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- #21
Hybrid aircraft carriers
- Thread starter tomo pauk
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The real question is, what are you giving up to get to the "some carriers" situation? Is the tradeoff worth it, for the particular nation under study? What are the goals of the naval aviation capability you're buying? Recon, air defense, strike? And if you're operating close enough to shore, could you instead use land based aviation and save a huge amount of money? Or if the air force and navy hate each other and are fiercely protective of their own turfs, and thus land based aviation support for the navy doesn't work, is it feasible to expect that the navy will be allowed to run it's own carrier based aviation as it pleases?
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- #23
Ok, it's real, but tautological. All else being equal, would you rather have carriers than not? Obviously the answer is yes. But in reality, all else is not equal. Building up a naval aviation capability is very expensive. If you decide to develop it, you must also at the same time decide to have less of something else.
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- #25
Thank you.
For the French, Italians, Japanese and Germans, they will have less 'guns firepower' available. They will also make and deploy less of the floatplanes and/or flying boats.
Good thing about having some carriers is that the aircraft they will be using are already in development, production and/or use, and that replacing obsolete aircraft is far easier than replacing the main guns batteries. For the Italians and Germans, they can start out with biplanes in order to train their servicemen in use, benefits and limitations of the carrier-borne air power.
Shortround6
Major General
Well, trying to defend using float planes against attacking monoplanes doesn't seem to be a good idea.
Again, lets remember that most of the actual hybrid carriers used float planes.
OR, they used the British CAM ship idea taken to extremes. Catapult several (or a dozen?) non-float plane on a strike or defensive mission and then head for land/ditch.
You run out of planes very quickly.
If any nation wanted to get into carrier aviation the smart way to do it was with a converted merchant ship. This obviously worked as shown by the dozens of escort carriers.
It is certainly a way to get 20-30 planes at sea that have a decent chance of landing and taking off repeatedly and without the limitations of using floatplanes.
A Hybrid cruiser, as stated by earlier posters, doesn't solve any problem well. For the guns it is not just enough to have some guns. You either have the fire control to go with them or you are carrying a lot of dead weight. Unknown/unproven in the years leading up to WW II (but guessed at) was that 8in and larger guns were not good in night battles (close range/restricted visibility). For a Hybrid to try to duke it out at 20,000yds was playing the the other guys game. Make smoke, turn, run like hell and have escorts try to torpedo the big attackers as they try to force through smoke (or they go around).
Good fire control equipment was often in short supply once the shooting started.
Looking at the Japanese the Soryu and Hiryu used about the same powerplants (boilers/turbines) as the Mogami/Tone cruisers.
For the Italians and Germans using a hybrid was a very, very expensive way to 12-24 aircraft to sea. And if the goal was a 'normal' carrier, the hybrid path may lead to an unneeded detour. Too much emphases on low take-off and landing speed due to short deck and/or poor airflow over the deck.
Again, lets remember that most of the actual hybrid carriers used float planes.
OR, they used the British CAM ship idea taken to extremes. Catapult several (or a dozen?) non-float plane on a strike or defensive mission and then head for land/ditch.
You run out of planes very quickly.
If any nation wanted to get into carrier aviation the smart way to do it was with a converted merchant ship. This obviously worked as shown by the dozens of escort carriers.
It is certainly a way to get 20-30 planes at sea that have a decent chance of landing and taking off repeatedly and without the limitations of using floatplanes.
A Hybrid cruiser, as stated by earlier posters, doesn't solve any problem well. For the guns it is not just enough to have some guns. You either have the fire control to go with them or you are carrying a lot of dead weight. Unknown/unproven in the years leading up to WW II (but guessed at) was that 8in and larger guns were not good in night battles (close range/restricted visibility). For a Hybrid to try to duke it out at 20,000yds was playing the the other guys game. Make smoke, turn, run like hell and have escorts try to torpedo the big attackers as they try to force through smoke (or they go around).
Good fire control equipment was often in short supply once the shooting started.
Looking at the Japanese the Soryu and Hiryu used about the same powerplants (boilers/turbines) as the Mogami/Tone cruisers.
For the Italians and Germans using a hybrid was a very, very expensive way to 12-24 aircraft to sea. And if the goal was a 'normal' carrier, the hybrid path may lead to an unneeded detour. Too much emphases on low take-off and landing speed due to short deck and/or poor airflow over the deck.
- Thread starter
- #27
There is no need for the floatplanes stubbornness here.
Nor it is anywhere specified that hybrids must be cruisers.
They are already paying for a big ship, so a lot of that high price is already sunk in. A flight deck of ~150m was used by the heavy aircraft like the Avenger.
Germans and Italians might or might not go with the fully-fledged aircraft carriers once the hybrids are in the pipeline.
Well once the LNT 1930 comes into force, they can't be capital ships. Article III (3)
"3. No capital ship in existence on 1 April 1930 shall be fitted with a landing-on platform or deck."
And no new capital ships could begin construction before 1 Jan 1937 in any Treaty nation, whether for them or someone else, except in the case of France, Italy and non Treaty nations that could build their own (which was a very limited group)
And an aircraft carrier was redefined in the 1930 Treaty to closed a loophole that the Japanese had tried to exploit with the design of Ryujo. Article III again:-
"1. For the purposes of the Washington Treaty, the definition of an aircraft carrier given in Chapter II, Part 4, of the said Treaty is hereby replaced by the following definition:
2. The fitting of a landing-on or flying-off platform or deck on a capital ship, cruiser or destroyer, provided such vessel was not designed or adapted exclusively as an aircraft carrier, shall not cause any vessel so fitted to be charged against or classified in the category of aircraft carriers."
And
"Article IV
1. No aircraft carrier of 10,000 tons (10,160 metric tons) or less standard displacement mounting a gun above 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre shall be acquired by or constructed by or for any of the High Contracting Parties.
And
"Article IV
1. No aircraft carrier of 10,000 tons (10,160 metric tons) or less standard displacement mounting a gun above 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre shall be acquired by or constructed by or for any of the High Contracting Parties.
2. As from the coming into force of the present Treaty in respect of all the High Contracting Parties, no aircraft carrier of 10,000 tons (10,160 metric tons) or less standard displacement mounting a gun above 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre shall be constructed within the jurisdiction of any of the High Contracting Parties."
So if a ship isn't for the exclusive purpose of carrying aircraft and you can't use an existing capital ship, the next largest category is .....cruisers (surface combatants of 1,850 to 10,000 tons standard displacement)
Shortround6
Major General
Well, you only have 3-4 choices and Destroyers and small light cruisers are pretty poor ones to try to carry aircraft on.
This kind of depends on what you want to do and when.
If you are trying to do recon in friendly or neutral areas (away from land) then float planes will work well into WW II. They are not going to work well in contested areas (enemy has land based air or sufficient carriers). If you are looking for fleet defense the float planes will not work (unless being attacked by floatplanes) and if you are trying to use strike aircraft, you either need a really weak enemy or you have some other advantage (like radar for night attack).
A lot depends on the state of the art in aircraft technology too.
Except that a lot the hybrid ship is spent on the gun battery/suite. And for an effective carrier you need to invest in a lot of volume for the aviation spaces. A lot more than just the flight deck.
Italians don't have enough battleships as it was. They had the 4 old rebuilds and the Littorio's. 2 laid down in 1934 and two laid down in 1938 with roughly 4-6 year completion times.
A new Hybrid Littorio with only 6 guns in a gun dual with the Warspite? kind of iffy. Against a KGV?
If you are going to keep the Hybrid back well out of gun range you might as well use a converted passenger liner. The Italians forgot who they were and tried to be a little too ambitious. They ripped the original boilers/turbines out and squeezed in the boilers/turbines from two the Capitani Romani class light cruisers. A 20+ knot carrier in hand beats a 30kt carrier still in the yard.
Italy was only allowed to have 7 heavy cruisers. Maybe they could have finagled a swap for the old San Giorgio?
Back to "aircraft technology". Avenger first flew on Aug 7th 1941, 23 months after WW II started. It also had a 1700hp engine. Which helped get the 490 sq ft wing up to speed.
The Big wing helped with low landing speed.
Now in the summer of 1941 or even the summer of 1942, who else had a 1700hp engine in wide spread production they could stick in a single engine carrier plane?
Not the Japanese.
Not the Italians.
Not the British (not counting the Sabre)
Not the Germans. (BMW 801 just misses?)
Avengers were sometimes weight limited on short escort carriers.
Hybrids are too expensive to risk on the gun line for the firepower they bring. And too expensive for the limited amount of airpower they provide.
This calls for some rather severely altered time lines. With around 4 years for a big carrier you have to have the hybrid/s in service in 1939-40 to give any feed back for a fully-fledged carrier to be completed by 1943-44.
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- #30
Germany was not a signatory.
Expecting that Japanese adhere to the 1930 LNT come late 1930s is illusory. They having no problems leaving the League of Nations already in 1933 shows how much they cared for international treaties.
Italy was also gone from the LoN by 1935, and they were not signatories of the 1937 LNT.
Thus, either of these 3 nations making a big hybrid CV is not a long shot.
We also have a thing of the treaty expiring at the end of 1936.
As it can be read above, that is not what I have in mind.
For the 3rd (4th?) time here: no floatplanes.
Where have you accounted for the Italian air group?
??
I was trying to point out that small and light aircraft are better fit for the small carriers.
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Thumpalumpacus
Major
Hiya, Ewen. I'm baffled by such a high max speed requirement in view of idea that these were flagships for submarines; it strikes me that they could have dropped this by six or eight knots and picked up spare tonnage for other uses like weapons stowage, fuel, etc.
Do you have any insight as to why this speed requirement was so high?
They were subject to the Versailles treaty, later (effectively) replaced in terms of naval stuff by the 1936 AGNA, which brought Germany into the treaty framework. Of course by then the treaty regime was creaking at the seams.
Ah, yes. Excellent kindling for turning the hybrid Littorio into a flaming wreck.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Hybrid carriers are not the same as "some carriers". Hybrid carriers are neither fish nor fowl, unable to deliver the goods neither on the surface nor in the air. They fall between two stools.
If you're launching wheeled aircraft from these hybrids, it's a one-shot-and-gone event, so you're still vulnerable to follow-up strike. If you're launching floatplanes, defending against wheeled aircraft is problematic.
These are carriers in the sense they carry aircraft, but they aren't "carriers" in the sense we think of in WWII terms; I think there's a little equivocation going on there.
Howard Gibson
Senior Airman
The Italians waged war with limited resources, and it was not obvious to everyone that carriers would be important. If they had built carriers instead of battleships, there may have been enough resources in the kitty to decent design carrier based aircraft. The Italian's failed to quickly deploy cantilever monoplanes, as it was. The Italians did not have the need to reach out and touch people that the Japanese and the Americans had in the Pacific. There was more of an opportunity to make land based aircraft work.
What do you do with limited resource besides staying the hell out of the war?
- Thread starter
- #35
Your disagreement with the idea is noted.
Shortround6
Major General
Blown out of the sky by the British air group covering the British from their dedicated carrier?
Or the remnants going down in flames from the British AA fire?
Italian and German land based air did perform well at times in the Med, enough to inflect large losses. But it usually took more than several dozen aircraft. Other times scores of aircraft actually scored few, if any, hits.
It was never going to be a one ship to one ship dual.
It was always going to be be group on group encounter and while the actual composition of the groups could change (even day to day depending on damage and mechanical reliability) the Italians were always going to need luck on their side.
For the Italians against the British (and French prior to June 1940) they were almost always going to be facing 1-2 carriers, even if just Glorious/Furious. You have to build the hybrid or have it started before Sept 1939. You can't wait for the British to screw up and lose several carriers before you start work. You will never get it completed in time. the British had laid down all four of the Illustrious class in 1937. The Italians won't face all four but even if the British don't loose the Courageous and Glorious the Italians need some way to equalize things before the battles starts. Subs, land air, something. A single big Hybrid or converted liner in going to be a bomb/torpedo magnet for the British. And Beyond the reach of land air the Italian navy is operating at a major disadvantage. The Italian air group has got to get in and damage the British British carrier/s or BB before the British air group spots them or spots the Italian battle flees or the Italian flight deck ship(of whatever sort). Now a British carrier may be sitting in port with condenser troubles (or who knows) but most of the time there will be a 2nd carrier to help pick up the slack (or British admiral just makes a feint).
A single flight deck was not going to change the outcome of the war in the Med.
- Thread starter
- #37
The Skuas and Sea Gladiators laying waste to the bombers?
I'm glad that we are not in the "this ship is better than this ship" mode from now on.
No need to stay with one flight deck, and no need to limit the scenario just to the Med.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
How generous. Hopefully you'll find time or inclination to reply to the points raised.
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- #39
It is kinda what I'm doing for the last dozen of posts.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I'll take a number and wait ... or simply "yeah, you've got some points."
Whether or not your aircraft are wheeled, your carrier is stuffed because you're either fielding inferior aircraft, or losing them all on one strike.
So you launch 20 wheeled a/c at a fleet -- let's be generous here. Maybe six of 'em are fighters? Fourteen strike a/c with lighter loads because launching with minimal headwind (sailing into the wind gives the a/c nothing, sailing with the wind is not going to get you 27 kts over the deck) is problematic, maybe you can get torpedo planes into the air, maybe not. You'd better hope your target isn't fielding a real aircraft carrier.
Or maybe you launch a floatplane strike. Plane are slower, less capable, easier to down ... you need to be very careful to avoid suicide missions.
Or maybe you sail these hybrids in the line of battle. Now you've got ships with half or 2/3s the fire capability of your opponent spending fuel you may or may not have if you're Axis risking hundreds of skilled aviators and mechanics in a battle they will likely not contribute anything to -- or maybe you've already shot these planes off on their one-way mission to a land-base -- or maybe the floatplanes return to the ship forcing it out of the line.
The negatives outweigh the positives. Half-assing it isn't going to change that.
