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I disgree with the notion that the technology is the most significant issue determining the influence of a ship. The ship with the greatest influence as such is the merchant hull. All other ships were subservient to that basic mercantile technology. Since ships like the Ohio and the Breconshire were the most significant of their genre, it follows that they are the most influential ships of the war.
Trying to link influence to technology is akin to saying that the object of war is the fighting....not so....as Moltke pointed out, the object of war is the projection of national policy. If the national policy somehow requires that battles be lost, then that is what the military must aim to do. That uis seldom the object of the national interest, however it is wrong to suppose that the technology is the most influential aspect of the machine,,,,,it is the purpose of the machine that is the most influential
I must protest Glider, the first purpose built Aircraft Carrier was the HOSHO Completed Dec. 1922. Hermes did'nt complete until July 1923.
{From Wiki} Hōshō was commissioned on 27 December 1922, thirteen months before the Royal Navy's first purpose-built carrier Hermes, which was designed before Hōshō. The Hōshō however was originally conceived as a mixed aircraft carrier and seaplane tender and only during construction was her design modified to a dedicated carrier. She was the first purpose-designed aircraft carrier, but not the first purpose-designed dedicated aircraft carrier. (See aircraft carrier for more on the type's history).
The Hosho was designed with the assistance of a British technical mission which provided broad details of the Hermes.
But the Essex class carriers is the culmination of all of the years of prewar theory and experiences, with the 1942 experiences of the Pacific battles adopted into their designs.
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That would make them the influenced not the influential.
I'm going with the grand old USS Missori BB-63.
No.
It was this class of ships that wrote the book on fast carrier operations using large task forces.
The three most important aspects of the ship were ability to absorb damage, a large airwing and a good C&C system (for its time) for operations.
And that was passed on to every subsequent class of carriers.
And when you consider that these carriers were still usefull in thr ASW role untill the late 60's, that just proves how good the basic design was.
I think its fair to say that the book had been written before these ships were built, they were however designed to fill the need of the book, which does make them the influenced not the vessel did the influencing.
The experience in the use of the Yorktown and Lexington classes amongst others pointed the USN in the direction that they needed to go and the design of the Essex class reflected that experience.
But they alone combined everything into one platform, and were adaptable enough to be used for jet operations and 20 years of upgrades.
The other carrier classes just didnt reach their level of sophistication.
And the "book" couldnt have been written untill after the war started indicated what parts of the designs of other classes were good or bad.