Bombed 26/27 Feb 1942, she left Kiel for Gotenhafen in early April.

Her demise was caused by the KM defeat during the Battle of the Barents Sea at the end of 1942, when Lutzow, Hipper and escorting destroyers failed to destroy convoy JW51B. Hitler then wanted all the big ships scrapped, Raeder resigned and his replacement, Donitz, persuaded Hitler otherwise. But Gneisenau needed such extensive work that it was not considered worthwhile, so work was stopped entirely in early 1943.

Worth noting some of the repair times for the worst damaged USN cruisers (not even considering the PH battleships) even with everything being thrown into the task:-

Reno - 11 months in total. 7 months after arriving at Charleston NY.
Houston - 1 year including 4 months temporary repairs at Ulithi & Manus to allow her just to sail to New York.
Canberra - as above
Honolulu - 1 year including 10 months at Norfolk NY that included bulging the hull and fitting twin 5in/38 in place of single 5in/25.

And these ships only suffered from torpedo damage not the significant fire damage suffered by Gneisenau.

 

[EwenS]

As noted above, it is the aircraft that need to do heavy lifting, not the big guns.

All of which assumes that you can get your aircraft into the air and recover them to prepare them for follow up strikes.

How many of your limited number have you deployed on recce (or have you been forewarned of your enemy just over the horizon? S&G simply stumbled into Glorious) and how many held back for a strike? How ready are those strike aircraft for launch? So long as they are sitting fully fuelled and armed, they represent a hazard to your own ship. That is why good carrier practice was to keep aircraft disarmed and defuelled until required. Successful torpedo strikes (which are the real tool needed to slow down or sink a large enemy vessel) are not easy to obtain. Look at the FAA experience against Bismarck. Victorious 1 hit from 9 aircraft launched. Ark Royal 2 hits from 15 aircraft launched with one being that lucky hit on the rudder. The Med experience was not too much different on vessels at Sea able to manoeuvre freely.

What is the wind direction for each launch? IIRC Glorious ran downwind after spotting S&G. That complicates launching heavily laden TB from the short decks of a hybrid, even if they had viable catapults

The Glorious episode occurred in good weather. Take a look at the difficulties faced by both Victorious & Ark Royal during the Bismarck chase and the numbers of Swordfish damaged when landing back aboard.

The USN kept the 8in guns on the Lexingtons into 1942 due to the perceived risk of encountering an enemy cruiser force at night or in bad weather when they couldn't operate their aircraft.

 

[tomo pauk]

All of which assumes that you can get your aircraft into the air and recover them to prepare them for follow up strikes.

Getting the aircraft into the air, recovering them and preparing them for the follow up strikes was the thing in case of aircraft carriers.

1 - How many of your limited number have you deployed on recce (or have you been forewarned of your enemy just over the horizon? S&G simply stumbled into Glorious) and how many held back for a strike?
2 - How ready are those strike aircraft for launch? So long as they are sitting fully fuelled and armed, they represent a hazard to your own ship. That is why good carrier practice was to keep aircraft disarmed and defuelled until required.
3 - Successful torpedo strikes (which are the real tool needed to slow down or sink a large enemy vessel) are not easy to obtain.

1 - At least two per carrier, up to 5 per carrier.
2 - A number of the attack aircraft need to be fueled and armed and on the flight deck, ready to be launched - we're in the war zone and RN is active, after all.
3 - As repeated numerous times, I'd skip on the torpedo bombers for the KM.

Look at the FAA experience against Bismarck. Victorious 1 hit from 9 aircraft launched. Ark Royal 2 hits from 15 aircraft launched with one being that lucky hit on the rudder. The Med experience was not too much different on vessels at Sea able to manoeuvre freely.

Bismarck experience shows what happens when there is no own carrier-borne aircraft to defend the ships. It also shows just how much of a cascading effect one lucky hit by the attacking aircraft makes, as well as how allowing the enemy to freely spot and follow your ships is a bad thing.

What is the wind direction for each launch? IIRC Glorious ran downwind after spotting S&G. That complicates launching heavily laden TB from the short decks of a hybrid, even if they had viable catapults

For the each launch?
As noted above and elsewhere, no TBs.

The Glorious episode occurred in good weather. Take a look at the difficulties faced by both Victorious & Ark Royal during the Bismarck chase and the numbers of Swordfish damaged when landing back aboard.

Trade off being that Bismarck is as good as dead.

 

[z42]

As noted above, it is the aircraft that need to do heavy lifting, not the big guns.

In that case, that's an awful lot of tonnage in guns and armor you're carrying around just as insurance for that "Oh SH*T!" moment.

Also, a hybrid carrier S&G runs into the same kind of timeline issues that the "why didn't everybody just build carriers instead of battlewagons in the runup to WWII?" argument does. What carriers showed they were capable of at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the Bismarck chase, not to mention the later Pacific carrier battles, was not what people thought they were capable of back in 1935 when the S&G were laid down. What argument would have caused the Germans to sacrifice a significant part of the gun fighting capability of the S&G in favor of the unproven carrier capability?

 

[tomo pauk]

In that case, that's an awful lot of tonnage in guns and armor you're carrying around just as insurance for that "Oh SH*T!" moment.

Also, a hybrid carrier S&G runs into the same kind of timeline issues that the "why didn't everybody just build carriers instead of battlewagons in the runup to WWII?" argument does. What carriers showed they were capable of at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the Bismarck chase, not to mention the later Pacific carrier battles, was not what people thought they were capable of back in 1935 when the S&G were laid down. What argument would have caused the Germans to sacrifice a significant part of the gun fighting capability of the S&G in favor of the unproven carrier capability?

Ideas, of Italy and Germany making the carriers while forgetting the battleships, was countered with a lot of flak in this and other forums. Reasoning being that no ships with big guns = the carriers will be trashed once the capital ships of the RN pounce on them.

So this leaves the big ships with a good deal of guns' firepower still being there, while the presence of the air group will prevent the enemy from scouting and following as he wishes, improves the own recon ability, improves the air defenses, and allows for an over-the-horizon attack. The air group also can cover much greater area in searching both for the enemy military ships, as well as for the merchant ships.
Luckily, neither Reader nor his Italian counterparts never figured this.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Two 3-gun 11in turrets per hybrid in this case.

But here you said (emphasis added):

I'll try and launch 30+ of wheeled aircraft from each hybrid, that is sized like the Andre Doria, or Schanrnhorst, or the Ise/Hyuga; each of these with 2/3rds of the ship devoted to the air component. I'll prefer the dive bombers.

 

[tomo pauk]

But here you said (emphasis added):
I'll try and launch 30+ of wheeled aircraft from each hybrid, that is sized like the Andre Doria, or Schanrnhorst, or the Ise/Hyuga; each of these with 2/3rds of the ship devoted to the air component.

See here, once again:



IOW, 2/3rds of the ship for the air group, two turrets between the flight deck and the bow.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

See here, once again:

View attachment 811913

IOW, 2/3rds of the ship for the air group, two turrets between the flight deck and the bow.

No range-finding on a spotting top is going to greatly reduce the utility of those turrets. There's a reason why local control on a turret is Plan C.

Also, the idea of keeping aircraft fueled and armed when not in use is a great way to lose them. Ask the American cruisers at Savo Island. Even in a war zone, you minimize every potential risk. If your guns are only for the oh-shit moment, you should be cycling your flight deck for scouting, which means that the oh-shit moment really shouldn't take place during the day.

If you're doing proper scouting, the only thing those turrets do is keep the bow down. Oh, and they take up space otherwise used for aircraft stowage and longer takeoff runs.

 

[tomo pauk]

No range-finding on a spotting top is going to greatly reduce the utility of those turrets. There's a reason why local control on a turret is Plan C.

Range finding is incorporated.

Also, the idea of keeping aircraft fueled and armed when not in use is a great way to lose them. Ask the American cruisers at Savo Island.

American cruisers, not American carriers.

Even in a war zone, you minimize every potential risk. If your guns are only for the oh-shit moment, you should be cycling your flight deck for scouting, which means that the oh-shit moment really shouldn't take place during the day.
If you're doing proper scouting, the only thing those turrets do is keep the bow down. Oh, and they take up space otherwise used for aircraft stowage and longer takeoff runs.

Nobody said that hybrid aircraft carriers are the perfect solution.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Bismarck with a half dozen Catafighters might have given any unescorted Stringbags a fright and maybe got the ship home. Bismarck was about 300 miles from Brest when the final Swordfish attack came in. Six Bf 109s would have taken them on, and then either ditched alongside or flown to France.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Range finding is incorporated.

Great, more topweight.

American cruisers, not American carriers.

So what? Your quibble here, and that's all it is, doesn't negate the fact that aviation fuel and stores are extremely hazardous topside in a gunfight. You think your hybrid carrier will somehow prevent avgas from going up from a shell hit?

Nobody said that hybrid aircraft carriers are the perfect solution.

That's because they're really no solution at all. That's why they were considered and discarded by several navies.

The only success story for keel-up hybrids are the Tones, which allowed CVs to delegate search duties to cruisers. For conversions, the Ise and Hyuga proved most useful as transports, with a side order of escorting the decoy carriers.

The hybrid concept was not picked up for very good reason.

 

[z42]

Bismarck with a half dozen Catafighters might have given any unescorted Stringbags a fright and maybe got the ship home. Bismarck was about 300 miles from Brest when the final Swordfish attack came in. Six Bf 109s would have taken them on, and then either ditched alongside or flown to France.

Bismarck with the aft part of the ship taken up by a hangar and flight deck and thus half of the heavy firepower gone, could have been the one ending up at the bottom as a result of Denmark Strait.

 

[tomo pauk]

Great, more topweight.

Goes with the territory.

So what? Your quibble here, and that's all it is, doesn't negate the fact that aviation fuel and stores are extremely hazardous topside in a gunfight. You think your hybrid carrier will somehow prevent avgas from going up from a shell hit?

You are the one expecting that captains and the like go head-first (= with their carrier in the lead) in the jaws of the enemy.
Avgas being a hazard was a thing for any aircraft carrier.

That's because they're really no solution at all. That's why they were considered and discarded by several navies.

They were considered and rejected by the navies that were already in the CV business, and have had bespoke carriers.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

You are the one expecting that captains and the like go head-first (= with their carrier in the lead) in the jaws of the enemy.
Avgas being a hazard was a thing for any aircraft carrier.

No, I'm not expecting them to charge in anywhere. I'd appreciate it if you didn't impute points to me I didn't make. As I wrote: "If your guns are only for the oh-shit moment, you should be cycling your flight deck for scouting, which means that the oh-shit moment really shouldn't take place during the day."

In other words, I'm actually accepting that these guns are for the oh-shit moment. That doesn't change the fact that your idea of keeping airplanes ready-use even when not being used is really unsafe. Even the CVs didn't do this.

They were considered and rejected by the navies that were already in the CV business, and have had bespoke carriers.

Right, because the latter are superior.

Were they taken up by any non-carrier navies of the time? No.

 

[tomo pauk]

No, I'm not expecting them to charge in anywhere. I'd appreciate it if you didn't impute points to me I didn't make. As I wrote: "If your guns are only for the oh-shit moment, you should be cycling your flight deck for scouting, which means that the oh-shit moment really shouldn't take place during the day."

Okay.

Right, because the latter are superior.

That I had no problems acknowledging all they way.

Were they taken up by any non-carrier navies of the time? No.

To their detriment.

 

[Warspite63]

It wasn't just A turret that was destroyed. While A turret was physically displaced by the initial magazine explosion, the real problem was the fire which followed which gutted most of the forward end of the ship. It was the extent of the rebuild required to her forward end that made it attractive to replace her triple 11in turrets with twin 15in turrets that required a lengthened bow anyway, to ensure adequate buoyancy forward with the added weight (these were already "wet" ships)

When this happened she was sitting in a floating dock at Kiel, which was not suitable for major repairs. Bombed 26/27 Feb 1942, she left Kiel for Gotenhafen in early April.

Her demise was caused by the KM defeat during the Battle of the Barents Sea at the end of 1942, when Lutzow, Hipper and escorting destroyers failed to destroy convoy JW51B. Hitler then wanted all the big ships scrapped, Raeder resigned and his replacement, Donitz, persuaded Hitler otherwise. But Gneisenau needed such extensive work that it was not considered worthwhile, so work was stopped entirely in early 1943.

Worth noting some of the repair times for the worst damaged USN cruisers (not even considering the PH battleships) even with everything being thrown into the task:-

Reno - 11 months in total. 7 months after arriving at Charleston NY.
Houston - 1 year including 4 months temporary repairs at Ulithi & Manus to allow her just to sail to New York.
Canberra - as above
Honolulu - 1 year including 10 months at Norfolk NY that included bulging the hull and fitting twin 5in/38 in place of single 5in/25.

And these ships only suffered from torpedo damage not the significant fire damage suffered by Gneisenau.

Oh I agree, but the fact is, a new front end was required either way.... either to the existing pattern, or an enlarged one to provide buoyancy with the heavier 15" turrets. I'd see the issue being more one of armament: did Germany have 3 twin 15" turrets available? If not, how long to fabricate them? C turret already exists and is undamaged. B turret might have (and I don't actually know if this is the case) required repairs after the explosion under A

Question: do the repair times for the USN ships above include the time required to get to the yards? I see they were all repaired on the East Coast, which adds a lot of transit time