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From OPwhat individual ship in WW2 in all the combatant's navies had the most influential and illustrious war record.
ah so, Glider. I thought we were talking of build and completion..
The war record of a ship has little influence on the design of other ships and I believe we need to be careful about the influence of a design and the influence of an idea. This will become apparent later.I must admit that I am confused as to the purpose of this thread. what exactly is meant by influence here. Are we talking of a ships influence on the course of events or on design progression. The war record of a ship is dependant purely on how that ship is used (and a lot of luck) OHIO and BRECONSHIRE have been mentioned as influential, why. They were bog standard examples of their type. Would the US carriers at midway have been so successful if the Japanese destroyer had not been seen and followed ?.
My choice was Hermes as British as you get, my comment about the Essex Class was in responce to a question from SyscomAn example of influence as I see it; Lexington and Saratoga would not have been built as carriers if the US Navy dept.had not been shown the plans of HMS Hood which were greatly advanced on US designs for the class of 6 Battlecruisers that Lexington and Saratoga were of. So therefore HMS Hood influenced US carrier design. I also notice that few british carriers are mentioned as being influential.
These were ideas or inventions. Steam Catapult and armoured deck were both on british ships first but the steam catapult didn't change the design of the ship, no more than the development of radar. As for the armoured deck it did influence the design of carriers but little more than the beefing up of the deck to take the weight of new aircraft.so (national pride demands it) .......steam catapult, angled flight deck, armoured flight deck, mirror landing system and (I think, but stand to be corrected) arresterwire. .
A good choiceI would also like to nominate as an influential vessel Parsons TURBINIA..self explanitory..
I will cynically suggest the Prince of Wales and Repulse.
By going down rapidly in the face of an undefended air attack early during the war, they clearly demonstrated the end of the battleship era. I'll cite as evidence the tonnage of BB's versus CV's built from 1942 to 1945.
We can argue endlessly about whether Yorktown-class vessels or Essex-class vessels were more influential on further ship designs, but the basic question of what should be built in the first place seems more important to me.
IMO, all that Mitchell proved was that a ship could be sunk from the air....provided it was at anchor and there was no AA fire.
On the day of Pearl Harbor, the USN had 8 Aircraft Carriers and another 8 being built. I'm pretty sure they had gotten the pic of what was to come.
IMO, all that Mitchell proved was that a ship could be sunk from the air....provided it was at anchor and there was no AA fire.
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Yes..
So? many thought it couldn't be done at all.
That was a huge feat at the time. Naval Aviation was only a few years old and the battleship had been the ultimate war machine since the days of trireme. Many people needed to be convinced that a kite made of canvas, wood and wire could sink an iron armored veteran of Jutland.
Yes it was staged
yes the water tight doors were open
yes it took several passes
...irrelevant
An $800 dollar kite sent a million dollar monolithic symbol of military power to the bottom (i'm guessing at the prices). Before that demonstration, the only thing that could sink a BB was another BB and it's supporting vessels.
Quite a benchmark in human history.
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I would be willing to bet a penny to a pound that a dozen 1918 Cuckoo's would have done the job in a fraction of the time it took the USAAF.
Had WW1 continued for another few months plans were in place to attack the High Seas Fleet with carrier based torpedo bombers. Training IIRC had started, then a much more valuble lesson would have been learnt, ie. bombs let in air and torpedo's water.
A realistic lesson would also have demolished the idea that high level bombers were effective against naval vessels, a lesson almost all nations had to relearn the hard way in WW2. In this manner the lesson of Mitchells bombing was wrong. A totally unrealistic test resulted in a belief that was totally wrong and as a benchmark in history, it was fatally flawed.
... In this manner the lesson of Mitchells bombing was wrong. A totally unrealistic test resulted in a belief that was totally wrong and as a benchmark in history, it was fatally flawed.
I'm going to stick a fly in the ointmentEveryone goes on about big ships. I have previously mentioned TURBINIA and now I shall throw in the first world war U-9 and her sinking of the ABIKOUR, HOGUE and CRESSY thereby demonstrating just how efficient a sub could be and how that influenced the design of future warships.!
Misco; I rather think the lesson was delivered at Toranto before it was at Pearl.